Writing

AJ

Prayer

For the Sunday Muse prompt #235:

**

Breath by breath, bead by bead,
the prayers of this parched heart rise.
Lips quivering with the yearning of a
thirsty heart, pursed to take the blood
and flesh, blessed, transubstantiated.
Kneaded by hands washed seven times-
stripped of yeast and the things that beguile-
we come to take the bread in hope
to shed our turpitude, arise anew.
In the ritual of rest and reset,
we speak our words into the world,
lingering in the liminal space
between asking and accepting

AJ

Kneeling in the Light

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #234. Image source: Rosie Ann Prosser.:

**

Still, in the silent solitude of repose,
I survey the face that peers back at me.
Three candles flickering in the dark,
a space suffused by a mellow, yellow light
pushing back against the dark.

The ghosts of grief, railing against delight
fight the light, their dissonant sounds
a constant clang. But in light, there is delight
to know this is to rest, here.

AJ

On the 49 from Northcote

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #188 and the 49 from Northcote to White City:

**

On the 49 from Northcote,
a young woman sits. She
folds her hands, hangs her feet,
and lets the world without slip by
– grey granite yielding to gleaming glass,
verdant green disappearing behind the whorls
of potted plants. Somewhere outside,
the river wends its way across the plain.
Above, in a fleeting moment a giant
clanging bird roars. Somewhere
on the corner of Shepherd’s Bush and King’s
an old man, wraps his hands around himself
as his breath draws wisps in the winter wind.
As it was in the beginning and now is
the river remains. We all like small lights
flicker, and then are gone.

AJ

Before You Call Me By This Name

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #186:

**

Before you call me by this name
and shrink the sum of all my days
down to this facade, this still-life
of sepia pixels flickering like daylight
disappearing before the force of dusk;

Before you place the burdens of
history around my neck, till
it begins to break beneath the weight
of expectation, you must know
that this name is one of a myriad,
each bequeathed by the ones
who came before, a prayer
that we might see, the small lights
in our being.

AJ

Still Water…

For The Sunday Muse prompt #180:

**

We come to water
to be washed and be reborn,
this hand cupping the curvature
of the face, the other dipped,
drenched in the very fluid
from which we come, the space
between the fingers of that hand
filled with the water, straining
against the strictures
of the hand.

We come to water
to lose ourselves in the beauty
of the simple things, to see
the dirt of our days and the detritus
of the night loosen, dissolving
until we see ourselves pristine
whole again, the way we
have imagined in our dreams
a lip, an eye, lingering still
in the mirror of still water.

AJ

Homecoming…

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #179:

**
The scent of life and of living
hangs heavy on this place,
Here, where the weight
of memory and first things
lose themselves in the labyrinth
of the mind.

First step, first walk, first smile.
First  words – garbled beyond
recognition but finding
the connection between
the proffered body
and sustenance.

First leaving, first returning
then leaving – the first steps
of a  lonesome journey
to a far country, of seeking
the wily welcome of the open world
calling – siren-like – from beyond
the walls that time has built.

The days have their dangers
and the nights their flights of fancy
but in moments of respite and clarity
I find myself here. Home.
Always returning.

AJ

Becoming…

For The Sunday Muse #178:

**

In the wisps
of the smoke blown
in a moment
of recalcitrance
the man
he might yet be
lurks. The man
he now is
and the one
he once was
yielding in the moment
to the future
better one.
Becoming.

 

 

 

AJ

Leaving…

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #176:

**
When in the stillness
of the night, sleep
slips away, slowly –
my eyes heavy
with the weariness
of deferred respite –
I remember the road
from there to here,
how it turns
upon itself, snaking
this way and then that
and then disappears.

I remember that leaving
is for the living –
those who have learned
to gift the blessing
of forgiving
and forgetting
to the past.

AJ

Being Seen

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #175, and the shades of that garden it reminds me of:

**
I am dreaming again
of days gone by,
of nights  – heavy
with the weight
of solitude –  lightened
by the joy of discovery,
a light born of tumult
in an age of innocence.
This is what the
glow-worms in their
flitting feel,
each shimmer
of light a whisper
into the night
to see and be seen.

AJ

Beauty

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #174:

**

The empty glass
catches the fading light,
its pale blandness
turned in an instant
into a merry band of colours
wending their way
around its rim.

In the still moments
of yielding to the night
we see, through heavy eyes
that in the brilliance of
the radiant light, and the shadows too
there is beauty, everywhere