Quo Vadis?

Too old, too slow, too sick,
her wisdom, loving-kindness
all forgotten: a burden
to her tribe.

Left beneath a fir, she welcomes
snowflakes’ kisses on her eyes.
Hopes they’ll enfold her
in a final sleep before yellow teeth
tear flesh from bone.
Accepts compassion would be
all too dearly bought.

© Gill Dunstan
All rights reserved

Transitions

I can mark the births, the deaths, the marriages;
can say, ‘This happened here… that there…’
But the eel years which slide away to shadows
behind my back, ring in their changes
silently, unseen.

Then, I am left astonished;
wondering
at all my lodestones lost,
consigned to yesteryear
and muddy memories.

©  Gill Dunstan
All rights reserved

An Acrostic

Words writhe and wriggle, spin and dance,
Resistant.  Twist, snake slide away into the shadows.
I struggle, grasping at their floating auras.
The turn of phrase I seek eludes me still.
I wonder, ponder, sigh, begin again -
Never achieving the subtle nuances, those
Ghosting, drifting phantoms puzzling my mind.

©  Gill Dunstan
All rights reserved

Writing

W ords

R un helter-skelter round my brain like eager raindrops that

I nvade the dried-up wells of subliminal id.

T hey gather, rise and overspill, subsiding as they diffuse

I n myriad rivulets across the fractured channels of reflection to

N ourish, quench and be siphoned up at last into a 

G roundburst of breathless cohesion.

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved

Writing

Word, the first intelligible sound attached to thought;
Resonating in an empty, starry universe.
Interpretation is followed by misunderstanding.
Telling stories, tales of woe and heroism,
Invoking shared human experience and recognition,
Numinous of message and meaning; writing,
Guardian of thought energy in the quest for clarity.

© Valerie Taylor 
All rights reserved

Highway Code

Writing should

Really be

Immeasurably easier

Than going to work

Insofar as it does

Not involve

Getting stuck in traffic jams.

Words, though, get         

Really snarled up

In bad tempered

Tailbacks and contraflows;

Increased confabulation and

Narrowed thought become

Gridlocked in extended metaphor.

What a bore!

Pull a sickie

Instead?

© Tim Scott
All rights reserved

Insert Yourself

Writing is predictable, or unexpected
risky or safe. But super risky writing
is the original, vulnerable work of the edges;
That’s the interaction that makes it valuable.
It says something we didn't already know;
new truth is not something we’d have
guessed, you were about to say. It surprises us.

© Sophia Roberts
All rights reserved

The Map

‘Is this the way?’ I asked.

She shrugged. ‘The roads are dark.
Many a hobgoblin waits to trip you up
and wolves with hungry eyes
will search for prey.’

‘Have you a map?’

Her enigmatic smile,
‘that you must forge yourself
along the path of life.’ 

© Gill Dunstan

All rights reserved

Getting there

Embedded memories direct her course

from home to work to town to friends;

spot place and time

what’s where and when.

Some days, an intruder -

the feathered Image Tangler -

alights in the shadows of her

hippocampus

to peck, fret, fray,

before flitting with her lucid maps,

to leave her nearly-knowing.

© Helen McIntosh
All rights reserved

The Secrets of the Deep

No lines, no contours mark the ways 

among the roaming mountains 

 'neath the 

swell 

 where ceaseless 

travellers 

 glide and hunt in silent 

realms 

 that shun the ritual 

binds 

 of human sway.

No maps, no beacons, 

no left 

or right or wrong, 

no precious 

laws disturb 

God's dark 

kingdoms of the deep.

© Shelia Rogers
All rights reserved