Literary Vegan

He appeared from the mist; that ancient damp magic - masked and stoic, colossal, but unassuming - just consumed in soul-staring with tarred eyes into a slippery, anxious culture. I don't see a messenger, but a traveller carrying the hulk of time in a huge feathered shell and never drops it - like he has seen everything  yet still finds life effulgent,  worthy of his watch.  LJ Ireton, 2024 

The winter solstice wind blew away the unwanted, turning lead into cobwebs; grey withered fingers failing to grip  the light underneath. Like my own ribcage has been swept for dust, a small star thuds sensing the ascent. Anticipation rows across the sky, along my bloodstream. The morning is the colour of a sheep's fleece;  not clean, but grazing. We held on, I held on with small flames from fairies and candles -  But the relief, the relief  of the day returning, fields in sight. LJ Ireton, 2024

Lioness, outside The Garden  Not all is lost - my lion walks loyal beside us. She was where I lay my head under the low stars, in the uncomplicated, verdant heart  of living; where ground-wings opened to pink and perfume  ever-present. He called her Ariel. I call her Ari. She carries the star-thrum energy of earth newly created; all fire eyes and focus,  yellow allegiance, claws on instinct. Whereas I - I can't stop thinking. I leave our tent; bark and stem like praying hands and rest on her sand-coloured fur - She is still the same; four-legged land of the horizon,  muscles of vine and forehead of moss, a head that moves like water around a river bend - a moving, prowling garden.   No, not all is lost. LJ Ireton, 2024

Everything that breathes wild, sleeps; the roaring given over to the wind, screaming through the trees that were sanctuary. Even the fairytale stars, inherently kind,  appear cruel, burning only frost light through the black lake of sky. I am unwanted by the outside; winter hunts the human. Everything healing is  under the snow,  with patient claws. So I must, too, let sadness, want and  not-understanding roam; whirling with snowflakes, dirt and everything Earth has to say right now; while I find the creature, the candle  the deep, deep dream that will emerge when the time of the anti-sun is over -  read her stories of wolves and warm star-bears - she will need them in the thawing. C. LJ Ireton, 2024

Here is dusk.  And you feel you have done nothing. But you kissed a forehead, did you not? whispering from your soul, over and over. You gave the neon light of sunrise  to another's eyes, opening to find you there, spoke the lightning of birdsong with a rising chest, yours, and said words that will never disappear. The devout pearl of the sun  curtseys pink into a bed of clouds and here is dusk. Transparent maybe, or sparkling somewhere, no small thing is to be part of the evermore - you told of love, you loved. LJ Ireton, 2024 

I smudge storm clouds across my eyelids; a nod to the tempest. I perform my person. Inwardly,  I'm raking through a sea of sequences;, spun from every action I do; like undulating hair underwater, long and tangled. My therapist says to shift the sail , but waiting sirens wear my brand of perfume, they know how much I need to pull one strand of untruths from the others  to find a tangible, soothing, line. I've got a lot on my mind , I say. I'm fine .  LJ Ireton, 2024

The clouds are giant gull's wings swept back, rows of flight all turned towards the low sun, hung with lace herself. She wants you to believe in the folklore of naked skin under the sky, for your wishes  to sustain her under the veil; feather-sweet as imaginary birds, rolling need into the burn.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

There were no birds or shadows under this nonchalant sky of October, I mourned yellow and beaded eyes on the pond - the slowness of floating. I consoled myself with the rust-painted reeds: pleasing like red apples on snow, but these months, I know, are a waiting for beauty; thinking of the times I was in the right place, only later revealing to me why. In the evening the lead grey clouds rolled into a gold wheatfield falling of a sunset, twilight burning from the  white unused drift of the day. LJ Ireton, 2024

As my foot left sand I leapt into a different self: a dancer in the under-sky. Doubts can't swim - they live in cities. This satisfaction is imbued in salt - I want nothing. My fingers slide in the direction of the hills through surface stars, the water in me reunites, kicking. LJ Ireton, 2024

Contour feathers were growing over the stardust down of the chick,  tiny on the hillside copying the hen,  digging. Woken to the world, it was exact same pale gold  as its mother's tail, the tips of her wings. They moved together;  but one was assured and sharp,  the other a sweet disciple.  From this distance, nothing seemed more precious  than that palm-sized soul, delicate of the earth, imitating to live. I whispered over and over: protection  for this one.  And maybe, being a passing stranger, my prayer was small. But maybe it could grow strong wings too, long and waterproof, over my tufted feather-words.  LJ Ireton, 2024

It thundered unkind across the island like a tithe taken in the dark for seeking sanctuary. The force was roaring on beauty - why blow on stone already smooth, scatter water with water? Yet the dawn was an empty lung, a casual sun strolled across the sky the stray cats stretched into the light, Unnerved. Your turn , the towers of palm said, rustle-less; to leave your questions with the storm, the thoughts that bite each other. A white dove flew from a terracotta roof, the sky a fire blue  neither were thinking about rain. LJ Ireton, 2024

The Grecian sparrows have discovered  the shallow ledge of water  where pool meets tile but doesn't drop yet. They land in a row, following the bold one; who tested a beak and toe first on this not-ground,  and now they sit, or dip and shimmy feathers  at their own pace, liquid drops slipping off sand-brown, ruffled chests. There is no more hard stone edge - only the soft outlines of resourcefullness: a man-made armrest a sanctuary quenching teal thirst for seed-sized hearts. Take what you need little birds - may no-one ever stop you hopping in curious peace over our designs.  LJ Ireton, 2024 

Gold trickles down my hands, dirt and ash, sparks at the lifelines - stars on storm lines. Lightening explodes along my bones in call or answer I don't know - my skin a cloak to crackling blood - flames adding up the questions I didn't ask.  LJ Ireton, 2024

I hesitated - unwashed, in sleep shorts unpresentable to humankind. But it is not with humankind I wanted to be; I needed earth-grown memory under the soles of my feet, creatures appearing. Like Mary Oliver said: it is impossible to not want the wild - so I went out dirty to the blackberry bush clearing with dandelions: solid and ghost, dried lavender, ivy in the shadows I imagine part of the Trinity as a butterfly cresting a little mound blessing the things I found with my toes. Why do people pave over their gardens with stone? I leave the meadow with the shape of me welcomed and folded into the uncut grass; horizontal in the daylight, it was sparkling.  LJ Ireton, 2024

My spirit was swung low like a string hammock so I lay with it,  sunken under the hottest star to meld or fuse what it could.  I opened my eyes  to the sure, steady mind of a Red Kite, cutting through  finger-smudged clouds and all uncertainty - an ever-winning coin.  Under the relentless energy of the Sun And the set red bend of bone and feather, one strand pulled taut, alert again. I thought of poetry; the beautiful things forever flying fierce: star stripes, bronze birds, truth - all these strong lines  in the sky  are under my blood; my tired self is still singing.  LJ Ireton, 2024

You brought out my coat -  vocabulary in your hands; threw it around my shoulders, shivering under the lamppost. My relief was amber on your skin, my nose under your jaw this wind-scraped charcoal evening. Your love was spoken in silent black fabric: one arm, then the other.  LJ Ireton, 2024

I am a prey creature; feeling panic indoors, loud people are lit up warm  reciting script everyone knows - I don't want to talk. Outside, the streetlights are the same white as lightening - they reveal those trotting low in the shadows  as they cross under - hello, stark scavenger . Burnt orange, singed tips we meet like this: black night interval flash after the music. The fox stops  in his unasked for spotlight as I am revealed  on my side of the street. He is curiosity, seeing me, nose up and undeniably searching with gold eyes the soft side of wild; all questions are silent, so are the answers. This time I am dauntless, eager for conversation. LJ Ireton, 2024.

Autumn threatens; a wisp of oracle air curls through the window slat, warning my cheek of the dry, crisp, falling future. The cats inch closer to me, press deeper into the sheets - the centre of warmth has shifted.  LJ Ireton, 2024

I read other poets - I am devoted  to how the world sounds in words careful, chosen and yet seem to flow out  of a person. LJ Ireton, 2024

The falling sun and an unformed poem  were hungry for my attention. I stood in-between them, on a balcony both could reach and with infinite alchemy  fed them to each other.  LJ Ireton, 2024

The falling sun and an unformed poem  were hungry for my attention. I stood in-between them, on a balcony and piece by piece  fed them to each other.  LJ Ireton, 2024 

The wild rabbit and the water rat wait for me  wait - before the rustle into shadows, the under. I am silent. The see-through me hovers in that secret country plain where small creatures pause - leaving fear in the earth  for five of my heartbeats. Why are you rushing, really? When human footsteps  scare away the living soft, the underbelly of what you call good for your soul on other days. LJ Ireton 2024.

You have known daisy days; staring up at sunflowers who don't look down - they have their own things to talk about against their blue background. How forlorn you feel then -   like a necklace pearl in the grass, polished. But the moon sees you, it does; in the deep purple dusk,  small, perfect, star. LJ Ireton 2024

You pull me back down when I chase after stars:   moon tiaras,  then struggle to breathe - the oxygen place. Sometimes my brain blurs ghosts and phantoms on the road - I'm afraid to walk until you trace each tall, grey lamppost. I tangle myself into talented nightmares a lot, sparkling knots. you speak like a comb - I collect the glitter.  LJ Ireton 2024

My sunflowers are half-sun, half-rust ring unusual - the petals are starting to drift still beautiful, lone flyers like the bronze wings above them flying right over the sun -  a clawed kite, haloed fork tail stirring me from numb wordlessness.  I write of this flame that you might know  the yellow flower, look up - up, where prayers go, riding briefly on birds of prey.  That the hollow cold of not knowing can fill, burn with just a flutter past the eye, a kingfisher blur, like orange sugar to a curious mind  wandering in the shade.  LJ Ireton, 2024

The morning revealed rubble, burnt books - But on another building, artwork elephants. I grow sunflowers in the city - The city covered in soot. They summon you through dirt dripped lines, rust eyes imploring on stalks. Like the trunks talking to each other On the wall no-one stopped to look at Before. When others rage I want to make  replications of this earth in the night and wake to find more elephants.  LJ Ireton 2024

Poets wrote of eternity  being seen in a flower. I looked. And looked. Even in the wild rose,  white ghost-whispered pink tips amongst  its dry, brown withered sisters, I could not find it. But my seed I planted weeks ago, and have watched upwards since - all green leaf and stem and question,  has opened - one eye, coy under fluttering eyelashes of a landed goldfish Sun. And I feel like I nurtured a star that looks out beyond me - the oldest beginning, begun - calling all of today's wings to gather black and opaline under a silk fire  feeding tomorrow. LJ Ireton 2024

No man is an island,  No. But where I sleep is - sacred; I lie as Circe on green linen, felines sphinx pose either side of me their breathing a control of time  allowing mine to be cotton  while clocks and expectations  fall into the sea.  LJ Ireton 2024

If the Beginning was Beauty -  The Sun a song of fields in repose, the Moon the first piano key, then I will sail under stars only - writing of the sea's reflection looking remarkably like our own souls, and not get lost in imitation lights. If praying feels like gold on my skin and I wake with saltwater thoughts  before expectation sets in, Swim upwards, sunflowers -  I will follow.  LJ Ireton 2024

I kneel, on impulse, among the swaying long stalks, fleshed with fluttering leaves,  needing to feel the wind as they do. Tangled hair falls to my waist, pale face tilted  towards high lacklustre clouds - I'm tired of my mind, deep down germinating delusion in the mud-dark - these flowers are so far above the surface; delphinium tall, elemental,  forest blue with no questions. For five seconds the sun breaks through, slow blinking at me with a reflected feline's eye - and I, among the plants,  am outside of myself, skin tingling into the real day. LJ Ireton 2024

As a child I broke a porcelain figure and cried at the cracks called 'fixed'. Life is fragmented and gothic - constantly rebuilt. But I still torment myself to exhaustion trying not to drop  porcelain.   LJ Ireton 2024

Flowers in dry soil I water with abandon Then pour for myself LJ Ireton 

The day ended with dragonflies - turquoise blue lights in straight lines, flown through by fork-tailed swallows  skimming the pond. For hours I had used stillness, silence,  a room, to lure words to me,  when they were just outside - translucent and swooping over the water in the feeding time. When the sun lowers a little, tinting clouds pink, then poetry follows the birds picking insects,  then I fill my paper in the liminal givings - the moorhen's view of differing wings. There is a never-sleeping world under ours,  fringed with reeds and liquid-lined possibilities - where mud ripples with webbed feet, damsels dance infinity circles and the dry grass with wet roots  rustles constant,  whispering.  LJ Ireton, 2024

I kept my promise.   Hidden over winter, hope - shelled black and closed, in an envelope. It was still cold when I conjured  the natural, the new and oldest beginnings; I mixed the pink, the orange, two rows of I don't know - your most beautiful was a burnished brown. Some of the seedlings are ten inches high now, though even the smallest  are willing themselves closer to the sky. I compare them to you, give their roots more room to claw. I have no patience, only pictures of pointed suns under the moon last confetti summer. LJ Ireton, 2024

Often, our tears won't come out until we call them by name. Storms wash themselves away, but this kind of rain leaves words uncovered.  LJ Ireton, 2024

I do not have to rise like you because you let the light into the room - does a crysalis released from its cocoon too soon fly beautiful, fly at all? I don't want advice  I am wise to true and sulking clouds - perfectionism feeds the sabbath feeds the portrait. I overthought into my blanket last night, and need to fold myself in poēsis,  I will not explain my stillness,   it is a miracle I will release over the steam of the kettle - into a desperate garden. I will breath damson black-lined wings around a tea cup, invisible things in place.  LJ Ireton, 2024

I never feared time until you found me. Love is like trying to hold the ocean with two arms only. I whisper into the sound of shells, to echo into eternity; outside of precious seconds,  further than the sea . C. LJ Ireton 2024

I read Emily Dickinson on the hill that leads to the heath - where I knew there would be  poetry  in the oldest green, peering out of branches,  hovering somehow - God is on the ground, she said and I found a fox all spiritual red and wild, brushed triangles sniffing in the twilight grey - It enchants me to stillness just to be near Eden's ghosts like this. Gripped by creative novelty, I wanted the crows to hear music,  so I played them 'The Prophecy', to interpret how they wish - I wondered if it was their first time hearing  Taylor Swift in this clearing And the lyrical coincidence  of her being related to Emily - As I sat in the long grass, already  rhyming 'rising strings' with 'glitter-black wings'...  We've lost her! My friend suddenly says - and I am sitting between   the poetry   of animal eyes  and woman-made lines, a fox's nose and a forest prayer  wondering where my own words fit amongst them all.  C. LJ Ireton,...

I drink tea by my seedlings - contagious desire in tiny pots.  I notice everything - the ceanothus blue by my feet, ceramic heat at my finger tips.  Don't you know, silver is one minute with lavender when you love yourself, gold the warming of your thighs under the sun? I remember Hyde park in the heat as a young woman, lunch on the grass - He had left me. I spent my flower time then not even seeing them;  the worth in anything - but growing the question of him; second by lost second into my mind's entire sky.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

To get to know a part of the land you need to feel the water  With your skin , I said And we put our bare feet, our hands; blood lines cut from bramble stinging with the touch, into the bronze-tinted water of the hills - a cold incarnation of its ancient self. We washed off the mud of sunken soil, with the source's own water, coin-like and tumbled down from the white stone heights of the moors. See? I said as we felt the ritual of the wanderer, the sisters - This is the starting point for stories. C. LJ Ireton 2024 (To Stacey)

We are just two souls, sitting amongst the young stems and old shrubs in the sun. I think of us in Eden - long-toothed lions talking together then as you answer me now; a sound saying you love being outdoors with me when it's sunny. But then we don't say anything  - we are the creatures lying down side by side, here and in that somewhere place  with green and gold light sky on skin and fur, even feathers shading reptilian eyes - Where humans don't take a life, we listen, lamb-soft, And live.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

One pause in the rain incessant - I breathe in the after air, watch two wagtails hoop a bow over the water. The moment was theirs to tie and worth my tread under moody, volatile skies, the wait. C. LJ Ireton 2024

I spent one summer at the piano, in the dark - only a single slant of light could ever get in through that low window, leaning yellow dust motes.  I watered the keys, dripping my sad heart through my fingers and grew plants from the shadow lines - a black and white garden; minor enchantments in a basement room. And then I fainted. I am the leaves That first need the sun - Feet in the soil, Face to the sky To entwine the songs  Of daisies and thorns. C. LJ Ireton 2024

I am silver and slowing under my own silence. Curses run so cold under blood, To the soul  and they hate sunlight - It's why shame burns. I was always drawn to the ice  never daunted by the sea-cold. I can not take your warm hand, Rose,  your conscience is a gold  reminder of my mistakes - Black cloud stains everything I touch. And this one pain we are not sharing. I am silver, And slowing.  You should know and you would hate it - loving me like the sun I shy away from.   (Inspired by Burning Crowns ) LJ Ireton c. 2024

The rain slants again Over the field -  a fast and scattered drop. The blackbirds are ready; they chase each pattered place  and hop, hop for the worms - black downturned faces dotted on pale green mounds. I was frowning at the sky  when I prayed for dry ground this morning. I did not think of them - Waiting for water, Watchful, yellow-rimmed eyes Looking in the same direction  As mine, Wings tucked in.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

The forest was swollen with water.  Branches stirred swamped bases And moorhens made homes in brown bramble Puddles surrounded with mud. But I didn't expect the sky to fall, To lie in the clearing And see clouds drift across the floor - Suddenly so close me. C. LJ Ireton 2024

Standing still by the glass I run through a thousand nightmares And on the floor I stretch as far as the stars, then race back down to tell you about them. I traverse distances that do or don't exist In a few silent breaths And some of them are beautiful,  when I am not scared.   I journey Mad or wanted - By going nowhere.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

Four months in And more of the same, Silt white rain runs Like frustration  On cheeks. Sullen at the sky, I still open the window - In low whistles and water hit consonants  The Earth is recounting its day And wants to know Who's listening.  C. LJ Ireton 2024 

It was two o'clock in the afternoon. We'd been out in the sun, but I moved into the room,   saying nothing. I lay down and they followed, flopped on carpets and sheets - the three of us feline, asleep in the light and shadows of silence.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

It wasn't the equinox,  the clocks, the dew on the grass instead of the frost - But the ache of my arms in still water, m y spirit yawning  with my bones s ubmerged And curving - That woke me, let me feel again, under the lightening sky.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

I released twilight wildflower seeds, tiny, tiny, white,   speckled into the blackest brown soil, damp and winter-devoid of life. My hands were dark earth from the stirring as I sat back on my heels. The seeds were not yet broken - And they had become the night sky. C. LJ Ireton 2024

Have you ever seen night, Where the Sun should be? Like the depths were the sky And the day a spirit fleeing Beyond reach -  Leaving only mystery Shivering in our bones With the unknowing cold. There are no stars That make a beautiful dark - It is an unnatural pause That roots our feet in question - Not just fear Of the sudden shadows over the hills And under our skin. We glance at each other, Beneath our headscarves - And we all feel it - A fall, Soul-deep sleeping, A dawn.  LJ Ireton 2024 

In the inhale of the earth, The silence of the birds, The watching for the white Sun -  Dry words are breathing. When the wind has torn the forests, But the moorhens deem it safe To walk on dirty water - Write of their returning. When the tree arms unbend And creatures crawl curious, Unsinging, There is the poem,  The tin grey cloud in its palm - Eyes towards its absence.  C. LJ Ireton 2024 

As blossom makes beautiful the falling, So does a poem belong to the sky - To tell of it, to tell how You kissed my words with lemon pink roses Then lifted them to life. C. LJ Ireton 2024 

I run through the mud in a town satin dress, Pierced now with cat claws and hawthorn, Cold moor winds. At the fences I reflect on the unknown ground with the same sound of birds - I could go to the ends of the earth And a beautiful familiar Would still find me there. I pick up my skirts To save them from more scratches And curtsy to the souls In the grass -  Distant creatures have kept me close to myself, A sheep's nose snuffle and look from feline eyes - Mine, the things I love -  Always mine.  C. LJ Ireton 2024

It is a sharp, silver day - Made by a wind Grieving.  Trees and reeds sway to bend, Sway to bend But the goldfinch rubs His little head On the spray Delicate and red With an unmoveable agenda, And the maiden grass Stands back up, her Feather tips falling Into the sun's  Closing prayer. Even as the cold air stings, I see softness   And the pencil grey clouds allow a Moment for the plumes of straw To be spun into gold, Spun into gold.  LJ Ireton 2024

It is not yet Spring,  When I can call my curated vines Of violet and lemon meaning Out of the ground From winter's writhing roots; That press against the edges of my mind  And curl back around In want of surety, Sun-blessings, The curiosity of others. It is not yet Spring-  The unravelling of the tangible Into Time,  That doesn't go back again  Into the dark - It dances on your lips, Dips into hedgerows In pastel colours  Sense-making,  Breathing purple. It is not yet Spring - When I can watch What I already know Like a kite, Tipping its head  At its tail, Streamer roots Tasting the sky. Not yet.  LJ Ireton 2024  

There is a tint this evening The robin sings in pink and grey Even if no-one hears him,  Like the birdsong gone before, forgotten. I can dwell on reason so much That nothing gets written at all,  But the twilight tonight is lighter -  A smokey rose  And my words began on the branches, Breathed out into the cloud lines Pink and grey. Maybe they won't be heard, But it's about the saying - Back into the sky Living, before the night.  LJ Ireton 2023

It is a surprising morning -  Like the cold is trying to be kind. The Sun hits pink on the grass Sprinkled with ice, Glittering. But the yellow-bellied blue bird Above me is the future Sun - The creatures all to come out When wintering is done. We have other selves,  Waiting, To leave the nest of our senses. Then, instead we will see Spirits sparkling, Ours, On the grass. LJ Ireton 2024  

The winter water Is glass clear, but tinges the pebbles  Gold-green while running to the sun  Further down in the stream - Away from the ice times, The heavy feelings I can feel the relief let loose over the rocks, Being. The Moorhen stands a moment - Bright yellow stalks Against the bank shades of moss Holding their own Under the ribbons of time, Splaying wet. I must get up; Let the stones and dirt swirl by my feet Around the light, into the light - Wood walkers will see me with eyes shut - But, such is the effort to be still While so much is passing. LJ Ireton 2024

In the space between us The word 'love' falls like Cloth from a washing line In memory dreams - Undressable with sounds, the way The Sun speaks no language But its own. Somewhere between warming Wet garments on grass blankets And burning through the substance Of this world  Is this feeling, Flaring across the lens, Ruining photographs - It cannot be captured. It breathes Mind to mind - Something the bird takes from  The phone wire, the drying twine And carries to the fire  Stirring the blood under the skin of the sky Before the night, Every night, Every night.  LJ Ireton 2023

There are dried flowers in the candle White; purple stars With faces pressed to the glass Looking out at the raining   Snowflakes Faster than my thoughts  That flurry, only.   ​ I focus on the flame,  O ​ r try to - The contentment of a fallen crystal. But still Wishes circle.   Melting meets melting. ​ Yet w hat could be  Won't settle. LJ Ireton 2024