PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUE

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 4 November, 2021

<chapter> One continued

         Ryan’s voice: “You love me, don’t you? Trust me.” The wave broke. Siobhan, hellcat in corset and black stockings, blonde hair falling around shoulders flushed with alcohol and the thrill of transgression, swayed on a forbidden precipice. Hilary’s body tingled with the electricity of blood rushing back into a limb numb from sleep. Siobhan sliding under the sheets,

indigo eyes slanted in the same mocking gaze she’d telegraphed across Hilary’s life passages since they were old enough to compete – subterranean resentment quaking through birthdays, graduation, journalism awards and her wedding day.
         Two betrayals; no, three. She could not blame Siobhan and Ryan without pointing a finger at herself. And that was the most grievous betrayal of all.
         “Fucking hell!” No matter how far from the past she thought she’d travelled, she always arrived back at the same place. As the big sister, it would be up to her to swallow her pride and pick up the pieces once again.
         A familiar black hole splayed wide old scars. On the outer rim of consciousness, there was that other sister: the one who was more lost than either Hilary or Siobhan. 

-Gayle J. Greenlea

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

First week – Missing – Day Four

Tree says to dead leaf

“You had to go for my sake.

I would not prosper.”

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUES

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 3 November, 2021

<chapter> One continued

          Hilary peeled off stale clothes and stepped into the shower, turning the pressure on high. Warm streams needled her out of her stupor. She soaped and scrubbed hard, soothing herself with thoughts of steamed milk foaming over the rich espresso she would order from the café at the end of the street. Unwelcome flashes came anyway: soft feminine lips pressing against her own, muscled masculine hips thrusting against her belly – no, not her belly – Siobhan’s. She scrambled out of the shower, bent double over the toilet and heaved the contents of her stomach. Ryan’s lips on Siobhan’s. Ryan’s hands on her sister’s breasts, stroking and teasing pink nipples. Ryan’s mouth tasting flesh that wasn’t hers. And her own hands arousing two bodies. She retched again, though there was nothing left to disgorge. She rinsed her mouth and stumbled back to bed, throwing herself on top of the rumpled sheets. Holy hell, what had happened last night?

-Gayle J. Greenlea

Born by Light
Born in Light
Born as ordained
With partial knowledge
With physical embodiment
Different from unknown expectations

Unknown visions then,unknown hatred
unknown love,unknown joys,sufferings
What epic freedom I seek?

If man is born free, what about woman?
Not born without man,but equal from the rib
neither high nor low, but equal-
Who then said weak? or frailty thy name is woman?
No frailty was ever a characteristic of one so fair-
Still what freedom do I seek?

Of history of past, of sacred of holy
respect regard honor hope and beauty
adornments blessings but ordained to cover
In cover is the honor,in cover is no slavery
Yet,fettered I feel
Disregarded I am
Ignored I stand
Abused I suffer
Shouted at I bleed
Raped, I die-
What epic freedom do I seek?

-Anjum Wasim Dar

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

First week – Beginnings – Day Three:

Dead leaf says to tree

“Did I leave or was I pushed?”

Natural process.

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

-Anjum Wasim Dar

Born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir, Migrant Pakistani. Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi. MA in English MA in History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert. of Proficiency in English Cambridge UK. -Dip. TEFL AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan. Writing poems articles and stories since 1980.Published Poet. Awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal 2000 USA .Worked as Creative Writer Teacher Trainer. Educational Consultant by Profession. Published http://Poet.Author of 3 Adventure Novels (Series) 7 Times Winner NANOWRIMO 2011- 2019.

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUES

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 2 November, 2021

<chapter> One continued

         Hilary found her jeans and yanked them on. She stood up, head colliding with Ryan’s miniature Calder mobile. The art piece zig-zagged like a trapped bat. Cursing, she steadied it; then rescued her shirt from the sagging chair. She moved to the desk to prowl for keys, mindlessly organising sticky notes, guitar picks, flash sticks, vinyl album covers, Sci-fi novels, an empty gum wrapper  –  no keys.
         Pain shot through her head. Keys could wait. A shower, then coffee. She made her way to the bathroom, disturbed by how insubstantial she felt. She splashed her face with cold water and looked into the mirror: dark circles and puffy skin under eyes grey as nimbus clouds; short coppery hair that stuck out in unruly tufts around her face. She looked older than her mid-thirties. On the glass next to her reflection, she saw the sticky note – “Got your car. Back soon. Love, Ryan” – and an annoying little smiley face.

=Gayle J Greenlea

EPIC FREEDOM IN DIVINE LIGHT -Day Two

Tranquility is Divine
It cannot be found in a line

of roses guarded by thorns
nor in a forest replete with trees,
and then if I were a leaf ,
tender would be the twig
unstable would be the branch,
swinging to and fro with the breeze,
tense in breath fragile in heart,
on a pinegraceful and tall,one day would be The Fall
Tranquility is Divine
Where do I find the freedom I seek
Of land
Of law
Of my home
Of my town
Of the pine trees I smell

Of the clean roads
Of the clean hearts more
Of joys of small things
Of words soft and loving

Of a no war zone
Of no borders nor barriers

But I know so little
I see the ants, are they free?
I see the butterfly? is it free?
I hear the dove coo every day
Does it cry for freedom too?”

-Anjum Wasim Dar

Extract from Jim’s Journal

A DOG CALLED DEATH

‘How s Martha?’ I said to Mary there in the pub before I arrived. I thought I’d ease the way into talking about US’.

Mary smiled dangerously and looked at me with those white blind eyes.

‘Dreaming again. I

I could never tell whether she was talking about me or Martha. I sat down with the words

‘God its brass Monkey weather! ‘She’s been telling me her dreams. I ‘Martha’

‘She thinks her dreams led to Arthur’s death.’ ‘Yeh. I

Well, it had been a weird shift so Life may as well be consistent.

Mary went on to tell me that she’d persuaded Martha to bring down from her son Lozzy’s bedroom his box of favourite stuff and from her dressing table her box of memories. She placed her box nearest as if looking into Lozzy’s was too much to begin.

I asked Mary if she wanted another half She said:

‘Just shut up and listen! I

I sat back down. No way was I going to tell her about my grocer ghost. ‘Martha took a photograph showing Arthur on their wedding day out of her box’ After a moment when all Mary heard were cars up and down the street, Martha told my wife her ‘first river dream.’

The dream had come to her, unexpected, after Lozzy’s death two weeks previous. Beside the River Dearne some of her furniture was laid out in a field as if it was still in her house: a pair of chairs, a sofa, a dining table, a radio, a dog bowl. She had gone up to each of them and felt forced to ask the question:

-Tell me what makes you you?

To which all of them had answered -Ask another.

She was confused.

Then she felt a wetness touching her leg. She looked down and saw a dog.

It looked familiar, like a greyhound, but not quite. And it spoke:

-Hi! I’m Death. How do you do?

She was too stunned to answer.

-1 understand it must come as bit of a shock to find Death in such beautiful surroundings. 1 met your son Lozzy at the same place. I’m not aware of the Lord of Dreams telling me you would be arriving.

Now Martha knew this dog could give her information on how Lozzy -had died. She woke up, and began to cry. How could she tell Arthur, her husband, that she knew where Lozzy had died and could fmd out why through a dog called Death in her dreams?

‘Weird’ I proffered finishing off the dregs of my pint.. ‘Like me and you’ she said.

‘Eh!’

‘You used to notice me more. My new dress. I’m the one who’s blind. You’re like Martha A world outside and you can’t get beyond your own selfishness. ‘

‘Mary. 1 did not come here to be insulted. I ‘No. You came here to justify lying to me.’ Now listen to another selfish man.

As soon as Martha told Arthur about her dream he said:

– There is no reason to this! Lozzy died. That’s it.

Arthur stood up from the table leaving her to clear the pots.

-And what’s this nonsense about a dog called Death in a dream ? In a dream telling you where and why our son died. Wake up woman!

-1 knew you’d be like this Arthur …

She held a handkerchief to her watering eyes.

-1 knew once 1 told you …

-Nonsense!

Arthur opened the back door and strode the path to his garden shed.

-Please Arthur? There are more things on earth than …

-No! A dream means nowt!

He slammed the shed door.

Just like us’ said Mary.

‘Eh!’ I proffered again, gobsmacked.

Mary said Martha continued:

While Arthur chewed on his anger in the garden shed, I cleared away the pots. I decided to get on his good side and cook his favourite meal. Anticipating his reaction to my news that I could learn about Lozzy’s death through a dog called Death in me dreams, I’d bought a chicken. Arthur liked white, succulent breast with sprouts.

‘Where’s this tale going, Mary? Make sense, lass! ‘Patience, Jim.’

‘Bugger Patience!’

‘Watch your language. Listen and learn!’

Under the bloody thumb again left me looking forward to a pint that evening with Bill my brother-in-law.

Mary continued:

Martha said she binned the giblets and prepared the chicken. It would sit in foil and oil. It’s fragrance would drift out of the kitchen window into the garden shed. Arthur would water at the mouth.

The way to a man’s heart.

I placed the sprouts in a pan, preparing a cup for the green water. Arthur always said:

– Green Waiter is good for thee. Puts hair on thee chest.

Arthur had a bird breast himself All small and hairless.

As I checked the whitening chicken spitting in the oven, I thought of the blackness of the dog called Death. As I turned the sprouts down I thought of the green of the grass by the River Deame where Lozzy had died and Death had stood.

Soon I heard the shed door softly shut, the pad of Arthur’s shoes towards the kitchen door as I drained the green water into his mug. As usual Arthur

knew when the chicken were ready.

‘Alright, alright. What’s the point? What are you getting at?’ ‘You can’t see what’s in front of your eyes. ‘

‘No I can’t! I’m a typical man beaten into submission by a superior woman.’ ‘Don’t you dare patronise me. After spoiling our marriage. After lying to me and then having the gall to keep on seeing her.’

‘Look what’s this all about? Explain to me then we can both go.’

‘We agreed to these meetings for a reason. I’ve got no explanation from you as

far as I can see as to why.’ ‘Why?’

‘Give me strength! Why you preferred her company to mine. Wasn’t I good enough for you? Didn’t I fetch and carry enough for you?’

And I stomped out like somebody had set my arse on fire. I wasn’t sitting there to be insulted. I got back from a pint with Jim to find she’d phoned and said she’d see me as usual the following week. The cheek of the chuffmg devil. Also Linda had phoned. She wanted me to come for a meal on my next I/¥p evening off.

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

First week – Beginnings – Day Two:

Tree says to dead leaf

“You’re not my first grief, nor last.”

Leaf makes a new life

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.

Sarah Watkinson writes captured sunshine. One of her favourite forms in her book is the Petrarchan Sonnet.

Her explorations of the universe and nature, so often returns to her personal space “In your own study, you record the words of those you heard” , “This spring walking leaves earth on my boots. My house is no/palace/but I have hot water and my study, where I write and/field calls.”

In her own review of Anna Selby’s “Field Notes” she states “This selfless intense observation lies at the heart of science, which aims to understand the nature of things.” As much a statement describing her own approach when writing poetry.

It is a delight to see her exploring beyond our senses: but a gentler ray, that’s dark to us, restrains/and trips their raring phytochrome to ‘off’/a far red we can’t see but plants can. And it is marvellous to find a poem from the animal’s perspective: “Dung Beetles Navigate by Starlight, I track my treasure home on star beams, hide/my finds in caverns, steer them clean away.

TRIGGER WARNING

PEOPLE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE ARE ADVISED THAT THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS EXPLORE FAMILY DYSFUNCTION AND ABUSE ISSUES

Zero Gravity

Gayle J. Greenlea

Excerpt for 1 November, 2021

<chapter> One

Hilary woke, hand closing on the soft mesh of a black stocking looped around her throat. Smell of Dior Poison, sex and sweat. Memory fluttered like a baby bird testing its shell: Ryan. The amber of whisky. Heavy metal. And Siobhan. Oh, God. Her hand released the crumpled nylon. Siobhan’s stocking.
         She slid to one side of the bed and sat up. Ryan’s guitar leaned against an armchair covered in a pile of T-shirts and blue jeans. A black lace bra hung from the fret board. Was it hers? Hilary patted her chest, relieved to find her stretchy wireless where it should be.
         She rummaged around the debris at the base of the bed, sorting clothes into piles, dislodging an empty whisky bottle. Munch’s screamer pulled a face at her from the wall, next to Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Red candle wax snail-trailed down the bedside table, enshrining the remains of a condom wrapper on the floor…

-Gayle J. Greenlea

EPIC FREEDOM IN DIVINE LIGHT – DAY ONE

For I sang the freedom song for years
in vain, in pain,
One day I will return
O my homeland ,my heaven, land of
pure peace,

I am the native child, born in captivity
my feet never touched my beloved soil
I breathed but for a while in mother’s
lap,
In sleep, led away, far away, to refuge
One day I will return, I sang my song-

It is a nightmare
futile dream of the happy return
my earth oozes martyrs’ blood spills
resounds with raped women’s screams
burns with saffron spreads in wide fields
weeps with weeping willows in the streams
One day I will return, and I sang my song,
in vain, in pain

I am the houseboat abandoned
I am the ‘shikara’ floating,empty
I am the moaning water of Dal
I am the aroma of sweet apples
I am the snow of mountain tops
I am the color of pansies and lotus
I am the music of the ‘rubaab’
I am the child of a captive state

One day I will return I sang my song
in vain, in pain

But now my heart is silent,my voice
stilled, my feet in fetters, my home
locked, my road blocked, guarded
I am tired of pellets bullets and gas,

I am cold like a stone, no ‘Kangarri’
I carry , no greens or beans I cook
I am but a listed item, a numberless
number, a lost identity, snatched
wrenched annexed conquered

My song of freedom rings aloud
but can anyone hear? Will anyone
come? Will anyone cry for me? Or
my land, to set free? Perhaps one day,

if the music sails on, reaches the stars
Showers the rain which pours free
and washes away the mud of captivity
breaks the chains lifts the barriers and
calls-
Come Your land is yours, gone is the
enemy- but I woke up again, in pain
in vain,
I hear the fearful scream-heavy boots
shaking the soil, tearing up roots
I do not wish to sing, but pray, hope
It is all a dream-
In vain I sing, in pain I try to-sleep

-Anjum Wasim Dar

YOU’RE THE DEAD TO ME

First Week- Missing

Day One

From Martha’s Diary

Blind Mary tells us, between tears, that I’m her bff, her eyes. Asks me to help her find, Jim, her hubby whose up and disappeared. I love it when she starts this detective lark.  Did it with her cat Tommy Treddlehoyle once. Scarpered for days it had. Then she got a call from a lass asking whether she’d lost a cat. Me and her collected the lost moggy from her finder half way down Cemetery Road.

Mary asked us to find his diary and read where it was open at some nonsense about a ghost:

Jim’s Journal

I talk to the dead.
They give better evidence than the living.
Especially when you’re dreaming. Let’s look the evidence. My father had just died at my sisters wedding. I was patrolling a closing pit, when this ghost starts speaking to me. Honest, no wind up. You hear all the ghost tales you want on patrol as a security guard but this is true. And it looked like our local grocer. Spoke like him too. He said

Sorry to put the wind up you, Jim. Just to say your dad’s OK. It was just Tracy saying I do after she’d told your dad that she were’ having a bairn. You get the picture.

, Now Jimmy Boy … · God I hated our grocer when he called me that. ‘Where’s you’re Dad ‘s pocket watch?

I searched my pockets. Against the cold I was wearing three coats, four pockets each.
Come on I haven’t got all day

I wanted to say why do want it. It hasn’t worked since the day the Red Elephant, (as my wife Mary called her father-in-law), died anyway. I found it. Handed it to him. It hovered in the air above his palm.

It was then I noticed.
He was dressed odd. Leather aproned and shoed like a blacksmith. He held an flat metal object with holes in it. The holes went from large to small. Suddenly my skin prickled with heat as if from a furnace and he seemed to glow with a gold aura.. I saw him take a long piece of hot metal and pull it through one of the holes so it became thinner. He pulled it through smaller and smaller holes till it clicked what he was doing. He was wiremaking. He opened the back of the watch and removed a piece of wire. He replaced it with the bit he’d just made. When he handed it back to me the watch told the right time and ticked. I remembered I’d arranged to meet Mary after my shift. Part of our agreement when she found out I had a mistress called Linda.
‘Now you can you do something for us. Find out who killed your best schoolfriend’
Said the Grocer-wiremaker, bringing me back.
LOZZY!’ says I, mouth open, drooling at the watch. You get the picture. ‘Ay,’ he says cool as cucumber.
‘Any time to … ‘ ‘Yes or no.’
‘Yes. ‘ I said without thinking. Letting myself into God knows what. , You know don ‘t you?’
‘We still do jigsaws in heaven.’ he said and disappeared.
At three-thirty in the morning my eyes start going. I stumble round the pit in the cold. It’s only the cold that keeps me awake. As it is my stomach feels queasy and my throat is swollen with caffeine. About now I daydream.
Time passes.
Always in my mind is a broken frame in broken house in a desolate garden. The broken frame is that of a sepia photograph on the dusty floor showing nobody I know. The photograph is escaping its frame. It is lit by dusty light from a window, also broken. The white window frame paint is peeling. Tiny holes like pin-pricks, like the wood has been punctured by a hypodermic needle too many times dot the white wood. A used red shotgun cartridge is asleep on the window ledge.
I remember the eaten front door Lozzy and I had to shoulder charge. As we climbed the ‘wooden hill’ of the stairs I recalled the carpeted stairs of my ~ parents I was told to go up when they started shouting. I entered my room as I enter this one. I feel at home in this broken house, this broken room. I look out of my window at the black spot of the motorway crossed by the wobbly metal bridge. We look out of this broken window and see the ivy breaking up the red bricks. We see the weeds crossing paths. The garden is ill. Tall weeds hiding the shape. It had shape once, this garden. It was once cared for. There are strawberries, there are roses, redder perhaps, because they are wilder, like blood. We shout into the garden and nobody answers. Our voices are breaking.

 

Leaf falls its own shade.

It’s tree says “You’re dead to me”

Leaf lives afterlife.

-Paul Brookes

 

Bios And Links

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an American-Australian poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel, Zero Gravity, at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Headline Poetry and Press, The Wombwell Rainbow, Fevers of the Mind, Kalonopia and The Australian Health Review.