The Ritual.

For reasons unknown, the theme this week is Ghost Stories. Well, it is coming up to the end of October- ghouls are a big thing this season and vampires are just so, whatever. Honestly, if I hear another schoolgirl swooning over bloody Cedric Diggory (whom is still dead, by the way... Vampire my arse.) I'll probably lose it.

This being a 'poetry blog' though, I decided to go with my newly refreshed enthusiasm (thanks, Lancaster LitFest) and write something new. Trawling the mind for childhood memories- the ones I feel are always the scariest, the one moment of fear I remember most from those days is quite clear still- waking up to catch children being dragged through a door on TV (I believe, Poltergeist). I was sleeping out, away from home at a friend's house over the way.

I was quite surprised it was a different story that came from within me then. I spent a lot of years in the Scouts as a kid, learnt a lot about myself in the process but, like all the other kids, was only really there for the holidays. A few mates, some tents and several liberated miniature spirit bottles did me for a weekend just nicely, thank you very much. Some of the memories, it seems, weren't quite as jolly. I hope you enjoy the poem.

The Ritual

Trudging with socks sodden from the track

we smelt the air- caught ear of crackling wood over

bleating sheep and rushed towards flickering light.

It was there, with Pendle Hill still fresh in mind

you showed your stripes- pulled rank and asked,

Do you believe in ghost stories.

Our legs trembled below fire flushed faces

as marshmallows bloomed and dripped their mess

into the spitting hearth. You snapped.

On the tops things change- new variables

with every breath of the wind. You must obey.

Do as you are told, pull together.

That was the night he danced.

Took to the pole for tuck shop

twenty-ps he gathered, cap in hand.

And boy, did he dance. Shed his shell

crab like as he scuttled fleshy and nude-

woggle half covering his pubescent penis.

We soon saw his face- caught it in the torch

as you hoisted damp pants up the flagpole.

I'd never seen a ghost before-

and we just sat there, trembling.

Thanks for reading, S.

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On Congruency and Perfect Words

by David Riley

Let’s start with a story. A woman marries a prince who almost immediately begins to behave oddly. The woman also begins to act strangely before she escapes and dies in a suspicious accident. Her funeral is a contested affair between her relatives and the Royal family; the woman’s husband and her brother have a serious fight.

Sound familiar? Several people have noticed one thing – the similarity between the fate of Princess Diana and the plot of Hamlet.

Did that give you a shiver? It did me when I was first brought to see it, not only for the congruency but the fact that a poet several hundred years ago could encapsulate such key aspects of human nature that bind us across time and space.

Lines can make you shiver too. Edward Thomas does it to me; in his prose work, August (among many others) he gives a final twist at the end that makes you go, “Ahhh.” I hope you get chance to look it up. You will shiver in delight.

When he took to writing poetry it just unlocked further that ability to expose the archetypes that are always there, waiting to be seen. Perfect words became strung out diamonds on a line, showing us, in the everyday there is another world. It still happens and poetry still does its job. From Yeats to poems on the underground you just need to raise your gaze to be transported to stand amid somebody’s dreams.

And best of all you can join in. Take that small toolkit of rhyme and metre, rhythm and diction and see where it takes you. Enjoy the sound and the feel of words rubbing up against you and look out for how you can make people shiver.

“A first blow that could make air of a wall.”

Shiver.

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In a Future Country Churchyard...

Hundreds of headstones – in various types of stone – surround me. An oak stretches its branches and casts shadows. Here, here where I’ll eventually lie. Its bareness filled with vertical granite, turned-over soil and a single bunch of flowers (tied with yellow ribbon).

It is here, in this future country churchyard, that somebody walks over my future grave. Cold creeps from my lower back, picks its way up my spinal column and shivers on my shoulders. My body hunches, shoes leave an impression in the soil, and I shudder.

The book sits on the coffee table. It contains more than twenty poems by twenty different poets. But only one of the poems is able to make me shiver. Only one prompts me to say, Someone walked over my grave...

In case you haven’t already guessed, the poem is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray.

The first four stanzas of this poem found their way into my Nan’s memory book. A young Grandpa transcribed them. He remembered Gray’s lines – as best he could – and shared them. A girl (who would eventually become his wife) kept them.

When I was younger (before the age of seven), my Grandpa would recite a piece of writing to me. I didn’t know what it was called, or who wrote it... When he died, the words gradually slipped from my mind until it was black ink on black paper. I forgot about the piece of writing that my Grandpa used to recite. I forgot in the same way as you forget about the times when you grazed a knee or elbow. I forgot because I was too young to realise I needed to remember.

On a rainy Devon day during the summer holidays, my Nan brought out an old, battered book. Her memory book. I was twelve years old... It was first poem to make me shiver. It was the first poem to make cry.

Thank you for reading,

Lar

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Everything was the same. On the freshly cleared space of the desk an old reporter's notepad grimaced. Behind the paper, a recently assembled collection of books was gathering dust and, as always, a pot of tea brewed gently on the light.

If years of quietly shuffling pencils onto pages had taught him anything, it was that he could write. This one simple thing- the ability to transfer thoughts- was his bread and butter. Faced with a cold sheet of paper, he could shovel snow. He could mark out a path in this imaginary driveway, shape it like a word and believe- and I mean really believe- the new reality. His world on paper stretched out across the globe and yet, in his many days, he had never truly been beyond Dover.

Yes, everything was the same. Nothing changed and nothing would, that was his way. Nothing could ever replace him and this proved especially true of his computer, a present, which had been boxed in the corner now for three years. The computer had been bothering him for a while. He had thought about selling it- maybe cashing in whilst it was still worth some money. The world around him was changing ever so fast and that was the cruel irony of his condition. Honestly, back then he should have opened it up. Learnt how to work the thing. How to at least switch it on. The tightly sealed tape serves as a reminder now. His creativity all tightly packed up in a box he can't understand and to look at him, you wouldn't think he'd ever written a thing.

From the hallway, he heard the key turn in the lock. His quick-to-start cat startled him as it bound toward the door and the shaky teacup shattered on the floor. He had written nothing today. Nothing at all...

This week's theme is 'Shivers'. I can't think of anything worse than losing the ability to write- it terrifies me. Interestingly, this post came from my own bout of 'Writer's Block'- in case you were wondering about the slightly late post.

Shaun.

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