Ticked & Cross

No new texts. No missed call.
Not a like or a friend request.
No message on my Facebook wall.
No letters forwarded to my address.
No new followers, nor snaps.
No tagged photos or untagged, even.
No DMs, Skypes or Whatsapps.
No e-mails save spam to believe in.
Now I type, then I send and then 
Nothing, I see ✔read, but no reply.

Due but two

Do you hear that howling up at the moon, 
rising of winds from the coming typhoon? 
Don’t smirk in the dark, look at the lagoon 
art work waters up like a lost balloon. 
Drop the spork, we’re eating out of the spoon - 
knee jerk hard work - late in the afternoon. 
Spark! There’s an Arc after whistle and tune 
from stark of a nymph we built our cocoon. 
Pop out the cork, pour me a glass and swoon. 
New bench mark of self sloshing blues commune, 
cars undocking with roads engulfed too soon, 
winter’s bark breaks the roof, no soul immune. 
White shark teeth at the hull, grab the harpoon 
on deck berserk wolves growl at the blue-moon. 

Blue-moon, blue-moon. Two by two. Two by two. 
Bat, Bat, Cat, Cat, Rat, Rat, Gnat, Gnat, slug, slug 
Ewe, Ewe, Cockatoo, Cockatoo, slug, slug! 
No not you, no not you. Stomp, stomp – just two. 

Just two. Just two. My-moon, blue-moon. Just Two. 
Two guppies, two puppies, two germs, two worms, 
Fowls, owls, larks, lynxs, voles, stags, deer, frogs and hogs. 
I suppose birds fly, fish swim and men drown. 

But two, all but two. First me, second you. 

Your moon is far beneath the birthing blue 
a stain on typhoon flaws which paid our due 
from lagoon to lungs from Jew to Hindu 
like a water balloon onto ground crew 
an odd slick spoon we awed without a clue 
until this afternoon when a canoe 
wouldn’t do the tune justice because boo! 
Build a cocoon and keep two, form a queue. 
Don’t swoon or applaud the new bow of hue; 
arrowed our commune. Outlaw by review, 
scale you soon, blue-god, by the blind statue. 
Us two, we’re immune, we will see this through 
with a harpoon in the eye like shampoo. 
I-silver and you in blue-moon, blue-you. 

Blue-you? I wave and so do you, but blue.

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.