Author: Peculiar Things

I write novels, short stories/flash fictions and poetry. I'm interested in the intersection between light and darkness and oddness in all of its forms.

Poems I wish I had written: Number Four

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Day Seven Prompt: A list that isn’t a list

I used https://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/the-silkies/ as inspiration for this.

Poems I wish I had written: Number Four, The Silkies by David Hart

She has my name, for one thing:
Mrs Kendrick.
But she wears it like a siren,
sultry defiance on her lips, sweet as jam.
A flash of red across a grey sea
as she hangs them out to dry.
A wild thing, alone apart from the birds
chattering in lines above.
She whispers to the seals, tells them
secrets of the sailors and their sullen wives.
Offers them wisdom from the sea,
salty and cold. They blink
their black eyes at her
and go back into the water,
where she can’t follow.

The Cafe

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Day Five: Laughter prompt


It was going to be a bad day –
the kind that follows a sleepless night.
I was wrapped in my pain and
I’d snapped at you already;
you’d wandered into a tangle
of worn out feelings, fractured nerves.
We went for coffee because
I needed the caffeine and we both
like cake. Anyway, it was raining.

A tiny cafe with plants and lights.
Candles on the tables.
You told me you could only
wink with one eye. When you tried
with the other it made you smile
on half of your face.
You showed me.
I laughed so hard I nearly
spat out my drink. I couldn’t stop.
Involuntary and helpless.
The rain stopped.

Triolet (for my sons)

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Day Four NaPoWriMo

What I wish for you is this
when everything is said and done:
life and hope and happiness.
What I wish for you is this
Joy and courage and true love’s kiss
and happy moments in the sun.
What I wish for you is this
when everything is said and done.

Petals

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Day Two NaPoWriMo

Petals and barbed wire –
be careful where you stand.
A bicycle at the top of a hill.
The hum of a lorry and
the scream of a metal shutter.
Gone,
leaving words and silence
and an open magazine.
They didn’t understand –
like oil and water, the surface
always moving.
Nobody was beneath,
no fingers were in the ground.
It’s always about love, isn’t it?
Too far to see,
not far enough to forget.
A tiny crab and a lost ring.
The sea and the sky. A lost afternoon
spent searching.

Poem For Chris

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Our love is this.

It is a smile at a bedside.

Linking of arms and

clinking of glass.

A sunrise. A sunset.

It is ease. Joy. Truth.

Its unquestioned presence

wraps around every word.

Our love is this.

Soft hands held together

and cold feet

warming each other.

Knowing. Feeling.

Hurting. Together. Apart.

It is laughter and it

is sorrow.

Our love is this.

It is you, it is me.

A lifetime and a moment.