Heather

Underneath the sky, bright and boundless,

gently reaching down to hold the Earth once more.

Underneath the sky, in amongst the Life, they lie.

Sprawled amongst the heather, their laughter rings like bells and birdsong.

Natural, here they fit and feel alive.

Nature watches without judgement; the only witness to all they do

and do not do, to all they create, destroy and create again.

Busy city streets are far behind, the unkind looks left there as well.

No hushed ironic whispers, no raised eyebrows.

Here, and maybe even here alone, they live and laugh and love as they’ve longed to all their lives.

Urges kept in check before run free and fire fills their souls.

All day they play, at night they keep the cold at bay.

Bracken burns in a merry blaze, warm hazy glows on warm contented faces.

Darkness brings the owls and bats, dancing through the firelight.

Exhausted, they fall back into the landscape, and

sprawl amongst the heather, nothing can touch them.

 

 

Fallow Lands

[Hi again! Been a while, sorry about that… it’s amazing how quickly three months can go by when you’re giving yourself lots of holidays! Anyway, I’m totally back, probably. Here’s a piece I wrote as part of a recent job, where a poet commissioned a bunch of dystopian feminist flash fiction stories that he’ll then turn into sonnets. Just a normal job, hey? Happily, he said I was fine to share them here too, so enjoy! This is the first of five]

Fallow Lands

As soon as her husband closed the door, she fetched the stepladder, moved the armchair, pulled the hatch down, and clambered into the loft again. He wouldn’t be home until 15:00—she had hours!

She gingerly opened the box and lifted out the first book: ‘The Magic of Motherhood’. It was her favourite—everyone in it looked so real, not at all like the models you saw on the adverts, smooth skin stretched to bursting. These were real women, normal women. Women like her.

Paul would be furious if he knew what she was thinking, fantasizing about. There was no way they could afford a pregnancy. Even after the population had stabilised and HealthCo slashed the prices, pregnancies remained the pastime of the elite. Oh, to feel that incredible feeling of another life growing inside her! She pulled the book close to her chest, gently stroked its cover, whispered words of comfort to it, and to herself.

“Paul,” she breathed to the dead air of the attic, to the ghostly workbenches covered in sheets, “why can’t I have a child?” She knew exactly how he’d react. Sensible, pragmatic Paul.

“Come now, you don’t want to be a part of the problem, honey! Pregnancies are just a celeb fad, a moneymaking scheme. Look at the trouble overpopulation caused,” he’d say with a tired smile.

He’d tap the terminal around her wrist, gently reminding her how lucky she was to be a registered citizen, not one of the ‘wanderers’, unregistered, on the streets, and free game for the militia that ‘kept the peace’. The same terminal, through two microscopic pins on its underside, kept her dosed up with enough hormones to make pregnancy impossible.

She noticed she was crying and stood up quickly, ashamed. The movement caused a sheet to slip from the nearest workbench—Paul had been quite the handyman when they first married. The jaws of a vice glinted at her.

Several minutes of exertion later, her mangled terminal fell from her wrist. With lecherous wanderers on every corner, she could be pregnant within the hour! She hurried down the stepladder to find something revealing to wear, ‘The Magic of Motherhood’ left discarded on the floor.

 

[What do you think? Exploring feminist issues in a dystopian setting, amiright?]

Praise and Harmony

[Hi all! I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear I’ve managed to keep up my strenuous one-post-a-month policy with this piece – boy has it been tough! For real though, sorry I’ve been so quiet – work and holidays have consumed me in (almost) equal measure these past few months. Anyhow, here’s a piece that’s been sat gathering dust (haha, you’ll see why I laughed there) for a while now. It’s a soft one this. Enjoy!]

 

my heart was gathering dust

as others flashed by

they were

lightning to me

bright & exciting

& all too brief

how could I recognise the sun having seen only lightning?

 

each flash had, brief & blinding

imprinted itself on my mind’s eye

to colour my vision of all that followed

& dull my senses further from bright

hope and optimism

 

meeting you

was a slow sunrise to me

indistinguishable from a flash at first

you grew into my world

made it lighter

until you were all I could see

and would want to see

until hand in hand

we walk off into the sunset

Look Up/Look Down

And so it starts…
eyes down, hushed
mind games or blind luck?
can I still count on friends
or am I surrounded by enemies?

Look Up
safe – for now
the screams of those less fortunate
pierce my ears

Look Down
comrades fallen
fewer targets
nowhere to hide

Look Up
scrape by,
again
but soon
will come
the end

Look Down
sweat drips
bodies shuffle
where now can I turn?

Look Up
into their eyes:
instant, dramatic
death.

 

[Well wasn’t that exciting! This gripping tale of survival and betrayal is actually just the game Look Up Look Down, which I know of from often playing it with opponents after matches at ultimate tournaments (we call these post-match games ‘calls’ and I’ve no idea why). It’s one of my faves. Hope you enjoyed this piece of silliness anyway.]

[To all my regular readers and friends on here, it’s good to be back! I seem to have managed a post most weekdays for the past fortnight or so, after a little quiet spell, and the reception back into the WP community has been as great as ever. Much love to all of you.]