Delph's back

[delph_ambi]

Now let's see if I can remember how to do this...
1. Miner's Wife
2. Careering Down the Hillside
3. instant gratification
4. A Clerke in Holy Orders
5. Last Word
6. We're In the Orchard
7. I Did Not Sleep With Your Wife
8. in the grey of the morning
9. fall from grace
10. still married after all these years
11. The Game
12. Blame
13. Five Years
14. weasel
15. Fixing Things
16. Death of a Hand
17. Balancing Act
18. The London Season
19. Ice-Jam
20. Ice
21. Ants
22. Bile Beans
23. Twenty-eight Meditations On Finding A Street Piano
24. Departure
25. what we should have done, what we didn't do
26. now we are old
27. Echoes of Old Love
28. Song
29. Erosion
30. Councillor Jenkins

[delph_ambi]

miner’s wife

red kites, black faces, the smell of clouds
low on the mountainside, and you, emerging
filthy, spewed out of the dark, and the birds
wheel overhead, a pony slips, its leg fractures,
and I think this will make you cry, you never cry.

I am on the outside.

this is my face, you never see it, I have my life
in books, you can’t read.

you come home, you’ve been drinking, I try
to tell you I’ve seen red kites, I try to explain
using words like exaltation, you look away.
Your father, his father before him, all the brothers.

Eastertide, and the preacher comes across the hill,
I go to listen, he is on fire, I am cold. at home,
I get down on my knees and blacken the range,
I think of red kites, I think of air, I think of you
continuously, I sew by oil light, I live in a dull glow,
a half life. you come in, your face lit from the side,
dust-grimy, beautiful.

[cookala]

strong start here! good images and story telling. powerful. a great start to napo!

[Sorella]

Hi there, Northerner ☺
Love the mining reference! the range, the moors, the bad old days.

Sorella

[delph_ambi]

Thank you cookala and Sorella! I'll be back tomorrow to read what everyone else has written and make some comments (and write another poem). Late now... beddy-byes...

[Arlene]

as always love your narratives -- you paint stories with images and whole characters with one or two very carefully placed adjectives.

[delph_ambi]

Thanks Arlene - and thanks for the reminder yesterday

[delph_ambi]

Careering Down the Hillside

He’s a senior clinical psychologist, somewhere
a woman is singing; it is breaking him.
Stones scatter down the hillside as he runs,

he throws one hard, wrenching his shoulder.
Her voice is a ripple on the night, he is daytime,
solid and whole, he will not let her do this.

He kicks a tuft of grass, a toad squirms out,
limps away, he stares, horrified at
the dangling leg, wonders if he should

stamp out its life. He turned down promotion
in order to stay in this town, he told her,
she left. He reaches a stile, the knotted wood

consoles him, robust, smooth with the years.
He will never marry now. death is an option,
but the chemistry of dying revolts him,

the seepage, the slow growth of toenails.
This day is too full of light. Celandines
open and glory in the sunshine. He grinds

them beneath his heel, curses the sky.
Next week, he’ll wear a suit, attend meetings,
be quiet and kind, and his dreams will be smaller

[Donner]

Hi, Catherine,

Oh, the tough choices in life we have to make (or confine ourselves to) and how dreams often shrink because of them. Great narrative - I thought the section about the toad was particularly effective, in part because the mythology surrounding toads and frogs - and the ending is fittingly sad.

If nothing else, these lines:

death is an option,
but the chemistry of dying revolts him,

the seepage, the slow growth of toenails.

need to be kept. They're terrific.

Donner

[delph_ambi]

Thanks Donner. Great link to froggy things. Didn't know the half of it.

I agree about the keepers.

[delph_ambi]

instant gratification

two years old
splats in a puddle
tiny fingers
play with water

twig reflections
shimmer and fracture
branches re-form

shakes his head
curly red hair
dungarees darken
water soaking
slaps the water

little girl
gripped by mum’s hand
dragged along
sees the puddle
wails her grief
her envy
mum pulls harder
full of fury for the man who fucked her
three years ago at a party in Fulham

puddle king
stands up
twists round
frowns at his soggy bum
looks at the girl
the mother

sees a puppy dog
claps his hands

[Steven]

Some strong work here. I enjoyed 'Careering Down the Hillside' and the failed romanticism of the protagonist who has to 'attend meetings'. A very true reflection.

[delph_ambi]

Thanks Steven

[cookala]

heya Cath!
Careering Down the HIllside - strong work here, pitch perfect tone, too. creative way to show how a break up affects N. enjoyed!
Instant Gratification - I like this. N is fuming, and had it with men, the dogs! the dogs who take whatever they want, nay the consequences. even puddle king has tones of sarcasm in it. good work!

[Dave Rowley]

Hi Catherine,

Some nice work here. I loved the dark rawness of the Miner's wife.

'Careering" was a great read also, him stopping at the stile was a nice touch (given his stuckness), and I loved this:

"Celandines
open and glory in the sunshine. He grinds

them beneath his heel"

Ouch.

Thanks for the read.

Dave