November #4

Old Lady with Cat

While my body snores

at last, on these humid nights,

he, my black-haired darling,

prowls the cool outdoors.

Mornings he's nearly always

back, sharing my bed,

accepting an embrace

before requiring breakfast.

If I wake up still alone,

by the time I open the door

he's running up the front steps

calling a greeting.

We remember the others

who were here, whom we loved,

but now they are ghosts, and this

is the end time (may it be long)

when we, being finally only two,

are all-in-all to each other.

In age we learn the true things —
e.g. this is important, e.g. this is enough.

— Rosemary Nissen-Wade

November #3

To sleep: perchance to dream…

I never know what to expect

each night I go to bed;

the ravelled sleeve of care stays ravelled,

tattered and in shreds.

In fact the action packed

into the theatre of my dreams

frays the fabric of my mind

and soundtracks it with screams.

I've swooped and soared above the clouds

and plummeted to earth,

borne immolation many times

relived countless births

from the point of view of mother

and from that of child,

I've even mothered fox cubs

then released them in the wild.

I've wondered where my husband is

while marrying another,

had long chats with dead relatives,

rowed furiously with Mother;

grieved for people still alive,

partied with the feted,

was once hailed saviour of the world

and simultaneously hated.

The only common factor is

my dreams are never bores;

I'm continuously fascinated

while my body snores.

— Michele Brenton

November #2

The World They've Created Comes To A Full Stop

The day my daughter saw

that I did not know what might live

inside a basketball,

and my impatient reply

of 'I don't know, maybe fairies'

sealed my fate.

I was no longer her goddess,

and she turned to the outside world

to see who might ascend the throne.

Friends' mothers, her grandmother, teachers

all failing that steep set of steps

sooner or later,

so Britney Spears and the Spice Girls

adorned her bedroom walls,

and she chanted nightly:

'Oops, I did it again'

while my bath water reverberated in time

to their backbeat songs.

I was never again offered the throne or sceptre,

but deity light shone upon me briefly,

when she had her first baby,

and I was the only one
who could rock him to sleep.

— Helen Patrice

November #1

Or Any Other Kind Of Pen: a Romance

One word lingers over a blank page

ephemeral, almost transparent, fading

as it wafts away uncaptured.

A second word strays in its wake

vanishes beyond thought, distracted

by a fascination.

There is a mild stir. 

A sentence appears.

For how long? And what was the crime? 

Dragging itself out into the open,

dangling voice and story in front of a jury?

Off the page with you!

Don’t even think of it!

Out!

But: mightier than the sword, a pen 

strides into view, leaps to hand, brandishes

ballpoint, strikes a blow for freedom and

in one frenzied dash crashes across paper

leaving a stream of consciousness

full of mixed metaphors

and darlings needing

to be murdered.

Words tremble as the world they’ve created

comes to a full stop.

— Jennie Fraine