The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Nice one, Colm.

A grand description of those 'still' moments.

Thinking about it, if breathing wasn't an autonomous reflex, I suspect most creative types would die young whilst deeply preoccupied

Gyppo 

Deb, I believe your Overview Effect is your best offering so far. Indar, dying penguins and nameless starlets,  Short but telling. ===== I need an early night tonight and tomorrow may be rather busy, so I'm posting tomorrow's early.  But I am sticking to writing one a day. Gyppo ===== Napo 27 - 2019...

NAPO 26 - 2019 Naiad My eldest daughter swims in open waters, in temperatures most would shun. In a proper costume, not a flashy bikini. She's there to enjoy, not 'to be seen'. In large lakes, sometimes with ice-rimmed edges,  or tidal rivers, with currents to snatch the unwary, with fishes, and str...

Napo 25 - 2019 Organic Snow The May Blossom fell early this year. The trees were stiff with it, white billowing clouds  outlined against the sky, glowing in the moonlight of a still night, like a giant blancmange. There were two days warning when it lost its impossible sheen, and then the wind blew....

AJ, You have no idea just how much I've delighted in telling my family and friends that a Frenchman whom I've never actually met has written a song inspired by one of my poems. There seems to have a been a fair bit of cross-pollination of ideas and themes this year.  It's good to see. Yet we all hav...

Deb's 'Literal Child', a mindset or quirk probably shared with most poets and writers, brings to mind so many parallels in my own life. Words aren't just functional tokens of exchange to us but something precious in their own right.  We hoard them, cosset them, and sometimes treat a favourite almost...

NAPO 24 - 2019  Fragile seedlings I deftly dissected a sweet red pepper as part of my lunch, binned most of the seeds, but planted a few in a plastic tray left over from a microwave curry. Three weeks later I thought I'd failed, or been hit by the Monsanto Curse where many plants are single-use and ...

NAPO 23 - 2019 

Scraper board

In scraper board art the lines are essential.
In some drawings these thin marks
may not, in themselves,
be the image the artist offers.
But they control the darkness.

Gyppo

(Scraper board is known as scratch board in some parts of the world.)

AJ, you provided the trigger line/image for this one.  I had nothing in mind, and then... ===== NAPO 22 - 2019 Penumbra Colouring outside the lines offers an open season for adventurers. Colouring right up to the lines, and maybe peering over the edge  in wonder at what lies beyond, is the province ...

NAPO 21 - 2019 Judas  Judas, your name echoes through the years redolent with the scent of betrayal, treachery, and the taint of venality, thirty pieces of silver a timeless metaphor. Yet if the book is to be believed you had no free choice, your role was predestined. Like that of Longinus, the legi...