Friday 24 July 2015

Flash fiction 13: Strokes


Well, it's Friday again, so it's time to write with JD Mader over at his home, Unemployed Imagination - www.jdmader.com/2015/06/2-minutes-go. The idea is to write for 2 minutes - some people write longer - and you just go for it, without looking back and editing. Head over to play or just read. Have a great weekend! :) This is the third piece I wrote.


Strokes

Colour. I race through colours, all of them – a dipping stream of dizzying brushstrokes zipping the majestic. Me. Just me. I am not you and neither are you me. I used to be an extension, an extra limb, a twin almost to your individuality. The echo of your words, the agreement of your thoughts, dressing in your gawky style. Looking up to you in mind and height. My idea of happiness, for you brought me this.

Skipping on the chalk lines, calling out the purple numbers drawn in curls of magic. Our feet crossing, uncrossing, jumping, stasis. Giggles. And buttercups. Those curved buckets of lemon lips and we did kiss them, but only when the daisies couldn’t see. Our first four-leaved clover, seemingly left by the whitest, brightest unicorn in the land.

Only from the other; the other world. The lies of our dreams. Fantasies worn too tightly, falling loose as we found ourselves in our growing pains. A curtsey to the future while we ran wild, chasing time itself, even as we sensed the curtain must fall one day, when the roses would cease to flood our stage with the perfume of delight.

When once upon a time faded, decay stole into this place, clouding everything in its breath. Including you, my beloved sister, wrenched from my arms before your time. I paint you here with daisies playing in your auburn hair, your elfin eyes creasing at the edges and your lips turned up in a perfect bow. Love racing through its colours. 

copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 24, 2015

Thursday 2 July 2015

Poem: Kid Summer

We're having a heatwave here in Old Blighty with temperatures up to 34C! I think I might have only felt that in Britain in my dreams! So here's a poem about summer. You can find it in my poetry book, Mind-spinning Rainbows. Cheers. Enjoy the sun! 



Kid summer


Lost in days
Strewn in sand
Feet twitch
Caressed by water
Flooding in
The in between
Lost on a horizon
Pinkly lit

Seagulls swirl
Streaks of white
A dance in time
With the tide
Beating a rhythm
Playing to none
Lost in the rays of
An egg-yolk yellow
Summer, we played
Yodelling with glee
Skipping puddles

Grey crab wakes
Shakes a claw
Laughter cracks
A dizzying spray
Salty to taste
Lips cracking
In the heat
Scrubbed by sand

Like lobsters
So red we are
Smelling of the sea
And salted earth
Trying to fly
This blood-red kite
It swoops and churns
Scaring the gulls
Squawking dismay
The wind carries
Us forwards
Jumping, leaping
Before diving
Into the blue
Lost and found
As we emerge
Currents drift
Ebb and flow

A courtesy call
This fish swimming
An orangey speck
Wiggling our feet
Swooping our legs
Circling our arms
We float
In the place
We cannot live
Like flying almost
Where the gulls dare
Losing us
To the here below
Earth bound
Sea legged
Spitting salt water
Only to gulp again
The same
Laughter spreads
Driftwood catches
Giving a rest
To weary limbs

It carries us in
Back to the voices
Of the sunned shore
A line of colourful
Stripy towels
Blowing windcheaters
Our mothers wave
Licking ice creams
The chocolate gone
As the first delight
Waving and swimming
We laugh and play
The day fading out
In the summer’s way
An echo of pink
On the horizon’s back
Towards the end
Of the earth
Flows the sea
Til it fades to black. 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone - Mind-spinning Rainbows, April 2015