Kiyomizudera on Christmas Day

A samurai dog,

Small, white, posing,

Enjoying the attention,

Tourists snapping shots,

Calling kawai.

The postman passes by.

Crispy, burnt out leaves,

Hanging on in the cold,

Waiting out the snow,

Shielding the drop,

From the floating floor,

The postman darts through a shop door.

Pottery and green tea shops,

Ice-creams, sweets, biscuits,

Steaming bowls of macha,

Clerks calling in the tourists,

With tasters and a bright grin,

The postman revs his engine.

Kimono and small zori steps,

Bright silks and grey clad men,

Kyoto spread out below,

Grey snow clouds gathering,

Around the surrounding mountains,

The postman dodges a tourist and drives on in.

Castle Cary Station

Sunshine and a strangely crowded platform.
Same old sinking feeling,
Although it was never you before.
Neither of us wanted me to wait for your train.
Remember the old push down windows?
Beeping automatic doors aren't the same,
Though this is the same game.

I used to put my hands over my ears,
As the engines roared and gathered speed.
While you relished the whoosh and rush.
Waving goodbye until it was out of sight.
The empty car unwelcoming as we returned to routine.
You'd be chatting, chatting, chatting.
I'd be watching, watching, watching.

We knew however regular this goodbye it wasn't quite sane.
Parceling up our tiny heartbreaks into ribbon normality.
Twenty years on we remember that practiced neutrality.
Stoicism is key. A smile and a casual see you soon.
Connived pretence that you'll be out to visit.
Not daring more words; that same quick hug,
Since we began living apart.

For a jealous moment I hate all those genuinely casual,
Goodbyes happening around us.
But as it is I turn before there are tears.
The waiting car a sanctuary for temporary insanity,
Before I return to family reality.
In the first few days I don't utter your name.

Now we've turned the corner;
Half way point. We know this bit well.
You; head down, focus on the job in hand and,
Before you know it; normality has returned.
Me; sociable, planning and counting. Anxious to,
See that you know,
I'm coming home.

Christmas Eve

Tinny bell,

Secrets and the dark;

a dusty smell.

Love sketched on my heart.

Santa Claus,

As played out by you,

Second-hand call,

Not that we ever knew.

Powder scent,

Your voice on the phone,

The day you went;

Only the past on loan.

We were made,

To be left behind.

This past decade,

Thoughts of the Christmas-kind.  

NaNoWriMo

I've been absent from this little collection for a while because this year I've entered the NaNoWriMo challenge. National Novel Writing Month but it's a particularly enjoyable acronym I think. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days; the month of November. At first the notion is absurd, then somehow exciting. It must be possible. Here is a site that will give me numbers and graphs and show me how much those few hundred extra words a time can make the difference. I'm a list maker and a word count break-downer so it was too good for me to refuse. I want to write everything like this. With a little count down bar that tells me three hundred more words will take a day off of my time. 
The other big bonus (and continual millstone) is that for this to work, and be as painless as possible, I have to write every day. There are no days off. When published authors tell you that the secret to being successful is writing every day I never doubted them but neither did I ever really understand. Whatever else you are, whatever else you do, you are a writer, every day and that sinks into your psyche pretty fast. 
The joy of NaNoWriMo is that you need to get the words down. It's a rough draft and so every day you write. The questions, the should it go this way or this way can't be mulled over endlessly; a decision must be made and the words written down. There's no time for the doubt to set in. All that can come at the end. 
For me it's a chance to write something that I have wanted to write for some time. Last year I travelled to a place where everyone's lives were changed by something big and bad. I've been trying to make some sense of it ever since. I found myself toying endlessly with these half ideas and difficult thoughts and then here I was exactly a year on from my trip and faced with the reason to get on and bang out a story. I chose my point of view, jotted down a few general points of direction and sat down to write. The first two days were heady, I lived a high of excitement that I could finally make sense of this. I could lose myself in my imagination and also in a real world that had meant so much to me, if only for a tiny moment of life. Fusing these two aspects gave me an energy that I haven't written with since my teenage years. I rediscovered what it's all about. Since then of course the day job and real life have intervened making writing feel challenging and occasionally chore like on some days but the story is shaping up and the thoughts are forming themselves nicely. And to think all I needed was a word count stats page to get me going. 

One Step Further

The opening of my new novel. The one I plan to write in a month thanks to the National Novel Writing Month challenge!

Na had noticed the old woman’s expression as she’d arrived for work; glancing over at Na’s bed suspiciously as she settled herself into her own pitch two beds over. Na had looked up and tried to smile at the woman but she had turned her head away as soon as their eye’s met and Na was left looking at the parting in her long black hair. The woman’s hair was young, Na thought, glossy and thick without any curl. Na’s own hair was thick and difficult to manage, she mostly tied it back at the start of each day and only let it down again once she was getting ready for bed. She glanced back over at the woman hoping that she’d caught her off guard and that this time she may be rewarded with a smile or a word of greeting. The woman kept her face down as she leaned over the mattress on her bed fussing the sheet into perfect smoothness and hanging towels and sarongs from the poles of the grass roof. Her face was pinched into sour concentration, she was old, Na saw and realised that was what made her hair so noticeable. Na turned back to her own bed but the sheets were still perfect from when she made them half an hour ago. She’d gotten here far too early but it was her first day and she was nervous. 

The pitch had been arranged by her massage teacher. Na had worked hard on the course and her teacher had grown to like her. She had taken her aside on the last day and asked if she had plans for work. Na had told her not yet, she had planned to ask around the salons and beach stands. This had been arranged the next day. Na had met the beachfront owner and agreed that half of her fee from each customer would be paid in rent. It was the usual arrangement and she wasn’t surprised by it. The bed itself was a raised bamboo platform with a grass roof; a mattress could be collected from the owners shed each morning and placed on the bed. Sheets and towels were Na’s responsibility, although there were thin drapes in the shed that could be tied to the roof poles in order to afford the customer privacy. Na understood that this might be quite favourable to a client being massaged on the busy beach. Being prone underneath a strangers touch was not a state she’d like to be observed in herself.

She fiddled with her curtains which for now were tucked back in order to display the clean, empty bed and advertise her availability. There were few people on the beach yet. Most potential customers were still digging into the five star buffet in their gorgeous hotels Na imagined. Fishing boats occasionally chugged past with humming motors but otherwise the only sound was the crashing waves. Na refolded a large white towel and hung it back over the bamboo rail of the bed. Her colleague was squatting in the sand watching the beach and waiting for the first tourists to make a break from their hotels. There was the sound of wood scraping as someone arrived at the nearby bar to open in for business. The bar was just that; a plywood bar area that folded up on itself to turn into a locked wooden box overnight. The owner began unstacking plastic chairs into the sand with a click of plastic against plastic. This was how the sounds broke one on top of each other into the rhythm of the day. 

Until Ing arrived. Ing arriving wasn’t a steady layer of sound to add to the others it was an explosion. 

Enlightened

I stole myself to stand in front of you.

Clasped hands and bowed head.

Enlightened soul.

I was three sticks of incense in.

When the coach party arrived.

A bee line, we’d have once said,

For your gilded form.

I had to stand aside,

Old people with a monk for a guide.

The rain kept on falling, pat, pat,

Against my plastic umbrella.

I tried the pentagon pagoda,

But the silent figure there,

Does nothing for my heart.

The rice cakes and painted ceiling,

Don’t have the gravitas,

Or your proportions,

Come to that.

So the largest alter bayed me forth,

For the importance of my call.

The complicated statues,

Frivolous when compared to you,

But the size lends importance.

My candle had the company of two,

Both burning at different stages.

But still the prayer here was helped along,

By the gentle knocking of the gong.

Protest Song of the Hopeless

Open black eyes, shine through.

I stare at the still frame,

I don’t even have your name.

They don’t see the need to give it,

It’s not your suffering I need to get,

But the many thousands you represent.   

My eyes drift down to the next story.

About how our nation’s getting lazy.

Is it me or did the world get crazy?

Hosepipe bans and famous one night stands.

A man cries because he needs the surgeons hand,

He’s not fat enough to warrant a gastric band.

 I go back to look at you.

What on earth did you do?

Holding the eyes of a television crew,

The pity of the world in your sight,

One rich donor can end your plight.

Or me. I could.

There’s cloth around your body, another covers your head.

They tell me that your child’s already dead.

Why? Was it something you said?

Because if not, if there’s no reason, then why isn’t it me instead?