The vessel is cracked
Still holds the sacred blooms
Still revered
Though the blooms are without root
Rootless. Dying.
Still revered.
Water though refreshed,
Still stagnates
Dead blooms replaced
With freshly cut.
Repetition
Builds a patina of respect
Authority
Habit.
The vessel is cracked
Empty of life
Yet forever filled
and revered.
I have been in a writing rut – in that I have done nothing new for ages. Life circumstances have been against me.
It’s time to take a stand against all that. I should set myself a challenge again and give myself the proverbial kick up the arse.
So I am considering going against all the odds and partaking in NaNoWriMo this year. I have completed it once but failed the following year due to some serious illness in the family.
These days, all the demands on me mean I don’t get any time to sit down and write – event doing this today is a very rare occurrence. I have been reduced to reblogging old content.
Well, those demands are going to have to take a back seat for a while. They will need to for my own sanities sake.
My plan is not to try and create novel, novella or even a part of one as I did last time. This time I want to use the push to create 10 drafts of short stories. Each around 5000 words long. I will then use these to enter some competitions with – maybe eventually publish them as a collection as well.
Well, that’s the plan. Let’s see how it goes. Lately, my plans don’t see the light of day – this is a last-ditch attempt. I need some success.
Autumn golden brown
covers the hard icy ground
a leafy carpet
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Bird sings by the pool
in the spring in a soft cool breeze
her voice a sweet sound
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Bug me, drug me
You’ll never touch my mind
Not that you want to
Afraid of what you’ll find
Afraid of the secrets
of someone in the know
Afraid of the exposure
of your elaborate show
So go on with your programme
Sticking to the script
Until the day you are aware
You’re playing in a crypt
Slowly the shadows pass
As memories retreat and fade
Passing beyond the glass
Like springtime budding grass
New joys together are made
Slowly the shadows pass
This pain we will surpass
And sunbeams will cascade
Passing beyond the glass
Though sometimes the shattered glass
Will cut us like a blade
Slowly the shadows pass
New light will surely trespass
On the lawn that we have made
Passing beyond the glass
Those memories we can’t bypass
But their colour has finally greyed
Slowly the shadows pass
Passing beyond the glass
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Where the crashing sea
Meets the shifting cracking ice
Hunters hunker down
Brushed by death today
Twice.
Metal boxes speeding
Too fast, too near me
Driven on by the wrong thoughts
Or expensive wanderings
Starlight is silent
Waves crash and roar on the shore
Then there is matter
A conduit, a bridge or a gateway.
It goes under many old names.
Open it with wonder and reverence,
For the spell will then be underway.
The weakest of hands can undo it
The portal of magical ways
Connecting one mind to another
With a delicate ethereal wave.
Some portals are heavy and dusty
Some dance with electrical sparks
But they all do the same, all show the way
For strange dreams from heart to heart.
There were even once living gateways
Who opened the way with a look
Always there’s one right beside us
The conduit, the gateway, the book.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
The new can’t replace the should have been
The should have been haunts us forever
Though the new will be a healer
And receive all our love just the same.
It’s pointless being angry at fate
But that doesn’t stop the burn
The frisson on top of everyday stress
For the should have been we always yearn.
The new will have it’s own should have been.
So maybe we will understand.
And make a happier will be.
At least that is the plan.
Two trees
Old as memory
Some leaves fallen
A root cut off
Two trees
Explored
Examined
Noted down.
Two trees drawn together
Forever entwined.
Coloured bricks
Red, blue, yellow, white
and many more.
Many shapes
Many sizes
No limits
Many surprises.
Build a fire engine,
A house, a school,
A lake, a park, a city, a town.
A space station and spaceships and an alien host.
A castle, a bridge a knight and a ghost!
All this and more build it all
And never ever build up your wall.
Published in A Spring of Dreams
#RebuildTheWorld
You people don’t understand.
It’s tradition.
It’s sport.
It’s in our genes.
Blood.
Jobs are created
By the sport we choose.
By the blood we shed.
Surely that’s enough.
Of course
The same can’t be said
For you
And your cock fights.
The man in the tree
The plank
The turned leg
The joint
The dust and the shavings.
The tree in the man
The setting down of deep roots
The reaching for the skies
The drinking deep of the earth
The steadfastness and the wielding.
If I stay my path
The world will not mind a bit
So change is a must
Green fingers
Rip open the rusty shell
Slow tendrils with irresistible grasp.
Dealt with by a blade or a chemical wash
They will be back.
In time victory will be theirs.
Shining argent in sunlight or silver sheen in the rain
Letter, rings, lions.
Phoenix or tiny names
Even flying angels and leaping fluid cats.
Bright, alluring but for many
The last thing they will see.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Motes of dust
So we have been described
Floating in the vastness of time and space
Small, inconsequential.
Dust motes made of dust from ancient dead stars.
Yet.
So far.
Amongst all we see,
the starfields of diamond dust,
the ancient piercing light,
the glowing, magical, wispy nebulae,
the rainbow rings of Saturn,
the storms of Jupiter,
the blinding light of supernova,
the singular dark of black hole,
world after world
galaxy after galaxy.
Nowhere have we found
yet
Anything that compares
to the complexity, the wonder, the intricacy,
the magic
of
the thoughts of you and I
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Slowly shifting canopy
Layer on layer soft light green
Waving like courtesan fans.
Sun winking through.
Seedlings drifting down sunbeams
Dappled brown leafy ground.
Scent of earth.
Rough feel of bark.
Through this, I run!
And the forest’s essence
enters my senses
vitalises my blood!
Birds do it. Bees do it
Even the goddamn fleas do it
It’s in the genes to survive
It’s not enough. Not for us
We have more, in our double helix
Than the ability to thrive
Make it our duty
Transcend circumstance!
A quavering wave
of light in the summer clouds
as the sun goes down.
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 