A Writer’s Work

The girl much complimented for her great ass would rather win a Man Booker. Too bad there is no categ’ry for her taut, perfected writer’s seat. — Today’s light-hearted five-liner conveys unashamed auto-biography. The lack of craft and productivity in my writing annoys me. My attempt at the professional/ aspirational middle class life has been

Nice words #4

stuffs extrapolation exponential resonate apt assimilate peanut chickens plait — As promised yesterday, a current list of favourite words. Bachata should also be included, but it didn’t really fit with the rhyme and rhythm of the list. Follow me (@BeadedQuill) on Twitter for the latest on my current favourite activities, which include AfroCubanLatin dancing. I’m also on Facebook

Poem 104

Escucha My new muse is light in his visits, is late, never calls, smiles his cheek, tells me nothing. So I invent everything. My new muse wears white-soled trainers and a St. Christopher tucked against the tattoo, never seen in full. When the night begins, the muse’s t-shirt smells of clean laundry. My new muse

The Benefits of 320 Kicks

Sixteen years of stiffness ease into front-splits right side and left. “Now you’re showing off.” The yielding body laughs. It remembers how much more it once could do. — Recently, we’ve been doing a lot of limbering up and stretching in classes. During my adolescence, I took ballet lessons three times a week. Perhaps I

Two Poems about Spiders (and a Fish in a Net)

Tarantella Once you have been bitten, through your vein the poison curses courses. Through the pain you writhe and sweat – this fish caught in a net – it dances. — The above is a reworking of this: Tarantella Once you have been bitten through your vein the only way to rid yourself is to