Dawn has a sickly hue, breaking even earlier than that shunted hour shoving forward, molecules in disarray electrons buzzing through nerves, my face feeling slapped. Thoughts misfire, stutter, retreat, I need sleep. Propelled ahead an hour but the bones object and stall, travelling forward heavy, a canon ball destined to fall, landing with a solid whump. I am flesh, not fit to speed through time, a pitchfork at my back, my cells deconstructed, reconstructed, a timesheet noting I slack. I close my eyes and try, and try to go back.
I am very proud to have had my prose poem “burr” published by Thi-Wurd, together with brilliant pieces by other new and exciting authors. find it @thi-wurd.com, #107 word stories.
#thi-wurd.com, #107 word stories, #burr, #writing classes
Pour out your skies
of rain
damp tears, fetid fears
I’m feeding the machine again
and then
there is this thing of
connectivity – do we need
more
or less
connection?
The confidence
to connect
or disconnect,
or reconnect, when connection
is required,
or is connection
the last thing in the world
we want.
That race, the heat of the mountain road. The crash of my bike as it fell. A hazy cottage. Three walls and a hanging door. The shade of a Cyprus tree where the roof once was, where my eyes struggled to adjust, where half blind I saw a table, felt a chair supporting me, my hands gripping its arms. Before closing my eyes I glimpsed a woman ladling out a measure.
What could I have seen at all? Knowing only that she tipped the measure into a mug of milk, her voice urging – drink, sip slowly, feel the texture. Sip, and feel, sip and feel, sip and feel. My voice echoing hers, her words gliding over my tongue; a voice soothing a ragged throat, flowing down to a beating heart, holding it like a hand cupping the head of a new-born.
And all the while, the woman is building a fire. I hear the placing of sticks in a grate, the striking of a match, a brief phosphorescent smell, the crackle of pinecones catching light.
And later, remembering the coolness of the ruin, the smoothness of milk, and remounting my bike, how the sun dipped below the peaks, to the bleating of a goat, and the sweet buzz of honeybees on mountain thyme.
Pour out your skies
of rain
damp tears, fetid fears
feeding the machine again
and then
there is this thing of
connectivity – do we need
more
or less
connection?
The confidence
to connect
or disconnect,
or reconnect, when connection
is required,
or is connection
the last thing in the world
we want.
My Eccentric Friend 