Literary Vegan

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