Bareback Rider - Liz Waugh
X Ray prompt
Transparancy
Ice blue perspex, casts
its chill tone
across your skin
I erase it
with a wash of
hot love
a reflection
of my pink
Mothercare nightie.
Never
will our knowledge
of each other be
so transparent
as in
these first hours
when you, precious
babe are encased
in perspex.
Steph Newham
The Big Lottery
Nine months in the washing machine of creation
two million years of recycling...
...and the rest.
Biological cleansing in amniotic fluid
softened with evolutionary conditioner.
The final spin
emptying of water
programme over.
My summoning to being
with a lottery ticket
in the pocket of my genes.
Prenatal education fixed in social class
a game of chance
dye is caste
am I colourfast or have I run
in this time against race?
Clean, dirty
white, coloured
will some god bleach the stubborn stains
on the fabric of my soul?
Wrap me in your beliefs
and let me ring my leper's bell.
Unceremoniously hoisted high
hung to dry
whiter than white
the stainless sterile wealth of good health
or head-wetted in fluke-infested waters?
The first breath
cool clinical freshness
or a snort in a crime-infested ghetto?
Two eyes, one nose
better count my fingers and toes
while I still have them.
Sharpening knife in guise of faith
will tattoos of culture
mutilate my flesh?
Tumble-dried and gently pressed
to milk of love or hungry hatred.
Ingrained memories
a lifetime carried
‘til discarded, misshapen, old and grey.
I will pass to you my unborn dreams
and the lottery ticket
in my cast-off genes.
Tom Langlands
After Æsop : The Oyster Catcher and The Lark
There was once an oyster catcher who spent all his days hiding his stash of sea food under the mud of the estuary where he lived. He was afraid that other birds would find his treasure and steal it so he cried a warning ‘Pik! Pik!’ all day as he worked. One day as he probed the mud laid bare by the falling tide he saw that the sea had fallen away from the top of a bank, leaving it like an island across the water. He straight away began to dig up his oysters and carry them to the island where the wading birds
did not go. Soon he had a deep hole full of food. He was so proud of his wealth he strode up and down the bank preening himself, showing off his orange beak and legs to the world.
Just then he heard a lark in the sky, ascending towards the sun singing.
‘Why do you waste your time in singing, Lark,’ he asked ‘Are you not hungry?’
The lark flew a littler lower so that the oyster catcher could hear him.
‘I sing in praise of the sun in its golden glory which hatches the bugs I eat – do you not sing to the sea who brings you food?’
The oyster catcher laughed.
‘It was not the sea that fed me. I laboured through the morning to catch my food so I sing for myself.’
And he began to stride up and down the mud again, ignoring the lark, singing only for himself.
The oyster catcher did not notice the tide turning and begin to steal back around his island. Soon it was lapping at his feet and he saw to his horror that his precious hoard was going, going, gone beneath the water.
Moral : Better to trust your treasures in gold than off-shore banks.
Vivien Jones
Lemons with ladybird - Hazel Lowther
Starlight prompt
Quiet Stars
Tonight everyone is sparkly and special
Shining their light in my eyes
Every one of them pushing
Their dreams into everyone’s lives
They are becoming like the universe
With so many stars burning so bright
In so many directions
No one knows where to look.
Except … they are not like my universe
Because I have never heard its stars sing
I've never seen them boast how great they are
Or how they will die if they don't get to shine
Its quiet up there among the real stars
Every one equal and the same as all the rest
Their light is endless and eternal but constant.
I like the universe.
So tonight I’m slipping away.
I'm going to lie down in the dark, October garden
To watch some real stars shoot across the sky
In the heavens, in silence, in blissful peace.
Catherine Graham
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