These small stones were a Mindful Writing Challenge set in Januaryby https://www.facebook.com/writingourwayhome - the task was to write a small something every day - something you saw, something you read, heard, felt....It takes some discipline to put something down everysingle day, but as you get used to it you find yourself taking more notice of everything, and thinking oh! Small stone! I found writing them so useful and enjoyable that I continued them through February....

 

Piebald scrapyard tomcat marks oily grass

With his scent - nicked ear - a proper moggy.

Car with smashed out back window, draughty.

Columns of tyres with no tread stacked

In slightly misaligned fashion.

1960’s camper van listing on puddled ground

Now a holiday home for dead fly shells.

 

I could have been a tiger, bold in my desire

I could have been a dragon and scalded you with fire 

I could have been an Ox and been feted for my strength

I could have been a snake, and impressed you with my length 

I could have been a rat and taken you by cunning

I could have been a horse, epic in my noble running

I could have been a monkey, nimble on branch or twig

But no - I was born in the Year of the Pig.

 

Delicate hillock of snowdrops

Freshly blossoming,

Glimpsed briefly through car window -

White and sudden

Between flayed silver birches.

 

Wrekenton pigeon lofts viewed

Through filter of overgrown grasses.

Waddling jokes find grace in the air,

Make three swooping circles;

Return to their cages because

Natural mind-set instructs them to.

 

Oxidised Angel, stiff necked,

Unflinchingly faces outwards;

Failing to fold slate roof in

Its corrugated embrace.

Potential energy  traces

Through the bolts that fix

Foundation concrete to its feet.

 

Old man, tobacco and dust – skin folded into lines,

Frail as creases in carefully stored letters.

Bleached irises swim with milky recollections

Of dead wife, how she used to sort stuff like this.

Love cracks apart our insides before

Time cracks apart our out.

 

Nights in White Satin, car stereo, loud.

Fingernail pressed into soft palm

Cuts the hot needles in my eyes

With its sharp clarity.

Oh, how I love you.

 

City centre – I try you on again

Like last summer’s skirts after a lazy winter.

If I kick hard enough, I can still squeeze in, I think.

 

Track destroyed by tractor wheels -

Gaping tyre tread hollows gouged

Through mud, squeezed into

Wet mountains along the sides;

Stripped to its dolomite layer.

 

I wake up, breathe . Warmed,

Watching the sun stripe my bed

I smile, I stretch.  I am cat -

Shallow as teaspoons or just

Good at surviving, I wonder?

 

Whistle-stop coffee pot tour -

Church with window that frames

She Loved She Prayed She Endured

In silvered blue stained swirls.

 

Black hairs threading man’s hand,

Like childishly sewn stitches -

Haphazard, crosshatching lower arm.

Fingers catch with deliberate gentleness.

 

Brooch half buried in

Jumbled knick-knack cabinet -

Cowrie framed in silver metal,

Ridged mouth slightly open.

Not smiling, not sad. Just asking.

 

Curtains improperly closed -

Cushions dented by head and arse;

Mug intrudes on mantelpiece porcelain parade.

Microwave pings.

 

Leafless branches flirt

With the underbelly of the sky,

Twigs tickling. Coochie-coo!

Smirk the trees

As the air turns blue.

 

If I was afraid would you be

the strength I am missing?

If love is a sleeping stranger

Would you wake it with

Gentle hands? If I fall do you

Fall with me or do I fall back to earth alone?

And if we are interwoven will it be with the fragility of lace?              

 

Sleet darts soft cheeks with needle pricks -

Turn your face into it and it will sting.

Mud collects in cracks on hands;

If you press your tongue on it

You can taste its earthen honesty.

Nature is the last and only truth.

 

Far from the sea, obnoxious gull

Wakes me with insidious caw - has

Moved inland for easier pickings;

Dirty bird, go shit on someone else’s head.

 

Mishap scratches lines, red across my skin.

Raw sting distracts from careless boot

That left behind its footprint on my lungs.

 

Thin skin, hard lines; marked

Like the stamp on cardboard packaging.

It serves to remind me This Way Up.

 

Mechanical thrumming of woodpecker

Adds rhythm to my outdoor work.

Mud makes thick clay Plasticine rolls

Beneath my boot, pulls and squelches.

Sweetly distilled birdsong nourishes the peaceful air,

Balanced and windless; warm on my neck.

 

Heckler – shut the fudge up!!!!

Quiet man with guitar hijacked

By idiot on his next filled glass.

You are a knife in atmosphere’s back –

Tit, I hope your tongue will split.

 

Aluminium door catch fixed untarnished while

Screw heads corrode inside drilled burrows.

Chiselled gap makes space in the rotting frame

While clever spider utilises shadowed gap

To sling its ambitious threads in the hope

Of catching more than greying motes

Of airborne dust.

 

Cherry pickers flank the roadside like Terminator's arms.
Rain hits the windscreen while
Asa and Harry talk about Blake, his angels and devils.
I fall into sleepy silence and thank the Lord for words.

 

Unfathomable opulence – candlesticks,

Claw feet on his toilet, gold.

A galleon on a private lake;

A nocturnal escape by helicopter

After failure to bribe his way out.

 

Varnish - feathered brushstrokes

Pulled across the pearly treacle.

Pressing fingers together afterwards

With sticky satisfaction.

 

Her mouth barks laughs – an eager dog

Flopping its tongue to please its master.

Her eyes plead for titbits while

His hand feigns throwing the ball.

 

Lady getting off the bus walks like my mother,

Favouring the quiet outsides of her feet.

She leaves no echo in the chambers beneath -

Ginger steps, as if on soles made of glass,

Profuse apology in every step.

 

I dropped my ball in a darkened pool 

And caught its golden glint, mocking

Beneath the illusion of apparent depth.

Buoyed up from below like a rising yellow sun,

My amphibian hero propels my treasure back to me.

 

Crisp ice lids a country lane pothole -

Globules of captive air under the surface

Shift with the cautious pressing of my foot.

Opaque patterns swirl the glass,

Spreading like whitewashed primaries

On a snowy egrets wing.

 

 

I like the way my breasts look in this bra –

It lends to them a youthful, pushed up plumpness,

Suspending for a moment their downward travel.

I lower the neckline of my top once more,

Stowing them away like secrets.

 

Man with daughter and de-icer,

Man with wheel trims and length of pipe;

Man in green works jacket with two woolly hatted chums

Elbow each other knowingly and laugh, ha ha ha.

Man with oil and red plastic phial of something

Automobile related, balancing small blue box.

Receipt flaps from its tether in his mouth,

Signifying his useful busyness, his hands already tied up.

 

I remember everything and more –

Regurgitating small details when

I’m hungry and need a morsel to chew on.

I hear from you sporadically though I think of you often.

Even if you misspelled my name I am still

Glad that you wrote to me.