DREAMS - a poem for Friday Fictioneers

DREAMS

Each paper slip is a dream -

Green for walking in woods

where looming trees

grasp with gnarled fingers

Blue for drowning

yards from a shore

where no-one hears her screams

Red for dreams of sex

that leave her aching but alone

And the shells are those rare mornings

when she wakes refreshed

her subconscious washed clean

of a myriad hurts.

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Thanks to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers and to Priya Biapal for the image that prompted me this week to write a poem rather than flash fiction. Follow the links from Rochelle's blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/ to read what other writers were inspired to write.

TREE - a poem for Friday Fictioneers

TREE

A tree is always there –

immovable,

a living solid friend –

backrest to the solitary reader,

a shelter from sudden rain,

the hollows of its roots

a bed for summer lovers –

perhaps a hundred years

of memories.

You don’t expect

to wake one morning

and find its height

reduced to length,

the secret places

in its roots

indecently exposed,

and the unreachable boughs

sad and defeated

under your caressing hand.

When a tree falls

your whole world rocks

and the child in you

trembles.

It’s like coming downstairs

in the dark night

seeking comfort,

and hearing your father cry.

.......................................................................

On seeing Sandra Crook's photograph of a weeping tree, I immediately thought of this poem which I wrote thirty years ago in 1987, the year a hurricane tore down far too many beautiful trees across the south of England. As we have just had another big storm, it seems appropriate to post it here. And it has the requisite number of words!

You can see other 100 word stories via https://rochellewisoff.com/

AN EXPAT'S LAMENT - A POEM

I'M A WINNER!  A forum to which I belong had a competition in July to write a poem on the theme of HOLIDAY. I won with this poem, written in memory of our many years in Tenerife. I should add that all of our visitors were welcome, and that this is tongue-in-cheek - honest!

IT’S NO HOLIDAY FOR US – an expat’s lament

We have so many visitors

we have to take bookings.

They bring bottles of duty-free

to an island where booze is cheap,

and a pound of mild Cheddar

when we requested strong.

For a week they eat our food,

use our electricity,

and leave hair in the shower.

‘Your life is one long holiday,’

they say,

‘It’s all right for some,’

as we drive to the beauty spots

for the hundredth time.

Then they buy us a meal,

and we leave them at the airport,

before going home to sweep sand off the floors

and wash their sheets ready for the next lot.

GOODBYE, OLD FRIEND - a bit of verse for Friday Fictioneers!

GOODBYE, OLD FRIEND

If my toaster breaks down or my kettle explodes

I throw it away – that’s a fact.

Now my car would cost more to repair than it’s worth,

but I’m really reluctant to act.

It’s only a useful machine, after all,

one of a million the same,

but we’ve been through a great deal together

and dumping it seems such a shame.

We’ve moved from one house to another,

been shopping, and visited friends,

it should go with a bang, not a whimper,

yet now our long partnership ends.

Hauled up by a chain to a trailer,

an undignified exit, boot first,

it’s own number hidden by temporary plates –

that final detail is the worst.

..................................................................................

This bit of verse is a fictional account - my own elderly car passed its MOT last month with flying colours - but the spare number-plate on the rear shelf of Kent Bonham's photograph reminded me of what we called 'gruas' in Tenerife (trailers on which garages would collect broken cars) and I had no further inspiration this week. Apologies to our leader Rochelle whose blog is @  https://rochellewisoff.com/  for over-running the word count (117!) but verse is particularly tricky to cut down.

Last week the number of people who were good enough - insterested enough? - to comment on my blog exceeded 20 for the first time in ages, so thanks to all those. Keep it up, folks!

FROTHY COFFEE - a 100 word story

This photo prompt - taken by Rich Voza and posted for Friday Fictioneers by https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/  - had me stumped for 24 hours - should I go with the plane or try to find a story in one of the other barely-discernable features?
My ideas bank was empty, until a poem I wrote thirty-odd years ago came to mind. This story is a prose version.

FROTHY COFFEE

In the coffee bars of my youth we used to put the world to rights.

In our virtual reality no-one went hungry, because fertile nations grew enough food for everyone. Racism was a thing of the past in a world where all skin was cafė-au-lait. Democracy worked, politicians were honest, population was steady and disease controlled. War was banished – there was never, we agreed, a valid reason to take another’s life.

Sitting over spaghetti and frothy coffee, I believed in all this passionately – until I became a mother. Now, if anyone harmed my child, he wouldn’t live to see another sunrise.

........................................

And here is the original poem -

KILLING

In coffee bars

twenty years ago

we talked endlessly

about the morality

of killing –

There was never

we said

a good reason

to take another’s life.

But now,

if anyone touched my child

or did to him

any of the unspeakable things

people do to people

these days,

I would kill them myself

with these hands

only one killing

wouldn’t be enough.

--------------------------------------------

So there you have it - two for the price of one! Please leave a comment before visiting the other writers of flash fiction by following the link from Rochelle's blog.

WATERBIRD - a 100 word story-poem

This week's Friday Fictioneers' photo prompt, taken by The Reclining Gentleman and posted on https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/

sent my mind into verse, which is preferable to the REverse it's been in since we moved last week from Tenerife to Sussex.

When I've got my act together I shall create a new blog - I can no longer call myself 'expat' - and I hope you will follow me to that new online venue.

Meanwhile, here's my poem.

WATERBIRD

Rumble of cars lulls my babies to dreamland

Safe on our island which nobody sees -

Concrete foundations trap silt from the river

And grass for our nest grows from wind-carried seeds.

Here by the river beneath heedless traffic

Barges chug slowly and, stirred by their wakes,

Mud from the bottom floats up to the surface

Carrying morsels of food for my chicks.

No fox will swim through the eddies around us,

No cat will risk the climb down from the road -

Man has destroyed my natural habitat

But still inadvertently shelters my brood.

CHIPS - Flash fiction with a difference

You know how a train of thought develops out of the blue and you can't get your mind to leave that track? Well, that's what this week's photo prompt did to me. I didn't see the snow, though in the summer heat here some snow would be bliss - I zoomed right in on the little stalls, which reminded me of a poem I wrote a while ago for the Queen's Jubilee.
So please bear with me, enjoy my poem, and forgive the fact that I've outstripped the word count by A LOT!
In my defence, I am in the throes of packing up to relocate from Tenerife to England after fifteen years, and my head's up my ****!
Thanks as always to https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/  for the photo prompt -

CHIP  STALL

My Dad has a chip stall right outside the Tower

– of London, you dolt, not Blackpool –

and now I can actually see over the counter

I help out sometimes after school.

The tourists will stop for two quids-worth of chips

 – “London prices,” Dad says if they moan –

and some of them want them wrapped up in The Times

instead of a grease-paper cone.

Mum’s batter is made with the very best beer

and is famous throughout London town –

a few TV chefs have offered a fortune

but Mum won’t write anything down.

Some weekends the queue to see the Crown Jewels

can stretch for a very long way –

Dad turns on a fan to waft out the smell

and we turn a good profit those days.

Last Sunday I wanted to watch the procession,

but Dad said the Queen’s Jubilee

would bring in the cash and he needed my help –

I could watch it that night on TV.

So there I was, serving the ketchup and salt,

when the whole queue went quiet and still,

and That Voice said, “Those chips smell delicious – We really

must have some - please send Us the bill.”

Mum curtsied and Dad took his cap off and bowed;

“On the house, Ma’am – I couldn’t charge You.”

So I salted Her Majesty’s chips - and took a quick

photo to prove it was true.

                                       ...............................................................

TEIDE - and a TIGER - the A-Z Challenge

Teide is the name of the highest mountain in Spanish TERRITORY and it is the central point on the Canarian Island of TENERIFE.
The black and white photo was taken many years ago and the coloured one only last winter - mountains take a long time to change!

When there isn't this much snow - the Cabildo closes the roads when there is - you can drive to within a few hundred metres of the summit and take a cable car the rest of the way. We like to stop off at a barbecue area a mile above sea level to cook sausages and drink wine. 

The air is so clear that the Tenerife Observatory is world renowned.

Sometimes you can find yourselves driving through the clouds and out above them, which is like being in an aeroplane but with your feet on the ground -

- and I plan to spend a night up on the mountain watching the stars, possibly sipping champagne, before I am much older.

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TOYS - Most children have cuddly toys - in fact I introduced you to my own doll in the E post of the A-Z challenge - and I have written poems about some of the toys my children and grandchildren have loved. With apologies if you've seen this one before, TODAY T is for TIGER

TIGER                                                                               

 TIGER

Tiger’s enormous

and covered in stripes,

if I’m tired I can ride on his back,

and I know that I’m safe

because Tiger is fierce,

so we’re never afraid of attack.

We go to the jungle

some nights when we’re dreaming,

pacing the green forest floor,

if an animal thinks

he can eat us for dinner

Tiger frightens it off with his ROAR!

KIKA - the A-Z challenge

For the whole month of April roughly 2000 people are blogging daily with the letters of the alphabet as a guide, and I am one of them.

My chosen theme is Tenerife, where I have lived for 15 years, and today's letter K prompted me to write about a Canarian cat who chose to live with us soon after we arrived.

KIKA

We had only been in our apartment for a few months. It was the week before Christmas 2000 and we were expecting a dozen people for Sunday breakfast – our traditional way of starting the season. On the Saturday afternoon, while we were setting out the tables, we spotted a cat and four kittens hiding in a plant-pot on our neighbour’s terrace.

The neighbours were away so we fed the cat, and the next morning we found her on our terrace. It’s quite a jump up from the community garden so she must have carried each kitten in turn. We asked our guests to leave them in peace, and the breakfast party was a great success, helped in no small part by the five feline faces watching our every move..

Over the ensuing few weeks they practically took over the place, and friends would pop round to share a beer and watch the kittens.

Eventually we re-homed the kittens but the mother stayed. We called her Kika and she would follow us to the bar. When other customers arrived with dogs she waited on the pool wall for us to come home.

She became quite a local celebrity when she took exception to one small yappy dog and launched an attack from the bar steps. The dog ran away yelping and she returned to the bar victorious.

When she died last year we were heart-broken. I still come home sometimes expecting her to be here.

CAT HEAVEN

There’s a special garden

where cats go when they die,

with vine-wrapped trees for scratching,

soft grass for them to lie,

and holographic mice to chase

for healthy exercise,

and all the fish and cream they need

to live their thousand lives.

DEAR SANTA

SEND AN AGENT!

Out for my walk on the back road today

My mind was a blank - I had nothing to say –

The editing’s done but there’s no time to play –

Find an agent!

Immediately every excuse raised its head –

The print in the Yearbook is too small to read –

And for over-strained eyes too much screen-glare is bad –

Where’s the agent?

Procrastination’s the curse of our craft

And reading those guidelines is too much hard graft –

But to hope they’ll come looking is simply plain daft –

Get an agent!

Two books I have written are ready to go

But the Christmas deliveries are bound to be slow –

Dear Santa – along with the gifts and ‘Ho-ho!’

Send an agent!

WORLD POETRY DAY

To celebrate World Poetry Day today I have copied one of mine to my POEMS page - (see right)
It's entitled 'Cold' - which might ring a chord with my friends and family in England.
I wrote it in 1961, which I realise to my horror was 52 years ago.
Even so, I don't look too bad for an old bird, especially since I had a haircut yesterday!

POOH BEAR and a Poem

My daughter came to stay for a holiday and, knowing she would be missing her cats, I put a soft Pooh Bear toy on her pillow. She loved him and cuddled him every night. 

On Friday she went home, and half an hour after I left her at the airport I got a plaintive little text – “I forgot Pooh!” I offered to return to the airport with him. “No time – but make sure he gets lots of love.”

So he is being fostered by Betty and Squidgy Ted until I can take him to England in September. Anyone who thinks one can be too old for toys, take note - Betty is 68.

On my LITTLE POEMS FOR TOYS page I have posted a poem about another left-behind bear - Daniel's Blue Ted.

HEDGEHOGS

This is so weird!

I checked traffic sources on my blog for the first time ever, and saw one Google site that had me puzzled. "Hedgehog eating" it said, so I clicked on it. Someone must have entered "Hedgehog eating worm" into Google Images and  been referred to my blog because I wrote a poem about Harris the Hedgehog and posted it on my Little Poems for Toys page, with a drawing.
Well bless my old boots! It just goes to show that, when writing a blog post, you should never forget that anyone might read it.






I might not blog quite so often over the next nine days - my younger daughter and her husband arrive later today for a much-needed holiday. The bed is made up, the apartment is sparkling, the terrace is swept, and I'm about to go shopping to fill the fridge.
We are looking forward to walks on the beach, drives up the mountain, a coach trip or two, and of course a few meals out.
Roll on this evening!

CAMPING

My gorgeous grandson is at Cub Camp this weekend at Ardingly Showground, West Sussex, and it looks as if the weather is dry - at least today. Let's hope that miracle lasts all weekend because the camp is for the whole county and there are 1000 cubs there.  Can you imagine all those young voices raised in song around the campfire? It should be a blast whatever the weather.
Mind you, that sleeping bag looks warm enough to keep out an Arctic blizzard!

In honour of this momentous occasion, I have posted a poem about Camping which draws on various camping memories from my children's childhoods.  Go to my poems page to read it.

ABROAD

ABROAD. We live abroad. Deliver the phrase as a throw-away line and it sounds exotic, but if you tell people you live in Tenerife they immediately think of stag parties and sangria. It’s true that Reina Sofia AIRPORT is a heaving mass of humanity on Fridays, the usual change-over day for tourists. The coach park is full of suitcases, frayed tempers, and people dragging on their last cigarette before checking in or their first since leaving home.

AND many of them think they’re in Spain. But they’re wrong - a thousand miles wrong.

AFRICA is only 160 miles to the east - the hot, dry wind is full of Saharan dust that makes you cough - and the reason you go home burned a painful bright red is because the sun is African, not Mediterranean.

AMERICA is the next landfall west of the Canary Islands, and when the moon is full the waves have had 3000 miles of ATLANTIC in which to pick up speed – they can be huge.

ANNIVERSARIES. There are three this week I should mention.

It is 10 years since a violent storm hit Tenerife on March 31^st 2002, killing 8 people, sweeping huge containers into the sea in Santa Cruz, and toppling half of our electricity pylons.

The worst AVIATION disaster in history happened in 1977 when two planes collided at the north airport – around 600 perished in the fire when the fuel exploded.

AND 45 years ago, on APRIL 1^st 1967, I got married for the first time.

AG = silver. Read my “Toy poem” about a little silver man.

Face Recognition Software?

I'd scanned some more drawings and was going through them on the computer, re-sizing them from megabites to a more manageable size and adding captions. And would you believe it? The computer picked out a face and asked me who it was! I didn't think my drawing was that good!
Go to my Toy Poems page to see the latest addition, and I think you'll agree the drawings are - what's the word? - ah yes, basic.

Blackie's Poem

If you look closely at D, the middle child in this photo, her left arm is clutching a black creature.
This is Blackie, far and away her favourite, and he still sleeps on her pillow despite husband and three cats.
D tells me Blackie isn't awfully brave and needs her to look after him, which insight into his character helped me to write his poem.
You will find it on my Little Poems for Toys page.

WHY I WROTE THOSE TOY POEMS


Here I was, newly retired and moved to Tenerife, and I was bored. So my younger son said, "Write a book".
The very idea was daunting, but I had written poetry all my life, so I set out to write a book of poems for my children and grandchildren, which I illustrated myself.
The characters are their soft toys. For this camping holiday in 1976 we restricted them to two each, but they had dozens.
The adventures these toys get up to in the poems often reflect some incident in, or aspect of, their owner's lives, so the book of 40+ poems is very personal to them.
A couple of my own dolls, and one or two of their father's, sneaked in there too, and of course, Margaret's bear and Kevin's Woms.

Then when I'd made eight copies, coloured in the drawings and sent the books off in time for Christmas, I was bored again. So I started my first novel.

How I started writing

What starts us off on the writing road?
My spur was retiring from work and leaving the village where I had lived for 35 years. The shock to my system  was devastating.
Then my younger son asked, "How are you, Mum?" and I replied, "Bored."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and write a book," he said.
Well, I started small. I wrote 40 verses based on the family's dolls and memories. I illustrated each one, and made up copies for family and a few friends. It was a marathon which I completed just in time for Christmas.
And then I was bored again. And twitchy - weeks of working on the project had kicked the author into life and she wouldn't lie down. So I wrote my first novel.
That was some years ago, and I've not stopped since, but those verses were the start of it all.
Written so that my children would recognize their toys, and in the hope that my grandsons would enjoy reading the book.
Look on "My writing" page for a few examples.