30th April 2018

plum blossom
flying past the window
a plastic bag

© Rachel Green 2018

a letter
from an old friend
last seen thirty years ago
but remembered fondly.
Sent a dead name
and shunted through four previous addresses:
ex-work, ex-marital, ex-childhood, sister
opened by the recipient
but not the addressee.
Penned by a widower
it tells of a death by illness
exacerbated by sculpting
and the pressure of chisel on stone.
One word from her friend
who wanted nothing to do with her
for all these long years.
Sorry.

© Rachel Green 2018

29th April 2018

flowering hawthorn
dropping blossom over the grass
fertiliser tractor

© Rachel Green 2018

dropping off trash
and unwanted items
eight bags of clothing and bric-a-brac
to a local charity shop.
The young man seems helpful
although not actually pleased
to accept the donation.
More work for him
moving and sorting
but in the skip outside
I find an old "canvas" print
torn and useless
but the stretcher seems reuseable.




© Rachel Green 2018

28th April 2018

yellow poppy
flowering at the base of a wall
rain-soaked violets

© Rachel Green 2018

Obit. 2.3

she died behind closed doors
we knew of noting behind,
the information received by way
of a funerary service note
sent long after the event
by her widower
(whom even our father never liked)
and who followed shortly after
with an 'accident'
involving a garden bonfire
and a can of petrol
a short note from the Lichfield Herald
of his death after a week
in the local burns unit.
I wasn't sorry to see him gone,
though I wonder how old their daughters are now
and if they turned out as perfect
as she always claimed they were.

© Rachel Green 2018

27th April 2018

violets
shy blooms from cracks in the pavement
dandelion charm

© Rachel Green 2018

"to drive away rats,"
he said, and I was easily led
in those days; a child
of frugality, awed
by the ease with which my friends lived.
Our big house
where a derelict cottage
hid secrets in the crawlspace
beneath worm-rotten floors.
A lit match
falling
falling
into the darkness
and a gout of flame
which devoured my childhood.

© Rachel Green 2018

26th April 2018

tulips

crowding from a stoneware pot
fresh nettles

© Rachel Green 2018

whatever happened
to my trademark coat,
worn through years of college
and afterwards.
Her mother called me the Sandyman
after the image
on the port label
and it suited well enough.
The fedora, antique even then,
fitting snugly over my shaved head
with just the tails of the Mohican
revealing the underside.
I still have the fedora
though its use is passe now
with the internet's creepy guys
but I still miss the duster

© Rachel Green 2018

25th April 2018

tiny suns
dotting the edges of the field
dandelion joy

© Rachel Green 2018

by chance
I remember a name from my past:
Simon *redacted*.
A genius in painting
with ideas years before his time
Hitler's Entry into Jerusalem
on a donkey interlaced
with a modern cityscape
and rainbow flags.
An odd young man
bursting with ideas
and ideals.
I wish I'd known him better.

© Rachel Green 2018

24th April 2018

chill wind
ruffling the fresh birch leaves
a brace of gold finches

© Rachel Green 2018

The middle of April
becomes the first day of summer
the sun beating down on a young man
hunched over,
the base of his spine resting
against a pavement bollard
designed to prevent vehiclesfrom entering.
The Blackpool Tower looms above
dwarfing his Styrofoam tray of sausage and chips
and his can of supermarket brand lager.
An old Costa coffee cup
placed hopefully on the ground
weighed down by silver and copper.
He laughs as a seagull
swoops for the chip in his fingers
stealing the food so kindly donated.
He looks up, laughs.
At least he has his health.

© Rachel Green 2018

23rd April 2018

Great tit
searching for insects
the dog's flea comb

© Rachel Green 2018

sudden urgency
a notation in the calendar
for portrait photos.
The hospital asked me to wear black
to have my nose photographed
it's "unladylike"
I'll ask for the bone to be removed
it'll be better for jiu-jitsu
if I look like Voldemort

© Rachel Green 2018

22nd April 2018

swirling petals
the cherry trees far below

Blackpool Tower

21st April 2018

snakes head fritillaries
shelter from the wind
ripening tulips

© Rachel Green 2018

the silence
of a loft space.
dusty,
filled with the smell
of old mortar
and the gaps between tiles.
Husks of dry flies
clustered in drifts
beneath the windows
and in paper potato sacks
my toy farm and doll's house
among the remnants of exercise books
detailing the life cycle of plants.

© Rachel Green 2018

20th April 2018

seeking sunshine
the cat crushes the celandines
vomits fish

© Rachel Green 2018

I lied once
about a piece of artwork
that wasn't mine
but the work of a fellow student
because I preferred his style to mine.

In late years,
my style evolved
a simplistic, cleaner edge
without the fuss of tones and planes
I was happier with.
He did me a favour, that guy,
five years of art school
condensed into one, ten minute drawing
of a hilltop in Wales.

© Rachel Green 2018

19th April 2018

first cut of the year
makes the grass grow faster
hidden cat shit

© Rachel Green 2018
John Emerson
sometimes friend,
fell into a new crowd
and started bullying
until one day
I challenged him
a middle-schoolers fight
where gender didn't matter
and I made a valiant attempt
to dig out his kidney
with my bare hands.
A patch of waste ground outside school
with a circle of classmates
cheering and jeering
where one day they'd built a church
where women were unwelcome.

© Rachel Green 2018

18th April 2018

daisies
stretching to meet the sunshine
honesty

© Rachel Green 2018

Fuck this. Fuck You
Ann St Johns screams at her dad
because he's banned her from driving
and she needs to party.
Young ladies shouldn't swear.
He speaks against a stream of inventive
from his seventeen year old
foul-mouthed daughter
wondering where he went wrong.
His wife is upstairs
after one of her migraines
and the twelve year old Sally
has turned the telly up
to get past the headphones
she wears for her laptop games.

In another street
in sight of the first
if it wasn't for the old pipe factory,
Emily Matthews threads a needle
and sews her daughter's mouth shut.

© Rachel Green 2018

17th April 2018

greengage blossom
stripped from the trees
the shed door, banging

© Rachel Green 2018

Gary was the boy
you couldn't help but like
obnoxious and sexist
at times compassionate and sweet.
He used to rub his hands
over the front of his crotch
and then sniff them
to see if his underpants were clean.
I went out drinking with him once
a dance contest at a local pub.
We were up for first prize
until I vomited pink rum
all over the manager's shoes
but he drove me home
and checked on me in the morning,
sniffing.

© Rachel Green 2018

16th April 2018

glorious sunshine
warms the heads of those below
hillside heather

© Rachel Green 2018

newly divorced
I tried a sex shop
for the first time ever.
Broad Street, Wolverhampton
a few doors down
from the comic shop.
I was my Box of Delights
allowing me the benefit
of generations of experience
until the house was repossessed
and they took away my toys.

© Rachel Green 2018

15th April 2018

streams of sunshine
dashed out by returning clouds
wood anemones close

© Rachel Green 2018

a visit
to your student digs
after a month spent apart.
One of your housemates
runs a D&D game
where my character
is repeatedly killed.
I begin to suspect.
You seem distracted.
Meaningful looks are exchanged
between the two of you.
I begin to realise
I'm the outsider here.

© Rachel Green 2018

4th April 2018

morning rain
two sparrows collecting sticks
the last of my grass seed

© Rachel Green 2018

My nose is too big
thanks to my father's genes
even the surgeon agrees.
I have a deviated septum
the reason I've been a mouth breather
for the last fifty years.
I realised it only recently
when a YouTube heroine
explained the same condition.
The surgeon suggests rhinoplasty
to correct the deviation
and reduce my nose size.
Hurrah.
Here's hoping the funding gets approved
for a quick trip to London
in six months or so.

© Rachel Green 2018

14th April 2018

story board for 'Dead Girls'

clouds
I am so bored of rain, now.
rotting polyanthus

© Rachel Green 2018

what a fucking day
"Friday the thirteenth."
They nod, knowingly,
as if being brought up Catholic
means I an condemned to superstition
I don't believe in.
Everything went wrong
from arguments to flat tyres
and a small waterfall
from the leaking toilet.
It was nothing to do with religion
or superstition.
It was because I looked at cursed paintings
and elected to paint one.

© Rachel Green 2018

13th April 2018

unceasing rain
tapping on the window
damp sparrow

© Rachel Green 2018

guilty pleasures
lunch hours spent in Broad Street
the comic shop and collector's store
looking for board games
selling daleks from broken boxes
and pre-ordering packs
of Magic the Gathering cards
and Call of Chthulu.
The breath-in-the throat moment
of opening a booster
and finding,
amongst the common lands and creatures,
that elusive Rare;
a Shivan Dragon or
(dare I even breathe?)
an Alpha issue Mox Jet.
Then back to work
where the endless queue of the jobless
sign their weekly name.

© Rachel Green 2018

12th April 2018

hood down
huddled against the rain
first aubretia

© Rachel Green 2018

an investment in time
and a little money;
acrylic paints for a project.
The decoration of a faux grave slap
a resin replica
of a weeping angel..
She is the symbol of my depression
my yearning for what might have been
had I the courage.
Ticking clocks while away the time
as I write my magnum opus;
the culmination of demons
and the twisted hope of life

© Rachel Green 2018

11th April 2018

abandoned flowers
littering the pavement
rain drenched forsythia

© Rachel Green 2018

what happened
to the freedom generation
to turn them into bigots?
Those shows from the seventies
I grew up watching
full of homophobia
and casual racism.
'Carry On...' being full
of dirty old men
and transvestite actors
try not to sound gay
as the male protagonist
falls in love with them.
How did I ever emerge
from bigoted childhood
as a free thing gay woman
full of acceptance?

© Rachel Green 2018

10th April 2018

bowed heads
under pelting rain
daffodils

© Rachel Green 2018

waiting for the post
for two tubes of oil paint
titanium white
trying to break the habit
of dark inflected paintings
I use white
to front stage the other tones
eager for the approval
of a loved one
who likes bright colours

© Rachel Green 2018

9th April 2018

supervised gardening
as I pollard a leafing willow
blackbird and robin

© Rachel Green 2018

pencil on paper
rough lines
almost a child's scribble
plot out figures.
Devoid of surroundings
they become their own landscape
human; alien.
what thoughts exist in these figures
are they lonely?
do they feel the weight of oppression?
Rejected by evangelicals,
they are trans ient

© Rachel Green 2018

8th April 2018

my phone died while taking this

sunshine
through heavy cloud
primroses

© Rachel Green 2018

morning discussion
about painting
and writing with a male eye.
A good friend asked me
to write a description of myself
as if I were Dan Brown
or Ian Fleming,
where the rigid viewpoint
is entirely of tits and ass
and general fuckibility.
I declined --
If I wrote about myself
from the viewpoint of the male gaze
I'd make myself cry.
I'm a transgender woman
with real thoughts and feelings
and no man would ever want to look at me
with that sort of viewpoint
except from the desire
not to be punched by me again.

© Rachel Green 2018

7th April 2018

low cloud
dulls the forsythia blooms
busy sparrows

© Rachel Green 2018

trimming the willow
I remember as a dance
from my days in a ceilidh band.
More effort now.
It requires secateurs, ladded and a saw.
I still have to tidy up
I was too tired
yesterday

© Rachel Green 2018

6th April 2018

mostly cloudy
but the sun comes out
morning primrose

© Rachel Green 2018

checking a document
with a new writer's tool
every hundred words.
I am surprised by the number
of hard-to-read sentences.
The meaning is clear,
but they could stand some tidying.
It also points out adverbs
and use of the passive voice.
Handy to have those corrected.
My own little editor.
Trouble is, I now takes me an hour
to write and revise
© Rachel Green 2018
 
 

5th April 2018

bright sunshine
obscuring the monitor
a vase of daffodils

© Rachel Green 2018
chipping away
at the storyboard
for the book I need to write.
An epic tale of a young girl
and her murderous tendencies,
all blamed on a demon
she names Jasfoup.
Her current partner
doesn't know her past;
is appalled by the news
of seven murders.
Or is it eight? Nine?

© Rachel Green 2018

3rd April 2018

rebooted weather
in the forsythia hedge
sparrows flirting

© Rachel Green 2018

why
do you call them 'spuggies?'
I was asked.
The old fella on the bed,
quizzical,
Because my father did
and in my dotage
I return to my youth.
Next I shall buy a tricycle
and set fire to small buildings
sig Beatles songs
as I walk the dogs
along a languid, Summer canal

© Rachel Green 2018

2nd April 2018

England
buried by snowfall
the early crocus

© Rachel Green 2018

morning snowfall silences Monday
suspends activities on a bank holiday
tyre tracks on the road notwithstanding
no cars go past
even dogwalkers are scarce
as the flakes turn to freezing rain
just the sound of the dishwasher
and the groan of the fan
of a Copenhagen computer.

© Rachel Green 2018

1st April 2018

morning sun
fades behind sullen clouds
April fool!

© Rachel Green 2018

writing board
plotting out the complicated journey
of a time traveller
What should she do
when she goes back in time
to save her father's life
or did she do that already,
and that why she's messed up now?
Should she exchange her current life
for the one she didn't have?
It was all her fault anyway
wasn't it?

© Rachel Green 2018