From the Orchid's point of view

She placed me on the very top shelve of a book case three months ago. I sat there since, quiet and gently bending in beauty and grace, my two soft petals and three tender sepals outstretched like a lion’s mane, the colour of calm light violet threaded with deep purple veins. My white specked throat enhances my blood red female lip, open and receiving.   

High on my stem, I and my several delicate faces peer down on this room which seems to be both her work place and her dining room. There's a white wooden table in the middle, every morning she sits with her laptop and printer, she types, writes notes, makes calls, drinks coffee and talks to herself. When her child is home from school, she removes the computer and printer and places two dinner plates, the little one always has milk, the mother always drinks water. She asks her child how school was, she asks her what she’s been learning in math, and whether she finds any of it challenging. The child is animated, always eager to make her mother laugh, they giggle and tell each other funny things. The child never has the appetite to finish all her food, the mother wishes she would.

On Thursdays the mother asks the child about music class and the child is more lively and animated about music class than about any other school subject, the music teacher is funny and inspiring she explains.

The mother is happy when the child is happy, the child is happy when she can make her mother laugh or get her interested about something she is saying.

They are two separate beings; one very young, one mature. One thinks that by knowing Jupiter has sixty three moons she surely knows everything there is to know, the other used to believe she knew something. One at the beginning of the journey, where the laborious distance and trying bumps can’t yet be seen, the other had seen the incessant journey and felt some of its dreadful bumps. And yet, they feed on each other’s existence; one sees what she could be in the future, the other sees what she could have been.

a gleaming pallet

There is sacredness to the mundane task of cleaning her home.

She slides the rectangle mop smoothly on the laminate floors,  

fitting it in the corners of the rooms, not an inch untouched.

The way she fogs the bathroom mirror with her warm breath to

wipe away dots left by splashed water and damp.

In repeated delicate and feminine motions her hands to and fro sweeping

Half a lemon to scrub the silver kitchen sink, letting it shine and sparkle.

In brushing the tenacious acrylic paints from her pallet she finds a secret pleasure;

soaking the stubborn colours in hot water, watching them rise, melting into one another, a haze of a multi-hued storm… a gleaming pallet, a new painting tomorrow, another chance to live.

The night

The night moved, heavy and drenched in sorrow

morning rain settled on the dark road in puddles of black ink,

shuddering with hazy red, amber and green

a tired woman shoulders someone else’s guilt; she feels their hurt for them

an abused woman sleeps on the very edge of her bed, cold, almost falling

a lonely woman breaks the fragile dry spaghetti sticks into the pot of boiling water

the moon looks into austere loveless rooms spilling its silver pool of light,

while night took its last breath.

single but taken

They still live with someone long gone

They water the memories lest they die

They take on their hobbies and interests as their own

They over use their favourite words, expressions, a gesture of the hand

They glow and come alive at an unprecedented moment passed

They can’t love someone new..

unable to cheat the ghost that lies beside them every night.

Old feelings

Old feeling come back often, as difficult and as unmanageable as they have always been. One day I’m walking down the street, singing to myself, enjoying the beauty of the sky, the trees, the birds, then WHACK! A sad memory jumps out of nowhere and robs me of everything I have; I’m suddenly small, poor, and hopeless. I can never see it coming, it’s almost like recovering from a long vicious cold, I feel fine, I feel strong, immune even! That virus won’t make me suffer again, but then it does, and there doesn’t have to be a rational reason, and there are no easy or express ways out the other side, and there are never any guarantees I won’t catch it again.

I don’t like it when people say hard and difficult experiences make you stronger, they don’t, they make you nervous, fearful, always worried what might be hiding for you behind the corner. 

My first solo art exhibition

I’m getting ready for my first solo art exhibition and I am both excited and EXHAUSTED! There is so much to do, preparing the venue, advertising, finding suitable payment solutions, and since I’m reading some of my poetry at the exhibition I’m also running around looking for equipment (a small stage, sound system, mic..etc.,)

I’m working really hard on advertising my event, as most artists probably experienced, artists are not good at marketing and publicizing themselves! It’s hard for me to tell people to come and see my work because it’s awesome, mostly because I feel I don’t have the right to evaluate my own work.

Then of course the nerves kick in; what if nobody comes? What if it snows? What if people come and I don’t sell anything? Or in other words, people will hate my art.

I need to remember that all I can do is my best, there are things that are simply out of my control like the weather! And in terms of the actual selling of paintings, art is an acquired taste, there will people who will love it and others who will not.

Please come to my first art exhibition

When? Saturday 12/12/2015     from 4.00 – 7.00 pm

Where? The Herons Café, Coombe Abbey Country Park, Binley, Coventry CV3 2AB

I tell the moon

I repeat it to myself in the night unconscious like a dark secret

I tell it to the walls

I say it to the angry hurried wind every time it rushes through, aggressive and violent, flustering me indifferently

I hear it in the noisy empty chatter of people, in the clamor of my old weary heart

I whisper it to the wise knowing moon when it rises calling me to the window..

I miss him