Adrenaline by Lauren Coulson, Artwork by Cliona Sheehan: The Anxiety/Release Collaboration #4

Creatives Making A Difference

‘Supporting Mental Health’

THE ANXIETY AND RELEASE COLLABORATION

Welcome to the final collaboration of an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of anxiety and release.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The poets have taken up the theme of anxiety, and the artists, in response, are engaging  with the theme of release. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions- the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

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This week’s collaboration features

Lauren Coulson & Cliona Sheehan 

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‘Lady Released’

by Cliona Sheehan

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Adrenaline

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I try to picture
calm oceans,
boats,
try to distract myself
by writing words
but my fingers tap
out a heart rate
that increases too fast.

The fire spreads.
Through knots
in my spine,
up into the throat
where it sits
wrapped around my oesophagus
like bind weed.

Pull up the root.
It’s the only way to kill it.

My hands are too tired
from digging through
to find a calmer place
and the poison
I’ve laid down
just slowly kills the host

.

 

You can find more about Lauren and Cliona here: .

Lauren Coulson

http://laurencoulson.co.uk/

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/raggedypirate

https://twitter.com/laurensayswords

You can see Lauren’s Weekend Showcase  here.

Cliona Sheehan

https://twitter.com/darshansprit

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Please do come back tomorrow for some more great  Transformations Book 15 poetry. 

Thank you for your interest.

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 BE THERE AT THE START AND HELP US MAKE THE VIRTUAL REAL

Transformations Kickstarter Campaign

14 Twitter poets, 15 Twitter artists, 1 Contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Please do take a look: 

 Campaign short code

http://kck.st/1i2e721

Campaign Video short code

http://goo.gl/khucJx

.

Barkley Road by Lucy Quin, Artwork by Jack Morris: The Anxiety/Release Collaboration #3

Creatives Making A Difference

‘Supporting Mental Health’

THE ANXIETY AND RELEASE COLLABORATION

Welcome to the third collaboration in an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of anxiety and release.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The poets have taken up the theme of anxiety, and the artists, in response, are engaging  with the theme of release. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions- the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

.

This week’s collaboration features

Lucy Quin and Jack Morris (artist)

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19 Barkley Road

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Barkley Rd

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It’s always the same dream,
your house is now empty
and the night is lilac purple.
I search the hollow rooms
for childhood memories
under a sky of burnt out stars.
You’re seen only in bursts.
Memories crawl and dance
like shadows along all the walls,
but I lose sight of you
and the house collapses,
everything drops around me.
Clawing at the darkness,
I fall fast and heavy,
eyes dart to catch glimpses of you
as they play like movies,
but they move too quickly —
they always move much too quickly.
It is then I wake up
and I lay very still.
I think of you and your new home,
grass has grown over you —
how running my fingers
along the top of your gravestone
feels nothing at all like
holding your hand in mine.

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You can find more about Lucy and Jack here: .

Lucy Quin

http://lucyquin.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/lucy_quin

You can see Lucy’s Weekend Showcase  here.

 

Jack Morris

http://www.jackmorris.org/

http://facebook.com/jackmorrisart

https://twitter.com/jackmorrisart

Jack will be having a Weekend Showcase on ArtiPeeps this Friday

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Please do come back for the last Anxiety and Release Collaboration on Tuesday 13th May  featuring poet Lauren Coulson and artist Cliona Sheehan.

 Tomorrow we’ve got writer Estrella Azul’s second FreeSpace. Do take a look. 

 Thank you for your interest.

.

 BE THERE AT THE START AND HELP US MAKE THE VIRTUAL REAL

Transformations Kickstarter Campaign

14 Twitter poets, 15 Twitter artists, 1 Contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Please do take a look: 

 Campaign short code

http://kck.st/1i2e721

Campaign Video short code

http://goo.gl/khucJx

.

Off My Feet by Rod Kok and Spring Park Bench by Heather Burns: The Anxiety/Release Collaboration #2

Creatives Making A Difference

‘Supporting Mental Health’

THE ANXIETY AND RELEASE COLLABORATION

Welcome to the second collaboration in an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of anxiety and release.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The poets have taken up the theme of anxiety, and the artists, in response, are engaging  with the theme of release. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions- the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

.

This week’s collaboration features

Rod Kok and Heather Burns (artist)

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 Spring Park Bench

Click on image for enlargement  

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Off My Feet

by Rod Kok

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I am perceived as being
strong
confident
unafraid of the winds
that harangue me from
every direction.

Yet those branches in
my mind are buffeted
by thoughts of inadequacy.

Nobody sees my tears,
or feels my pain
as the roots which hold me
weaken under stress.

I fear judgement from my peers,
so I hide.

What truly exists inside
gets painted with
an opaque veneer,
a disguise made up of
words, smiles and laughter.

I try reach out,
offering a glimpse into
my tortured psyche…
fear causes me to draw back,
back to the shame I feel,
to the disappointment I have created.

Failure is mine.

You tried to help,
crawling to me, your own tears
laving my feet…
I pushed you away
out of despair.

Anxiously I pray
for a gentle breeze
to caress me,
but the answer comes
in a gale.

And knocks me
off my feet.

.

 

You can find more about Rod and Heather here: .

Rod Kok

http://www.fifafan.ca/

https://twitter.com/fifafan69

You can see Rod’s Weekend Showcase here.

 

Heather Burns

http://www.heatherburns.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/Heatherburns201

You can see Heather’s  Weekend Showcase here or read her blog about the creation of ‘Spring Park Bench’ here. 

 

Please do come back for the next Anxiety and Release Collaboration on Monday 28th April featuring poet Lucy Quin and artist Jack Morris. Thank you for your interest.

‘Monsters and Rites’ Scratch 2/4: Transformations Poems (Book 14)

TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

__________________

Poems Inspired by Book 14

.Featuring:

Richard Biddle and Eleanor Perry

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A Spell

by Richard Biddle

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 Please click for bigger image.

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Seventh

by Eleanor Perry

 

You can find more about Richard and Eleanor here:

.

Richard Biddle

http://writings43.blogspot.co.uk/

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https://twitter.com/littledeaths68

.

Eleanor Perry

http://www.zonepoetrymagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/nellperry

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Tomorrow our  Weekend Showcase will feature poet Stephanie Brennan. Thank you, as ever, for your interest.

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‘Monsters and Rites’ Scratch 1/4: Transformations Poems (Book 14)

TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

__________________

Poems Inspired by Book 14

.Featuring:

Adam Wimbush and Rebecca Audra Smith

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Sniffing the Art Frost

by Adam Wimbush

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In an orbital temple given to a goddess
She raised them, inspired them.
And in thine honour metamorphed them, but
She had learnt to hate cycles.

Ploughing their last great-hearted incantations,
Scylla and mutual friends greeted my mind,
To ask of those eyes framed with wrinkles,
Those deep wells filled with spells and herbs.

Said I “Crave no cure for beast splicing.
To delirium. That is where I circle pray.
I come to vent her rage.”
Years dropped like feather bombs.

Nor perhaps my wounds; Skin Trophys,
From burgaling the Gods.
I found new unexpectedness.
I was loved and pleased, and,
Like incense burning we slipped into old age.
Our magic like a mist obscuring the soul.

….

With many a frenzy, horror filled me bristles.
Call Moly; a white bloom with a tough wide snout,
Fell over my heads as I watched
Belching chieftains from the main hills.
Anti-fates was back. Rising cautiously.
As the waves feared the bright sun.
It told of how scents ruled the air.

Keep well away from her erogenous zones,
For who really knows the earth?
As we pad ungratefully upon her crust.

But my thoughts wagged like excited puppy tails.
There were tons of changes, but,
I lacked the great bloody gobbets and thought flecks,
For I was born among the flux.
I felt the weight of the universe,
As I slithered in me roots.

I say all this mixed up from wine.
She is woven with plant cells,
from wood nymphs, shores and more.

No? They were our epic ripples too.

……

The worst was westward way.
Muses for the nymphs fair course.
Then gathering a glittering camp,
She rushed her smouldering charge of electricity,
She intertwined twice and twice she tamed the wild prey.

Leaping nimbly from ancient text,
We found her snaking within the long rivers of his veins,
My foam flecked woman.
And only the mad could tell the tale,
Of fostering Venus, who when a horse,
Favoured my passion shapes.

Black out. Lights burnt out.
Then eastward where lofty beasts are slow meat,
They are claimed by ghostly swarms instead.
Picks turn over the soil of fear.
As I recalled I was nowhere, nothing happened.

Now accept us.

…..

Many deserve her anger.
She replaced her wings and mimicked oceans.

Together tossed in the sound storm,
I drove the lusty ship to the end.
The last kiss from her smiling scythe like lips.

Remember we are both ends of the light beam.
We wear the perfume of science.
Farm the pastures of conflicts.

In short we are all lost in the webbed heaven of ideas,
And all the ancient apples and bitter berries of Eden
Cannot disguise this disguise.

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Glaucus and Scylla

by Rebecca Audra Smith

‘Sooner than my love will change, leaves will grow on the waters,

and sea-weed will grow on the hills.’

Sooner than my love will change
pigs will fly,
men turn to pigs,
fish marry birds.
You will speak in the tongue
of transformed animals.
You will bay and hoot
and snort.

My love will not grapple
as Peleus and Thetis did.
Her shape rolling and tearing
and mutating.
My love will be rock steady,
as steady as Scylla,
monsters deep in the water,
stone gripping her veins.

 

You can find more about Adam and Rebecca here:

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Adam Wimbush

https://twitter.com/Wrong_Triangle

http://wrongtriangle.wordpress.com/

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Rebecca Audra Smith

http://beccaaudra.wordpress.com/

https://twitter.com/BeccaAudra

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Tomorrow our  Weekend Showcase, will feature Wood Sculptor Mark Crawley. Thank you, as ever,  for your interest.

.

Pumping by Mina Polen and Creative Release by Mat JimDog: The Anxiety/Release Collaboration #1

Creatives Making A Difference

‘Supporting Mental Health’

THE ANXIETY AND RELEASE CLLABORATION

Welcome to the first collaboration in an eight week, fortnightly engagement with the emotions of anxiety and release.  For this particular collaboration we have paired four artists and four poets together. The poets have taken up the theme of anxiety, and the artists, in response, are engaging  with the theme of release. In so doing we’re attempting to artistically and accessibly engage with the dynamics between the two emotions- the clashes and the spectrum between the two contrasting feelings. The poets and artists have been exchanging ideas over a number of weeks and what you’ll be seeing as the weeks roll by is the diverse expression of that exchange.

 The idea is that we will also eventually group these collaborations together into exhibitions and installations to further promote public awareness and engagement with these issues. Your feedback on this project would be very much welcomed.

.

This week’s collaboration features

 Mina Polen (Poet) and Mat JimDog (Artist)

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‘

Creative Release

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Pumping

Waves
…………pumping
right over
my chest

sea mist
…………spraying
the lining
of my heart

rising tides
…………reaching
the fragile shore
of my lungs

the whole sea
………..engulfing
swallowing
my whole body

the night
………..falling
dark and heavy
all around

waves
…………..pumping
sea mist
…………..spraying
rising tides
…………..reaching
the whole sea
………….engulfing
the night
………..falling

all at once

pumping waves
rising tides
spraying sea mist
engulfing ocean
falling night

………….slowly

…………………….finally

…………………………………fading……………….away

.
………….

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Harmful Release 

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You can find more about Mina and Mat here:

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Mina Polen

https://twitter.com/minafiction

http://aldebaranylosnarvales.blogspot.co.uk/

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Here’s Mina’s Weekend Showcase

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Mat JimDog

https://twitter.com/jimdogart

https://www.facebook.com/JimDogArt

 

You can see Mat’s Weekend Showcase here and also his Fear/Trust Collaboration.

.

Please do come back for next Anxiety and Release Collaboration on Tuesday 15th April featuring poet Rod Kok and artist Heather Burns.

Thank you for your interest.

 

‘Fates and Forces’ Wave 4/4: Transformations Poems (Book 13)

TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

__________________

Poems Inspired by Book 13

.Featuring:

Karin Heyer and Eleanor Perry

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Hecuba’s Pain

by Karin Heyer

The last king of Troy weeps
aged, war-worn,
mourning many sons and daughters,
King Priam weary, weary
of protracted war,
killing hope and potential.
Captured are Troy’s lofty dreams,
the fate of Troy sealed,
guaranteed its fall…

On both sides in a war
mothers mourn.
No way to heal her hurt,
unhinged Hecuba, raging lioness
prowls the road:
howling, haunted in her loss
of all
her children!
Unable to comprehend
the tragedy of ceaseless murder
and sacrifice,
her mind gives way,
forever.

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the colour of a river

by Eleanor Perry

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You can find more about Eleanor here:

 http://themusicofbreakages.wordpress.com/

http://www.zonepoetrymagazine.com/

https://twitter.com/nellperry

 

Karin, as yet, does not have a website. However you can contact her via ArtiPeeps.

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Tomorrow we’ll be posting out the second instalment of our ‘Hot Potato’ Initiative. 6 writers creating 1 short story over 12 weeks. If you missed out on the first instalment by Steve Harris you can see it here.

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As ever, thank you for your interest.

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‘Fates and Forces’ Wave 3/4: Transformations Poems (Book 13)

TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

__________________

Poems Inspired by Book 13

.Featuring:

Richard Biddle

Transform(ed)

.

.

The unearthly round mysteries address us now upon shores where we fist our pockets with running battles over spent matches.Tongue the rival’s sex without any insecurity. No being secures the famous juice on the budded realm of my sensitive muscle.

This being refused, only their arms are needed for the service, severed from their bodies by the only real moving blade. There is no heart rate, neither a daughter nor son for my own return of my children. Then rock a horse not a chair, see the fire on its own reaching me. The flames return to my arms, there is no spirit for the world of the miserable.

That we may rob a new flower or be seen to have finished our thievery of rose in every manner.

There, in the rise, as if no words could scarcely be, a fact of related meaning to my instinct. The relative and the no shape are so far for the letters of the reserves mighty function. They took what they reckon they needed and nothing ships filled the back of his refused mind. The return and no showing fed off their refused, locally made anagrams.

Take our rogue dreams away for no two are the same or come from there or reveal more. To be returned and to know now should fate turn on this received wisdom like my mood. Their result is a thing that now shoulders us, for here we are of and can receive, moreover, understand.

The open realise we are not supposing false ideas of lazy rigours between my lines. Thought results as a brain nurses its still imagination like fortune’s lost or of layers revealed in the midst of the mayhem. The forgotten remember to allow themselves not to snatch at murmurings from their own ranks or my improvisations.

The rewards are not strength enough for the other right in front of me that rows as I am now by the side from the hidden alphabet or the mortal remains of me. The result is that the arms not snatched or forced out, record who is murdered. Their raging altar is now snapped for favourable photographs of roofs of money. As to the remaining arms, not capable of seeing, they are fixed on the ransom mother.

The restrained and the number suffered a fate of royal pardon most heinous. The remains and the now should be feared. As our energy runs out my tattered and torn remain. Am I not scattering foreign nonsense upon the once upon a time rock mounting?

Then revenge is a joker not a scoundrel for the over confident rage mouth. Too far gone to be remembering as no sorrow is called for on this rosy morning. The right is left and a nodded smoke fogs on, resembling the made. The remembering is a name for the sun fight of which reeking is made. Their times to remember are no shape and the final of the removed mother. The rocky is a name for the sacrificial that stems from origin, from the moved.

Three run and the north stars are a fleet of reached and many. Them are the ruthless and nymph sisters fingers tap on the one reason mother. The rake and the spade are never placed on the single forehead or the returning mountain. The rock and the paper are not the same as the fiercer ocean, you will not regret me. The roaming are seeing the need to see for the offspring of rennet make eyes.

Those who raise assuredly are not sheep fleece on or from the rejecting mine, though we realise, as the never suspecting fled, that it was neither us or the rock that was massive. To create redness at the name we stopped putting it in, for out is more recently seen as might, till we reached a nearby voice that spoke to the fierce of the realm in myself.

The received and the nature of sin come flowing over as we remember the mind.

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You can find more about Richard here:

http://writings43.blogspot.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/littledeaths68

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Tomorrow you’ll find Weekend Showcase, featuring writer Shirley Golden and a short story she has written. Thank you for your interest.

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‘Fates and Forces’ Wave 2/4: Transformations Poems (Book 13)

TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

__________________

Poems Inspired by Book 13

.Featuring:

James Knight and Nat Hall

.

13 broken pieces of id

by James Knight

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1

The leaders took their seats, and the common

……….scowled and shook his fist.

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2

……to do battle with him.

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exulting in…………………. bloodshed and slaughter.

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3

……..consider the good of the state.

..consider the killing

.
those who had participated in the robbery under his leadership

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4

……we fought in the field

………..digging a trench round their fortifications,

…….deceived by a dream

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attack the leaders with…….words

.

.
my words.

.

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5

…..and killed

.

.

.

.
beneath the city walls

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6

.
…..these weapons

…you need me to direct your thinking

….I am superior to you

.
………….The blade

.

7

unhappy wife
…lost even her

was in flames

.
women………… embraced the statues

..kissed

.
……..dragged her

.

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8

The girl
..was snatched

.

.
she did not forget herself
….his eyes fixed on her face

.
My only wish is that my death could be concealed from

………..hands

.

9

…..give back my body

.
the knife
…….wife

.
fell

.

10

she made her way to the shore

.

………

……….the sea

.

….body, washed up on the beach

.

.
11

smooth……….. words

…captive women

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uttered barks instead of words.

.
…howl

……….poor queen

.

12

……….black smoke darkened

…..black ash

.

.
……beaks and hooked claws

.

13

…………….flames

he saw me, lying with

.
………….sea lay before her

.

…..waters churned over my head

I found myself

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Trojan-Tragic-Transformations

by Nat Hall

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1. bellissima belligerence

in a city,
not just a toy,
but wooden horse
to set alight, night, scarlet
red;
gullible gods
clashed like titans,
………….blade against blade,
shields against swords
until all walls
washed off their lust
and turn their helmets into
rust

                                …………..

………………………2. tragédie grecque

………………………………………Fallable
………………………………………Anger inside flames
……………………………………...Languid metal to slash your angst
………………………………………Listen to woman’s own burden
…………………………………Out of your death
………………………Fall on deaf dust
…………………Turn your tears into icy blades
…………… Ragged, broken jaw so canine
……… Or turn turtle doves into wine
…Yearn for feathers from his pyre.

 

© Nat Hall 2014

You can find more about James and Nat here:

James Knight

http://thebirdking.com/

https://twitter.com/badbadpoet

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Nat Hall

http://nordicblackbird.weebly.com/index.html

https://twitter.com/nordicblackbird

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‘Fates and Forces’ Wave 1/4: Transformations Poems (Book 13)

TRANSFORMATIONS

February 2013-March 2014

17 poets, 15 months, creating 1 contemporary reworking of Ovid’s Metamorphoses

See the Transformations Page for more details or the ‘Present Collaborations’ Tab

__________________

Poems Inspired by Book 13

.Featuring:

 Rebecca Audra Smith and Kate Garrett

_

.

Anuis’ four daughters turned to doves

by Rebecca Audra Smith

.

The daughters bring plenty, their hands are full.
They say they learnt of their mother
how to seek growth in acrid ground.

In the kitchen, they make like goddesses,
scatter salt as if the sea’s waters had dried
and crystallised of their tears.

When war came and plundered the country
the girls flew from their houses.
They did not wait to be rescued.

The sky was filled with doves.
In their beaks, olive branches,
the ripening grey-green of their fruit.

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Tribute

by Kate Garrett

(after Ovid’s ‘Memnon’; for MLG)
 

every grey sunrise
choked with mist
remembers the loss
of a son, & a mother
who once lit up
the scarlet morning.
her crystal teardrops
sweeten the leaves;
she could soften
even Jove’s heart
with her devotion.

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Hecuba

 

will trade your eyes for lies,
for murder & for greed –
& she will take the snap-
howling jaws & paws of a bitch
not, after all, in disgrace,
but honour:
all the better to drain blood
from Thracian faces;
all the better to prowl nights,
over rocks, under hard stars.

.

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You can find more about  Becca and Kate here:

Rebecca Audra Smith

http://beccaaudra.wordpress.com/

https://twitter.com/BeccaAudra

.

Kate Garrett

http://www.kategarrettwrites.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/kate_garrett

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