The Morning After in the Park
She follows a set of footprints in the dew-grass
Enveloped by silence and the morning summer haze
She sees them at intervals, scattered in clumps and gatherings
She thinks of illicit meetings, trysts,mitchings, lies, long tales
She hears them swigging illegal beverages
watches bold struttings, brash mouthings
Don't they ever watch the news?
She stoops to pick up their waste
The spreading stain that blots out oceans
infects landfills, entangles and ensnares
And, once ingested, becomes embedded.
Kills.
She was young once too
Care-free and care-less of the Future.
https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/science/plastic-pollution/#earth-day-pollution.jpg
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018
Tuesday, 29 May 2018
Book Review- Crime Thriller- Missing Links
Missing Links by Rosaleen Flanagan.
ISBN 978-1-5272-2326-4
Recent
years have seen a spate of female Detective Inspectors, Sergeants and
Superintendents competing with their male peers to solve crimes and restore
justice. The likes of Stella Gibson in
The Fall, Catherine Cawood inHappy Valley
The Fall, Catherine Cawood in
In the novel Missing Links Rosaleen Flanagan gives us our very own home grown sleuth.
A native of
Tullamore, Flanagan’s familiarity with Midland towns and village community gives her story a true ring of authenticity.
Missing
Links is Flanagan’s first novel in a trilogy that follows the path of Cathy
Spratt DI and her dealings with crime in the Irish heartland.
*********
Cathy
Spratt deserves a hard earned break; so she takes herself off to Carrabhain, to the
cottage she inherited from her father. Here she hopes to recharge her batteries
and restore her energy and enthusiasm for the demanding role of Detective
Inspector that awaits her in Dublin
However,
during her stay, a local crime, the fatal attack of pensioner Ned Cunningham, drags her back into the fray.
Given
Cathy’s local connections in the village, Chief Superintendent Clarke thinks that she is in an
advantaged position to crack the case. If she
doesn’t solve it ,Cathy knows that she will never be able to hold her head up in this townland
again.
A botched
robbery? Or a murder perpetrated for an inheritance?
Cathy brings
all her forensic know- how and instinct to the challenge of finding Ned's attacker.
Rural Ireland
But sightings of a phantom jeep in the bog, missing Sterling notes, the disappearance of a young woman and the subsequent discovery of her body heighten the intensity of Spratt's search.
The inquiry
develops into a National and Cross Channel man hunt.
Then a local woman disappears and time is running out for the DI…
As the end
draws near and the uncomfortable truth surrounding the murders becomes clear,
the hunt for the killer culminates in a shocking confrontation.
Book
available from the author at:
Thursday, 24 May 2018
Bridport Guest Blog
I love the Bridport Competition quest blog. Find link below.
Here a recent flash fiction winning author shares 4 tips.
1.Pen and paper are useful to have about you at all times...
(we all know this but...)
2. He's sick of the wet weather and finds it hard to write outdoors in the rain.....(Well, we would too.)
3. A remote cabin in rural France may not do the trick. (Check European weather patterns.)
4. Share your stuff!!! Art is not art unless shared.
(I don't know if I agree with that ,but it can be useful to get out there and share.
Blog, join writing groups, enter competitions, approach agents !!! with trepidation
And publishers? Sure why not?)
It's a clever, inspirational guest blog. Do read and enjoy.
Guest Blog Bridport Prize
Here a recent flash fiction winning author shares 4 tips.
1.Pen and paper are useful to have about you at all times...
(we all know this but...)
2. He's sick of the wet weather and finds it hard to write outdoors in the rain.....(Well, we would too.)
3. A remote cabin in rural France may not do the trick. (Check European weather patterns.)
4. Share your stuff!!! Art is not art unless shared.
(I don't know if I agree with that ,but it can be useful to get out there and share.
Blog, join writing groups, enter competitions, approach agents !!! with trepidation
And publishers? Sure why not?)
It's a clever, inspirational guest blog. Do read and enjoy.
Guest Blog Bridport Prize
Summer Style
It's that time of year again!
The fella from the County Council has been transforming our Park/Woodland into a maze of
woodsy-wildflower trails. Am posting a revised version of poem I wrote for him last year.
THE STYLIST
Nobody sees
him shave his trails
But in the evening they are there
Turning our park woodland into a
gallery
Of buzz cuts, long and short.
Opening up our possibilities.
Giving us choices we never knew we
had.
A high taper with scalp exposure in
front of the big Ash.
To the left, a clean shaven trail
that cuts through fields of daisies.
And, to the
right, a razed trail that weaves and curves
Through common vetch, its clinging
tendrils wrapped
Around its neighbours. A mane with
shaved sides circles
The Beech, enticing us past stinging
nettles
That skirt a hedge of bramble, not
yet ripe, and ribwort plantain,
its ovary capsules spilling seeds at
our feet.
Or past a butch cut that slices
through a clump of dandelion,
Their jagged teeth, dents-de-lion,
in various stages of growth;
Some bright yellow heads threatening
closure
With the
scent of rain, and gossamer balls of seeds
Shedding themselves in our wake.
A stroke of
his blade
And a stubble path is shaven with
precision
Through tall grass sporting hogweed five
feet tall.
A V
junction creates a crown of creeping buttercups
Drawing the eye to a newly planted Oak.
He’ll be back tomorrow, or the day
after, or the day after that.
Restyling and regrooming our park.
The man on
the grass mower tractor
From Dunlaoghaire-Rathdown County
Tuesday, 22 May 2018
Hey Presto!
In my never ending quest for inspiration I bought a book entitled How To Write Poetry
It is simple, straightforward , and I have to say useful. Published by HowExpert Press.
One exercise is to take a familiar object
Write down everything you associate with it
Colour, texture, smell, touch...
And Hey Presto- A Poem.
Here's my effort:
You are sandpaper to the touch
and smell of sissal
Your fibres cut like paper cuts
and leave bare feet scoured
You are pocked and cratered
from use and abuse
You witness comings and goings
and hesitations on thresholds
You could tell a story or two
if you had a mind to
You endure hot coals and cat claws
You are the one who puts up with
The one who endures...
You are a door-mat.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018
It is simple, straightforward , and I have to say useful. Published by HowExpert Press.
One exercise is to take a familiar object
Write down everything you associate with it
Colour, texture, smell, touch...
And Hey Presto- A Poem.
Here's my effort:
You are sandpaper to the touch
and smell of sissal
Your fibres cut like paper cuts
and leave bare feet scoured
You are pocked and cratered
from use and abuse
You witness comings and goings
and hesitations on thresholds
You could tell a story or two
if you had a mind to
You endure hot coals and cat claws
You are the one who puts up with
The one who endures...
You are a door-mat.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018
Sunday, 6 May 2018
Tribute to a Linen Jacket
For me there are two types of clothes; the ones I wear to tatters until they are finally assigned to house duty, though invariably I am frequently sighted out and about in them.
Then there are the ones that hang pristine in my wardrobe, kept for that special occasion that doesn't always arrive, or when it does, the aforesaid items seem to be , somehow, no longer suitable.
Recently I have been assessing the viability of my Summer wardrobe, some items dating back to the last century, which is not that hard given the sparsity of Summer in these parts.
One such item is the subject of this poem.
It needs to be consigned to a bin, but, in parting, I feel the urge to pay tribute to my tan linen jacket
You have outgrown me.
My shoulders no longer rising to your girth.
I need to let you go , and so,
Reluctant, I note your rent seam, your frayed collar, your drooping hem.
And remember you in your heyday, matched
with cool cream cotton and twill.
You were my attire of choice
When I last saw him.
A car park rendezvous.
His eyes scan my orbit for something to say.
His averted gaze -a boulder set to stem
the likely rush of downstream flow
Or marram grass, its fibrous roots to bind
the endless shift of sand across time.
Making intermittent the channel between us
Leaving unsaid, things
that might have been said.
Leaving unanswered, questions
that were never asked.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018
Then there are the ones that hang pristine in my wardrobe, kept for that special occasion that doesn't always arrive, or when it does, the aforesaid items seem to be , somehow, no longer suitable.
Recently I have been assessing the viability of my Summer wardrobe, some items dating back to the last century, which is not that hard given the sparsity of Summer in these parts.
One such item is the subject of this poem.
It needs to be consigned to a bin, but, in parting, I feel the urge to pay tribute to my tan linen jacket
You have outgrown me.
My shoulders no longer rising to your girth.
I need to let you go , and so,
Reluctant, I note your rent seam, your frayed collar, your drooping hem.
And remember you in your heyday, matched
with cool cream cotton and twill.
You were my attire of choice
When I last saw him.
A car park rendezvous.
His eyes scan my orbit for something to say.
His averted gaze -a boulder set to stem
the likely rush of downstream flow
Or marram grass, its fibrous roots to bind
the endless shift of sand across time.
Making intermittent the channel between us
Leaving unsaid, things
that might have been said.
Leaving unanswered, questions
that were never asked.
Copyright with Cathy Leonard 2018
Thursday, 3 May 2018
Writer's block
Am sharing a guest blog I came across on the subject of writer's block. Given that this state is one of my most familiar ones, I gravitate naturally towards the subject.
It suggests among other ideas:
Free writing
and
Affirmations
It also deals with the concept of what makes you a writer...
A publication?
A publishing deal with one of the big five?
Or simply your compulsion to do it?
I found the blog inspiring. Hope you do too!
https://www.bridportprize.org.uk/news/managing-creativity-re-defining-%E2%80%98creative-success%E2%80%99-aki-schilz
It suggests among other ideas:
Free writing
and
Affirmations
It also deals with the concept of what makes you a writer...
A publication?
A publishing deal with one of the big five?
Or simply your compulsion to do it?
I found the blog inspiring. Hope you do too!
https://www.bridportprize.org.uk/news/managing-creativity-re-defining-%E2%80%98creative-success%E2%80%99-aki-schilz
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)