Non-Fiction Prose Seeking Friendly Advice
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Non-poetic writing including diary extracts, journal entries, letters, essays and art
Friendly feedback has been requested for these poems.
Type W
When I was ten I wanted to become a writer.
Already I was journaling always remembering how newspaper ink
seemed bluish in mild morning light ,and how nectar of clover rushed
at my feet when I ran
across the pages like they were fields.
How histories gave gramophone sound to a twirling wish. An art was born from
my hands as gallant quill wove an image like a linguistic rosary of letters and words.
When the typewriter came into my life I hardly knew this familiar stranger would once
One day become my best friend.
After...
Already I was journaling always remembering how newspaper ink
seemed bluish in mild morning light ,and how nectar of clover rushed
at my feet when I ran
across the pages like they were fields.
How histories gave gramophone sound to a twirling wish. An art was born from
my hands as gallant quill wove an image like a linguistic rosary of letters and words.
When the typewriter came into my life I hardly knew this familiar stranger would once
One day become my best friend.
After...
#LifeAsAWriter
#memories
29 reads
6 Comments
Clappers

#sex
#illness
#dirty
20 reads
0 Comments
I Escaped, But Only Just - Part 7: Mixed Blessings
School offered little respite - apart from the chance to play the piano in the main hall sometimes. Early on, I became locked in a cycle that usually began with someone teasing me and ended with me losing my temper. I would get frustrated and hurl objects around or rip the buttons off my shirt, largely because I didn’t have adequate skills to articulate frustration. During a needlework lesson towards the end of my first year, three boys in the class kept provoking me until I reached for a wooden item and hurled it at the window. Fortunately, the glass didn’t shatter.
***
I...
***
I...
#childhood
#family
#memories
29 reads
2 Comments
I Escaped, But Only Just - Part 6: Family Tension
The daily bus journeys to school were beginning to prove tiring, so my parents moved home, closer to the school. A couple of streets away from the new house stood the tallest factory chimney in Europe. Further on was a secluded muddy trail that weaved its way through playing fields, back onto the main road – ideal for walking the dog. The hill on the opposite side of the main road led up to a grass summit with a pylon visible from our backyard. In the other direction, a pathway rose up another hill with cottages set back from the lane, leading to several miles of fields and farms, hemmed in...
#childhood
#family
#misunderstood
32 reads
2 Comments
I Escaped, But Only Just - Part 5: Aloof From My Peers
I attended a Jewish High school in the north of England that bore a vague resemblance to the kids from the Beverly Hills. Our family weren’t rich - and therefore, I didn’t belong socially. In time, I would face a new issue that marked me as different: labels I hadn’t paid attention to before. Remedial. Autistic. Slow. Educationally Subnormal.
The first day passed uneventfully, though, and I found myself looking forward to going back the next day. Carrying a briefcase of my own gave me a strong sense of pride and I soon got used to the routine of making my way to a different...
The first day passed uneventfully, though, and I found myself looking forward to going back the next day. Carrying a briefcase of my own gave me a strong sense of pride and I soon got used to the routine of making my way to a different...
#rejection
#childhood
#school #memories
#school #memories
39 reads
4 Comments
I Escaped, But Only Just - Part 4: Bad Behaviour
Four years to your Barmitzvah,’ people would say upon asking my age. I’d turned nine - meaning I had four years to get ready. A Barmitzvah takes place when a Jewish boy reaches thirteen. It’s a sort of coming of age, a reading of the Torah in front of the community – a debut, for want of a better word. Some boys fear messing up, but that hardly ever happens.
Twice a week after school, and on Sundays mornings, my parents took Robin and I to Cheder classes. At Cheder, I learnt the Hebrew alphabet. I learnt that the word sefer meant book and that the word kelev meant dog. That a...
Twice a week after school, and on Sundays mornings, my parents took Robin and I to Cheder classes. At Cheder, I learnt the Hebrew alphabet. I learnt that the word sefer meant book and that the word kelev meant dog. That a...
#rejection
#childhood
#family #memories
#family #memories
39 reads
4 Comments
Navigation of cliffs
Rocks are our elders, the oldest natural material, the spirit of rock never forgets but helps us to remember." Sandra Ingerman
Closer to the rocks I have never been. At the back of my house there is part of the
natural landscape which is hills and cliffy rocky edges. It is there where I sit often.
Many a time I have received direct messages from my moments there.
These rocks speak, they are wise and remind me how each part of us remains a story.
How the broken parts interconnect and shape us. I always greet the nature first.
This connection is life...
Closer to the rocks I have never been. At the back of my house there is part of the
natural landscape which is hills and cliffy rocky edges. It is there where I sit often.
Many a time I have received direct messages from my moments there.
These rocks speak, they are wise and remind me how each part of us remains a story.
How the broken parts interconnect and shape us. I always greet the nature first.
This connection is life...
#universe
#nature
#wisdom
55 reads
4 Comments
I Escaped, But Only Just - Part 3: Undercurrents Of Disquiet
A year or so passed. My older brother Brian started at a prestigious school, but my middle brother Robin and I struggled, both at school and at home. We had phobias. We’d hide when my mother used to the blender in the kitchen, running from the sound that filled the house with its frightening and echoing din. We had repetitive nightmares about ghosts, the same nightmare with similar characters.
In one dream, we found ourselves playing drums in a band that the ghosts had organised, and I remember the bedroom being obscured in some way – foggy perhaps, even though the light was on. ...
In one dream, we found ourselves playing drums in a band that the ghosts had organised, and I remember the bedroom being obscured in some way – foggy perhaps, even though the light was on. ...
#childhood
#family
#memories #misunderstood
#memories #misunderstood
56 reads
4 Comments
the turn coat
A turncoat
His name was Vidkun Quisling and under the Nazi occupation
of Norway, he declared himself a minister/president that suited
the Germans got him to sign the death sentence papers.
During the Russian revolution, he went there with Fridtjof Nansen
and developed a hatred for the country, nevertheless, he met
and married a woman who turned out to be Jewish.
Everyone pretended she was not: even Wikipedia does not
mention this for obvious reasons.
When peace came, the question was, what to do with Quisling
he was relatively young...
His name was Vidkun Quisling and under the Nazi occupation
of Norway, he declared himself a minister/president that suited
the Germans got him to sign the death sentence papers.
During the Russian revolution, he went there with Fridtjof Nansen
and developed a hatred for the country, nevertheless, he met
and married a woman who turned out to be Jewish.
Everyone pretended she was not: even Wikipedia does not
mention this for obvious reasons.
When peace came, the question was, what to do with Quisling
he was relatively young...
#politics
#art
#morality
#responsibility
#tradition
19 reads
0 Comments
I Escaped, But Only Just - Part 2: Safer Times
Boys,’ my mother called. ‘Time for Kiddish.’
A Friday evening. A Jewish family about to welcome in the weekly Sabbath. Bathed and dressed for the occasion, my middle brother Robin and I filed into the dining room to hear our father recite the prayers from a dark blue book called the Siddur. A bottle of homemade wine stood on the table, along with a goblet for the wine, a collection of skullcaps that Jewish males wear during prayer and a cloth with embroidered Hebrew lettering to cover the two loaves of bread, the Chollahs.
Our family consisted of five: parents and...
A Friday evening. A Jewish family about to welcome in the weekly Sabbath. Bathed and dressed for the occasion, my middle brother Robin and I filed into the dining room to hear our father recite the prayers from a dark blue book called the Siddur. A bottle of homemade wine stood on the table, along with a goblet for the wine, a collection of skullcaps that Jewish males wear during prayer and a cloth with embroidered Hebrew lettering to cover the two loaves of bread, the Chollahs.
Our family consisted of five: parents and...
#childhood
#family
#memories
55 reads
9 Comments
I Escaped, But Only Just: Part 1: A Recurring Dream
Buildings resembling cashew nuts. A church spire, matching in colour. A hill. I float restlessly, down the hill, past the brown-reddish buildings.
The people have come for me. After all these years, they've tracked me down. They find me in the front room of a house. My home.
It's over. The ringleader strikes me across the face. A backhander. It's years since anyone did that.
They leave. Or, at least, I think they do. Nothing seems certain anymore.
A few houses down, people sit in a square or a circle, praying.
Afterwards, these...
The people have come for me. After all these years, they've tracked me down. They find me in the front room of a house. My home.
It's over. The ringleader strikes me across the face. A backhander. It's years since anyone did that.
They leave. Or, at least, I think they do. Nothing seems certain anymore.
A few houses down, people sit in a square or a circle, praying.
Afterwards, these...
#abuse
#bullying
#memories
51 reads
6 Comments
DU Poetry : Non-Fiction Prose Seeking Advice: Short Stories, Diary Entries and Letters