NaPo 11: 6 April - Magpies

... to celebrate the 20% mark, a rest from Snowdrop. I do love freeverse:

Magpies

It's the way they eye you,
those two-tone bloods
perched in their manor
tree, or dance-formation
spread across the field.

You have it, and they
want it, know, head
cocked, jet-eye wide
and unblinked - and what
they want, they get.

You can't nursery rhyme
these feathers; the asbo
can only handle seven
- secrets never told -
I count eight, ten, twelve.

'We like the cut of you,
and your suit.' They caw
some chuckles as you cross
the road: 'we'll check
your window later, mate!'

NaPo 11: 5 April - Snowdrop 4.2: The Peggy

Snowdrop 4.2: The Peggy

A sash of moss musters around
a cobble of rock. Cables of ivy
and briers clamber about the chalk,
hounding the stream to its hidden source.
Hazels and beeches branch overhead
where a harvest of ribbons and ripened shoes
hang, silently siphoning dampness
from the air. She sits and stares at the pool.
She regards nothing while noticing shapes
between the leaves layering the base
of the pond: a brooch; a pin - a bone?
The halfshapes of offerings hidden in the ooze.

The water slumbers in a slump in the hill:
Old Peggy's Pool. Paintstrokes of salmon
cirrus announce the night's farewell,
arousing the Peggy, who rattles its fingers
across the reeds. It captures a grub
with a snap of its tongue. Something touches
its viscous roof; the red of an eye
appears in its welkin. The Peggy startles,
starts dancing a defence: a dart past the rock;
some arcs in the muds; an etch of patterns
that eddy and whirl. As the waters foul
its form disappears ... the Peggy is gone.

NaPo 11: 4 April - Snowdrop 3.6: Cold Rage

Snowdrop 3.6: Cold Rage

The stone that strikes the spiteful child
is sharp, a flint that flies from her hand
to cut his crown. From the crease of the wound
a bead of sap swells and congeals
then ruptures its sphere; rivulets gel
across his forehead. His cry is harsh
and sudden: a splinter, a snap of bough
trapped and twisted and torn from its stock.

The wealth of wails weakens her fear.
She turns her back on the baffling tableau:
ignore the man and his mock philosophies;
ignore the boy with his bloodless cuts.
Her steps move her from the spitting meats,
the foggy broths in their ferrous cauldrons.
She limps towards the line of the wood,
to the hug of brackens that hide her from bedlam.

NaPo 11: 3 April - Snowdrop 3.4: Below the Meadow

Snowdrop 3.4: Below the Meadow

Her shoulders sag as she shambles behind
the besuited man, her step as heavy
as her dazed thoughts - a thicket of words
and clauses chained into a chant for her loss.

He leads her across the cup of the glade
and down towards a denser patch
of gorse and bracken gathered between
a swatch of leafless silhouette trees.

"I once believed that after death we must
return to God: slough off our skins and lift
our souls to bask in love - and all was good,
just like the diver rising up to breach
the waves, to twist apart his copper head
and dump the weights that hold his feet and chest
to breathe the air of Heaven! He is saved!
Was that your plan, my child, to go back home?"

What was once white now withers on the spit,
his bushy antlers broken by the flames -
a spatchcocked king spun on his bar
by weasel-bodied dogs in their wheel.

A brace of cauldrons as big as a feast,
their bases buried in a bank of embers;
the steams from the pots purl together
like a tablecloth hung from the highest twigs.

"This is our prison, child, for we are trapped
within the mists of this foul hill, where time
has stopped. There is no day, just night and chill,
where trees will stretch their limbs but cannot bud.
No flowers come to bloom in these cold lawns,
and all that ever lights our path is that
repulsive moon! It stalks our star-tacked sky -
its circle never wanes, or dims, or fails."

Some children scream as they charge through ferns
and come to a halt at the hem of the pit.
In the skittering light their skins seem painted
in a camouflage swirl: one smiles at her

... and from somewhere inside her she discovers a ghost
of a grin: a movement of muscles across
the slack of her cheek; a charm of hope
that arrives unannounced, nervous and fresh.

NaPo 11: 2 April - Snowdrop 3.3: The Tall Gentleman

Snowdrop 3.3: The Tall Gentleman

"If I may say, you have the look of one
who's newly come to our accurséd realm.
Is this not what you prayed for? No, it seems
you've found confusions, madness - horrors spun
beyond uncharted hells: it will not stop!"

"I cannot breathe, and yet as seconds pass me by
my chest expands and air moves into me
- and out again - my lungs are devotees
of habit: in and out they go, but why?"

"What do you know of ghosts? Your disbelief
is noted, child, and yet that's what we are!
Some say that death is final, we collapse
oblivious at that last lunge for air,
and once we breathe no more there is no more:
a sleep so deep that none can wake again,
an oubliette of bones and rotting flesh
is all that marks our time upon this world -

"if only it were true: such happiness
is not for us unfortunates to know."

"I'm dead. I must be dead: my breath is ice;
I sit on muddied ice and ice encrusts
each stalk of grass ... are you dead too? I trust
nothing. Not ears or nose or fingers. Eyes?"

"How did I die? I choked upon a bean -
a stupid end for one as great as me!
And yes, I know we breathe: the mists exhaled
are part of where we are, and hunger too."

"They lie to me. They tell me I'm outside
barefoot and dressed for bed and yet I know
I'm dead - or knocked out cold by robbers, theives -"

"I've not yet told you where we are! Not Hell,
my child, for devils do not dance around
our roast pit fires with tridents in their hands.
And though I know some folk with tails, they are
not forked, and both their feet have heels and toes -"

"- perhaps I'm mad, not dead. I'm still inside
the house, hallucinating nightmares. So ...
what must I do to break apart these reves?"

NaPo 11: 1 April - Snowdrop 3.2: Buda Tiger

Snowdrop 3.2: Buda Tiger

She sprawls on a paddock of spangle grass
enclosed by a wicker of wind-sculpted trees
that stencil against a grim, pearlescent
spelter of clouds sponging the light
from the chill curve of an enchanted moon.

"Tonight is a time for a story or two,
a song and a dance and a drink - or a few!
There's many a legend that I could relate:
of wreckers and pirates; of lovers and fools
of Owlers and Excisemen keen to debate
the rights and the wrongs of a tax on our wool;
- but rather I'm minded to sing an old yarn
of Buda, the Tiger at Dawn.

A thicket of shanks and thighs surrounds her:
a collision of people in lines and knots
snatching at gossip and snagging glances
as they parade the field. A puddle moats
the dolmen slab where the smuggler chants.

"From chaos she pounced like a stripe of despair,
the pet of Lord Shiva Destroyer I swear.
Her paddock was jungle and mountain and plain;
her jaws were the jangle and rattle of hurt -
for when she went hunting none could restrain
the beast from her progress and none could divert
her claws from their throat: upon tides of slick gore
came Buda, great Tiger of War."

She cannot cry, or call for help:
her throat is as dry as the thistle heads
anchored to their stalks by ice and time
and the loss of light; she lets her tongue
poke at her lip, peeling coldsores.

The story is nonsense to her numbed ears:
she remembers a room dismembered by the roots
and buds and saps and sighs and chants
of an impossible woman woven from bark;
she remembers dogs dragging at her flesh.

"'A saviour we need,' cried the people, 'a leader
of courage and skill beyond measure to speed her
demise. For the Lord has deserted our side:
he rides on her back, a destroyer of life
and love and all hope and desire. We hide
and still she uncovers our havens - this strife
must stop! Will not one of us stand up and kill
old Buda, dire Tiger of ills?'"

A long shape blocks the blur of her sight:
He stands so tall, this summit of a man,
with clothes that talk of class and money
and learning hewn from the halls and greens
of a distant city with dreamy spires.

Wowee

... haven't checked those feed thingies for the handful of blogs I subscribe to for 30 days. 800 posts to read? Heck! Maybe it's time to prune my feedlist.

I'm surprised I managed to last 30 days without checking up on everybody. I know I ought to be nosier more concerned about folks, but I've been busy - planning a new life and stuff. Comming up with whizzo mad ideas for things to sell and promote. That sort of thing.

Starvation: it's the new black, innit!

Apologies

... for not posting. I'm busy with stuff. Like getting ready to go self employed at the start of March - because if I have to keep signing on for much longer I'm gonna go spare, innit!

Business plans. Who'd a thought? Luckily I've already written one fantasy fiction so the BP isn't proving to be too much of a hurdle.

I'm also coming up with wizzo ideas of what services I can sell. I'm hoping to sell enough service to stave off bankruptcy for at least 3 months.

We'll see how it goes. I'll report back in due course.

Logos

So which is the better looking logo?

(I'm going for stylish/professional - yeah, har har Rik).

Attempt 1:


Attempt 2:


Attempt 3:


Attempt 4:


Attempt 5:


Either one of you are welcome to respond. Answers in a comment, please.

Speech to text

I'm just mucking around with the windows speech to text software. It's a bit annoying at the moment because I haven't yet worked out how to delete things when things go wrong. But it's still great fun. Loving it!