On Line Workshop, Exercise One

[WendyPratt]

Keith! You poor thing! I had a French teacher who was exactly the same. Wore a stupid little neckerchief and thought he ruled the world. tiny wee penis I'll wager.

Really enjoyed that, great story telling.

[WendyPratt]

Brett, I though this absolutely wonderful. You've really taken the exercise and run with it. I enjoyed it so much.

Wendy

[WendyPratt]

Nick, the old religious awakening. Really well expressed. Thoroughly enjoyed.

[WendyPratt]

Aw, sue. I loved this one, I can absolutely imagine little Sue!

[WendyPratt]

Here's mine. Looking back, I think this exercise really opens one up to the mosty heart breaking moments. I think for exercise three we'll try something a bit lighter.


Amazing Grace

Here is the divide.
On the one side, the pregnant wife,
the other, the grieving mother.
And in between, a father, a husband,
a man trapped in a vacuum as the surgeons
run past. And after the sudden, hydraulic drop
of the time being called, this woman emerges.
On a white barge, a sleeping Cleopatra. Look,
she wake, that bed is too big
for these three small shapes.

Daddy bear, Mummy bear
and the little thing they lost in the rush
between pregnancy and birth. In a bed
that quite clearly isn’t theirs. And don’t
they look uncomfortable for the photos:
no natural smiles, their heads are flicking
knowing that these are the only images
they’ll have, and really, they should look happy
for eternity, rather than in-the-moment-sad.

Like shuffling cards, those emotions. Then here,
at three o clock, am, as the fan glides round again
and halogen anoints her husband, wrapped
as he is on that camp bed, she lays on her side
staring at the puddle of lamp light
that illuminates her daughter, and wonders
how she can feel so lost, but yet so found.

[val]

I'm late coming to this - but here's a fragment of my school life.

Miss

[val]

Drat - I must have pressed aomething wrong!

Here we go again!
Miss Sinclair taught Latin. Her glacial blue eyes were set in a round unsmiling face. Her silver hair was scraped back into a loose bun on the back of her head and her thin-rimmed glasses seemed to accentuate the ice in her glare. Her contempt for those she taught was clear in every word she spoke. Any signs of unruliness caused a tirade about our worthlessness and the doom which was awaiting us. Late or sloppily written homework was an excuse for severe character assassination. Latin was not my best subject but I did try - mainly from fear. I don't know why she aroused such fear - the worst she could do was give us a detention - but she held us in thrall and no-one ever misbehaved in her lessons.