I don’t often write rhyming verse, but I do like to use alliteraton and slant rhymes.

The Shadow

You cannot see me,
I am an empty space,
a void, a vacuum,
a black hole,
beyond the bounds
of visibility.

A nullity, a negative,
a nothingness,
I slip beneath your notice,
and past the perimeter
of your perceptions.

Linda Rushby 16 April 2023

Bronze plaque on a wooden bench
commemorates a life.

A woman,
born two years after me,
died a quarter century ago.

‘Loving wife and mother,
who loved this place.’

Some of us are blessed with joy,
and some with time.

Linda Rushby 5 April 2023

Bare branches inked
against a pale sky.

Hawk hovers,
then passes over me.

Under the trees,
sounds of birdsong,
earth-smells of leafmould;
rotting remains of
last year’s life
nurturing new generations.

White chalk crumbles
over smooth grey flint,
prized by our ancesters.

Everything is held
in potential.

Linda Rushby 5 April 2023

I used to have a writer’s head
but when I looked, the muse had fled.

I thought I had a line today,
I tried to chase another one,
but then the first one ran away
and I was left with none.

My brain is locked,
my writing’s blocked.
What else is there to say?

Linda Rushby 4 April 2023

Under those lowering skies,
between those scattered showers,
seeking the truth:
bright patches of colour among dark leaves;
snatches of birdsong among the traffic.

Like a heart waiting for hope.
Like a lost poet, seeking the next word.

Linda Rushby 2 April 2023

You crossed the last bridge
and here you stand.
Nowhere else to go,
and nothing to change
except yourself.

You wanted to know her better,
you thought that was the way
to find some kind of peace,
and reconciliation.

But what you learned did
nothing of the kind.
She is just as stubborn,
and you as confused,
as you always were.

You are both as bad as each other,
you and your own worst enemy.
You cannot change her,
and you cannot love her.

You have crossed the last bridge,
and there’s nowhere else to go.

Linda Rushby April 2023

In fact, I’ve just discovered that it wasn’t yesterday, it was the day before, I didn’t post anything at all yesterday. On the other hand, I have a feeling that I wrote an extra poem last year so maybe it balances out.

I seem to have a problem with integrating my soshul meeja – my last blog post didn’t automatically get shared on Facebook, as it used to (as recently as the previous post from 26 February), but did go automatically on Twitter. Instagram, however, which I’ve been using to post a daily photo since the start of the year, has NOT given me the option to share on Twitter since 10 February, although prior to that it was doing so automatically. If anybody has any idea how I can rectify this, I’d love to know.

I spent some time yesterday on the weather blanket, as I said I would. Every month (in the middle, not the beginning) I add a colour to the border – in two weeks time it will be the tenth and last. Quite a lot of my time yesterday was spent in untangling the previous nine. The only way I can see of avoiding that in the future would be to leave the border and do it all at the end, which would be massively tedious and probably mean that it wouldn’t be finished till about March. I have some plastic bobbins which are supposed to help, but only a few large ones. I will try to be more systematic about it next year.

The camper van went in for its MOT yesterday, and miraculously it passed on the first go (for the second year running). It was due in June, but was covered by the six months extension, which would have got it to January, but I wanted to avoid that because the tax is due then, and car insurance and MOT in March/April, so I decided to spread it out. The garage called me at about 5, and I didn’t really want to go and collect it then because that would have meant trying to reverse it into the garage in the dark (a nightmare) so I asked them to keep it for me till today. As the sun is shining – and the sky clear for the first time in ages – I am going to attempt to take it out for a picnic. I wasn’t sure if my season ticket for parking at the country park had been renewed or not, it was due in September but the direct debit didn’t go out. However I just had a rummage among my emails and found that they’ve extended it to the end of the year because of the closure for the first lockdown.

I will make sure I take a cup this time, and my coat. But I can’t stay too long, because I need to make sure I’m back before dark. I need to make sure I take it out at least once a month over winter, so it doesn’t end up in the same state as this spring and last. All this seems as good a reason as any to take it out today, before the next lockdown starts. A good sort of day.

I can’t seem to get started today. Realised yesterday that it’s only a couple of weeks till NaNoWriMo. I did the 50k words challenge in 2018, and last November I tried reading it through just in case there was anything in it. Basically, it’s just as if I’d been writing three of these blog posts a day for a month, not even a sniff of a novel, just same old same old. So this year I’m not going to bother. Am I going to set myself any kind of writing challenge at all? After all I managed the poems for NaPoWriMo. Some days I think I should – maybe read through what I’ve got of ‘The Long Way Back’, I don’t know.

There are a few issues over ‘The Long Way Back’ (the follow-up to ‘Single to Sirkeci’). Partly it’s because I stopped in the middle of the journey, and didn’t include the return, in order to make it a more manageable size – but that part of the book is already written, so I could just combine that with the first part and maybe release the whole thing just to Kindle. Because the second part on its own would make quite a short book (about 40k words), I had the idea of writing about what happened after I came back and tagging that on the end – but when I started editing the blogs from that time it all seemed too downbeat, then there was the Prague bit, and I wondered if it would make two additional books, then there’s the question of: where do I stop, because life is still going on (even if it isn’t quite so interesting these days). But the longer I put off starting on it the more pointless it all seems, especially given that the original book hasn’t exactly sold very well.

It all becomes a long circular argument about – what and whom am I writing for? what other things could I be doing with my time? will I ever get back to my 30 year old lapsed novel, will I ever get an idea for another novel? will I ever have any ideas for short stories to contribute to the anthologies of my writers’ group? (who have stopped meeting again since the weather has turned and the Covid restrictions have tightened up).

Maybe these 500 word missives are as much as I can cope with these days. I said yesterday (I think it was) that I keep trying, keep trying to ‘fail better’. But how can I tell whether the voice in my head that stops me from setting off down that particular road is aiming to sabotage me or to save me from myself?