Fly me to the moon....

.....well, at least to Cardiff!


Happy Samhain - see you round!

A gentle reminder

ME LAUNCH IS COMING!!!!

Tuesday 31st October

7pm

at

Chapter Arts Centre

Market Road

Cardiff

Please come and help me set Coven of One on the road.

It promises to be a great evening with the first ever BLOGMOOT following the launch.

Oh come on, you know as well as I do that you are dying to see what the Welshman looks like!!

Samhain Competition

Oh dear, this was hard, a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I printed off all entries and have been reading aloud to the cat (he wasn't that helpful it has to be said). Anyway thank you so much for your entries.

It was great to see what Samhain means to others, and after very careful consideration I have decided on John Ahearn's poem All Hallows Eve, because this one captured the feeling for me but......

...okay Roberta, I decided to give a runners-up prize, send me your address and Coven of One will be winging it's way across the Atlantic in the next few days! Goddess I'm so soft!

£30.00 later....

....nails are done and me old worky hands have been transformed!

Can't type, can't scratch and can't wash the dishes - hey-ho!

Headache

Having trouble with poetry comp, be with you tomorrow........

Piccadilly peace

A couple of days ago I got tagged by Marie for a sort of memy thing about the ideal creative writing space. As usual I had a little think....

Well, yes there might be, but it certainly doesn't exist in total, does it? I mean, how can one write when one is camped in the middle of Piccadilly Circus? Well, it's simple really. I have this little bubble and when I start writing I get right inside and off I go.

Anyway, here is the last hour of writing....

type, type, type

"Mum, I need to make a volcano"

"That's nice, go on then"

type, type.....

"Can you help?"

(sort out small fecker)

type, type, think, think....

phone rings, natter, natter, type, type

"Mum, can T stay tonight?"

"Yeah, if you like BF"

type, type, ping, ping (email call)

reply to stack of mails

back to typing

"Mum, what does this look like?"

"Looks like a volcano SF, well done"

type, type, type

MD appears

natter, natter, how did your day go?

type, type

MD comes back in

"Minx? Did you agree to BF's girlfriend staying over and what is that horrible mess on the table?"

"Errr, I don't know?"

From the chalice of Arthur Durkee

come see: how quietly they move through the stones.
parchment fingers rustling their leaf tambourines.
the dew is on the grass. their feet, in all their wanderings, do not touch.
they float above the earth, or dissolve near to it, into it.
their compass rose is of the greater earth: these leaves fall through them.


we rise up out of the very fields we tilled: these cemeteries, plowed anew.
every year, the miracle of wheat. sweep the garden for next year’s roses.
snow falls around us, whitens our scalps: no summer’s day outruns us.
shake the leaves off the headstone: a million butterflies take wing.
the ash tree whispers: home; we’ve come home.

Find Arthur here

Samhain words (and pictures) from Jason......

"Rebirth"

Decaying fruit betrayed by the sun
Infects the skeleton bloom of trees.
Winds from the forest promise peace
Salvation flies on the whirling leaves.

Release the hopes abandoned by light
Embrace the darkening Autumn seas.
Evil unleashed to thunder free
Rekindles withered, forgotten needs.

********************************

Jason Evans blogs here

Loooooook!!

Fresh from the printer and will be in my shakey hands tomorrow.

It's real, apparently!

Thanks Skinty, again.

Sam's in a whirl......

Magic Whirlwind

Red and gold

a single leaf glides

down down

fighting the pull

till wind catches

almost too late

round and round

skyward

scooping behind

fallen comrades

one-by-one

swirling swirling

spiraling tower

yellow brown

bird-less wings

crackle crackle

reaching nameless stars

moonlit branches

impeding flight

but cannot stop

rising rising

whirling arrow

higher

higher

fly

fly

up

up

WHOOSH

explodes the night

wind evaporates

leaves like pixie dust

sprinkle to the ground

wide-eyed child-ghost

draped in mother's sheet

knows the magic

of this night

Sam Wright blogs here

Spellmakings from Shameless....

the flight of the chosen

you're not out there, I've been looking,
seen the white faces, for miles and miles,
thanks to the lanterns, guarding the gates,
not on the list for this new year, I promise,
made doubly sure by my yellowy mixture

it's watery, without butter, nor sour cream,
tepid, lumpy, stains across the bowl's rim,
my pumpkin potion, says the sweet child,
stepping back from her wicked coughing,
the high whistling the doctors frown at

in her frozen hand the spoon hangs lifeless,
a faint smile between her laboured sipping,
the legend, the stories, now she's regretful,
sow-en, he'd repeated, the Samhain Sabbat,
the flight of the chosen, their summer's end

he's laid down marigolds, chrysanthemums,
feverish, relentless chanting, until he sleeps,
right up beside her, dreaming of the lanterns,
it'll be better tomorrow, lots more summers,
the surgeons will take back what's been said

*

Shameless blogs here

Ahh go on.....

Susan links to this: BUBBLEWRAP - go 'manic' but don't forget to click on 'fresh page'...ahhh!

Invisible women?

I popped over to the local superstore earlier on, in search of some t-shirts for work. Whilst in the changing room I was accosted by a friend that I haven't seen for a while.

'Quick, come in here' she said 'Tell me what you think of this.'

I was confronted by a heaving bosom straining under some garish looking sequins.

'See, this is the trouble.' she moaned ' Nothing fits, sizes are all wrong and what does it matter anyway?'

'Course it matters, we all like to look nice' I said.

'No, it's no good,' she said eyeing my Sunday best 'at forty no one notices what you're wearing. No one at all.'

'Really?'

'Oh yes, when you get to our age you might as well be invisible.'

I left her trying to yank the dodgy looking sequins back over her head, paid for my t-shirts and headed outside.

The wind was just getting up as I crossed the car park and my butterfly skirt started blowing up. I battled with it, grabbing handfuls of fabric to stop my dignity from blowing away as well, but in the end I thought 'sod it. Let it go, I'm invisible, who's going to notice?'

Funny really, being forty is quite liberating!

People collection meme

Yeah, I know, sounds odd. This post originated at Sharon J (see full details here) and I was stung for this one by darlin' Debi.

5 little known facts about me

1. I have an Akashic sigil tattooed on my right shoulder

2. I have a condition that has gifted me an ability to stay pissed for longer than normal.

3. I have purple hair

4. I have escaped death twice

5. I am the queen of quick births - labour to delivery in half an hour!!



PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL ‘PEOPLE COLLECTION’ POSTS
Remember that it isn’t always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it :-)

A competition for Samhain

Entries below this post are...

Cailleach

John T Ahearn

Scynt

Roberta

*

*

Samhain sabbat, summers end, and the beginning of a new year. A magickal interval when the laws of time are suspended a while, and the veil to the otherworld is thin.

This is my interpretation, but what about All Hallows Eve and Halloween - what does it mean to you?

*

I invite entries of poems and flash fiction (no more than 150 words) to reach-

innerminx at googlemail dot com

- no later than 25th October 06

*

The prize is a freshly served copy of Coven of One!

So, be wild, be expressive, be magickal!

* * * * * *

Cailleach calling....

***

The Smith’s Samhain Feast


When holy scribes kneel down to pray
And bid the sun be on its way,
The stars awake at end of day
And bid me come to Gobhniu’s hall.
In darkened mound beneath the ground
Red Gobhniu sits, of old renowned.

The evening lengthens as is its course
And mead is served, as sweet as gorse.
Came I at last to brooding gate
And fearing then that I was late
I beat upon the hollow door
As many souls have done before

By great stone table, in cold stone chair
I took my place to eat my share
Gobhniu’s glass is raised in toast
To all of us and him the host
And now I fear my soul be lost
In Dwarrow-delve, by angels cursed

His fey words confer a tithe
Those who hear condemned to writhe
And weep, for forfeit be their souls
Their hearts and minds so quickly sold.
Too late they learn, fake mortal men
With elfin hair and bloodied hem.

The soul of man is but a gem
That Gobhniu lusts to smite in gold.
So, take this counsel won with grist
When found abroad in faerie mists
Return you home and pay no heed -
The fabled gift of Gobhniu’s mead.

* * *

From: Cailleach’s Weird Sister

**

Barbara blogs here

From the censer of John T Ahearn....

* * *

All Hallows’ Eve

When the aliens have landed and are gone,

and the goblins' sugared path has seen them past

the sticky monsters dotting every lawn,

and homeward wends the whole unlikely cast,

we quench the pumpkin, flip the top lock on,

and fire another log. Alone at last.

We gather darkness to us to defeat

the greedy stragglers' businesslike demands,

settle to a silence so complete

that ghosts in their accustomed shadowlands

begin to haunt the walls, begging sweets.

Ourselves. Our own unfledged and awkward hands.

* * *

John the Blogless is a poet and writer

"ysgrifennwr scynt" says his piece

***

Sam Hain

I've never noticed halloween before

well - not much

part of the gap until christmas

not long after the clocks go back

a dark time

usually cloudy

and the kids a bloody nuisance

on the doorstep

we used to give them sweets

but they looked at us funny -

grimaced

so now they get coins

it's not too bad

just three quid a year -

these days

sometimes I stand out the back and stare at the moon

***

ysgrifennwr scynt blogs here

Look out...here comes Roberta!

The Veil

She cries

every single

solitary night

Great heaving sobs

that shake her

to the core

I continue to

tell her how

I love her

Sometimes I

scream it until

I am hoarse

To no avail

I fear it falls

on deaf ears

So every single

solitary night

she cries

And I stand behind

the veil

and scream

Roberta Nolte
Blogs at Turn the Page

Naked as you are

Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,

Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:

You have moonlines, applepathways:

Naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

Naked, you are blue as the night in Cuba;

You have vines and stars in your hair;

Naked, you are spacious and yellow

As summer in a golden church.

Naked, you are tiny as one of your nails,

Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born

And you withdraw to the underground world,

as if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:

Your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,

And becomes a naked hand again.

--Pablo Neruda--

A grunt

In case you didn't know, I don't get on with my smother-in-law. We have long since come to an understanding that it is best if we don't spend too much time in each other's company.

On Tuesday she became the proud owner of a new hip and has been holed up in the local mega-hospital ever since. In the last five days I have had to spend more time with her than is possibly good for my own health as the MD, rather conveniently, developed a life-threatening flu.

So all is good. The S-i-l has a new shiny hip, is already walking about and looks to be on the road to recovery, so what's the problem?
The problem is, that a packet of salt has been loitering under her bed for three days, they can't find a cup to put her drugs in, she broke her plastic cutlery and had to eat her dinner with a spoon. Every night that I have visited, her tray has been left on the table, her bed looks as if it hasn't been made for a week and there is no help forth-coming when she needs to go to the loo. Today she got stuck on the toilet for nearly an hour because the special seat for hippy patients had gone missing.
The health care cannot be faulted. The S-i-l is pain free and is healing well but what happened to basic care. Care of the small things, the comforting things, a smile from the nurses (who all look like they have got terminal PMT). Does it take much to offer a kind word, a joke or even a set of real cutlery. What do they think she is going to do, stab someone for lack of heart? I would!

One for the girls

I am thinking of getting me nails done. Do you think these a little much?

Exciting news!

It would lovely if you could join me here

at

Waterstone's

The Hayes

Cardiff

on

31st October 2006

7pm

for the launch of

Coven of One

(please see Skint's blog for the finer details).

***

I baked a cake

Happy Blogdays

Skint and Pundy

Live long and blog like mad!

Potted Publishing

Around the 3rd September, minding my own business, when....

He said: Done with me POD. Anyone else?
She said: You've got my attention
He said: Send me something
She said: Okay then, here
He said: I like it
She said: You do?
He said: I want to publish
She said: You do?
He said: Shall we?
She said: Damn right
He said: Polish
She said: Okay

A bit later....

He said: Here's the cover
She said: Ummm, no
He said: This one?
She said: Errr no
He said: Now?
She said: Brill

He said: Ready?
She said: Here
He said: Debi!!
She said: Oh gawd
He said: work through the night, don't stop until your fingers bleed (no he didn't but I have to blame someone for wanting to kill the cat at this point)
She said: Slavedriver
He said: Diva
She said: Ouch
He said: Read
She said: I am
He said: Read
She said: Reading...
He said: Edit
She said: When?
He said: Yesterday
She said: Sod

145 emails later

He said: We're done
She said: Thank fuck for that. Can I get some sleep now?

Honk!

The other day I popped into a Christian Book Shop and not wanting to leave without buying anything, I bought a "Honk if you love Jesus" car sticker.
Wow, I am so glad I did!
I was stopped at traffic lights, lost in thoughts of the Lord and I didn't notice that the lights had changed. It was a good job that someone else loves Jesus, because if he hadn't have honked I wouldn't have noticed.
I found LOTS of people who love Jesus!
While I was there, a man behind me started honking like mad, leaning out of his window screaming "For the love of God, go, go!". What a fantastic ambassador for Jesus.
Then everyone joined in. I just waved and smiled at all these lovely people. I even honked a few times myself to join in with all the love.
I saw another man with two fingers stuck up in the air. I knew what this was, because the MD had told me it was a Hawaiian good luck sign. I've never met anyone from Hawaii, so I gave him the good luck back.
A couple of people were so caught up in the joy of the moment that they had got out of their cars and started to walk towards me. I bet they wanted to pray with me or ask me what church I attended.
But this was when I noticed that the lights had changed and not wanting to hold anyone up, I waved to all my new found sisters and brothers and drove off.
In my mirror I noticed that mine was the only car that got across before the lights changed. I felt very sad after all the love we had shared so I slowed down, leaned out of the window and gave them all the Hawaiian good luck sign as I drove off!!

(courtesy of the Gin Co-op mailbaggage)

Tagged for a meme

Here are the five things that femininity has brought to me

*

1.The right to wear inappropriate clothing on a cold day

2. Guilt free shopping when the football is on

3. Being able to change my appearance for the better with the aid of make-up and little trinkets

4. Wearing impossibly high heels on impossibly high hills and still being rescued

5. Getting away without doing the mucky jobs in case they ruin my nails

*

(Oh dear, just realised that it should have been 5 things that 'feminism' has brought to me - ooops!)

This feels weird

Interview at Writing Passions

(if I don't link to it then I think she might be cross)

(By the way, there are some fantastic photo's on me Stalking Cornwall link today(Cornish Cream section). The first of the autumn storms are hitting the coast - whoopee! Portreath is about two miles from where I live.)

Skintwriter competition

Examine your spiritual side and enter Skint's wonderful new competition.
Along with Maxine, Clare, Debi, and of course the Skintmeister, I shall be sitting in judgement (yes, me!). Any bribes will therefore be gleefully received, especially those of the chocolate kind!

Marlene or Minnie?

The new orchard at work is nearly finished. Today I wandered over to the fence and peered in as the new turf was laid over the raised spirals that will eventually be planted with fruit trees by the children.
A large and testosterone fuelled gardener, with tattoos covering his visible parts, was digging just in front of me.
'Looks great,' I said 'a bit like *Teletubbie land.'
'Yes,' he said 'it's been hard work but I think that the kids will enjoy it.'
A sensible, intelligent reply I hear you say, but unfortunately I was struck dumb and had to leave the scene very quickly.
Burly tattoo man had a voice that lied to me. There was no deep resonant tone to match his wide shoulders and log-like legs. He sounded like Mickey Mouse on speed!

After I had got over the shock it set me thinking about the blogworld. What do you all sound like?
I know what Debi sounds like because I have spent some hours in her company and I have exchanged a few phone calls with Skint and Maxine. They sound as I heard them in my head, more or less like their blog voices. But what about you? Would your voice entice me in, or send me running for hills?
And what about me? Am I a Marlene, a Minnie, a Marilyn or a Minx?


*Teletubbies - a children's programme designed to fuck up speech development.

A collaborative poem

Waiting for scars.

*

The fist, an augured wind that blew

against a cheek that turned

away again, already burned

with shame

*

'Breathe' said the lungs

in a sweating cage of blank devotion

bidding joy and all emotion
to silence

*

'Stand' said the bone

a splintered act of moderation

lapis tattoo of adoration

a joke

*

'Steal' said the mind

to feed the poor and battered love

ragged-winged, bleeding dove

of misery

*

'Wait' said the soul

'be patient

time will heal, and

when there's nothing left at all to feel

try scars'

*

(John Ahearn/Kate Bousfield)

Witch lit

I don't want to count my chickens and I know that Skint is still scanning for rogue comma's' and tpyo's but.....

WE'VE DONE IT!!!!!!

Dorcas is as ready as she'll ever be, smart, poised, polished to gleaming and ready for the next stage.

The Slavedriver, formerly know as Skint, sent me the last and final copy earlier on and I have to admit I had a good weep. The last few weeks caught up and the floodgates opened. I can hardly put into words how this feels, to see a work come to fruition. Tis glorious!

Whatever happens next is in the hands of the Gods but I do know that this experience has re-affirmed my faith in human nature.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who leant their support. Debi you are a Goddess and Skint, what can I say?

You are my meercat!