My First Steps

With ice-cold determination
I crawl across the room
This time I’ll succeed.
This time I’ll rise
and take a stand. This time …

I pause beside the low table
contemplating, waiting
for exactly the right moment
to reach, grab, push and pull
myself into a bright new future,
filled with excitement
and infinite possibilities.

I turn and survey
the unbroken plain of Axminster
that stretches as far as I can see.

Over there,
in the farthest wall,
stands my goal:
the wood-panelled,
brass-handled gateway
to another world.

Upright now, I lift my hands
and lean a little,
the way I’ve seen
you do a thousand times;
left leg … right leg …
left, right, left …

stumble, fall …
and scream for Mum.
Safely cradled in her arms,
I smile. Next time
I will get it right.
Next time …

there will be no stopping me,
no boundary I will not cross,
no limits to what I might achieve.

© 2013 A B Maude

It’s Open Link Night at dVerse, where Claudia is hosting this week’s poetry extravaganza.

The Romance of Scotland?

In the heart of this land of rain and mist:
in the cities where wealth sits side by side
with squalor, in the islands where the drift
of time is slow and easy as the tide,
on snow-capped peaks and in dark wooded glens,
there lives a myth on which our national pride
depends; the mirage of a time when
the nation’s people all lived free as waves;
the facts are otherwise. The clan chieftains
expected loyalty, from birth to grave,
from every person living on their land,
but thought of them as little more than slaves
and exploited the labour of their hands –
on this was built the romance of Scotland?

© 2013  A B Maude

Today I am hosting Form for All at dVerse. We’re looking at Terza Rima and the sonnet form that was developed from it. The link goes live at 8:00pm BST – that’s 3:00pm EST in the USA.

We Didn’t Bring Coconuts

This train is for Inverness
calling at Markinch, Ladybank, Perth ….
The rest of the announcement escapes
my attention as I board behind
a large, bearded man – khaki shorts,
red T-shirt and rucksack. He makes
his way to the first bay
with a table, so I pass
on to the next, choose the window seat
facing the direction of travel –
coach B, seat 11 – take out my lap-top
and prepare to write
an article; the deadline is tight.

As we move away from platform sixteen,
I am joined by three Americans, a man
and two women with reservations:
seats B11 to 13. I offer
to move, but they won’t hear of it.
It’s not like this train is packed.

Edinburgh’s suburbs are soon left behind, then
Is that Edinburgh International Airport?
It’s tiny. Defending my home I respond,
You can get direct flights to New York
from here … OK … Newark, New Jersey.

Progress is smooth as we pass through
Dalmeny. In full tour guide mode now
I announce, as casually as I can,
You are about to cross one
of the seven wonders
of the modern world,
and, right on cue, the startling blue
water of the Firth of Forth appears,
one hundred and fifty-eight feet below.

And now the conversation flows.
Does this train go to the Holy Grail
castle? You know, Monty Python.
Where is that, Stirling?
Doune, I reply, and on their map
show them why they won’t see it today.

We didn’t bring coconuts, he says
as we make an unscheduled stop
at Inverkeithing and go on
to speak of killer rabbits,
men named Tim, oppression
of the poor, huge …
tracts of land
and shrubberies.

Chuckles shake his body
as we pass through Kirkcaldy,
scenes from the film playing
on the inside of his closed
eyelids. By Ladybank
he is asleep, perhaps dreaming
of swallows carrying coconuts.

© 2013 A B Maude

Submitted (late) for dVerse Poets’ Pub Open Link Night 95, where you’ll recognise the host.

Behind the Red Door

Today was my first day leading the new Creative Writing group at the Grassmarket Community Project in Edinburgh. I’ve never done anything quite like this before, so I expect the learning curve will be pretty steep. However, today’s group seemed to go pretty well.

As it was the first time we had met as a group, we did all the usual setting up sort of things; introductions, what I’m hoping to do with the group etc. One important thing that we agreed on as a group is that everyone writes to the given prompts – and that includes me. So that is what we did.

When we’d finished introducing ourselves etc there was really only time to write to one prompt – normally there will be two, which may or may not be connected to each other. Today I gave the group this prompt: Behind the red door. The responses were varied, ranging from the slightly surreal but very humorous to real-life observation. Here’s what I came up with – after I’d had time to rewrite and edit my original piece.

—————————————————–
Behind the Red Door

Bert stretched out his hand and reached for the polished handle. “Never, ever try to go behind the red door,” they had said, but how could he resist?

“There’s something in there they don’t want me to find; something they’re desperate to keep hidden.” Images of gold and jewels flashed through his mind. Maybe this door was the gateway to another, better world where people like him were loved, not abandoned like he had been.

The smooth brass felt cold in his grasp. “Just a quick turn, pull and….”

It was the smell he noticed first: damp and earthy like a freshly dug grave. But there was something else: something raw, dangerous, electric and alive; something that tasted bitter in his mouth. He knew that smell, but right now the word was hiding in a deep corner of his mind; somewhere that he could not reach.

Quickly Bert slipped into the newly open space in front of him, and pulled the door closed. “Damn!” he thought. The forbidden word thrilled through his mind as the chill darkness closed around him. “That was stupid.” He reached back to where he knew the door handle was and found …

nothing! There was nothing behind him. Just a moment before there had been a red wooden door; now there was empty space. He turned round and carefully lifted both his hands in front of his face. There was definitely nothing there now. He reached his to his left and found only cool air. To his right …?

“Oww!” The pain shot through his arm and exploded in his head. He shook his hand, hearing the click of his wrist and the flick of fingers against thumb. More cautious now, he reached to his right again and found the rough surface of a stone wall. “A wall might mean a switch,” he reasoned, “and a switch means light.”

Five minutes later he stopped searching. If there was a switch on this wall, he could not find it. Now it was decision time. “Go on or …?”

But back was no longer an option. Back meant back to the door, the solid, red-painted door through which he had come; the door that was no longer there.

“And you can’t really stay here, can you? On then; there’s no other choice.”

And that was when the unremembered word jumped into his head. The sharp, acrid taint in the air? He knew what it was now. It was the unmistakable smell of fear.

© 2013 A B Maude

—————————————————–

On the bus coming home, it occurred to me that this is the first piece of prose fiction I have written in about 30 years! I’ve written college essays and sermons, and loads of poems, but not prose. It’s not much, I know, but it’s a start.

One last thing; leading the group? It was fun – I’m already looking forward to next week.

Them and Us: A Question of Perspective

I
“Why do they hate us?” he asks.
A middle-aged, middle-class,
middle-of-the-road white American
addresses an audience of Scots
and asks in all seriousness,
“Why do they hate us?”

They hate being they
while we remain us.
They hate being foreign,
suspected outsiders;
our lack of trust.
They hate that so often
we view them as less
and strive to exclude them
from our affluence.

II
“Why do they hate us?” she asks,
her eyes hollowed by horror,
staring at the camera panning
from her face to follow a tank
rolling across the ruins of her home.
“Why do they hate us?”

They hate that they live
in near-constant dread.
They hate hoping that rockets
will pass overhead.
They’re tired of bullets
and bombs on the bus.
They too ask the question,
“Why do they hate us?”

III
“Why do they hate us?” he asks.
He cannot disguise the pain
in his eyes, standing beside
the smouldering remains:
his church, his children, his wife.
“Why do they hate us?”

IV
“Why do you hate us?” she asks.
“You make medicine too costly
to treat my disease,
your food goes to waste
while my children don’t eat.
Your missiles and warheads
threaten our peace,
you care only for your sons
when they die in our streets,
but our sons are precious;
when you shoot them, they bleed.
Why do you hate us?”

Over at dVerse, Victoria has us focussing on voice and thinking about things that we are passionate about for her Meeting the Bar prompt. The doors open at the pub at 8:00pm BST (3:00pm EST in the US)

Yves Klein

blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue bl  #002fa7 ue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue
blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue

© 2013 A B Maude

Just a bit of fun to mark Yves Klein’s birthday. For those who have never heard of him – I hadn’t until a good friend had to write a college essay about his work, which she handed in on blue tissue paper – Yves Klein was (in)famous for producing monochrome blue canvases; not any old blue mind you – he only used a shade which is now known as International Klein Blue. The RGB code for this shade is #002fa7. His other claim to fame was his exploration of anthropométries – the use of live models to apply paint using their bodies as “brushes”.

Trip and Fall

I pad through the harmony
of God’s newly made world,
barefoot across
the luxuriant grass
in his perfect garden,
to the only tree
from which I must not eat.

Must not? Why?
Because if I eat
then I will die.

I hear the voice
cast subtle doubt
on my certainty,
insistent,
pressing me
to raise my hand
and seize knowledge
beyond my dreams.

Unable to resist,
I lift the precious fruit
to my mouth,
sink teeth into sweet flesh
and fill my world
with discordant I tunes.

© 2013 A B Maude

At dVerse today Karin Gustafson has given us the word “Trip” as our poetics prompt. You might want to head over there to see what this incredibly talented group of international poets comes up with in response. You might even want to write and link a poem yourself… smiles. The link goes live at 8:00pm BST, that’s 3:00pm Eastern time in the USA.