The writing group has started off again and here is some of their work
Jenny writes:
“One of the many conversations we had at the last creative writing meeting was about the importance of particular moments in our lives. Brian considered the pain of parting and the joy of meeting up again and for him, the station at Angoulême was particularly significant.”
The Station by Brian Wilkinson
How many more of these sad departures shall I witness –
The last hugs, the last kisses, the final waves? The sadness.
Platform Two hosts the long carriages all too briefly.
Impatient, the engine is eager to wrench my loved one away to other loved ones in another city;
They will warmly hug, kiss, smile, even laugh . . . then hurry away
To a short adventure.
And now I once more stand on Platform One.
Stand, pulse stirring within . . . waiting.
Wanting to see engine headlights, saying “Soon!”
The station clock, ever so slowly teasing away the minutes, long minutes. Before
She alights, smiling, beautiful. Here. Now. No words but urgent kisses.
And warm hugs.
Welcome words bounce between us.
Let’s leave this place for our own warm place.
To embrace another welcome of tail-wagging, kisses and joy!
±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±
“Someone at the meeting said ‘You have to know when it is your last time‘ and this struck a note with Jenny, so she wrote about that idea.
No Time like the Present by Jenny Gilbert
“You have to know when it is your last time,”
Otherwise, later, you will feel cheated.
You have to know when it is the Last Time
You will ever be facing each other,
In case you don’t pay enough attention.
What if you rush your final words –
Or you overlook some detail?
What if you turn your back too soon?
Then you won’t remember clearly
That Last Time.
If only the brain could alert the heart:
“Watch out, the end is about to start!”
Then what a chance and a gift that would be –
To stretch your last moment eternally
And spin the Present fine like silk
To catch every last detail fast
And keep each one to view later –
Then you could endlessly repeat
Your Last Time.
So, this Now, I know, this is our Last Time.
Our farewell.
My eyes can’t leave the detail in your face
Or your eyes.
I breathe in your breath
Speak to hear you speak
And it’s impossible to touch enough
Or for this, Our Last Time, to last
Long enough.
±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±
A couple of poems from Anthony Kirk – Tony the Window Cleaner to his friends
Mont Buet 1st April 1987
“We made a fire that night.” “Do you remember?”
My front was hot
My back was as cold as hell
A frozen lake unwrapped itself before me
And lay solid like giant cubes in disarray
as if stuck fast to the inside of the wall
of a forgotten fridge-freezer compartment
“We looked up into the sky” “Surely you remember”
Their! Their! Hale Bopp presented itself like pieces phosphorous,
which had made its escape from the end of an old match
Dancing through the space in slow motion
like a Catherine-wheel that had lost it’s pin
”You do remember, don’t you?” “Say you do”
It crept slowly across the fabric of the night sky
Continuing on its mechanical, melancholic return journey back to the sun.
Leaving behind in its wake,
bits of old cogs,
springs,
some dials,
some second hands,
and some postcards from a long lost and forgotten letter box.
Throwing out its sodium streaks, which ripped through space
Like a beer stained 1980’s asteroids gaming console
in the corner smoke filled wine bar in Bordeaux
Only to makes its return in 4534
“ You will come and see me again?”. “Say you will “ “Please”
Plastic People
I know people.
Real people.
Common people but…….
They are all plastic people.
Stretchy, bendy polyethylene people.
I have nothing against plastic
And nothing against people
But when you connect them together
Everything they touch turns to mastic treacle
Contaminating the world with their plastic faecal
We have become purveyors of plastic
Food wrapped in cling film and see through plastic
Then we throw it all in the sea
Hoping that nobody can see
Until it leaches and hits the beaches
And ends up in the stomachs
Of lots of sea creatures
I know people.
Real people.
Common people but…
They are all plastic people.
Stretchy, bendy polyethylene people..
I have nothing against plastic
And nothing against people
But when you connect them together
Everything they touch turns to mastic treacle
Contaminating the world with their plastic faecal.
Tony your tea drinking Window Cleaner Man working in the Charente and the Dordogne.