I did a bit of creative writing recently, and to try and make it feel less awkward I described them as word sketches. I find this idea really liberating, as the pieces can be rough and unfinished and undisciplined and mis-formed, with no need to redraft or finesse. Which is very much my thing. And so here are some more:

The Wind Speaks

When the Wind speaks, it speaks to me 

Of storm clouds breaking over wave whipped rocks, 

Of millside willows weaving in the breeze, 

Of a girl whose hair is waving on the mountainside, 

And she tucks it behind her ear and smiles into the sun. 

When the wind sings, it sings to me 

Of the sweet smell of a winter turf fire, 

Of the splashing of the river full of children, 

Of the girl who could not be carried on the wind, 

But was planted in the earth of another world. 

The Old Priests

In the trembling light

On the cliff tops ruffling,

The old priests gather,

Long beaked and feathered in dirt,

Stalking through the diamond breeze,

Proclaiming the morning.

Beneath The Moon

Beneath the moon they struck her head

And left her there where she was dead

And no one knows where her blood flows

Where she feeds the worms and feeds the crows.

Beneath the moon the earth runs red

In the woods where that child lies dead

Where she feeds the worms and feeds the crows, 

The moon passed on but no sun rose.

Beneath the midday firmament 

Endless night now permanent 

Darkness like a sail unfurled 

On a sea of grief across the world 

Beneath the darkness all were afraid

And the killers returned to where the child was laid

And they begged to her ghost to bring back the sun 

But the child was silent, for the sin was done 

Beneath the darkness they wailed and they wept

And the pain of their crime in their hearts they kept

And until they were old they held onto that pain 

And after they perished the sun rose again 

Beneath the sun the children do play 

Their laughter is full of the joys of the day

In the night you may hear the murderers’ moans 

But peace reigns in the glade of that poor child’s bones. 

Wolf in the Night

In the night 

murmurs of suckling air 

and gasping lips

and little secret breathing in the dark

The hour of the shuffling wolf

The weight of a snuffling bundle 

The warmth against my chest 

The stretching of clasping limbs 

And outside, the winter rains

Tickle at the windows like the fingers of 

Jealous old witches 

City By the Sea

The sea roils in the air, the sky rolls through the streets

And I cannot see beyond my feet.

Smeared lights and the shadows of sleek ocean monsters

slithering in the waters over my head

And the sounds echo through the watery world, 

The laughter of gulls here and the roar of engines here and the crackle of strange people here.

To illustrate these scratchy word ramblings here are some photos of trees that I took that I quite like but can’t think where else to use them!