Tag: body (Page 3 of 7)

‘The Break of Day’, by Jacqueline Woods

August 26, 2018 / Sara Wasson

Pain paralyses.
It hurts too much to move,
to unlock, unhinge my joints,
put pressure on my tender limbs.

I will wait for my Carer:
my lover, my friend,
who will lift me from my bed,
magnificently.

My arms encircle his neck
as I breathe in the salty sunshine
of his skin, pressing my lips against
the cool ripple of his shoulder blade.

He carries me to a bathroom
of sunken marble and satin cushions,
a garland of candles guides our way,
I am Ophelia light: baptised, reborn.

His devotion will wash
the wounds of night away,
unclench the claws which trap
my dreams.

I will bathe in his tenderness:
my twisted hands and swollen knees
brave and beautiful
in his eyes.

All will be well
when he arrives.

by Jacqueline Woods
My poetry collection is available on Amazon: Jacqueline Woods, I Have Learnt

‘Growth?’, by @RoseClue, @ Advanced Wizards, @Watercolors,

August 6, 2018 / Sara Wasson

a watercolor image of a tree with five branches ,shaped like a hand, each finger one color of the rainbow, but after a certain point in the trunk each color becomes muddled together in a confusing mess. A caption in red block letters that “bleed” into the background like scratches reads, “from pain comes growth” with a question mark.

Where does it even start?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
How can I tell each apart?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
Where does it even end?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
Why isn’t my body my friend?
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know

by @RoseClue (twitter, instagram), @ Advanced Wizards, @Watercolors (facebook)

USA

‘Metamorphosis’, by Marion Michell

June 8, 2018 / Sara Wasson

When the pain goes I half suppose my flesh marked, transformed. A growth of lichen, say, with its warm turmeric tint; a layer of cool, silvery fish-scales; traces of the glacial burn of chain-mail melting into skin. Best of all a delicate, graceful articulation of relief on the site of its worst excesses: once the sharp, piercing jolts give over to prickling, tingling sensations (as if the top of my skull were open or at least porous), the tiniest, downiest feathers could unfurl in the round, a bit like a peacock’s crest – thin stalks topped with trembling blowballs.

But there is nothing, not a wound, not a bruise, not even the flushed tone of a limb pressed against the mirror, straining elsewhere.

A small crochet work, of a shiny ochre hue, is laid out on a piece of white paper.

(A small crochet work, of a shiny ochre hue, is laid out on a piece of white paper. Dense stitches amass around an empty centre, as if framing a face, becoming looser and looser and turning into ever wider swinging loops. A bit like Medusa’s serpent hair, only less dangerous. In the empty centre, where, were it a face, the mouth would be, lies a small pink square of paper with a black circle from which a thin line protrudes, describing a marker, or corner, or the beginnings of an arrow.)

by Marion Michell

SUPINELY SUBLIMELY (Book)
Blog
Art

United Kingdom

‘The Grinder’, by Alan Horne

June 1, 2018 / Sara Wasson

We pay the cable from the reel in staggers,
jerk the squiggly line between the bushes,
wake the minor aches, the none too vicious
graters in the knee that love to grab us.

Nothing lightweight in the gear for this one:
the Black and Decker like a struggling toddler;
the squeaky derricks of our legs manoeuvred
round the pain to give the tools a platform.

Though it’s money saved; and while the gripe’s curtailed
we crouch to proud, redundant, bent old nails
which squeal against the grinder, scattering in the nettles
tiny marigolds of blistered metal
until the shanks resign, the flat heads flying.
But how to rise, from those smoking stumps of iron?

by Alan Horne

United Kingdom

twitter @mralanhorne

‘She asks if it’s raining outside’, by Jane Hartshorn

May 19, 2018 / Sara Wasson

She asks if it’s raining outside while she takes my blood pressure. I ask if I should take my shoes off before I stand on the scales. Sharp scratch, she says before she slides in the needle. Four vials of blood, all with sticky labels. I take the foil plate into the cubicle, slip on the purple latex gloves. My name is printed on the side of the plastic tube. The body makes the slow transition to data.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how painful are your joints? I try to measure my pain. She presses on my knee and I gurgle, spit out my tongue. My body is unmarked, conceals the grinding of bones. No sign of swelling here, she says. Writes it down. Ghost-bodied, I float somewhere on an interface, alongside the sick. Sleeping whales suspended in the blue. We sing the numbers of our suffering.

by Jane Hartshorn

Scotland

‘NIGHT SWEATS’, by Blair James

May 11, 2018 / Sara Wasson

you sit in my throat like a stone in shoe

eyes dry as bone. bones hurt.

why cry?

these days that feel different but all so same.

little belly wrenches all the time as though to be freed from something

tonsils i should rip them from my neck. daft neck

neck forever stiff

but why should neck feel at ease when i remain so needlessly static

lose my reasons every day

and think of new

you div

ask yourself what time it is. what day

become like a teddy bear.

apples hurt my mouth but i still eat them.

how life is unfair.

why must i scratch my skin?

not fair on you

to have everything

daffodils. i used to kick their heads off. weak.

it follows me round everywhere.

what’s the point in being alive when you’re dead

how can you sleep when you’re wet

wet

by Blair James

United Kingdom

‘Poor Growing Season’, by Miranda Cichy

May 11, 2018 / Sara Wasson

by Miranda Cichy

The year I grew tomatoes
I had no understanding
that my body was failing,
how the plants needed
more earth than I could give them,
out in the yard
on a concrete bed,
hunkered in pots
the size of my skull. I
fed them too early, I
forgot to pierce
the container holes
and June drowned them.
You can try too hard
to care for something,
and I watched through
the dusty window
as the summer shifted,
as my body took
a spade to itself, dug
and re-dug, broke
roots until the soil was raw.
Good days unfurl
in bad years
like yellow flowers, sometimes
the fruit does set. But
the tomatoes I picked
were swollen, their faces
multiplied, the seeds like grit,
stems bending from the sticks
that were meant to hold them up.

by Miranda Cichy

United Kingdom

‘D is for Dysesthesia’, by Gillian Shirreffs

May 10, 2018 / Sara Wasson

D is for Dysesthesia
It’s also for dictionary. I’m very fond of mine. I was given it as a gift in 1993. Emblazoned on the front are the following statements:
• The foremost dictionary of current English: now thoroughly revised and expanded
• 120,000 entries and 190,000 definitions
• Over 20,000 entries new to this edition

I looked up the word dysesthesia. It’s not there. Neither is its alternate spelling: dysaesthesia.

D is for Difficult
It’s difficult to describe dysesthesia. However, the clue is in the name. I’ve learned it’s from the Greek ‘dys’, for bad, and ‘aisthesis’, for sensation. So, bad sensation. In practice, for me, this means my fingers might feel as though they’re being ground in a vice or my thighs like they’ve been splashed with acid. Or, sometimes, it’s the reverse.

by Gillian Shirreffs

USA (although I’m from Scotland originally)

‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’, by Amanda Steel

April 30, 2018 / Sara Wasson

Waking up at 2am
Neck locked again
Tilt forward, searing pain
Then snap, try to get back to sleep

A morning spent studying
Sat at a laptop, the pain spreads
To my shoulders, I stretch
Moving head and shoulders, crackle

Late evening and writing is done
I think I might be too
I move and my whole body seems to pop
This can’t be right, I’m only thirty-eight

by Amanda Steel
https://amandasteelwriter.wordpress.com/

United Kingdom