Multi-storey/ For Sweyn – Creative Fridays

To continue our Creative Fridays feature, this Friday we showcase four gripping and varied poems by Tess Charnley. The first two poems can be read here…

 

Photo Credit: Rich_1

Multi-storey

 

Scuffing toes through the dusted rubble,

The claustrophobia of these grids and boxes,

A nervous ache.

An itch in the mind of laws to ignore.

Rules to break.

And health

And safety.

 

The height is dizzying; stomach clenching.

Icy steel sweating as we

Clamber over, raucously

Unafraid because we are children,

Without consequence or

Responsibility.

 

Surging forward,

Towards the hum of the open night,

City life stirring beneath.

Gleaming views and muffled sounds

Masking

The bitterness of it all

For a moment.

 

 

Photo Credit: rjg329

For Sweyn

 

I left the front door open for you.

Put out a book I thought you’d like,

Some tobacco and papers.

A drink or two, my darling.

 

I left the window just ajar,

For you to see the moon.

A light breeze to keep you

Comfortable.

 

The lights are switched on

And the radio is relaying

Soft tunes.

The synthesizer I know you prefer.

 

There’s a blanket and a pillow

For you to lay your head.

A ticking clock

In a sleeping spot, for you.

 

I’ll return to you, my love.

We’ll sit in silent contentment.

With Salinger and Fitzgerald.

And you’ll stroke that spot

 

Between my eyebrows.

 

Tess Charnley

ECWS: The Sculptor – Peter Tse

Exeter’s Creative Writing Society continue to impress as Peter Tse submits yet another beautiful poem…

The Sculptor

My friend crafts ice sculptures,
a daily struggle with science,
with cold irreconcilable facts:
Ice thaws at 0.1 degrees;
actually at anything over zero.
For scientists that’s zero to the power of whatever,
For my friend it’s removed from the arctic room.

I’ve seen him poised in concentration,
beads of sweat falling, despite the cold.
Take that science.

They are gorgeous, glinting in the light,
but to touch them is to ruin them.
It numbs your fingers too.

Once they’re done, served their purpose,
he melts them down himself.
Days to make, moments to finish.
There’s no sign left of his endeavour.
Except for the perfect image in his head,
in the recesses of his memory,
soon to be his sub-conscious.
Where science keeps its distance.

By Peter Tse

ECWS: The Speech Remembered as 'Winter's Tears' – Adele Jordan

Photo by One_Glass_Eye via Flickr.

This week we asked Exeter’s creative writing society to think of the theme of ‘winter’ as they composed their pieces of poetry, play, and prose. Adele Jordan’s historically-based poem came as a complete surprise and her original take on the theme really stands this poem apart…

The Speech Remembered as ‘Winter’s Tears’

This night I will address you all humbly
for this old country’s wounds do beg me to.
These past five years have left a mark, numbly
so scored into dry earth that we all knew
this war could not be lost.

This Second Great Damned War has scarred us all,
we fought, we won to save our Grand Britain.
But foes are not alone at Reaper’s call,
for our loved ones’ names in stone are written,
on gravestones so embossed.

This Winter comes with vengeance seeking frost
designed to make you stop, grieve this hour.
To chill your fingers, nibble at your ears,
to breathe on necks with icy white sharp teeth.
For Mother Earth’s so sacred law we’ve crossed
and her Summer has turned to cold scour,
for blood has stained her skin these last few years
and hurt the soul, asleep, that lies beneath.

So when you wake to sun sweet morning dew
and frosted leaves encased in white lattice,
do see this dew is Winter’s Tears ensued
after our sought sweet bitter stale justice.

We fought on beaches and the landing grounds,
in fields, in streets, on hills, across the sea;
blood shed in our finest hour resounds
as Winter’s mirth. I take my leave,
W C.

By Adele Jordan
Ed. by Georgina Holland – Exeposé Online Books Editor