W is for....

1) Writing and writer: I am running my first two sections together today, because it’s the same stuff! I have been writing all my life, and was greatly helped by the school I attended in getting my writing accurate - we had to write an essay every weekend. But this did not help creativity, so it was quite a while before I started to write fiction. I started my creative writing with poetry as that was encouraged in school, but we were never asked to write an actual story. However, I have overcome that and now have published my first novel, and have the second to work on for publishing. My third is half written, and is suffering from my distraction by the AtoZchallenge!

Here is a poem that has been published in ‘Circle Time’, the third anthology by the Dalkey Writers’ Workshop. A Marché Nocturne is like a food court in a village square. They are held during the summer in many towns and villages in the Périgord region, and we love attending them.

Marché Nocturne

Serried poplars, pinkening sky

garlic and mussel scented air

guitar and accordion set up their cry-

it is time to dance at the night fair.

Plump and bald answer the call,

wives in hand, remembering when

these were sylph-girls at a Hunters’ Ball:

thought they would always be young men.

Ancient lessons guide them round

on easy moving feet

that music such a familiar sound,

a happy lilting beat.

They look down with loving eyes,

smile through all the years

connectedness that never dies

enhanced by local wine, or beers

which ooze out of million pores

and stain two dozen shirts,

wives fatter now than years before

and wearing longer skirts

but in his eyes the very girl

he held so close back then,

this gentle move the self-same whirl:

Old bodies still contain young men.

3) Wyethia is a remedy which can be useful for the type of hayfever with an itching palate