I've been a member of the group since 2000 and have an MSC in Creative Writing from Edinburgh University, specializing in poetry. I’ve had poems published in a number of anthologies, on-line and as part of competitions. In January 2010 I’ll be teaching a Back To Basics Poetry Course for Edinburgh University’s Open Studies Adult Education programme, aimed at beginners/intermediates.

 

I also love the genre of flash fiction; enjoy the challenge of writing for children and have dabbled in script-writing. As part of the Pentlands at War project I interviewed many local people about their war-time experiences and contributed scripts to the community play staged in December 2005. Of all my writing, the latter has been one of the most moving and satisfying experiences. 

 

 

I Want to Step Forwards, Not Backwards (A Poem) - Seven Takes on a Bicycle (A Poem) –
Green Apples (A Poem) – Cold Feet (A Story)

  

I WANT TO STEP BACKWARDS, NOT FORWARDS

 

I don't want the white-paint

splash of a single snowdrop,

or the green finger-nails

of daffodil probing the air.

Not this year.

 

I don't want the sun's shadow

to split the stone thirty seconds

earlier each morning, the first star

to pin the sky thirty seconds later

each night.

 

I don't want to remove

my gloves, fold them away -

just to be caught out as the month

hovers in indecision and I

ask why?

 

I don't want February

with its candles and festivals

burning with light, or some stranger

on a poster, telling me to step into

the dance.

 

I want the curtains opened

to a bloom of roses

scented by a flaming sun.

Your voice saying, Hello,

remember me?

SEVEN TAKES ON A BICYCLE

 

                             I 

He is one with his machine: cleated shoes, helmet,

gloves to soften contact between metal and palm,

legs lycraed, crotch chamoised,

eyes stretched to the summit.

 

                             II

 

A mother bought one for her child - chose a frame

with Superman poised, arm bent, a show of strength -

stood helpless as she watched him fall,

spokes spinning in the dust.

 

III

 

This one curries caution: she wears fluorescent

bib and a helmet, no more than 7 years old

(she's read the manufacturer's instructions).

At all costs she must ensure she has been seen.

 

                                     IV

 

Here they will measure your body to select the perfect frame,

mark centimetre from heel to hip, for you and him.

Entrance you with the silent whirr of balanced wheel,

meet the whim for tandems, tag-alongs and trikes.

 

                                    V

 

And this man, he wears trousers, tucked into his socks,

reflective strips about his ankles, weaves in and out of traffic,

jumps lights and onto pavements, loves freedom, the down-hill

thrill of flying, his long hair banner-like behind him.

 

                             VI

 

There is a whip-crack as his tyre explodes

on the road from Katmandu. Two women stop to help,

test the torn and shredded tube he's cast aside.

Very strong, they say. We take? Both smiling.

 

VII

 

A man rides with rucksack on his back, breathing

the strange air of a new country; elsewhere a girl

turns pedals like the push of cloth through mangle,

each turn saying: There is time. There is time.

 

Seven Takes on a Bicycle, originally titled Le Tour Du Monde, was commended in the Wigtown Poetry Competition 2008, judged by Robert Crawford.

 

 

 

GREEN APPLES 

 

There were no bananas in the war

but there were apples: russets,

with their creamy, velvet flesh;

Cox's Orange Pippins, palm-sized,

like grenades; and Bramley's

for pies, if only you had pastry.

 

(Take a tin of Spam, skim off the fat

and substitute for lard. Take the ration

book to buy your grey-grained flour;

or else march with your chunk

of cheese, 30g per week, to barter

with the woman down the street.)

 

In France there were apples

enough to feed an army

in the fall of '44.

Green apples, unripe

so the taste was sharp and bitter

and the pips were white.  

 

Green Apples won 2^nd prize in the West Dunbartonshire Literature Festival, 2006

 

  

COLD FEET

 

He had to look again when he saw them. The feet. They were pale and naked. In a place they shouldn’t be. On a train. Resting on the top of a seat, five places down from him, displayed like a flag for world peace. Like two doves on a black shed roof, one folded under the wing of the other. Looking at him. Watching. Challenging. He shifted in his seat. The big toe of the right foot was waving to him. He looked away. Embarrassed.

 

No-one else seemed to have noticed. He glanced around. The man beside him had his whole face buried in a book that lay open on the table. Definitely short-sighted. The girl across the aisle was on her mobile phone talking, very loudly, to a friend. “We’re about half-way there right now so we should be arriving on time.” Why did people feel the need to broadcast their mobile trivia to anyone within listening distance? To talk to the phone in those loud and deliberate tones, as though talking to a foreigner or someone who was dim-witted. He hated the things. He would ban them, full stop, if he had his way. Anyone caught using a mobile in public would be fined, heavily, on the spot. He had a sudden urge to snatch the phone from the girl’s ear and stuff it in the dustbin along with the banana skins and coffee cups. He resisted. He looked back to the feet.

 

They were a woman’s feet. Slender and shapely. The very sight of them disturbed him. He loosened his collar with the edge of his finger. There were grey smudges on the soles and heels, where the feet had been in contact with the ground. It was outrageous! To take your socks and shoes off and display yourself like that in public. He thought of his own feet and how they would fill the carriage with a sickly sweet smell if he took off his shoes. And to put them on the top of a seat. Where the next person would place their head. It was filthy behaviour. He hated these free-thinking women with their wise words and instant-access advice. He just knew she’d be wearing gaudy cotton clothing and a glut of bangles and beads. Her feet shifted, the left coming out from underneath and placing itself on top of the right. He caught a flash of silver. An ankle bracelet. A silver ring on the wedding toe.

 

His thoughts were disturbed by a rustle of clothing and bags. Someone was standing, moving down the aisle towards him, another woman. He saw her glance at the feet as she passed and he tried to catch her eye. He wanted a companion in his condemnation. “Have you seen those feet?” he wanted to shout. “Have you seen how filthy they are? We don’t know where they might have been.  What germs they’ll be carrying. Swine-flu, avian flu, some dreadful disease.”  He felt the hairs rising on the back of his head just thinking about it. But the woman avoided his eye and walked on past. He often had that effect on people. Being ignored. Being side-tracked. If only he’d travelled by aeroplane.  British Airways wouldn’t tolerate feet on seats. He could have asked the air hostess to deal with it. But he couldn’t bear all the heightened security at the airports these days. The queues and the jostling. The thought of terrorists hiding in plain clothing. Being asked to remove your shoes. All that scanning through bags, strangers touching your personal possessions. And the body searching. He was always chosen – no matter what expression he held on his face. He hated the way their hands always lingered a little too long between his legs. He had to fight an overriding urge to slap the officials. How he hated it. The whole body business. He would ask her, very politely, to please remove her feet.  He stood up, straightened out the creases in his suit, squeezed past the man with the book, and made his way down the aisle.

 

Also Published On-line at:

http://thiscollection.wordpress.com Poems Nos. 89 & 90

http://textimage.eca.ac.uk/twoheads  Writing/illustration collaboration: Anita John & Kylie Tesdale

Google: scottish-book-trust-days-like-story-index