Creative Writing

A50 back from Liverpool

/ eharpingon / Leave a comment

The sky is

rent;

bruised

black and purple

against summer’s alabaster.

My heart

too;

my dreams

show me

in excellence,

excellence

that feels

unfounded:

the exam,

passed extraordinary;

the physical attraction

and animalism

I possess,

that of a star orbited

and yet

I look in a

ghostly mirror

and see my old

own known face.

Pale, my

hair scraped back and dark,

my lips painted

ruby red

in mockery.

How sad,

that my dream distinction

feels like

an alienation,

unnatural,

impossible.

But, I balked

at darkness

too:

hardly daring

to tread in

the forest

of pitch black;

hardly daring

to follow his

gaze to the

turtle,

bobbing, diving

in the currents

of an irrepressible stream;

too afraid

lest I lose my footing

and topple

into the deep.

Loving the peonies

/ eharpingon / 4 Comments

Loving the peonies,

I held myself

in question:

how can I be so scared,

when they have

such daring?

The audacity

to bloom in

such beauty

and self-possession.

No delicacy or

diminution,

but a full

chorus revelling

in the ephemeral.

And yet, not without

wisdom –

there is nothing

hedonistic or

indulgent

about them.

Foliage of forest green

holds the memory

both ancient and

ever-present

that to choose life

is to befriend

the poetry of its

completion.

That these loving

emissaries,

boundless for a

fleeting moment,

are bound towards

an ending.

And they teach

in their being:

what is more

grievous than death

is to hide in

life’s shadow,

sitting in foreboding,

for fear that endless, ashen

sorrow is safer

than the oceanic fantasia

of living and losing.

And as the

peonies crest,

and their

petals begin to fall,

I sit with my fears,

holding them

in my palms

for as long as

I can bear,

before gently dedicating them

to the pearlescence

of the clouds passing by.

Aching pink

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Aching pink

sky that mourns

and groans,

trembling,

drenching world

with admonitions.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

Evergreen nods,

as grief is always so,

flexing her roots

in the marbled

earth.

Dusk in

uncanny rose

entreats:

What more?

What more

Could I have done?

Moon readies

to cast her darkness

reminding in

inky calm

that sometimes

there are no answers

there is just

the sitting and

observing all

that we don’t

know:

the vaulting

uncertainty,

cavernous,

that rallies and

quakes with

breathless ice.

Murky pink

breaks;

a balm of indigo

soothes;

and we wait.

Flies come.

They hover

and twitch,

low-pitched and frantic

in their desperate

melancholy.

Then we remember

that they too

only yearn

for sweetness.

So, we wait.

Headache

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Working week

has laid me

on the floor.

And my head

thumps.

Every crest

and trough

of week’s ocean

and odyssey

has me wincing

and my eyes

cannot bear

any more

harsh blank light.

Questions reverberate,

yapping and nipping

at my bones:

gnawing as I bend,

crawl,

drag to

bed.

Always

something

is exhausting.

Stomach makes moan

and in my own

ammonite embrace

I yearn for the

sweetness, the space

of silver birches

in quiet wintry confidence

clamouring for

splendid blue sky;

the cerebral

wonder of a

barn owl

in flight,

hauntingly innocent

curious, composed

carving morning’s

gloom with

prophetic white;

labyrinth that

but a week ago

cushioned my feet,

guiding my tears, twists

and turns

through knowing

spirals, as I shed

skins, losses, shames

and years.

So it was.

So it is.

And so,

I breathe,

and space

moves magnificently.

Three crows

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Three crows

flew by:

black on the

pale blue

sky of dusk.

Pointed.

Determined

Flocking.

And I felt

the sweet

aches,

the strawberry-breath

of summer.

Spring continues

to bludgeon and

quake

with ferocious

storms and

riots of green

But I felt the

flicker

of something

more serene.

The calm of

days stretching

long and lean.

Languid hours.

Spring is sticky,

excruciating.

I long to love it,

but it feels like

a frothy mist

in which

I cannot catch

A foothold;

or perhaps

I still lack the grace

to flow and

know its torrents

when I step

blinking, in disbelief

out of Winter’s

nest.

But now,

I feel the spark.

The coursing.

The legs relishing,

lingering light,

speaking hope

blooming and bright.

An ancient

aliveness

after the pangs

of birth.

Pale sheets.

A ringing glow,

the great

sigh of the Earth.

I squirm and thrill

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I squirm

and thrill

with sherbet

in my mouth

as I dip into

the inky pools of

irony.

Black,

hilarious,

that

I long to sit

cross-legged

at the feet;

feel

inequipped

besieged

at the front.

What a

mockery

a show

that I

should sow

seeds

when the

soil

feels more

like my soul,

in limbo.

Not

ever-so-

-young,

but feeling

more and more

like a novice

each day.

This life,

experience,

so vast

at once

mountainous

fluid and

fragile:

made from nothing

signifying it all.

Dusk is for fireflies

/ eharpingon / 2 Comments

Dusk is for

fireflies and

lime liminality:

night cushions

and enraptures,

no mock stars.

I gasp

then fold in

and in.

The plunge

is breathful and

receptive.

I lay there,

my back finally

unwrinkled,

and I didn’t

wince or yearn

from myself.

Bathed in breath

I listened:

I heard

a whale song,

a lament.

Mournful, sighing

for children

who have lost their way;

who supped on milk,

and forgot how

to dance in starlight

and kiss the Earth

with grubby, curious hands.

Dreamers, with indigo souls

as deep as the

murmurs of night,

distracted by

false light

absorbed and obsessed

with their own

shadows.

The owls are coming,

their eyes bright,

with wings

ready to

shift and glide

over the currents

of torment.

Clear-seeing,

rich is silence

cutting through

the chaos, illusion

and deceit,

to gentler

enigmatic shores.

Moon baby

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The channels run silver,

Moon baby.

New moon

I bloom

in the black,

ready to receive;

listening

to the whispers

of the stars,

now that

our glowing orb,

pale,

is in darkness

transfixed.

We kiss.

Enveloped in

softness

I turn

my hopeful face

to the vault

as I dance

on the threshold

of the twenty eight.

My dreams

run like trains;

planes hit by

waves;

caught in a

building

burning

and fashions

march by.

Saint Campbell,

Mother’s son,

what initiation

is this?

Of the body,

my body,

that rings

when we kiss?

The first was little and apple green

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The first was

little and apple

green

I beamed to see it,

as it coiled around

my fingers

neat

playful:

my friendly

Messenger

with a pink fork

and a smile.

But then,

the next night,

another came

(I was ready for bigger

leagues?)

a wider face,

not mean,

but I was

trapped in sand

up to my waist

and I was

afraid

that it moved

beneath me.

No cute coils,

but a waxy

olive head

with penetrating

eyes

like it knew me.

And the sand was

trapping

as I felt it move

and heave.

Dusk was falling

and my hips

wouldn’t budge.

I wanted to

befriend it too,

but it felt so big

and all I could do

was kick my feet.

Then,

as though

the decision

was made for me,

I coughed

and scales

and a head

fell out

of my mouth

dry

olive green

and the thing

was dead.

I grieved,

I grieved,

I had done it

all wrong

I feared too much:

the crust of

skin

lay in the

brittle sand,

as the sky turned purple.

I just didn’t know how to be,

friend

or pupil;

I couldn’t sink into

surrender,

celebrating

the mystery

by the shores

of the sea.

 

They wore flannel

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They wore flannel

Scarlet red.

A riot

against a green

Impressionist’s backdrop,

Van Gogh’s colour wheel

whispering

yearning in

Roerich’s ready moment.

A theatre

heaving:

the systems and

structures rattled

and bellowing,

like a giant ship

thundering from steam.

Primordial screams

from the mouths

of elderly elites,

pagans, all,

and a quivering

bassoon:

a vision

bursting from the

confines of its

frame

admonishing and wry

lit in ancient blue light.

Circles, circles

and rounds

and ground.

A sinking incorporation

with a marble mask

and limbs

out of joint.

We ravishers

our flesh made fabric

In flannel, flannel

to cool

to slow

to remember

our pounding

relationship with

the expansion and

contraction,

the soils of our

lifeblood and its

freshness and

sweetnesses

long lost

long found.

A kiss seals,

stamping certifies

we are knit

awaken

awaken

awaken:

the rip-roaring

of a womb’s

subjects

partying and prancing:

whilst the void, it

lurks,

and bears abound.