Frankfurt Book Fair: a conversation

Yes! Frankfurt went brilliantly. I now have an agent and will completely rework Scarlet Heels, and (probably) a publisher for my business book (Global English for Global Business). Now I must become a proper writer and work hard and fast  to get these books right for the non-NZ market.
Much love,
Rachel.
- - - - - -  That's splendid news but does that mean you've been a 'fake' writer these last 50 years and now you have to become a real, genuine writer??
Love
Diana
- - - - - - -
Bears thinking about, doesn't it?

My plan is over time to step back from my online business in web content services and spend most of my working hours writing fiction again. For about 10 years I have been primarily a business woman, just writing books for fun, without much thought of sales. 

Retiring forms no part of the plan: bugger that.

Don't get me wrong: I love my business almost as much as I like writing fiction and poetry. But anything gets stale if you do it for too many years. Compare and contrast:

My Contented web site
My Writing web site


Much love,
Rachel.

For Paul

         1.7.62 – 31.10.85

Grief does not go away;

it rumbles underground,

from one day to the next.

It's nearly 27 years,

but like a scarcely healed ulcer,

one slightest abrasion

will cause it to re-open

and spill out blood and exudate.

No one knows what to do.

If you meet me, look closely:

I've been forced to erect a façade

which I can shelter behind.

I am not what I seem.

Another witch in a cherry tree

The witch in my cherry tree

is no ordinary witch. 

She blows bubbles across my garden,

only in spring time, but that guarantees

the rabbit wont turn into an alien

or the canaries learn to croak.

My inner child delights in bubbles;

she's turned into a witch-spotter,

but without success. Disguised 

as a cherry blossom or 

a string on the Aeolian harp,

the witch waits and whenever the wind blows,

chimes and releases a cluster of bubbles. 

High-pitched

Today's one of those days 

when I want to die on top E

like Lucia di Lammermoor

except I would screech; so maybe better

to offer an ambiguous farewell,

a pre-Raphaelite Ophelia,

only I have no bath to drown in. 

That was this morning,

and now it's evening.

In the meantime I've performed

various mundane tasks

and the day, the way days do best,

has presented me with 

a lollipop display of 

tulips against a green lawn.

So now I'm content to sit 

by the fire, listening to Bach

and leave behind all that melodrama. 

Let's see what tomorrow brings. 

An M.S. Journey

I'm reluctantly lurching

up a steep spiralling road;

the summit is cloud-hidden,

the valleys billowing with fog.

Nearly half a lifetime journey

and I still don't know how far I've come.

There are no longer signposts,

shelters, lookout places, and the air

is becoming rarefied.

What should be an outward view

is only a smudge; at times,

below me, there's a landslide.

Whenever I try and rest,

the weather turns aggressive:

driving sleet and angry wind.

I have no choice but to stumble on.
There are no words to describe

the loneliness, the dereliction.

For Margaret

Six weeks later


I almost thought I saw her today,
slipping around my walnut tree
with a subversive smile.

I was all set to meander
through our shared past
and tweak it into
a new narrative mode.

But when I called out a welcome,
I was greeted by a long silence.

A blogger's prayer

I was all set, greedily, to pray
that I'd encounter a good listener,
whose listening would bring me a full
awareness of what I'd said.
But then I had a thought:
my poetry is a good listener,
and even a teacher, skewing my
words sideways to create
a different pattern, a wake-up call.
As well, I can't influence
the outer world, only nudge a little
my inner self. So now my prayer
is that I become a good listener,
assisting friends find new meaning
in the stories that they tell.