Mum’s The Word

Every year we decorate the living room for Christmas. How this is accomplished has varied in structure and style but essentially involves ceiling decorations, a homemade garland for the archway and of course decorating the tree. The tree. It was fake and then after smallest was born we opted for a real tree. The process starts by attending the farm to select said tree and ends with the turning…

My Dad was born in 1938. He moved around in his first couple of years to avoid the risk of serious bombing. He was born in a Garrison town. He ended up not far from there, in a place called Kelevedon in Essex, where he spent many evenings sheltering from bombs anyway. He remembered the moment when it was suddenly not exciting anymore. There was a reality behind it. He remembers the V1s and the…

.. In the Suburbs, the third studio album by Arcade Fire, turned 15 last week. And the novel A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara was celebrated in last Sundays edition of The Observer, as it approaches its tenth year of publication. Other upcoming, and apparently noteworthy dates, include the 30th anniversary of Garbage by Garbage on August 15th and the 70th birthday of the Disney film,…

I have collected so much stuff in the 16 years I have been living here that when I said last week that I have made about a hundred trips to the dump, although I was exaggerating, it can’t be far off. The guys there say hello to me now when I drive in. one of them even asked how the move was going today. As I said to him, it’s OK. The rooms have all been sorted out – unwanted furniture has been…

Its happened. We have made the decision to leave the house we have called their home for the past 16 years. In the end , because it was a decision that was toyed with for about 18 months, it happened quickly, and within 24 hours of speaking to the landlord I told him i didnt want to buy it and i would be leaving as soon as I had found somewhere else to live. So this week the estate agent…

It is because,said the little girl We are on the edge of here and there,and her arm swept out,A dramatic gesture A severe expression sat upon her face A brow furrowed like the lines of dunesBeyond her.We stand on the precipice of what is about to be andwhat is possible,That is why I love to be beside the sea.

LIke a piece of verse which takes me through layers of thought and places in my mind; i always find myself back with you. And despite not knowing what version of life is right i know what i will find when i get there as i know now that that it is the feeling that i must find and not a named destination.

Do you remember when shopping queueswere longer than an aisle , stretching beyond achievement;A gaggle of people inPavement mounting silence,When spaces between uscould be seen asSocial graces,Feet on places designated for covered faces forwardon streets now blighted by a thousand feet,Where disease is replaced by  dis-ease-Mounting pressureFor sureAs hell I would replace these times with…

He sat there as shallow as a screen  collecting weight and opinions. All the same, there was something about  him, something that caught a corner  of my mind that’s penetrable, by a certain type of person in a certain way, that steals and sways me  like a drunken woman; eyes foggy  with the mist of a thousand summer  mornings promising the heat of  A silver lining and the rain of a…

Days are often spent in Halstead where Dad lives, And I lived until I was nineteen but Time does not exist there. The town where I grew up. When I am there, I cannot escape past feelings, the places still exist in my minds eye as they did then and when I’m in town I’m searching for old faces Which sometimes emerge though physically older than I remember Eyes sometimes look me up and down in…

There was a certain inevitability about the early summer heat. That it would run out. Too much too soon – not like the year before last, when you just knew that it would go on and on and on- and it did. It was relentless and so has the rain been this summer. Like nothing I can remember and granted, I don’t remember everything, but I do remember summertime. There is something about the summer…

I’m a little bit quieter now,Not so eager to shout out loud,Be proud about some thingTo layer it with meaning Unnecessarily, thickening what wasWith reinterpretation.Compartmentalizing what doesn’t needTo be in a box,Or on show or the focus of who I amI just am,A little bit quieter now.

i got hold of the book which he had said was probably long gone. It was tucked away , in respite care, away from over interpretation; likely in these days of misunderstanding and over analysis with the best of intention to steady a mind , lacking constancy. He had said it was long gone in that sardonic way of his ,without much depth, of course he didnt realise what the book meant. it wasnt…

“Are you coming over tomorrow Splods”, my Dad asks me during our usual evening telephone call. “Yes Dad yes”, I reply. I am about to say that he knows this, as its Thursday and I always come over on a Thursday, but before I can get beyond know, he has started speaking again, “It’s just I rather hoped you might go to Sainsbury’s for me ……. I have a list you see…”, and I hear the strain in his…

A poem from my newest Poetry collection called Liminal.

If I looked at yesterday, it would have your face in it A reflection in today’s mirror which shines so brightly You could almost be here with Your hand raised, clenching a belt; I shook so hard that I had to have an extra-large plate of food I didn’t eat, because I was a good girl And good girls don’t want and they don’t feel  A goddamn thing.

Some days you just have to go with the flow........

Let’s not pretend that life isn’t  chaotic most of the time Perhaps we dress it up as order and define ourselves as in control ,and sometimes, for long stretches, days roll over and over and we might feel that we are there. We have reached At this point though there is the possibility that we might become compacent. The complacency , nurtures the growth of a backlog of tasks which start as…

Sometimes hope is just putting one foot in front of another and facing another day. It is learning to be in a moment without allowing A million other potential moments To come crashing in on you Imploding the maybes and scattering the possibility of now.