The World Through Beryl

photo.  



Pausing for barely a second now and then like a motor gently missing, Oriel stopped to watch Beryl, who had grown paler still. That woman will disappear if she keeps fading like this, she thought. What was it with Beryl? Hunger for a man? What man deserves a good honest woman like Beryl? Even as she watched, Oriel saw Beryl fading by the window. She saw the mulberry tree through the tall woman's translucent, veiny arms. The sky moved behind her. You could see the whole world through Beryl Lee.
         Take a break, Beryl.
         No, I'm right. Truly.

(excerpt from Cloudstreet by Tim Winton)

if

source

Broken

By P.s. I Am Me from Shades of Green and Grey

photo.  

It would be easy to fall apart.
Piece by tiny piece.
And it’s hard to be put back together again once this happens.
Because, like with all puzzles, pieces get lost.
Maybe you’ll never be whole again.

Sleep-washed

A poem by Saba Vayani-Lai

photo.  

This,
This simplicity,
This sleep-washed morning,
The raindrops dancing gently
Upon soft glass,
Reflecting the sleeping forms of
Living poetry,
Of us,
Lost in a mindless tangle of limbs and
Sheets and sticky puddles of light.


At last,
Letting the words and the yearning finally,
Finally,
Spring from the page and into motion,
Into reality,
Into this tangible mess of feeling,
Lazily looped not in ink,
Not in restricting monochrome and colour-starved
paper,
Not caged in the heavy iron lattice of forced rhyme
-
But in the mixing of our breaths,
In the mingling of a million miniscule atoms,
Air cocktails slipping, shared,
Between our lips.


And then…
I feel the resignation festering,
Wild mushrooms growing in sad lumps, slow
and hungry,
Around my tired heart –
Such joy,
Such interdependent joy,
It cannot last.
It can only cling
As raindrops do to a spider’s web,
Desperately hoping the wind doesn’t lose
Her temper.


But I have traced stars
With fearless fingertips –
Traced that pale harmony between living and
Expressing
In the creases and valleys
Of your skin.


To have known such joy,
Even just for a moment -
It is enough.

This,
This simplicity,
This sleep-washed morning,
I watch our lazy forms reflected
In rain-speckled glass –
All drowsy smiles and
Poetry,
Alive at last.

(This is in the 2009 winners if you follow the link)

writing letters

By Melee of The Midnight Train Of Thought

photo.  

Dear You,


Whenever I write, I always feel the need to address myself to you.
You, you! It's so ambiguous. You could be male or female. You could be my mother, you could be the dog next door.
Sometimes I'm not even sure who you are. You are my lover, you are my enemy. You are a sonnet, you are prose. You are sufficient; you will never be enough.
But you know... you always know. I can tell you those things I always wanted. Whoever you are, I need you. Because, in writing to you, I feel a little less lonely: you're reading along.

Thank you.
Ever and Ever,
Me

post

photo. 

I miss writing poetry.
But it's one of those things I can't control.
Occassionally I've tried to force myself to write,
but I never like the poems later.
But it's a past-time that I really cherish.

I hope my words come back.
I'm getting sick of excerpts and sad stories.

So, maybe for a bit I'll post other things than my writing,
things I love and want to share.
Just enough to remind me.

Excerpt #10

There is anger in her.

The kind that's been held for too long, and it is now spilling out of her.
There she is, kneeling on the wooden floor of her bedroom, rifling through a dark, wooden box. She keeps opening pieces of paper, reading them and then tearing them into confetti. Occasionally she burns things. One time she does both. She's trying to rid herself of all the things that have been destroying her.
Photos, quotes, poems, writing, ideas, plans and pills, bandaids, lyrics, memories.
She has a soundtrack playing loudly so she doesn't need to think. She keeps going until there are only three things left in the box. A neatly folded piece of paper. A photo. And a now-blank notepad.
She puts everything else into a glass jar. The jar is filled with paper and water and ash and ink. She thinks she is free.

In a few days she'll realise the jar is still in her room, she'll want to get rid of it, but she won't.

photos.

I don't know what happens next.

i can relate

photo.  



You would hate it.
There are good days, and bad days,
and you never know which it's going to be,
until it is.
Or, on those rare, unlucky occassions
when you realise the night before
that tomorrow is going to be a terrible,
terrible day
and you can't do anything about it,
except know.