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