NaPoWriMo 2025 (part VI)

Days 18-21 of NaPoWriMo

Northbound

The passenger seat is my stage

And the blurred tail lights my captive audience

The rain beats a gentle staccato

While the wiper blades are the strings.

This automative orchestra is out of time

And out of key to the melody,

But music has never been my strong point,

So I sing on anyway,

Your baritone is strong in the seat beside mine

And I am un-self-conscious of the notes I miss,

For the joy and the meaning are purer

Than a perfect harmony.

Day 19- nothing

Statuesque

Alabaster limbs, recumbent and refined

And veins of marble carry beauty and truth

Where blood is ugly.

Hear the hollow ringing where her heart should be

In perfect pale repose she beckons you

To sit and stare.

Those fragile fingers, strangely soft and scarred

Searching for the vast and simply honour

Of human touch.

But marble dust has seeped into your pores

And the gentle warmth of another human soul

Burns like fire.

Return then with your greedy eyes and vacant smile

To the bustling court of your untrue lover

On her pedestal.

A thousand men with lustful hearts return there too,

Each eager for a hurried glimpse of perfection

Shaped only in stone.

Metamorphosis

He held my skin,

The ragged edges where I burst forth
Still pink with residual heat.

I lay there, chest heaving, and watched his gaze,

That momentary panic of decision making,

Before he tucked my skin under one arm

And tucked a blanket around me with the other

Then closed the door behind him,

I listened to his steps descend

And the distant whir of the disposal

As he fed my skin to the plumbing.

In five minutes he would return

Carrying a tray of tea, and water, and biscuits,

And stroke the downy soft expanse

Of my new skin.

NaPoWriMo 2025 (part V)

Days 15-17 of NaPoWriMo

One percent 

Rise up you non-believers, you pariahs of society, 

Disheartened by democracy, downtrodden in the data,

Statistically insignificant supporters of society, 

Rise up against the only one percent that really matters,

The cold and callous constructs of those ballsy billionaires,

The unwoke, unaware.

Shanties

The setting sun paints garish colours

Across the vault of the sky

And streaks the sea with golden glitter

While overhead the seagulls fly

Towards their nests, their bellies full.

The sand is soft between my toes,

Bathed in flickering firelight

That warms my friends as they draw close.

The lapping waves are counterpoint

To our harmonious melodies

As we sing rousing songs and give

Our joyous praises to the sea.

Trans Rights and Wrongs

My blood is fire

And in the end it's only you that you're accountable to,

But in the fight and the frenzy

Let me hold your hand.

This band of brothers, 

Broken-hearted,

Sisters and siblings,

The wings in our souls will carry us through.

Their ignorance is impotent,

And sure as seasons change,

With science at the reins,

I know this too will be

A winter of a memory.

So bundle up your hearts and heads

And light the fire of self-defence,

And usher every quivering wreck

To the hearth of friendship

NaPoWriMo 2025 (part IV)

Days 12-14 of NaPoWriMo

Grief

The grave is a lonely place,

But only for the mourner

Flesh and bones are temporary,

Hold on to the memories,

A thought cannot die

And if you spy, in the far corner

Of the graveyard, an unmarked plot

Beneath an elder tree,

Know that the bones interred there

Are a wish

And the spirit of the Black Dog

Has ushered your loved one

To their eternity

Foraging Fungi

In congregated groups beneath the blackberries

And clustered heaps on silver birch and hazel trees

Enticing shades of ochre, russet, and crimson

Or muted browns and greens that hide them 'neath oak trees

Their fluted forms, bulbous sacs, and elegant gills

Microscopic spores that drop from their aging gills

Forced

In the warm, damp dark

A root becomes a shoot becomes a stem.

The creak and groan of cellulose,

Reaching for a non-existent light.

The slight flutter of juvenile leaves

And the faint pitter-patter as soil is upheaved.

Clean pink flesh, and the stress of growth

Is sugary sweet,

A snail's foot has ten thousand teeth,

Ten thousand tiny chomps to feast

And the rhubarb keeps

On growing.

NaPoWriMo 2025 (part III)

Days 8-11 of NaPoWriMo

Everyone

This world is made for you, and me, and everyone

The great, the small, the rich, the poor, and everyone

A cityscape of steel, and trees, and concrete

The comfort of a living space for everyone

Fields of wheat, and strawberries, and apple groves

A healthy, and a filling meal for everyone

Time ton cry, and time to laugh and celebrate

For joy, and love, and grief is felt by everyone

A world divided is no use to anyone

A world united is the peace of everyone

Ducks

A path runs beside the hedgerows

Down towards the river flow

And towering hawthorns grow

Delicate flowers among their thorns.

The stone steps are worn

And yet your feet are sure,

Settled in the grooves of time,

Beneath ivy vines, and a foliage roof.

A pair of ducks, aloof, glide past

And the brief flash of minnows

Shine silver in the water below.

Mushrooms

A mottled mesh of mycelium

The metabolic metronome amongst

Aging roots and amber roaches

Rousted from the rotting homes.

Heather, hyssop, hyacinth,

And singing starlings, swooping

In the sun beams. Reams of leaf litter

Lain on lice and mice and ivy shoots.

Shaded scenes of simply summers,
Thrumming with the thirst for freedom.

Thistledown and hummingbirds,

And hope sits heavy in my heart.

But here amid the ancient agaric

Grasses glint with morning dew

And mushroom gills are golden gilt

With mottled marks of mycelium.

My own Changes

They say it takes time,

It's not a matter of pride

She had in her mind how your future unfurled.

You cut off your hair,

And changed what you wear,

She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl.

But pink birthday cards

And gendered words,

I struggle to see where the effort is made.

And over the years

It's becoming clear

That this is the way she always behaved.

I've bitten my tongue

And suffered her wrongs

But family only takes you so far.

She might never know

If I'm a boy or a girl

But I am who I am when you're ready to care.

NaPoWriMo 2025 (part II)

Days 4-7 of NaPoWriMo

My home is not a gallery

Hushed tones, and the whisper of shoes on marble,

Soft light glinting off gilded frames.

Safe, sterile, art at an arm's length.

But my home is not a gallery

I make it a celebration.

Dancing with my husband under a print of Van Gogh

And the strains of Vivaldi in the air.

An original: cat under a rainbow, in crayon, from my niece

Portraits, and photographs, and lino-prints

In dusty frames, and the curled, fading corners

Of posters, taped to the wardrobe doors.

The canvas from my year 10 art exam,

Its clumsy, bold colours are pride of place in

The living room, and each wall in my home

Begs for more.

A calm and frenzied life

Within the every day narration of

Your life, it is important to construct

From any source, a monument of love

To which no tender heart could object.

These brief departures from the tidy humdrum

Routines of your day, will elevate

The whimsy and the wonder that can come

From setting on the path of your own fate.

Deep within your bones you feel the yearning,

A hint of frenzy under every steady breath,

Vanilla scented moments in the mornings,

An honour on your future self bequeath.

So with each step, and with each strike begin

To shape a world that's ready to reclaim.

Spearmint

In river banks and marshlands

Wet soil underfoot, and moss green air.

That primitive feeling of leaves between your fingers

And you tug, not too hard

Don't pull out the roots.

The ice-clean scent stains your nostrils

And nearby a blackbird sings.

Then from the bracken ahead

A rabbit shoots forth, ears flat

He boings across a fallen log.

You set a single, toothed leaf upon your tongue

The taste of early mornings, and soothing tea.

Pink Moon

The magnolia blossoms first

Large white petals reaching up

Towards baby blue skies

Forget-me-nots and grape hyacinth

Light blue and dark

Amidst the tender green grass

The raspberries are coming

And will swell with sweet red fruit

Under an April Pink Moon

 

NaPoWriMo 2025 (part I)

Yes, I know it's already the 14th, but I didn't think about posting my poems here until now. Oops. I'll do a few posts to spread them out though.

Mezzotint

The soft screech of metal on metal

Echoes of the noises in my mind

I smooth away the imperfections

Burnishing the jagged lines

Ink seeps in the crevices

The stark relief of black on bronze

The fibres of the parchment sheet

Capture every varied tone

The rhythm and the repetition

Brush and ink and rags and tint

I smooth away my imperfections

And etch my heart in every print

Social Transactions

O, self creators

Mistresses of makery

Masters of testosterone

And artists of non-binary

Strip away your carapace

Reveal your inner glory

Sculpting flesh and bone

To your gender ideology

Our future is in stasis

For the progress of society

Is slow as metamorphosis

But just as worth the journey

So raise your hands and hearts

Find and forge a family

Live the truth within yourself

Transition to your beauty

Why am I an artist?

I am not an artist because I create art

Just as I am not a sleeper because I sleep

And I am not a worker because I work

I ask the sparrow if he is a singer

    because he sings

And he says, "No

    I sing because I am a bird"

I ask the flounder if she is a swimmer

    because she swims

And she says, "No,   

    I swim because I am a fish"

I ask the gazelle if she is a runner

    because she runs

and she says, "No,

    I run because I am a gazelle"

So I am not an artist

    because I create art

I create art because

I am

    Alive

I caught a glimpse of tragedy

Yesterday, my father-in-law was driving us (me, my husband, and my mother-in-law) home from a holiday in France. We were somewhere on the M11 or the A1M, I don't really remember, and it doesn't even really matter.

There was a dead deer on the central reservation.

I've seen roadkill before, plenty of times, too many times to count. Hedgehogs, squirrels, the occasional fox, pigeons that couldn't fly out of the way in time. I mourn each one. The casual cruelty of traffic.

But this deer.

I don't know, there was something about her. I only saw her for a split second, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but that moment felt life changing. Earth shattering.

There's so much I want to do for this world around me, and I have no idea where to even start. Even if I did, would I even be able to? Being disabled is so frustrating when my head and my heart are urging me to try and do spectacular things.

I remember reading about Wildlife bridges in the Netherlands, and instantly wondering why they weren't a thing in more places. A quick search tells me that the UK government briefly talked about trying to build some back in 2015, and it never really went anywhere. I want to rant and rave and shake the politicians by their shoulders and demand to know why this plan was abandoned. You hear chatter about the decline of native wildlife, isn't it such a shame about the red squirrels, and hedgehogs and badgers need protecting, and it feels like it's all just talk.

They're making paper straws, and charging for single use plastic bags, and it's all just small acts of greenwashing that hardly scrapes the surface of the changes that really need to be made. Rinse out your glass jars, and remember to take your reusable shopping bags, and ignore the dozens of private jets that flew into the G7 summit, and the seven nuclear reactors it takes to power google's AI assistant.

I can stop eating meat, and compost vegetable scraps, and only buy second-hand clothes, and it's a drop in the ocean, and I hate that I don't have the power to do more.

That shouldn't stop me from trying though.

Capitalism relies on every individual realising they can't make change by themselves, and not realising that together we are no longer individuals but a crowd; each drop in the ocean is part of the tidal wave.

"You'll see how much a snowflake matters when we become an avalanche" - Grace Petrie

This quote echoes in my head every time I start to doubt that what I'm doing can actually help. I am one person, and I am limited, and some days I can't even take care of myself, but I don't ever want to stop trying. I want the world to be a better place for me, and for you, and for the deer that shouldn't have to die, cold and alone on a stretch of tarmac cutting its way through her home.