Doorway Writers

Writing Group

We haven’t been on our holidays (well, I have, but you know what I mean) and despite the coming and going of group personnel we are still writing, and with what seems like a gentle purposefulness.

 Recent work

In her poem “Questions of Travel”, Elizabeth Bishop asks: ‘Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?’ When this was given to the group as a starting point for ideas, the pertinent question ‘where is home?’ seemed to come naturally (as it does to Bishop, who ends the poem with: ‘Should we have stayed at home,/ wherever that may be?’).

 Where is home? Here are some of the responses.

 ‘I only ever feel ‘at home’ when I am on drugs or when I am with free people. I never really felt at home with my family. It’s only recently I realised this. This is because I don’t trust my family. I don’t feel at home with people I don’t trust. I need to be around people who don’t wish me harm, in order to feel at home. Feeling at home is  long overdue for me. Every job I’ve had I’ve not felt at home. My family feels like strangers yet they still want me in their lives. It’s up to me who I have in my life. I will feel at home one day soon.’

C

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Where is home

My home is within myself.

Every city and country is where I live.

I am one with God and he is everything, and in his home is where I live.

To know God is to know the miracle of life.

People might laugh at this philosophy but they only laugh at themselves, because facts is facts.

IT’S NOT ******* ROCKET SCIENCE’

D

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 ‘I’ve a house and a garden in the country

A place I call my own

a place I can retreat to when I need to be alone.

A PLACE I CAN RETREAT TO WHEN I NEED TO BE ALONE.

YES NATURE HERE IS WONDERFUL THERE ARE NO NEED FOR WORDS’

G

(G said these are somebody else’s words that he has memorised but I haven’t been able to find them on-line—so if they are yours or you know who they belong to let me know)

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 where is home ?

how should I know?

homeless

lost in a crowd

swept along

this way and that

restless

no horizon-finder

all at sea

without a boat

rootless

in no-where’s slip-stream

shrivelled by heat

swamped by rain

friendless

faint-faced

scorn riddled

nobody’s child again

P

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Guests at the writing sessions can write what ever they want. Some may be a bit on the random side—such as:

I like birds, sparrows and pigeons, and so does my pal, his name is littlen. All my life we have watched all of the different kinds of birds there are. Some we can name, some we can’t but they are all as pretty as each other. But littlen, my pal, gets cheeky at times and starts eyeing up the unfeathered type.

But I don’t mind.

D

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 But song lyrics are one of the constants of the writing sessions, as many of the writers are musicians too.

Lyrikal Angel

There will be no darkness tonight

May be your love will shine

lighting the light

Just put your trust in my heart

and you’ll be in paradise-

No one can resist the desire to escape to paradise

But it seems like all there’s left to do is dream and fantasise.

Brothers, sisters

one day we will be free from fighting violence

people crying in the street

There’s an angel from above

come down and spread her wings of love

Brothers, sisters

Just listen to me what will be will be

have no worries no more misery

a state of ecstacy for eternity

Just be happy….

F

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Some prove more elusive than others. W was desperate to write a song for his girl friend but even with help from three or four of us one verse and part of a chorus was all we could manage. He wanted it to be pop and a bit cheesy (but not too cheesy) but also to say something meaningful about their relationship. Quite an art and we’re not very good, as yet (and I find working collaboratively a challenge).

W’s Love Song

Verse 1

When I hold you close

I feel alive  This sensation

I can’t describe  I’m mesmerised

When our eyes collide all I

Want is to hold you tight

and make you mine

Chorus

When you smile

you light up my day

W

(W was going away to work on his lyric, so we might get the finished piece at a later date)

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All on my own

Where I belong

Never someone to sing me a song

But I’ve got my soul

and I’ve got my heart

but it only ends up as the final cut.

Time after time I seek my life

as it is permanently being destroyed

But nothing can be done,

for my power is my joy.

D

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Even I had a go (not at all finished).

Do you remember the way

we grew up on clouds

out in the garden sheltering

from the rain of love

as it fell on me

on you, on we?

Remembering the calling

in the falling for us to follow

round the corner on our

hands and knees, watching

the days creep by, feet first

under the rain of love

falling from the clouds above.

As a poet word-play is one of the things I get a sneaky pleasure from, so I know ‘the rain of love’ can be heard as ‘the rein of love’ or ‘the reign of love’—each one giving a different emphasis. Also ‘rain of love’ what does that mean? It sounds a bit dreary, so perhaps ‘on we’ sums it up.

Ta ta for now.

X