Friday 19 June 2015

Guest Poet 19 - Uncle's Ghost by Ananya S Guha.

Even though the story is finished for this year, i am still getting submitting in which are simply too good quality not to use.

First up is returning friend Ananya S Guha who offers this excellent poem 'Uncle's Ghost'.

He sat Buddha like
shaven, ashen
he sat otiose, no looks
moribund, but sitting.

Me thirteen
me in myths and shrouds
me who knew ghosts
but hadn't met
me me me.
My eyes became a traffic snarl
I hid under the blanket
unmoved he stared, meditative
smiling, almost laughing
after all Buddha like
my first incursion to prayer,
sleep and oblivious meditation.

Buddha like. Ghost? Buddha was
dead centuries ago.
But now this Buddha, terrible, smiling
sitting at my supine feet. Incantation.

My anthropological uncle in
one of his excavations- digging!

Thursday 30 April 2015

Part XXX Part A and B and guest poet 18 - Jeffarama!














(Last two pieces today. It's been a long
and eventful journey but has become apparent
to myself over the past few days that this story
is not over and hopefully health permitting,
there will indeed be a Ghost Story Part III
next month. 

As a special afterthought which may lead into
Part III, my special buddy Jeffarama! (http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/jeffarama!)
has done a alternative ending 

In the meantime, thanks for reading)

XXX (A)

Creating a breaking sound
Your words of agreement
Was almost overturned

Then unpacked
Into the boot of a car
Blowing on panes of glass

Resurrecting itself
In a verbal affirmation
Of the truth

Translated into a slight tear
‘It’s only going
to get worse
He was just the first’

Vanishing down the staircase

With me in tow. 


XXX (B)

Vanishing across railway dust
Tranmissing effects
Into hand held mysteries

Shooting down hopes
Freckled into spots

Migrating into different towns
Kicking through other doors

She said it was only going
To get worse
Before we even got
Down the staircase

And a few dozen deaths
Was nothing to what was going
To happen next

Shifting answers
Into another adventures

Before surfacing again
At the beginning of
Another story. 











 

Don't think that's the end of the matter...

Ironic really
the headline said it all
'Innocent commuters massacred'

Ironic as it was on the paper stall
outside the station
the atrocities happened

Not  even a natural disaster
no, that may have been acceptable
but as usual, a complete waste,
a senseless loss of innocent life

What gives you the right?
to take my life
to cut me down in my prime
to dictate the day that I die...

I hope you get
everything you deserve
although it's nothing compared
to what I have in mind

Remember to watch your back
for the rest of your life
if you think you're being watched
those eyes are mine

My soul won't rest
Until I track you both down.

Jeff Dawson April 2015
















Wednesday 29 April 2015

Part XVIX A and B
















(As said yesterday, in a attempt to keep this down to just April
I am now writing two poems a day.

The poems today follow straight on from Part 28.

Can you wait until the conclusion tomorrow? (with a special
epilogue wrote by our last guest poet too)


XXVIX (A)

Shut close
Those words followed me
Cresting over the balcony
Into a muffled deadness

Shelved into blurred lights
With his face staring
Into my eyes
All the way down

Thirsting for blood
Leaving footprint
After footprint
In my memory
Cutting through my relief
With an axe

Slipping away

In a broken lullaby.


XXVIX (B)

Ripping up the tension
You would have kissed me
If you could and told me
I’d be okay

Threading away my pain
And the blood
All over my ripped jeans
And trainers

Thickened in
A sharp transfer
Seeping through

Drenched in passion
As much as
A lingering sense of guilt.


Tuesday 28 April 2015

Part XXVIII Part A and B and Guest Poet 17 Stormy Gail Dormire - Approaching Station 12

















(The people who know me better may remember
it's my birthday today but still no stopping me
on Napwrimo. As previously hinted, there will
be extra pieces to help me finish off the story
and I can now confirm from today for the last three
days, there will two poems per day. Talk about 
making life harder for myself - lol. Today's poem
is Andy with the killer finally meeting)


(Also included is our latest guest poem from Stormy Gail Dormire
who offers Approaching Station 12 directly set in this world)


XVIII (A)

Broken into pieces
He pumped shell after shell
Into the spaces
Round the doorarch
Above me

Spraying it so much
It looked like
He was redecorating
Rather than trying to kill me

Screaming ‘Die, Die, Die’
With such force
It sounded like
He was trying to will me
To death
When the bullets didn’t

Losing the thrill
When he kept pumping
Them out
And none of them hit me
Before proclaiming
Eventually
‘How?’

‘I’m not sure
I know myself’
I said walking

Slowly towards him.


XVIII (B)

Slim as a flute
Accompanied by flames
And muffled cries

I wish I could say
I grabbed the rifle
And threw the bullets
Off the balcony
Headlong into
The doorway

Sculpting hope
From the worst of misery

Packed within sandwiches
Experimenting in voices
In miniature
Laced in pessimism

Instead Doubling over
The balcony together
With only one
Further sentence spoke

‘This is only the beginning,
‘This is only the beginning’ 

 








Approaching Station 12

Go back, Go-ooo Back, go back, go-ooo back
the wheels rolling down the track
seemed to repeat over and over and over
Go back, Go-ooo Back, go back, go-ooo back

From deep in the shadows it watched and wondered
“Why was this man not seeing the peril approaching
Why hire supposedly safeties best security - if
He only sits and watches the comely women boarding and leaving
Following their every move inappropriately”
While - right in the snipers line of vision
The train approaches the train station

On the train
An innocent child is coloring in her mother's new mystery novel
A clown is selling balloons ahead in the next car
The right Father Henry reads to sister Ann about the  apostle
Immigrants from far off India watch their new world out the window
The conductor strolls congenially down the aisle greeting all
“Station Twelve  ahead.” He calls

And the wheels rolling down the track
continue to repeat over and over and over
Go back, Go-ooo Back, go back, go-ooo back

The train lunged and shivered
As the vaporous shadow crystallized
Lunging to grab the cord above the guard's head
All business now the guard fights the spector
While the passengers cower in fright
And the train keeps rolling toward the station

The specter moans
Does anyone hear?
The guard has fought him off
He howls with frightful frustration
The sniper is wait---ing, wait--ing, wait -ting
Your doo-oomed , all doo-oomed

And the wheels rolling down the track
continue to repeat over and over and over
Go back, Go-ooo Back, go back, go-ooo back

Tugging her mothers sleeve, she points him out
“Can’t we help him, he wants us to listen”
The little girl cries
While the immigrants hide between the seats
And father Henry holds up his crucifix
The clown rushes in and pulls the cord
Slamming the conductor to the floor

The train rolls into station 12
But no one feels the bullets when they come
All are safely hiding between the seats
The specter disappears into the air
His duty done
His little girl and wife will make it home

(clarice) 04/10/2015

Monday 27 April 2015

Part XXVII

















(Part XXVII is the start of the end and a final meeting)


XXVII

Overtaking themselves
The bullets sprayed
All over the floor

Reconstituted in screams
With each shot

Dancing to a private dance
Staining chaos
Rotting in the air

Offering a different story
With each death
In honey eyed intent

Turning violence into prose

Madness into hope
All the way
To the top

And I faced him

Face to face. 

Sunday 26 April 2015

Part XXVI
















(Part XXVI moving slowly and slowly towards the end game
is the Ghost and Michelle)

XXVI


Stalking on victims
Alfloat on imaginary highs

Swallowing up their panics
Like a vampire getting high
On emoition

Pausing for thought
In-between each shot
For a few seconds

Letting them think
That was it
And when they moved
He shot again

And again

Shooting some victims
Over and over

And puzzled
When shooting one
Turning back
A few seconds
To discover the body was gone

And was stood there
Half a metre up the platform.


Saturday 25 April 2015

Part XXV









(Only 5 more poems to go. Part XXV is Andy pinned down by the sniper)

XXV


Treading the boards
In a subtle tease
Slicing the truth
Chained to the ground

Her words tangled
Around my thoughts
In wind chimes

Gleaming between
The sunset
And the edge
Of that platform

Snapping bullets
Around me
Like an invisible wall

Jolting a distraction
Equivocatory  allowing me
To keep ducking and diving
Between bullets.