Source Welcome to issue 12 of Spontaneity, where everything connects. Click on the links and get lost in a creative dialogue between media – and if you’d like to be part of it, get in touch.
I don’t write you love poems anymore by Liz Quirke All my words are kept for the children, sequestered to chronicle little tempests and successes, swaddles of coats and jumpers, boots slightly large on feet as the oldest takes her chances in every puddle she can find. Instead of the resting hollow of your hip, my words now know the fit of skull and cheek against my shoulder, the weight of each of our babies as they fall asleep. I write the rasp of breaths lovely in my ear, how pillows furrow with their heavy heads. I compress this life into a collage of simile and verse. Discover … Continued Read more
With love, a father and mother’s advice by Abigail George The death of his (the ex) memory came in the letting go. So did the worship of Buddha, chanting mantras, writing down affirmations. Meditation. Things started to happen for me then. Shelter (the silence of my bedroom became almost lyrical). Salt and light touched the morning, my breakfast nook and toast. The sky cold and blue even on a summer’s day. The forecast was that protest has its own pace. So did the kitchen table bathed in orange light. I too had a public image, a front and a private one. As did my father and mother. We seemed to … Continued Read more
No, I Do Not Tango by Tania Hershman Don’t call for me there, I have stepped off that dance floor, and I am relieved. Every part of me is mine, no hand on my shoulder, arm around my waist, no waiting for an invitation. A hundred years ago they would have called me – with those two million others – surplus, extra. Elizabeth the First caused similar confusion. No mate, no children. Virgin Queen, they also named her Mother of the Nation. Also: Prince. You can call me anything you like. I know my name. Read more
To my younger son, on his fourth birthday by Ingrid Casey From a winedark table I see a still-bald tree top, a lung. Snakes and Ladders and your many cards, my fifty seven month companion. I had thought, during the labouring, that I was going away from the world, leaving your siblings. You made a star of me in that triangle, the consultant at my back, your father’s arms the masts I clung to, and I a ship in full sail. Up from the hold you came, all vernix and April fury. But there has been no betrayal, and I am no ship. We are on land, another branch; you … Continued Read more
Metallurgy by Peter Donnelly Metallurgy, chemistry, magic: the Compounding a very space of myself. Up from the stone-cold depths of the Neolithic: Wedge tombs capped off that age, The sun setting on distance between sun and stone. Read more
Holding On by Yvonne Marjot At night I close my door, strip down to the essentials and hold myself. Arms wrapped around my body, fingers digging into flesh, I press till it hurts. I close my eyes, waiting for the moment your hands cover mine. Your breath, soft in my ear; the scent of you, arousing, unmistakeable. If you could come to me, I know you would. I must learn to let you go. The night is empty, love, and I will stand this way forever. Read more
Bake Blind by A. Joseph Black The air was delicious: warm and sweet, soft and moist. The radio would murmur benignly in the corner of the kitchen. On the hour every hour, he’d turn it up to catch the latest news. It always seemed to me to be exactly the same as the hour before. As though nothing happened while we were in there together. In between, he’d sing along tunelessly to the songs. Changing the words so they were about me. Making me laugh despite myself. I can see the room now, don’t even have to close my eyes. Every available surface is strewn with … Continued Read more
Waiting for by Majella Haugh Spitting time onto reclaimed floors Dust rising Waiter please I wave Out the light spectrum Well certain lengths Waiting for lush violet to mix With the reddish hue of your lips From being outside I inside Waving You without a hat Shining in the sunlight I on a torn velvet seat Being ignored By waiting Read more
The red and the black by David Butler in the spin of the wheel in the eye of a sanctuary-lamp in the fall of trumps in the heart’s hot embers in anger’s shadow in the soul of wine in a rose’s hundred eyelids in the blood-pulse in our wounded loves Read more
Childhood, of a time by Cathy Donelan Our mother’s hands cracked. Leathery and cold, fell hard on bare buttocks when we’d terrorise our scrawny tattling sisters. They would beat against the wooden churning stick and slap the dough, kneading their magic into the bread. They’d smell like butter after feeding the lads in the fields, hungry hands shovel-like, rooting through the bread basket while our little fingers would catch pieces falling from overflowing mouths, hands outstretched under tables. Mother would be quick to land buttery hands around our ears, for begging like the dogs. Out with the dogs, chase the black and white scruffs around the yard, … Continued Read more
Stationary Hike by Agnes Marton You always leave me at a random spot far beyond the snowmobile hub, without map, compass, rifle, food, your goodbye-hug slipping east. You tear out as if after a bite, I start walking in the tame slush. Wish I could talk to a reindeer dwarf grazing along gravel and stones to avoid thought holes and pitchfork combs yet I’m alone, my headlamp plays the moon. Stewed perception of what’s real, what’s going by the patterned bruise. Some bet I should find a safe grave but I’m too soft to go through, too alive. … Continued Read more
Surrender by Stephen Byrne (Dedicated to the 500+ yearly suicides in Ireland) Let’s say you have given all, that time offers no truce. & all that is left to give, is a slice of your body, shaved into ribbons, served in portions to birds. Let’s say it’s her soft voice bashing against your skull, or the calm murmur of the river that begs your surrender. Suppose you listen, & the night above the bay carves open the sea to offer a last supper of salt & seaweed, so the boy can drown with a full belly. You … Continued Read more
