Stuff I have worked on today.

Blood Cycle.

At birth I wore a red cowl

Gifted to me by my mother

And bled a few drops

As they pricked my rounded heel.

Then, each month with the moons tide

My own red stream swelled.

In between, the first man left a smear

upon my thigh and a sense of something lost.

I sent my own child forth in a warm red rush

to birth her and almost left this world

in that dark exsanguination. At times

my heart oozed, broken by loss and grief.

Its bloody chambers full to bursting

And sometimes it swelled with the fullness of joy.

I later closed my eyes to wait for the dark

To collect me. With rosy drops upon my lips

I coughed my life away. Now in my box I sleep.

Couched in crimson satin. The lid is closed

upon the life that strove to bleed me dry.

Skint in a High-rise Block.

Without the means they live

in uncomfortable places.

With the wallpaper stuck like a stamp

to the noise from next door.

The curtains don’t meet

and there’s not enough warmth.

Meters tick away their lives

in increments of gas and light.
Lifts are moveable toilets taking deals

up and down in shallows of ammonia.

And special brew shows the way out

and a glimpse of optimism.

That dies in the shadows

of next morning’s hangover.

Drought.

The Rain God sulked.

Hoarded precious water.

Refused to let it fall.

Crops withered

and tribes danced for him.

They pleaded for help.

The ground cracked,

Patterning the earth

With empty veins.

Waterholes shrank

And fish flopped

In shallow water.

The Rain God turned his back

And did not relent

And the Sun smiled in her supremacy.

These three poems are all first drafts so please don't consider them finished. They will take a while to shape into the final pieces.

The first poem came about because I was thinking of the significance that blood has in our lives, particularly if you are a woman. It began as a list of the times that blood is visible in a lifetime (without of course, surgery or accident. ) the words followed from there.

The second  poem happened when I saw a block of flats. I combined memories of when I lived in a block with images I have seen of high-rises in other places. 

The Drought poem is a follow-on from a piece of prose I wrote quite a while ago called The Anguish of the Rain God.It was published by Indigo Dreams press in one of their magazines.