To see more images, head over to Calvin and I's travel blog. I have posted a set in Monochrome and another in Colour.

i chose wildness this year
i chose opposites
i regaled expectation
i chose child
i chose innocence
i chose openness
i mislaid expectation
i chose love
i chose mystery
i chose exploration
i chose intuition
i chose trust
i chose faith
i bucked responsibility
i chose necessary
i chose to gift more of me
i chose walls
i chose selfishness
i chose beauty
i lost known
i chose unknown
i chose questions
i chose risk
i tasted failure
i chose ideas
i chose uncertainty
i chose vulnerability
it unnerved you but my soul thanked me.

{image entitled railroad symphony by filtran}

'here! here!come quick, they're here!'

i was trailing rope and twine and plastic handle as my fingers knotted and unknotted to keep my kite in the air. i was running forward, my eyes blinded by sun.

running, running for his voice. had he found the robins or was it another treasure this time?

the urgency became thicker and more muffled as i grew closer to it. 'are you in the hedgerow?' i giggled, not feeling the brier on bare skin and skirt as i made my way into the dugout that we had created behind the old schoolhouse, now abandoned for more space.

'is it the eggs?' i asked breathlessly.

'no, dummy. it's the milk i stole from the back of uncle joe's truck this morning while he was shooing the cows on. here's your bottle: i'll swap you for a mud fight.'

i was thirsty. the mud was further down the road. maybe he'd forget. 'ok,' i said, sidling in next to him.

a van swished past, upsetting the hedge temporarily. our eyes peered out at the disappearing tyres.

i would walk a mile if i knew you were waiting in the hedgerow on a sunny afternoon again. the milk of childhood lingers in my mouth.



{the prompt for this piece was to take a memory from your past and contextualise it into your present. clifford, my best friend from childhood, and i would dig underground tunnels in the bottom of their house. we were able to do this because the foundation of the house was littered with trap doors and passages. it was the greatest delight for the two of us to hide away from his little brother, matthew, who was set on spoiling any form of fun we tried to have without him. i took this memory and set it into donegal where calvin and i were living at the time: a colder climate, farm land and hedgerows everywhere with winds that could lift any kite. the old school house down the road from our house was one of my favourite abandoned places to explore.the image is entitled veryware by max slowik.}
 

he announces his arrival with a shadow that flits itself from curtain to wall and back again. the pages on my book shadow over but i pretend to be interested in the words that keep repeating themselves like sonnets before my eyes.

i peel potatoes. i feel the starch accumulating on my pores, urging its way between thumb and index finger as knife deftly moves. the oven hums a low undertone as it's belly beats iron. the pot putters trying to escape the warmth it generates. it is these notions of presence that i long for. but at what expense i wonder?

i remember the day vividly. something edgy was in the air. i couldn't quite place it until the hammer was pounding, metal and glass and plastic and wires all at once. i remember the blue electricity i felt within me mirrored in the plugs spitting back at me. she needed to leave. all i wanted was hay and manure and the sound of roosting hens.

technology they say is supposed to be silent: the solution to all modern life's overwhelm. why then is it then that she seduced me with the lie that mumbled grunts were conversation?

the fraying jean on wooden floor can be heard again. he holds two eggs in his hands: 'they're still warm'. i smile, turning to reach into the cupboard. i motion to a wine glass. he nods, takes a seat at the counter, watching my starchy hands as they place peeled potatoes into boiling water.

'when i was about 5, when we lived in the hills, grandad would laugh before he played the concertina.'

i wipe my hands on my cotton apron, slide in next to him, my feet dangling from the high bar stool. my elbows cradle my cheeks, a slow smile forming. i nod, motioning for him to carry on talking...

{the prompt for this piece was 'she destroyed the tv and what was left was...' but it needed to be written in context of your own house and we were told that the woman in the piece physically destroyed the actual television. i found the prompt very difficult. maybe it is because i never grew up with a tv? the photo is entitled [365 048] by  corrie howell.}

the window peddled it's age with weathered splints of time. the linen curtain struggled to hide the ageing signs as the wind called it outward. the windows were seldom open. stuffiness and cold traded places at her fireside.

today was different. her bunyaned hands shakily moved the brass latch outward and muscle fought sagging skin to lift the framed panes of glass upward. she turned, breathless from her first completed task for the morning. arthritically her legs move towards the door. that door opposite her: beyond which lay stories, neatly sketched in cotton rows.

like the time aunt beth came to visit. her walking stick pointing in every direction except down. pointing and speaking: synonyms to the old bag they were. spittle flying between pieces of chapped lip, unattended in weeks. she would speak about the land. the land they owned together that now stood unploughed, the rusting implements, the tea.

yes, the tea. at 11 o'clock his scuffling could be heard. tentatively it would ease, his hand pressuring the back door.


{the prompt given to us for this piece was to start writing a story. if ever i was to write about the two years that we lived in donegal, ireland this would be the beginning of the book. it is a fictitious piece based on two people who i met and lived close to. mary and dan were classified as a high risk couple because of their fragile condition, their age and their wealth. they had no children and so it was frowned upon by the social welfare office to reach out to them in case you were trying to get a share of their wealth once they passed away. it was sad situation which led to them becoming very socially isolated. nearing christmas, people like these rest heavily on my heart.}

cotlash slices tree
fisted forearm
fumbles fish
child squeaks
mother's breast leaks
papaya is gifted
mango on the cheap
breakfast a feast
holler this a way
holler that a way
talk happens as a scream
dress on the skimp
its 'cause of the heat
winter is nowhere
summer dawned
and never went to sleep

{the prompt was 'what's happening out there?' my heart was still in grenada despite having being back in ireland for more than a month. i was missing the heat and the ruralness that hot landscapes create. the photo is entitled market square, st george's by shaggyshoo.}

the road is uneven, hewn with generational memories. it stretches towards the mountained horizon and somehow stops to greet the windmill who daily toils at it's watery task.he lifts his muddied gumboots from the splintered box and struggles his feet inward. he looks up and down the distance of the road, as the door makes a gentle click behind him. his hand massages the stubble on his cheek, reminding him efficiently of last night. he knuckles the gnawing away, failing somewhat in his attempt. silence a companion to him as he makes his way towards the bleating white blots that dot his farm. he has walked a sufficient distance to now be standing halfway down the road. the house to his back, the post box ahead of him. sunlight and wind vie for his attention as each clings stubbornly to straggles of wool, left behind in the fence he now mends. momentarily he is distracted from the reality of the boxed lettered lines, waiting at the bottom of the road.

{the prompt for this one: observe someone at work but from a distance. write one paragraph. my mind remembered a wintry afternoon in donegal, watching a farmer mend his fence after a storm. the photo is entitled farmer by ard hessalink.}

{the prompt we were given was simply an orange and an onion. the photo is called tasty and available by domiriel.}

his tires leave traces in granules of ground. his height emerges from the vehicle, his personality follows. she stands in the shade of a tree, alongside the village women. the large bellied pots putt putt putt their way to edible. she sees him. he is shadowed to him. invisible hands knit a jersey of want about her. she stares at his disappearing frame for what seems like an afternoon.

under the coolness of a cold shower, taken underneath a tree, in the drip of a makeshift, she tries to scrub him from her thoughts but like an ineffective pumice stone, the rough bits of an altered reality remain on her skin.

he sleeps or rather tosses fitfully, unable to remove from his well defined back, her eyes, bearing an imprint only he could feel. his mind races with the realities of science: the smaller the point of contact, the greater the amount of pressure exerted. he thinks back to israel, to limestone mountains giving way to salted sea. anything to distract, but just as limestone has a way of blinding one at midday, just so his eyes seem seared.
she is of a genre he cannot sing.

his standing in society: that of a middle fledgling, eeking an existence into the upper crust. a cold reality settles in, invades the comfort of a dream.

she hunkers over the coiled, red heat of the old fashioned stove. her brown slender fingers move between blade and brittle white flesh, as if in war although larger and better armed. blurred she raises knife, as if to harm herself, only to wipe a tear that becomes another and yet some more. spitting oil and flat bottomed pan: her white flag.

he enters in, welcomed by aroma of home. the warrior supposedly.

unknown to him, the war just fought.

{before we were given the prompt for this piece, we were given extracts from isabelle illende and miguel gracia marques. once we had read the various pieces, we were handed the following objects: a russian hat, rough dry clay, a mohair blanket, a used wooden spoon and an angular rock. we then had to make our own associations with the objects and write an essay based on our associations. writing this piece was the first time that i allowed the words to write themselves, it just flowed. it was in my mind, unknown to me. the image i chose for this piece is called josephine by tor kristensen.}

your foul mouth
spews toast and egg 

animated co-worker faces
lighten at words
like durex, privates
and the night before

respect nullified
as friends rag
at your exploits
pounding chair and fist

beer and coffee
slander and sex

lines blur
between day and night
wrong and right

{for this prompt we needed to write about an overheard conversation in a crowded public place. at the time when this conversation happened, i was sitting in a hidden small cafe known for its tea and deli type food. it was early morning, the sun hadn't yet risen. i didn't intend to listen but i couldn't not listen to the conversation that stumbled from these hungover builder's mouths as they ate breakfast before an early start to their work day. the photo is entitled working days by fran parra carrion.}

twisted around
concaved
into a hat box
that was supposed to be
square
but turned out round

{the prompt for this one: write something that doesn't really makes sense but rolls off the tongue. not sure if this worked. what do you think? image entitled park benches in central park by david joyce}

fragile strength

searching for a storm
needing thunder
to lay her bare

timidly 'neath umbrella
hunkered she hides
questions like rain
find vestments to soak,

take up residence
like pungent ripe tomatoes
plummeting to bursting death
at bite's first touch

hands reaching up
she strips drenched layers

hands ready as yarn
to piece together
answer by rowed answer

of a life being knit together

{for this prompt we were told to write about our gender, using three distinctly contrasting images which we were given. i was given the words tomato, rain and yarn. the photo is entitled 'kristina' by tiffany dawn nicholson.}

broken petri dish
of human experimentation

pearl straggled
'cross gray
giving way
to brittle edge

soaped
textured smooth

ceramic clink
fragility laid bare

{over the next few days i am blogging a few pieces that i have written in response to writing prompts. in this exercise, our writing group was shown a selection of objects and told to select one. we then had to write about the object's physical appearance. i selected a shell. the image is called 'echo' by dale smith.}