Rain is pouring down On the pavement as I walk Along the Derrygonelly Road Back home from town Big heavy drops thud down Onto my umbrella And run off its rim Down the back of my shoes A flurry of wind blows the rain Into my face Blinding me so that I walk right into a deep puddle That splashes up muddy wet splodges Over my beige trousers I manage to dodge back into the bushes every time a lorry goes thundering past me and...
IF ONLY If my mum was different If my dad wasn't sad If my sister didn't tease me Then I would be glad If the war hadn't happened and my Uncle Archie didn't die My Dad would be happy And so would I If my sister didn't talk so much and take over each day Then I would tell people What I really want to say If my schooling had been different and I had got by just fine Then any career going would have been mine If I had stood...
“What’s happening in San Andres today?" Claire asked. "It's the patron saints day of the pueblo, Sand Andres de la Cal." "Take us with you this time," Claire pleaded. “I want to show the girls the washing troughs and shower room you had built.” “It's not like a village fete in Dorset, Claire, these people are very rough. They’ll be showing their skills breaking in horses, and how brave they are riding a bulls. It's very...
CHAMELEON Oh Chameleon, basking on the rock, your skin the same hue as the surface you sit on in the sun that dapples light on you in your blissful heat bath. I too can change my colours blending into the background, when in an alien environment I do not have the attitude of most of my friends. “It’s not like this where I come from” I can't change accordingly I blend and change myself and become like those around me. I we...
TAKE FIVE The music carried me along the studio as I danced a series of steps that pushed me forward like a child who has just started to trip but is still managing to balance as a feat of perpetual forward fall movement, and as I let the music enter my body as atoms of all the different notes that made up the music I knew that this is what I was, a spirit of dance made to express my feelings without words but in the tilt...
Taste Cutting the courgettes Snap, snap, snap Glossy green skill. Dicing the purple aubergine, Sweat it with salt Drain the bitter juice Eating together The lemon flavour comes punching through the underlying spice of mustard and cardamom seeds Next the earthy taste Of the potato Embracing the gently sweet taste Of the spinach Still with its vital life giving audacity. The rice is the tender And savoury setting Of the mod...
I was woken last night From my slumber By the plaintive cry of pipe music. The sound rose and fell weaving itself around the storm The water crashed Against the sea wall Near the field where I lay This sound must be part of the local legends Of magic fairy piping And children stolen away or swapped My mother had always Joked that I was a changeling As she gazed at my pointed ears. Could I be part of This ancient race? As...
One Sunday afternoon Claire and Llago hit the road to Tlaquiltenango to visit Guillermo Manon and his family who lived close to nature in the woods. Their only source of water was a well. The children loved the spontaneous hammocks that Guillermo made them by tying two ropes between two trees then folding a blanket over them. Just before the turning to the village Claire said “look pointing to a road sign, “Acapulco 300 K...
“Come on Rosa,” Esperanza calls from the road hoping her voice will reach over the high wall that guards the house. “Are you ready?” Rosa flings her reboso around her head and shoulders to protect herself from the glaring Mexican sun and emerges from the strong metal door into the dusty street, her plastic sandals flip flopping against her feet. “Remember Rosa, I want to see the painting in Cortes Palace before we meet Co...
The 7 trees The seven trees Once bare limbed Gather their summer robes Swirling around them As they dance in the wind Luminescent bursts of light appear Through hand span sized leaves Olive green, yellow ochre Dipping and swaying in the wind Shadows moving as the sun arches Its way across the sky Leaves, olive green On grey cloudy days Yellow on sunny days Against diamonds of light Draw a curtain across the busy road So b...
I was asked to write a poem about a bored cow?! Chewing the cud I know that the day Will go by as usual There goes the cars Up comes the tractor Speeding by to God knows where But here I am In a field Waving the flies away With my tail Swish Swash Why am I even here? Swish Swash Where did all the others go? The fattest ones. Swish Swash Its always the same flies Leave me alone to squat in my mire Time h as no nich in this...
In the chill of the early morning in Mexico City six friends sat round a table drinking coffee wearing the only clothes they possessed. “Sylvia told me! Believe me these Perez people are rolling in money and a few 6000 pesos are easy for them to come by.” “Rodulpho, what are you thinking? How can we kidnap this big shot? It will never work!” Manuel paced round the room waving his arms around. “My friend Jesus is a cleaner...
Ginny sat on the floor listening to her friend play the guitar at an impromptu party. It was the end of a weekend training for her company. Managers hob nobbing with lower ranks. She pushed herself up from the floor intending to go to the ladies. As she stepped towards the door to the corridor she lost her balance. “Whoa,” cried Henry, one of her colleagues, as he lunged forward pushed his hands between her jacket and her...
Teenage Blues Claire had two reasons to feel miserable in autumn 1963. She had just started the third secondary school she had attended since she was eleven; and her mother had put her on a strict diet, after Claire had returned from a youth club camp fourteen pounds heavier. She was given a boiled egg and a Ryvita for breakfast; a Ryvita thin slice of cheese and an apple for lunch and meat with piles of greens and no pot...
He walked around the back of the mansion house noticing the stonework and Victorian plumbing. Suddenly he saw a leg emerging from an upstairs window, then another leg, then a bottom all nicely compact in a pair of loose trousers. Staring up fascinated he saw a delicate hand then a head with tumbling red curls and another hand reaching out to grasp the down pipe next to the window. Not wishing to startle this agile woman...
