Prose & Persuasion
Words change minds
I see words as living, breathing entities, each with their own unique personality and power.
I can often be found lost in the pages of numerous books, my mind racing to match pace with itself. I like to spend my spare time crafting lightning-fast 'poems', each one an improvisation, a mosaic of words and emotions that help me understand the world.
In real life, I am an experienced Bid Writer and I write to win (as well as pay the mortgage). I have some pro-tips in my blog below and examples of my 2 minute experimental writing project.
I am particularly passionate about working with people to improve their mental well-being through journalling and daily writing practice. I would like to hear from any relevant organisations in the North Wales/Cheshire area where I may be able to volunteer my skills in weekend workshops.
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Writing experiment
2 minutes per day, 2 edits per piece
This project was inspired by my need to create and exorcise creative energy, that if not channelled would most likely result in me spontaneously combusting. I imposed the following restrictions on myself. 2 minutes per day, 2 edits per piece.
Lightness
I long to be ageless
to slip through time as vapour
adrift with the wind and free
as the temperament of weather
All of us are stuck
Stuck in the grooves
that we tread in
Day after daily bread
Weaving subconscious patterns that trap us
With their familiarity being a sense of home
a fabricated purpose of something
though intangible
to form into words
other than what one thinks one ought to be doing at
this time of life
Compared to others who are doing the same
Some marry
Some have children
Most work
Most retire
Everywhere a feeling of 'ought to'
Wrought
Plotting the course of the ship and tied
to the mast and set to a rhythmn
as adventurous as dinner at 6pm
Routines offering comfort
to invisible inner religious
Of hereditary past
Polyphony
Someone told me magic wasn't real
I felt sorry for their lack of imagination
Thinking of how dull their life must be from not having every single particle in their body rearranged
tickled
caressed and injected with every colour known to the world in one hit
At the atomic level at least
this is something that doesn't need belief
facts are energy and alive
Going deeper and further than you can see
you can't touch it
cataclysmic euphoria and comprehension
some people say its an escape but its a doorway
To everything that is true and real
My blood is fizzing with it
nothing else has this ultimate power
That envelops my brain in liquid neon
i don't get lost in it, it finds me
every single time I press play
Mouse Power
Where quietness prevails
Expectations easily turn to buoyancy
to sound
and activity
in this athmosphere a mouse could easily drown
It's a transaction after all
Something magical can happen here
Sometimes
Interpretation depends on the skill of the other
To determine the level of skill in the mouse
Quietness, often is assumed to mean
inexperience, youth, unknowing
Empty
Barren even
LIttle often it is determined to be power
the ability to be still
to absorb and distill
one can use this to their advantage
and sit behind this quietness
to determine for oneself if one wants to spend time here
energy, ideas, thoughts, information, opinions
with whomever is sat opposite
or around
who will indeed be very obviously making assumptions
this is human nature after all
those who respond with grace and humility
space and serenity
will be granted access to generosity
but often the others are too loud
and riddled with expectations
to ever find out
in a world of rats
Excerpt from a book I will never write
There is a jumper on my bedroom floor. It's been there for three weeks. A spectre of my own personal failure. Reminding me that I can't even muster the ability to pick it up. But it's more than that. I know, yet I don't know how. My brain has disconnected. My motor skills have been erased and now there are bald tyres driving a broken BBC basic that is now incompatible with the modern world. The wool has multiplied and other garments have joined the floor to knit a new carpet of avoidant disorder.
Like the beloved Mr. Crisp, It's a matter of holding your nerve.
Excerpt from another book I will never write
To Whom I have Not Yet Met, every tick of that infernal clock is a deathwatch beetle trapped in the wall of time. That old fluffy legged buzzard, walking around Oxfam, all beige and slow. Hunting for bargains, setting its sights on an old Family Circle biscuit tin.
I seem to always be trying to go back now. To recreate what I didn't realise I held so dear then. What a travesty I didn't know just how special and beautiful it all was. I would have bottled it, embraced it and preserved it forevermore. That cardigan. Those ashtrays.
What I would give to be able to smell that familiar childhood waft of carpet, cigarette smoke, Imperial Leather comfort. Up in the middle of the night to see teeth in a glass. Avacado suite. Those brown plastic rubber folding doors that could wake the dead if you weren't careful. I would love another cold collation Christmas or New Year of everyone together. Quality Street and sherry breath and staying up past bedtime.
Making a luge down the stairs using those yellow foam sleeping mats I used to pick at when I thought no one was looking, past the Oxford oar so proudly displayed. That clock on the mantle. I am always looking for it during late night shopping sprees on my phone. Sometimes I feel like I can travel back. Not in an astral way but more like, I can borrow the keys to the DeLorean. I can, if I try really hard, close my eyes and get half that smell and it makes me smile and feel loved. Smoke and the slow ticktock to match the rhythmn of the rocking chair. Never annoying, just peaceful and gentle, as they were.
Primark Basquiat
Divided
I grabbed a hoodie from the shelf
and quickly paid
wondering if the line
had any sway in this town of mine
60p an hour
an uncomfortable grave to be sure
without enough room to turn around
what is next I wonder
River Island and de Rola?
H&M Goya Snoodie
Theatres of Orgies & Mysteries by George
an Asda Richard Serra Cotigan
for when its a bit nippy out
F&F's Gericault's underwear range
you get the general idea
The Chapman Brothers
Balenciaga
of course
Assessing the damage
Last night, as I flew two sheets to the wind
holding on as I was fired like an errant pinball
up the stairs cackling in a witch's audition
ours is a friendship based on
raw unadulterated yet
poignant nonsense
as the dawn breaks, I reach for my phone
to forensically inspect how badly I broke the rules
all I find are the remnants of slurred voice notes
and those returned like Sampras by a brilliant friend
renegade
golden
hilarious
notes that could make a vicar collapse
and a nun scream clutching her rosary
to then throw off her robes to reveal a budget
Christina Aguillera underneath
ours is not a church for everyone
niche worship
I've been giggling since I woke up at 5am
Dear Donk, our soon to come autumnal years
of defiant refulsal to be old
look to rekindle the vigour
of the mid 30's
dripping with free Spritz
and tapestry suits
they better watch out
all those we've not met yet
I set the controls of that sordid wheely bin
and plot the course for debauchery
that's mainly just house and garage
despite reduced elasticity
and perished rubber
we will tolerate the pain and push through
for Sheffield
The crystalisation
I wonder when exactly it happens
50? 60?
Like the music window closes which opens age 8
Closes around 25 maybe
When you can remember all the lyrics
From those formative years
Yet can't even recall a full chorus age 38
From that track that's been on repeat
on 6 music for weeks
The hardening is different
As once that outer layer forms
Calcification - that solid crust
nothing else is every allowed in
Watertight
No cracks to let light in
Made up
Perhaps its to that no darkness
Is allowed in either
The chamber is full
Any only formulates echoes of its own limitations
Immune to progress
Allergic to new ideas
Like 'people nowadays have more allergies'
Or that 'neurodiversity' does not exist
Ridiculous they say
In our day people just got on with it
Crack on, stiff upper lip
Surely its a Victorian hangover
Or merely the difference between a mind
that is open or closed