Saturday, 26 October 2013

Absence Has a Weight of its Own


Ah writing, how I've missed you. My dear friend, my old familiar, my comfort blanket. And why deny myself this comfort when there is so little comfort to be had? 

I need to challenge my thoughts about writing. It's a treat that must be withheld until I've done enough drudge to deserve it. It's a vice. It's an addiction that must be fought, a siren-song that will lure me away from life.

But it builds and it builds. The itch inside the brain, a scribble here and a jot there. It sneaks in through the chinks like sunshine through the knot-holes in grandad's shed. Until I am choked up with the words. I will burst like a confetti-bomb. Shoot out poems like a bunchberry. 

In the end it is an irresistible force.  I am up at 3am in the spare room. I give in: I'm a writer.

[The richly resonant heading of this post is the title of Daniel  Sluman's brilliant collection from Nine Arches Press. Everyone should read this. Everyone.]

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