Binary Star

piercing white, blinding,
we're unwinding inside,
unfurling your wings and
I'm finding a feather
amid my fingertips;
spinning white iris about
a burning red pupil;
an angel and a devil.

spinning silk; whirling,
a princess in the ballroom
all soft and gentle
brushing a claw across
her naked spine;
giggling; my fur tickling
her velvet, creased;
beauty and the beast

twirling beauty; reeling,
rippling on the dancefloor
rocking and swaying 
her cheek pressing on mine
a smooth touch, light kiss
shes wearing my coat
and all I can see
is just you and me.

A Novel Project [Part 5] A rambling reflection on writing and ideas

Well, shit. Novels take a lot of time to write and forever more than that to think about. I find myself constantly revising the draft version in my head and twisting the cogs of plot and character and sequence and style every time I come to write another word.

Poetry is a short punch of writing. The short story is a small idea which can be shaped and polished over a few days. How on earth does one keep perspective chisseling out the Colossus of Rhodes? There are so many variables to try and get absolutely perfect. Which begs the question, should it be perfect? Or does the first draft even need to be?

It would seem like an awful waste of time to write out an entire novel and then decide to change elements of it and require re-writing the whole thing.

Every time I think the story over, I add another layer of complexity to it. Which in turn, only means there are more working parts to consider and think over and add other lays to.

It is time to strip away the layers and ask myself: what is the story I want to tell? What is the most bare bones version of that story?

Once I can answer those two questions I can write it.

So, what story do I want to tell?

I want to explore the grit and awfulness of heroes in history. The strongest heroic warriors of the ancient world would rape women and burn villages to the ground. They would do monstrous things, consider Hercules who completed his labours as a pennace for murdering his wife and children.

What is the price of greatness? What is the moral cost of heroism?

 I love the study of history for the complexity, the humanity and the mistakes of real people. The other factor in history is that everyone I'm reading about has died. It sounds morbid, but nothing humanises a person more than them dying.

I like character fiction. I like fantasy. This ramble is generating ideas. One thing I like in my stories are a large cast of characters, but I hate the glossary-lists, the diagrams and family trees you need to constantly refer to in order to know what is going on, who is talking and what their agenda is. I think that switching perspective on the chapter is what makes following it difficult.

I suppose creating a world, sections and slices of history; then dedicate books or parts to lifespans, or major historical events like a record of history. Secondary characters and minor characters would be characters from previous or future novels. Mysteries set up backward and forward across characters and confusion, misremembering of events and potentially reading the two sides of the same conversation across two different books. I really like the idea of that.

Ok. I'm back on track. The reason I'm posting this is to show that when you can't think of anything to write; just start writing and the writing will come.

5 word story.

WANTED URGENTLY:
a strong rope.

2AM

Fistfuls of sand
running between
my knuckles.
Talking in circles
over the low hum of an engine
ears numb to the world
fingertips itching
a smile flinching
soft words surfing by
eyes shinning
lips parting
closer
your breath
on mine.
A naked man runs past
and takes your breath away.
Two clumps of sand
patter at my shoes;
grit in our soles.

When you're on my mind, life is poetry [Second draft]

Waking, I hear beats from a broke drummer,
pull the window shut, locked in woefully
to this dream, fighting to return to slumber.
When you're on my mind, life is poetry:
we slow dance aflame atop a candle,
a bottle to my lips is our first kiss,
the stretched plastic carrier bag handles
on my knuckles are your soft fingertips.
I am never kicking through grass alone
watching buds soar as we canter along
a blooming daisy patch, and, we fall prone.
When you're amid petals, life is a song:
my heart is a drum, but I wake screaming,
my heart is beatless to know I's dreaming.

Awake, but weary-eyed glancing over
to your photograph waiting on the side,
a floored shirt, grass-stained sleeve, becomes a blur,
empty bottles in a plastic bag; tied.
I sit up alone and thumb your image
pondering on how, if, to start this affair
but when I demand: these thoughts are finished;
my dreams without you turn into nightmares.
So, I rest my head and I close my eyes.
A tiny chain in my chest tugs me to
your gravity well, I'm falling to fly
for there to be a way to be with you.
This is the saddest joy I've ever known;
when you're on my mind, I am still alone.

with her on my mind, the world is poetry

with her on my mind, the world is poetry
a bottle brought to my lips is a kiss from her
kicking through the straws of grass together
the carrier bag on my knuckles are her fingertips
but what right have I to think of her
without her validation, is it cute or creepy?
this is the saddest joy I've ever known
the loneliest love I've never shared
when I'm with her, resting in her eyes,
on her words, feeling, really feeling
a tiny chain in my chest tugging me toward her
in a gravity spiral, I'm falling for her
but in complete ignorance if she has a chain for me

maybe it is best if she doesn't
I can match and chat and meet another,
wandering fruit stalls in the market reaching for apples
and waiting to clash fingertips with the one
but as I idly swipe and type and walk and breathe
slowly, slower
girls more beautiful, sexier, shining bright
with minds ablaze with creativity and wonder
intelligence unyielding and smiles just like hers,
but they're not her and that is all that matters
it feels. She isn't the prettiest girl in the world,
she isn't perfect beyond perfection in every detail
yet with her on my mind, the world is poetry

The Journey

I can climb a mountain on a spring morn,

touch clouds, look down on jets soaring under.

I have cracked jokes since the day I was born,

never mourned, or stomped by rolling thunder.

I’ve always been the calm before the storm

and fine idle, waiting for it to pass,

but looking in your eyes, all soft and warm

they stomp me and I transform into brass

from gold, see your lips and my brain is goo

I can’t even confess you’re beautiful,

how I long to lean in slow and kiss you

the words hot on my mind won’t form at all

and now, wordless, I walk toward your gaze

through the tempest’s bolts for a thousand, thousand days.