Winter Writing Poetry

Last Saturday I spend the day up at The Ciliau in Mid-Wales. I was there at the end of summer and we spent a wonderful day writing about the countryside and read poetry down by the river. This time you could definitely tell winter is on its way, the wind battered down the fields and the river was almost unrecognizable. Christina and Emma were facilitating again and they made it an amazing day with a beautiful range of winter poetry to read and inspire us. I wrote loads on the day and I am looking forward to going back over things and editing. Below are two pieces I am pretty happy with, the first piece was inspired by the prompt ‘winter from inside the house’ and the seconds one I was inspired by the poem ‘The Promise of Snow‘ by Esther Morgan to personify winter.

Beautiful changing colours of the countryside

Winter Woes

The toilet is always cold

Nothing heats the ceramic bowl

In the dead of night when I can wait no longer

With a heavy heart it’s there I wander

To be woken up with a chill to my ass

Oh, woe is me for being a lass

Winter Kisses

Winter has kissed many lips

Not bothered by sex, colour or creed

all lips are given the same attention

but some are kissed so hard they bleed and crack

The ones without home or fires

are favoured with an embrace

squeezed until their bodies become cold

and as stiff as their loving captor

Winter watches the people left behind

weeping in jealousy of those chosen for special attention

winter thinks if they were to pay them enough thought

he would not have to hold the ones we forgot.

Landscape writing – Poetry

Yesterday I went with some other writers to The Ciliau which was a beautiful house in the middle of the country. There I met a range of women from professional authors, to a pilates instructor and an artist and we spent the day writing and performing poetry in this beautiful landscape. 

Later in the day we went down to the river and performed some poetry the waters edge and then had a chance to write some of our own. This is perhaps my favourite piece of the day and the most polished in the short time we had. I wrote several other poems and prose pieces during the day which I am still working on editing.  I read this to the group at the end of the day at Ciliau and got lots of laughs out of them. The leader of the group also said she liked the way I read it, I’ve got a bit of a accent that seemingly works well when I read, so I might try recording it and seeing how that goes. 

Stone

I’m a stone, a little red stone

In my little river home

 

I’m not self-conscious of my shade

So bright others call me brave

I don’t know why I am so red

“You’re just unique.” My parents said

 

But I’m not sure that’s really true

I could have been born green, black or blue

Perhaps its because I blush

Or I’m having a hot flush

But I am not prone to emotions much

And I’m not sure I have hormones as such

 

But yet here I am, a little red stone

In the little river I call my home