22nd-Mar-2007 12:43 am -

This does actually have a biro doodle to go with it. A biro doodle of a beach and a palm tree but my scanner is currently dead (it’s life support broke) so I can’t show you the picture right now.

Wish I Was There

Coconuts and car hire,
I heard you’ve got a little vacation planned,
hot sun shine and burning sand,
cocktails and waitresses,
I know how these things go.

Cities in the distance,
this is no place for romance
and you’re not the romantic type,
night clubs and dancers,
close, loose and closer to the roast,
never brag, never boast
but I see it in your eyes,
you’re in for one hell of a time.

r.l.w

9th-Mar-2007 12:39 am -

This was something I was going to write as a piece of prose on the computer screen at work and leave up for all to read. At least for an hour. Instead it became this.

Sex And Heaven

Just because there's light at the end of the tunnel
doesn't make it any better.
You're still dead
and it's not the same,
heaven or hell, you're not breathing,
truly feeling
those physical sensations,
tingles up and down your body.
rushing over your skin.

Screaming in hell
is not the same as screaming in bed,
clouds, God, endless heavenly bodies,
they're not writing.

Waiting for death
isn't all you wanted it to be,
the light could just as easily be
the light at the top of her stairs.

Sin and repent
confess and be hell bent on a better life,
I'll get you into God's good graces
if you'll just follow me
or I'll be looking down on your for eternity.

(Didn't daddy say not to take sweets from strangers?)

It's not the same.
Sex and heaven,
the light at the end of the tunnel.
Do you need protection in the afterlife?

r.l.w

19th-Jan-2007 07:17 pm -

619 words, barely a story really. Written for the Mslexia 'prompt' (for want of a better word) Mirror, Mirror.

Title: Look At Yourself
Rating: PG13


Look At Yourself

She looked at her herself In the bathroom mirror but no one looked back.

Everything smelt clean and fresh, like the adverts for 'Mr Muscle' promised but a hint of bleach still stood out. the walls were perfect, so white it made her dizzy, but then, she hadn’t eaten more than a slice of bread in two days. the bulb in the ceiling lit the room up and reflected off the tiles on the wall and off her skin, her vision was dark, fuzzy, in the mirror all she could see was the blank canvas of the bathroom wall behind her. With thin, fine, blonde hair and pale , peaky skin, she blended right in. she couldn’t even tell where her body began, where the white t-shirt started.

She was tired. Sick. She couldn’t always keep herself upright, she wobbled on her feet, the physical exhaustion was overwhelming but she couldn’t sleep. the little window above her head, a tiny piece of clear glass that even a terrier couldn’t escape through, held a view the opposite of the bathroom. The light shone out into the darkness, the navy sky was starless, moonless, devoid of anything that she could hold onto and take comfort from. It was late, too late to finish anything, too early to start anything. Everyone else around her was asleep.

If only she could sleep. If only she could sleep for more than the fitful hour she spent on the sofa most afternoons. While colourful characters tried to jump out of the television set at her little sister, she would lie on the sofa, hitting out at the cushions, a blanket wrapped around her, constricting her as her body used what little energy she had to fight off her nightmares.

Right now though, it was night time and she couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t sleep. Not when she couldn’t be sure that she was alone, safe and that there was nothing hiding in the shadows of her room.

26, seven stone and still afraid of the dark.

It still wasn’t enough though, even if she was wasting away according to her doctors. They said it was an unattainable goal, disappearing entirely but she was encouraged that she couldn’t quite maker herself out in the mirror. She couldn’t even make out the dark sunken hollows that were here eyes.

“Poor thing doesn’t even know.”

It was a whisper, blowing around her ear and throwing up a few strands of her hair. When she whirled around to see who was there, who was talking , she nausea hit her, her vision blurring further and she stumbled a couple of steps before falling to her knees onto cold ice white linoleum.

“I hated this bit.” Another whisper, a woman this time, and higher above her.

“More than waking up? The realisation?”

“The last thing I felt was the worst thing I felt.”

She tried to push herself up but her arms collapsed and she hit the floor again, lying cold clean surface, the whispers still floating around on the air above her. She looked at the mirror but saw nothing there, no reflection of people, just the walls, just white all around her.

“Please.” She tied to whisper too but it came out as a cough instead, a dry hack of her lungs following.

“She’s asking for help.”

“It’s too late.”

“She doesn’t know.”

She listened, took in what they were saying to each other, their voices fading as her vision did the same. if she could just sleep a little she’d have the energy to get up, she was sure of it.

“What did she die of again?”

“Not sure. Just too small I guess. Body couldn’t take it.” The casual tone scared her and she let her eyes close, no longer fighting it, no longer fighting the voices and the darkness that was approaching out of the white. “She’ll realise soon.”

3rd-Jan-2007 01:01 am -

This poem was originally three stanzas long. Twenty-four lines in total. I realised, a few minutes after writing if how many words I'd wasted, how much ink and paper I'd taken up just to try and say what I wanted to say, when in the end, just the eight lines, the best of the original twenty four, were all I needed.

Daydreaming in ink
no less real
than the synapses
that create the haze
of sex and sensation.
Send our fantasies into the ether
to return to later.

r.l.w

18th-Nov-2006 07:27 pm -

I often write drunk. Actually, I've written most of my poems about drinking while I was drunk. Makes sense I suppose, you really are writing what you know then to some extent.

I'm guessing it can't just be me, that drunkenly gets an idea in my head, picks up a notepad and scrawls over the paper in whatever pen I can reach first. Can't just be me that gets up the next morning slightly hungover (or not), looks at the notepad and wonders what they hell that is supposed to say.

Often I'm embarrassed, even though it's only me that sees, of what I've written while drunk. It's like that part of drinking where you say things you don't mean or they come out wrong when you're talking. It's the same with my writing because I say more with words on the paper than I do with my voice. So I get embarrassed in that same way, embarrassed by what I've written because it's bad writing, a terrible idea or because it just didn't come out right.

Sometimes I do feel it really works, writing drunk. And I know a lot of famous writers and poets were alcholics. Not that I'm saying I should I should write everything drunk because others did but if nothing else, interesting things come out and sometimes more honesty.

This was written drunk, and while this has been edited and made coherent from the original scrawl it's not too bad. But it's one of few that have come out well from the hangover edit.

Advice On Drinking From An Alcoholic

I know
you'd like a drink
but I'd advise against it
as I sip my own pint.

It'll suck you in,
pull you down.

I've seen it happen
while at the bar
with a vodka and coke.

As my own unsteady hand
lines up the empty bottles of bud
another man spends another night
in the cells
and thinks nothing of it
when he wakes the next day.

Neither do I.

r.l.w

18th-Nov-2006 06:46 pm -

I hit my head on Wednesday 8th after slipping in some water at work and ended up in hospital for six hours under observation. I was signed off sick on Monday with 'mild' concussion because I couldn't look at a computer screen without feeling sick. today is actually the first day I've felt okay on the computer for longer than half an hour.

It did mean however that NaNoWriMo was a bust for me. As concentrating on anything made me feel sick. I haven't written anything on it since the 7th. I think, in all honesty, I did well anyway, with 9,000 words written in those seven days. I have the start of something that I can work on now when I like. I'm happy with the start and I can carry on.

It does leave me with a choice of what to work on first, which unfinished novel. I want to make a plan, where I work on a novel every week. Even if it's just a few hundred words. It's something isn't it?

7th-Nov-2006 04:21 pm -

I've found the problem I have with writing novels.

It occurred to me the other day, that by not separating up my NaNoWriMo into chapters now that I am writing one long story and everything is connecting. there is no end and beginning to the bits I am writing and that's why I'm getting stuck in place and unsure what to write or where to continue on.

Chapters can end with one thing and start the next with something unrelated to the last but that's still part of the overall story.

I'd forgotten that and that's why I've had trouble in the past. Hopefully now I can try and get on my way again.

5th-Nov-2006 10:23 am -

Titles are hard.

I have such trouble with titles, because if they don't jump out of me I find it impossible to come up with a title I'm happy with. Sometimes it's easy and obvious. You chose something that's repeated in the poem, or the main point of the poem, if there is one that is more predominate than others. Or you I chose the first sentence, the last sentence or word or whatever might jump out at me.

But if it doesn't jump out then I'm not happy. I end up feeling that the title says too much, or not enough, or is false even. I feel that it has to be the same as the poem, has to tell you what you can expect because surely if you title something Twilight and it's all about birth and twilight is not mentioned or described in anyway then it's fooling the reader, the subject is unexpected.

I understand that this could be the point some of the time, lull someone into thinking its about one thing and hit them with something else. makes for more impact, but those are specific poems, I'm just talking about titles in general.

What I'm getting at, is that I don't know what to call this.

untitled

Tell me something
I don't know
answer questions I ask
tell me, tell me,
tell me everything I need to know,
I need to know everything.

Why the stars burn
and hearts break.

Why hope hurts
and summer is fake.

I've asked over and over again.

I don't know
nearly enough
to satisfy my thirst for knowledge,
my thirst for life,
for everything.

I don't have enough life
to understand,
what makes you tick
but I'll go to my grave trying,
I'll still be learning
when I'm dying.

r.l.w


I could call it Questions, or Knowledge, or Thirst. I'm thinking Thirst might be the way to go but I'm not entirely happy with that either. So what do I do know, give up and have another untitled poem or call it something I'm not happy with and be annoyed with myself (and perhaps the piece) every time I read it?

4th-Nov-2006 04:10 pm -

The beginning of my NaNoWriMo.

*****


She’d found the club through him, almost by accident. Wandering around the West End of London, lost and cold, obviously dressed for a night out, tiny skirt, smaller top, all blue. She didn’t have a handbag, her money was squeezed into the back pocket of her skirt, and she had a three tablets in a tiny plastic bag tucked into her blue pumps. She was ready but she was lost, frustrated and no nearly drunk or high enough to consider any of this funny. She was alone too, she should never have agreed to meet her friends at the club.

They should’ve meet at the subway station, or her flat, or anywhere she knew. Anywhere else because she knew a lot of London but she was out of her depth now and she didn’t like it, her skin was turning blue and her dark hair was losing all it’s style in the November breeze.

She bumped into him looking around her, walking backwards and hitting his solid body and almost falling over in the process. he reached out and righted her, then turned her around to face him, smiling at her the whole time. She stared at him, dumbstruck for a second from having met someone in the dark empty street so late and the fact that he was so pale in the street light she thought he might be dying.

“S-sorry,” she stuttered out the word and he kept smiling. He was strange blue eyes that didn’t quite look alive, a swirl of something was there and his hair was smoky black, slicked back.

“That’s okay, you lost?” His voice was low, his words slow, like he thought carefully about each one and she wanted to listed to each word carefully too.

“Very.” She huffed with a little laughter. “Trying to find this club called Merit, or something like that,”

“Never heard of it,” he replied, looking around him, “what sort of club is it?”

“Dunno, they’re having an Acid House night tonight though.”

“I know a good club for that sort of music.” His words were quicker this time, a little excitement in his voice that had her interested. “Mina, Acid House, rave, all sorts of dance and techno and stuff.” She smiled.

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s only small, new too, and they don’t advertise much.”

“So it’s elite.”

“Nah, we just don’t like the attention.”

“Oh, from the pigs.”

“Exactly.” He looked around again, making her a little nervous but she tried ignore it. “Do you want to come?” The nervous feeling tried to make itself known again, harder this time, but she told it, this wasn’t the first time she had gone to a club, rave or party with a complete stranger. It didn’t go away but she smiled and linked arms with the stranger in question.

“What’s your name?” She asked, letting him lead her down the street.

“Dylan.”

“Ella,” she said in return, smiling at him.

“It’s nice to meet you Ella, I think you are going to love this club.”

30th-Oct-2006 11:43 pm -

People take inspiration from everywhere and anywhere, as do I. I tried to write a bit of a poem about all the poetry inspired by 911 and other such tragedies but it didn't come out very well. Too angry and I wasn't entirely sure about the point of the piece. People take inspiration from other poetry, music, people, places, family, films, everything.

Even TV shows.

Which is the the point of this. I've written two poems, inspired by TV shows. But to the point where you would really notice, because I've taken one scene and turned it into my own. I very much doubt even die hard fans would know where it had come from. Both inspired by episodes of C.S.I of all things, but I've actually forgotten which poem it is.

I have always written parts of me and then anything but me, in poetry. I can imagine it's hard sometimes for people to know who is me and who isn't. But when I take something from somewhere else, like I've done with Undefended (below). I took one scene and ran with it, made the character someone else, my own character who had undergone the same as the character in the show. That one scene spawning the whole poem and becoming something completely different to the episode.

I liked doing it, writing, taking something like that and turning it into something else, even if both the poem and episode ended up in death. I might take it on as an exercise. When I have writers block, watch some TV, and try and find a poem out of scene to make it my own.

undefended

beaten
undefended
with the buckle of a belt,
forced to drink down
undiluted words.

sleep came in snatches
for the first fifteen
years,
for the next fifteen,
strapped in,
every moment
was spent in serenity,
sedated
but not rehabilitated,
you just forgot
why they locked you up
in the first place.

imprints
of belt buckles
not quite
visible,
and she asks
but you can't answer.

nightmares
are really memories
and she leaves,
with a black eye,
it's too much to take.

for you both.

it all comes
back,
his face broken
still
from 30 years ago.

beaten
undefended
you walk away
and into a truck,
belt buckles
imprinted on your back,
FORD
imprinted in your forehead.

r.l.w