021. Fire

Today, Sina Bo Bina of 100daysofsun.blogspot.com provided the inspiration with a fluid, spilling fiery piece called Fire in Mind. She shows us two pictures, steps in the creative process, and I love the first version, for me it has more energy than the later one. My piece alongside comes from a 2x 6 haiku set called Robbed & Mugged written in 2010. The haiku for the piece is also strangely apt today; relationships never seem to tie off neatly.

Repeated goodbyes

touched to fiery sparks, puddled

blisters left to heal.

020. Folie à deux

The talented Nicolette Wong has long been a must-read writer for me, particularly her blog "Meditations in an Emergency", and she is also participating in the 100 days project with "Le bleu de ciel" I am always in awe of her words, and the way they send my thoughts spinning, skittering... Todays effort is inspired by her day 16 post "Folly".

                                                    I love you

You love me?                                                    

                                                    Yes

I don't feel it...                                                    

[silence]

How can I tell?                                                    

                                                    Can't you tell?

I want to love you.                                                    

                                                    But you don't?

I don't know...                                                    

019. Space

The space of absence surrounds me. Last night I cleared out the toys, baskets, cushions he used; emptied the litter tray (and who would have ever thought it would be possible to get emotional about yellowed silicate with the odd dried out turd in it?)
I am so glad I had found this project far enough ahead of Monday for me to have something to focus on, to subtly finger into my mind and hold off the imagined flickers of moving orange at the corner of my perception. Even if the absence spills over here, as in the picture I chose today from Billie Williams again - Sunset Beach; positioned opposite a Rothko-esque expanse of wet sand and wet sky on the north-east coast of England. You might not recognise it as the same beach as Gone Surfing from day 015 - the wonders of photoshop (to reflect Dorothee Lang's musings in Day 19)

N

O

T

(t)here

018. I want a fluffy kitten tree

Brendan Ford's day 14 piece is the one that speaks to me, an extract from his "Blackouts" below.

for some, life does stop

i wish i could have planted him

grown another one

maybe it would take the edge off

being the one who said

yes, kill him

or, to sound nicer 

put him to sleep

017. Blocks

Janelle Stone again provided an image which chimed exactly with the things I was seeing around me in Berlin, her "construction" below left with its subtle shadows and grey tones was in my head when I saw the "Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas" on a scorching hot Saturday. A controversial monument, its scale is the immediately impressive thing about it, but being able to walk into the middle of the field of blocks, see the undulating ground beneath and feel each block has been placed just so, that creeps up on you and makes you contemplate...

you                                                                                                                                             

pile                    things 

                                                                           on me

think my 

                                               corners

should                                                                  be 

                                                                           smoothed

                       where                              is 

my 

                        space?

Postscript: 
At 21:44, 6th June, I "murdered" my cat Seville
 after a sudden illness

016. Celebrating

Forgive me, for the rushed post (no poem, purple prose today), just two images. I am having a long weekend in Berlin with family & friends, and am sunburned and walked out but loving it so much. Today's inspiring image comes from Carol Mack (Day 14,  Fiber of Urban Life), and my juxtaposition is of graffiti from Tacheles, Berlin; which reminded me of fabric. Tschuß!

Hot days, cold wine, warm friendships, wonderful parents; all take the edge off the big four-oh...

015. Roiling

This wonderful piece from Claudine Metrick caught my eye, speaking to me of dark and distant horizons, roiling atmosphere, somehow a journey. My picture, an variation/extract from "Gone Surfing"

I did not need even a raft on this journey. The sea was as flat as the beach, as flat as the horizon, you could walk on it for miles. Leave it. Not warm, but the chill of the water was invigorating, not for me a somnambulist suicide. Walk briskly to the distant islands poking up like bubbles. So wet already, what can a mere storm do to me now? Embrace it. Take me up into the clouds and smear me across new horizons.

014. Pooled light

Mindy Bray inspired today's piece with her picture erasure (for kate) below left. The lamp posts in Venice always had an otherwordly quality about them, pink, no, rose coloured glass, as if the surroundings needed to be further prettified. Also, Amrita Mishra's day 10 piece inspired me to comment about men who visit... and that got developed further into the poem below

                                                You walked with me to my door,
                                                     afterwards. I glowed with pink prosecco,
                                                    feeling mysterious in the fog, and daring too.
                                                  Thrilled to have seized the day, to have lived
                                                    in those moments with you.
                                                   Your breath tickled against my ear, kissing
                                                      my cheek goodnight. I did not understand,
                                                       not then, that you were one of those men
                                                      who came only to visit, never to stay.

013. Sitting

More browsing, more to see, read, mull over. Today I chose a piece from Billie Williams over at billielovesdogs2011.blogspot.com. Confession time? I am a cat person, I guess if I had seen the title of the blog I might not have clicked it, and then I would have missed out on some gorgeous black and white photography. I wanted to start with her shot of encinitas beach; but Tuesday's shot of two chairs caught my eye, reminding me (again) of last years visit to New Orleans and making a nice contrast with the silty warm colour of two chairs snapped on Southern Decadence weekend, and a haiku pair below.

Double Measures
sunned whisky and silt
muted days, writers bake thoughts
into dialogue

breezes thread cool gaps
through heated conversations,
bourbon mellows us

(see Issuu publication here for more from the writers weekend in The Big Easy)

012. Calendar

As the mechanical church bells begin their twice-daily more-on-Sundays clanging, I remember to turn over the calendar to the month of June. Unconscious thoughts about passing time aside, I rarely remember to do this on the 1st of the month, something I can only put down to my own inertia since I am usually in possession of a calendar with plenty of beautiful pictures to make changing them a joy.

This years calendar is an exclusive, digital prints from Sandra Davies, and as I say goodbye to May's picture I am reminded of the diverse reactions this got as the T10 Canvas challenge (Sandra's favourite piece, by Coraline J Thompson is here). June's picture is a blurred balcony in New Orleans, at night, with Reddy Brek oaty glowing light from the window behind it.

My picture today is from Ireland, from the hull of a rusting boat in Connemara, and below, the 6S piece I wrote for it. T10 (thinkingten.com) and more particularly for me 6S (sixsentences.ning.com) have been important playgrounds for practising writing, and I am looking forward to meeting the online voices again this year.

Epithelia

It is like looking at skin, if the skin was magnified and viewed through brick tinted glasses.
It is a boatskin, made of rust and flaky paint; terracotta and pannacotta paint in clotted cream splodges, thick layers on top of each other and the rust crystallising through them.
Water gets under the paint and oxygen works its magic, transmuting the steel into ruddy puff pastry.
Epidermal rust, skin deep and all of the skin, cellular rust, a ferrous bark.
The boat, once an erythrocyte caught in the tidal flow, but now moored up, scabbed and crusted.
Dead but resisting disintegration.