SELFIE

SELFIE

She’s pouting alright

This pale-skinned woman who might look her age

I cannot tell, I’m just the selfie.

I have no judgement

Just reflect who she might be

With the right light

The right angle

The right life.

You might look in her eyes

But you’ll find nothing there

Just squashed down emotion

Eaten, smoked, drunk

Distracted by drama

Talked over with laughter

Bottled up

Like shame at a wedding.

You could kiss her neck

She’d close her eyes

And in that moment she’d be closer

Much, much closer to me.

Look deeper, look in

Do you dare?

To see her bare

Naked skin

A red raw bleeding weeping woman

With foundation smoothing off her edges

Eyeshadow brightened eyes

Lengthened lashes

Full lips reddened pinker

Than her beating heart.

She smiles, that’s true

But not for you.

And to show my poem's flaws up (!!) I also want to share Plath's poem Mirror. The 1950s selfie xx

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

The no makeup selfie phenomenon hashtag

It's the strangest thing, isn't it, these fads. And as always when I decide to do something I spend ages thinking about why I've decided to do something. Too self-analytical for my own good sometimes...

I could cut to the chase and decide that I did it to support cancer research, and as my mum died of breast cancer that would be plausible. But what's the real reason behind the rise of the selfie, even with make up. 

A friend said a little while ago that he thought it was the search for a face we like. I liked that for a number of reasons, but it's a surface reason. Many people believe it's a rise in narcissism amongst the younger generation, maybe so. For me, and I do enjoy a good selfie indulgence, it's a way to view myself away from a mirror. A way to create a new character almost, a different persona, an alter ego. Or simply a way to reassure myself that I do look okay; having lacked such reassurances and being at the end of the bully's spite as a child. 

When I posted the no make up selfie and then along side one with a touch of war paint on, it was obvious to me how little difference there was - but the difference in how I felt was huge. And that got me thinking about the masks we wear and I question why. 

Then my daughter presented me with the poster below (she's been telling me for ages that I'm more beautiful WITHOUT the paint) but will I listen? :-) 

But it's prompted a poem nonetheless, even if I still don't have the answer. I'll post it tomorrow when it's finished.

Summer Dreaming

Spring always does it, doesn't it... It has you leaping ahead to summer. Suddenly it feels like it's close at hand and tangible. In England, this constitutes a huge amount of optimism and hope because we never know what kind of silly season we'll be blessed with. 

So conversely, this hope for the future is sprinkled with memories of past summers when we had that exquisite trip to the beach, or that swim in the Dartmoor pool. So here's to last summer, it was a doozie. And here's to the coming one... 

Hope you enjoy me reading my poem: The Cider Pool from last year.

Long time no see...

Hey there,
I notice that it's been over a year since I last posted and yet ironically these past twelve months have been my most creative to date. I suppose I'd better catch up. I think I've written over 100 poems this year and countless haiku but I won't bore you with everything.

Here's a poem I'm working on at the moment, critique is welcomed from those in the know :-) no title as yet..

What a child I can be
Open up my heart and give
Out pieces like toffee shards
To all and sundry.

The useless hammer breaks in
A waiting throng crowds round
Bagsying the largest bit
Compete to sin - complete to win.

I stitch my chest back up
Feel remaining remnants rattle
Poke me from inside out
Until I whisper to them, stop.

A hankering for Haiku

  I've been limbering up for the big publishing day of Dark Sleepers and feeling quite nervous. The way I deal with my nervousness is in much the same way I deal with all my emotions; I write them out.

Now the publishing of my first novel is a whole different cliched ballpark to what I've ever experienced before and it has thrown up a whole multitude of reactions. Some good; elation being one of them! And a whole host of darker, meaner and crappy ones too. The big one being a huge dose of self-doubt. Something that you Americans out there seem to experience less than us Brits. And let me tell you; it can be crippling.

Anyway, to get to the point I deal with this by focussing on my Facebook community (I love you guys), and writing in small; defined ways. So Haiku it's been. 

That's my way of leading up to presenting three of them which were posted to my Facebook page in the last month.

 

A haiku day starts
with a bleeding sky; peeking
through the greyest cloud

 

Pink sky broadly fades
into another day; and
you and I awake.

 

Those scarlet stripes
that stream across my morning
sky; connect us here.

 

 

Written on iPhone - sitting in bed

This one, quite literally, forced itself on me this morning. Doesn't happen often - never usually that lucky!


We stand on steps
of thin, clear glass -
A staircase spiralling
away through
stormy clouds above.
'Look up' I say, but
no - your gaze stays
resolutely level.

I hold your hand
curled close in mine -
Your fingers frost-
bitten; shy. Your
feet firm-planted
on your stair. Below
them swirling air.

'Look down,' I say.
And that you do, the
dizzy misty mess
from which we grew.

I step up.
Just one.
Stretch out
my arm.
Hold on
to you.

Kate Sermon

November

Bit of a meloncholy one tonight; inspired by a winter's day.

November Sky

We live in a rain-drenched land.

Soggy sodden slips of cloud slowly

rise above the wind and fight to find

that last man standing.

Underfoot and overhead; tupperware sky,

the lid ajar. A stripe of light unhindered by

the depth of slate that

boxes us in.

A vein of sheep like aphids on a fresh

green leaf follow the one in front down

to the icy lake. Falling into tangled weed
set seed in summer.

This sparse sick land made deep and mean by

the weight of lead on hunched-up backs. Crunch

through frost and we connect again through the

shivering stream of scars.

That always leave their mark.