I am very behind. Last week whilst in London I got a draft of a villanelle but when we got home it seemed rather gibberish so needs revising!

The only thing I could think of for 10 then lodged itself in my brain and refused to let anything else in. I am not going to type it all out being sure that you will all know the original Ten Green Bottles hanging etc etc. So here is the beginning of it …

Ten politicians sitting on a bench

and if one should accidentally fall

there would be nine politicians

sitting on a bench.

Okay okay I will endeavour to do better. Hope to post the villanelle soon.

If someone told me  I will write a poem about Istanbul Airport one day, I wouldn’t have believed her/him!

ISTANBUL AIRPORT

Late for my own prompt – disgraceful!  I tried the ten lines/ten syllables Decastich as well, I liked it as a form, it didn’t seem too restrictive.

The Seller of Stones

perches on her doorstep, asks hopefully
if I’ll buy one. Pebbles set on a tray,
price list in neat purple crayon, although
adding up’s a challenge, needs her mum for
6p (grey-brown stripe) plus 4p (pink-ish).
Yes, found them herself in their yard’s gravel
and I think she’s sad to lose two, despite
her profits. But I need these stones, for they
will remind me I live surrounded by
beauty. Little ordinary lovely things.

Very behind but trying to catch up.

The Coincidence
 
Here at a crowded pub in Grassington,
this man looks familiar. We are mistaken.
Surely he is in our hometown, miles away.
Then we spot his wife at the bar. They are on holiday too,
in this part of Yorkshire. We have a drink together
and offload gossip. Laugh at how fate
schemed to bring us together
at the same time, the same place.
 
 

Very confusing two numbers, it took me more than one attempt to write out week seven : ten and not week ten I don’t know what!  I had a moment so I wrote this.  I had fun Annette, you’ll tell me if I managed to stick to the form. I did not include the title in the requirements… While googling, I came across this article about ten line forms which I thought y’all might find interesting.

Ten years old

Still sat next to Peter Robinson, ugh!
Still wearing red checkered dress, white knee socks,
horrid, dark blue, t-bar shoes. First day back,
Prescott puts spiders down my dress. Don’t cry.
Some things never change. There’s a new girl though;
long blonde hair, odd accent, no way to know
she will become this; confidante, best friend,
believer, beloved, like a sister.
No way to know, she will be redemption.
Things are looking up. I don’t know it yet.

2026.06.14 Week 6 Life in Escher

Ags so short on time at the moment. This is not finished either. But hey ho, I’m getting lots of material to work on and wonder about.

Escher

When you mention Escher, I think straight away
of the movie Labyrinth; of David Bowie and his
big nineteen-eighties hair-do, of his painted lips
and ever-so-tight trousers, of billowy white blouses
and what it feels like to be on the cusp of life
not quite but almost an adult, so ready
for the excitement and adventure but
still just a kid inside.

A teenager at the time, I must have watched
the film a hundred times. A little in love with the Goblin King.
A little in love with Sarah, the beautiful runner, her style
exactly what I wished mine would be. Just like her
I loved the theatre and fairytales and stories.
I loved imaginary worlds. And just like her, the words
it’s not fair had passed my lips a thousand times.
The film was a mirror filmed inside the confines
of my nightmares and daydreams.

Looking back, I feel
so much affection for my younger self, for how
she raged against the world’s injustices, big and small.
For her ideals and her longings and her fragile sense
of what it would be like to be grown up. I watch
the famous staircase scene, like an Escher painting
brought to life, and I see how apt it is. How Life
Is like running up and down endless staircases, full
of moments of perfect elation and complete devastation
falling one after the other over and over again.

This was a fun prompt!

TEN COMMANDMENTS

( I am not that religious, really!)

I’ve spent rather too long enjoying Escher’s pictures & not long enough writing!  – still working on this, and trying to come up with a better title.  Thanks Almira, I enjoyed the prompt.  I chose ‘The Puddle’.

Perspectives

you were my walk in quiet woods
known, certain ground

until I stumbled, was forced
to shift focus

now mud looks brittle as rotted wood
ready to break apart if I step on it

it is rutted with tracks made
by things that have already left

and I am not sure if the moon
is above me or under my feet

even this puddle seems
bottomless, full of goblin light

I could drown

HOW TO PLAY TENSY – 

REQUIREMENTS
A  back street.
A n ancient tennis ball
, A  wall.
Tollerant neighbours. 

RULES
Girls only.
Throw the ball against the wall 
avoiding windows
In ten different ways
of increasing difficulty
and catch it on its return.
10 throws right hand catch
9 throws left hand catch   
8 throw right hand clap catch
7 throws left hand clap catch
6 throws right hand bounce catch
5 throws left hand bounce catch
4 throws sunder left leg catch
3 throws under right leg catch 
2 throws turn around  right catch  
1 throw turn around left catch
If ball not caught begin again.

Alternate this game with 
Please Nr,Crocodile
off The GroundTick.
Poor Jenny Sits a-weeping
Climbingthe lamppost  – boys only
until called in, hauled in in to oed

Morning everyone.  This week’s prompt is borrowed from the poet Jo Bell.  Think about the word TEN and take it in any direction you like – ten minutes, ten years old, ten things you love, an incident on the number 10 bus…  Or you could use ten in your poem’s structure, eg ten lines.  There’s a form called a Decastitch or ‘ten-by-ten’ which I hadn’t heard of before:  ten lines of ten syllables each (no other rules), which might be fun? I’m sure there are others.    I look forward to reading everyone’s poems!

Coincidences

The line between draws tight
tension may ensue when one pulls,
the other pushes but both are not equal.

The foot of one is in the clouds
the other buries its head under
the earth, among ancient rocks.

One says right while the other cleaves
to the left – which is correct?
Neither knows. Do either care?

Both are tied together by invisible thread.
They share the fate of both but neither
occupies the same space at the same time.

One gave up much to save his brother.
But is that the whole story? we ask.

I couldn’t think of a single one after I read the. prompt which made me laugh. How typical I thought. So I googled it but that wasn’t much help. I ended up here with this which I am yet again not entirely satisfied with.
They call it coincidence

And some people get the kind that leaves them tingling,
thinking the universe is interfering, that they have a destiny,
walk a mapped-out, pre-ordained path.

I’ve never had a coincidence like that.

Never anything more than this ;
an unfamiliar face turns out to be
from a place not that far from where I grew up.
Or went to a school not unlike my old school.
Or once holidayed in Spain when I holidayed in Spain.
Or has ordered the same drink at the bar, bought
the same t-shirt, likes the same colour of bra.

It’s all so inconsequential and mundane.
Not the kind of coincidence that feels like fate.

But when the Simpsons gets the future right
I don’t call it coincidence. I call it a prediction.
And when someone tells me they have a bad feeling
like something unwanted is going to happen, I don’t scoff
I believe them. And most times it turns out they were right
to be worried, to doubt. I guess what I mean to say is
I believe we know a lot more than we think we know.
I believe there’s a whole language of hidden lines
joining us together just beneath the surface.

I love E.S. Escher’s work, but it is the first time I wrote a poem about any of his work. Thank you for this brilliant prompt.

I wrote on the ‘Relativity’ print.

STAIRS

fab prompt, Almira.   So much choice, but this one fits me right now.  Def. a prompt I’ll come back k to./em>

But isn’t life like that?
You are walking along nicely
when suddenly
the ground falls
from beneath your feet 
and you find yourself
heading in the opposite  direction, 
losing your way at every corner
going back to the beginning
and watching for pitfalls 
trying to disentangle
the workings of bureaucracy  
hoping that this time
you won’t make the same mistake
or lose your way altogether
and spend your life
wondering
where you went wrong?

With thanks to the friend who supplied the story

Message delivered

I found myself unable to think of a single useful coincidence to write about (usual thing of going blank as soon as I read a prompt!) – so this is a bit off topic, sorry Alan.

There is no such thing

The DI frowns, says
she doesn’t trust the idea of coincidence.

I’ve seen a lot of TV crime. This signals
the turning point. That DI is about to find
the innocent not so innocent after all.

She’ll uncover intricacies of corruption,
lust, family connections.  No ‘coincidence’,
rather, it is a vital clue to the solution

which will be barely credible. The plot
is pot-holed with improbabilities.
I roll my eyes, but I keep watching it.

For I want, however briefly, to believe
in a world where evil is not allowed
to flourish. Where there is justice

goodness rewarded
order restored.

What will happen tomorrow

yesterday I stood upon the stair
but you were not there
did you arrive after I had gone?
or maybe you never intended
coming at all
I will stand there again today
and wait this time perhaps
this is just coincidence
and you are simply never there

I think I should call it an evillanelle! Definitely not my natural medium shall we say. I’m posting this effort in respect for the prompting process 😂😂😂.vI am pleased with some parts of it but on the whole it still feels unnatural to me. No worries anyone, I’m not leaving the party just yet just ruminating on the suddenness of change and particularly death at the moment and how hard it is to be prepared because life after all is quite a good party.  
The party’s over but I don’t want to go

Sometimes things slip beyond what you know
glass falls through your fingers before you can grip
and no one tells you it’s time to go

though the party is over, and you’re done with the show.
Words seem to fail you, your mouth’s ill-equipped
sometimes things slip beyond what you know

because you thought you were dancing along with the flow
everything was fine, everything was good. But there was a blip
and no one told you. When it’s time to go

you fly from the hospital like skis across snow
pull off the plasters, the trace of the drip
sometimes things stop. And you’re beyond what you know

and wishing for rewind or uno reverse, to grow
old, to laugh, to hold your loved ones close and shit
no one tells you, it’s this hard to go.

Suppose the dream is over, the party’s a blow
and all your last chances are parked with no permit; :
then things slip somewhere beyond what you know
and no one can tell you it’s time to go.

Hjelmelandsfjorden

a breeze strikes wary – the water’s surface grey 
with sky stretched taut, almost hammer-struck 
over the fells that gather this darkening day

and in the changing light, the fishermen stay 
keel to current – that shifting symbol of luck 
where breeze strikes wary, the water’s surface grey

with sudden pod of porpoise, their slow sway 
breaking breath, at wing-distance from eider duck 
beneath the fells – gathering a darker day

from weathered rock, weary oak, and under way 
the iron glove of the ferry that slips through fleck 
of breeze – struck wary, the water’s surface, grey

between shoals of wind – such shiver-image: away 
from water’s edge where oystercatchers shuck 
their limpet shells – so gather the darkening day

with starling in chatter-chase of summer display 
where the winter-silent blackbird sings – with ruck 
of breeze, strikes wary the water’s surface grey 
under the fells that gather this darkening day

I spent a lot of time editing this old villanelle.

Undesirable

Hi everyone,

Last week a few of us managed to get together and read a few poems. I am really happy to organise another go around if people are up for it? Originally I wanted to propose tomorrow evening as that was a good option for lots of people but I’ve had a bit of a tricky time of it the last few days and I think I need to take a moment to rest and recuperate. For that reason I think the end of the month would be better. I’ll do yet another doodle – omg – and hopefully, the third date will be the trick. x x h

The Heaphy Track Mix up

You lose all inhibitions In a DOC hut,    
Sleeping side-by-side
with complete strangers. 
You don’t stay strangers for long
when you have the same name
the same hat, the same towel
destined to be mixed up 
with the first unpacking of rucksacks.

Then there were the six sick Aussies
Sharing their sickness 
with everyone within two yards.
By the fifth day, we had it too.

On arrival in civilisation
my namesake, a Flying Doctor,
wrote one prescription for the three of us
and shared the pills 
on the pharmacy counter.
We became friends for life.

.(DOC’ Department of Conservation)

Last week was a busy week for me. I was adding the finishing touches to my new pamphlet and I sent it off to the publisher last Saturday. Now, I am waiting for his response if he wants to publish it or not..

I really liked Alan’s prompt- it is very original. So I wrote something based on a true story but not told hundred percent true to the real event(s).

A COINCIDENCE

Heating the Home 

Underfoot in my house,  never seen,
a plethora of pipework, discreetly working
to heat radiators, keeping rooms warm
when summer’s heat decreases.

Letting me take a peep at the new heat pump installation,
my neighbour remarks that the corner of his garage
is like Frankenstein’s laboratory. I have to agree.
The muddle of pipes and tanks is ugly.
Maybe over time I will change
but for the present, I prefer pipework underfoot.

I do find villanelles a struggle – but it’s good to have to try one again, Wendy!

Villanelle for an Uncle

Jack scraped a living prospecting for gold.
Or did he? There’s so many threads,
the story of him shifts each time it’s told.

Left school at fourteen, couldn’t hold
a conversation, or a job in town. He fled
to scrape a living prospecting for gold.

Loved solitude, wild hills. Fierce heat and cold
cruel winters in a tent. Or was it a tin shed?
The story of him shifts each time it’s told.

I met him before he disappeared for good, old
bones in a scarecrow suit. Don’t stare mum said
it’s hard-scrape living, prospecting for gold.

He didn’t ever fit the usual mould
got shaped into a family myth instead.
The story of him shifts. Each time it’s told

dad laughs, swears Jack struck lucky, sold
up, sailed for Tahiti with a girl he’d wed.
But who makes money prospecting for gold?
The story of him shifts each time it’s told.

Ode to the Rocky Mountains

Look how the Rocky Mountains frame the day
where sunrise starts the Slocan Valley’s glow
and sunset sings a lullaby to stay

As shadows drifts across the Kaslo Bay
and summer kayaks slip by the water’s flow,
look how the Rocky Mountains frame the day

In early morning, the local cafe
chitchat draws the sketch on last winter’s snow
and sunset sings a lullaby to stay

Rehearsals resume for tomorrow’s play,
a gentle act that stars Ogopogo
Look how the Rocky Mountains frame the day

Up from the coast, spend time in a chalet
at night, gaze up at the northern lights glow
after sunset sings a lullaby to stay

A bride adores her baby’s breath bouquet,
the joyous sounds of children’s summer show,
look how the Rocky Mountains frame the day
and sunset sings a lullaby to stay.

Sorry this is late Have got behind again….

Underfoot

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The Final Mile

THE ART OF FORGETTING

After Elizabeth Bishop. One Art.

The art of boozing isn’t hard to master
so long as you are set on the intent
of forgetting that World War One disaster.

Those days in trenches when your fingers fluster
to open up a Woodbine packet, when you’re bent
on lighting up a fag before the muster,

and, all around, your comrades cluster,
wondering what those explosions meant,
living the horror of that World War One disaster.

So drink up, friends, empty your glasses faster.
And this is how my father’s money went
on a habit he could not, did not want to master.

And why my mother’s anger grew still vaster
while he slept and dreamt of that continent,
not able to forget that World War One disaster.

He’d drop off in his chair, making a gesture,
shouting in his sleep.  It was evident
the art of boozing  isn’t hard to master,
though it was, for their relationship, a disaster.

WG

Right, one hat off another one on. In terms of evening readings, tonight had to go out the window as I got stuck with a meeting for my son. The two evenings where the most people are available are this Wednesday the 27th from 6 or 7 London time (Patrick, Catherine, Mary, Almira). Or Wednesday the 3rd from 6 (Patrick, Mary, Annette, Gul). Can any of the people who weren’t free on one of those dates possibly squeeze it in?  Otherwise I am happy to do two readings so everyone can get a chance to meet up. If we go for that option we could even choose to give some constructive feedback if desired as we’ll be in small groups? Those who were free on both dates at both times can pick one or do both as they wish.

x x h

Still a bit raw but time to move on.

Underfoot

Wet sand, slippery-slick sticks
to skin like shrink-wrap, sucks
me downwards like an Octopus’
suckers suction prey. It is ready
to erode me, flesh, blood, organs
down to the bare-bones.

I wiggle my toes as if to say
no; I am not dead yet, not ready
to be digested and regurgitated
though I know you are wise
in the ways of making things
beautiful, even the most banal.

The tide washes its foamy way in
bathes my ankles in brine
washes away things I have carried
for far longer than I know
prickles the hairs on my legs
like a calling back to the womb.

I am not ready for this death either.
Not yet. Not ready to surrender
my body to the ocean’s gravity
though I could float for hours
without sinking, though nowhere else
could I feel so weightless, so free

from the gravity of thought.
I pull my toes from the sand’s embrace
shake off the sticky stubborn grains.
Later, I will dry my feet on a towel.
Erase the tears the ocean shed for me.
One day when I am ready, I will return.

Here- I managed to write my second villanelle, thanks to Wendy’s ‘demanding’ prompt.😒

I even did the rhyme scheme this time, somehow..I hope it worked.

Also this week, I am working on my new pamphlet- the last finishing touches before sending off to my previous publisher..

So, I am quite busy..The deadline for it is June 1st…

THE CLOCK SONG

Barefoot in Summer

the soles of my feet
learned
gravel, dust
the slip
of dry pine-needles,
prickle and jab of grass
sharp with tiny seed-pods
the mud moss squelch
of scrabbling down
to the creek’s
slick treachery of stones
its cold forbidden pools
then straggling home
up velvety back steps
the smooth pleasure
of their sun-warm concrete

even now
I’d know the place
if I took off my shoes

WEEK 4 I am feeling evil so a VILLANELLE , please.