WRITING INSPIRED BY LANDSCAPE

  Marcin Jozwiak I sometimes wonder why I’m living in the flattest bloody part of the country, landlocked far away from the sea. Sitting on the loo, waiting for the kettle to boil or climbing the stairs for the umpteenth time in a day I really do have to wonder. Something keeps me here. I grew up in a very different place. With hills.   And on the edge. You know where you are on the edge.  Our council house had a bay window overlooking the roofs of the town, the church tower and the wide expanse of sea beyond the harbour. Not many council houses can say they have a genuine bay window overlooking the sea. And a palm tree of course. We lived ‘UpAlong’ in the farmer’s world. High up. As opposed to DownAlong. With the fishermen down by the harbour. You know where you are, who you are when you’re UpAlong or DownAlong. I think that sense of being on high, finding levels, stays with me. I feel most at home being high-up. Might be why I love loft rooms. There’s a sense of security in t

Alexander McCall An old woman lived by herself. She was frail and had survived all her friends. They were now nothing more than ghosts carried in on the breeze of her memories. A gull flew past her open window that looked out onto blue sky; it screeched its deathly warning. A faraway whisper slipped in through that open window and danced gently around the old woman’s ears. Come to me, said the sea. Come to me. But in that moment, the old woman felt too weak to move from her chair, and her crocheted blanket was thin, barely covering her knees, and tiredness seeped into her aching bones and she snored gently as her chin lolled onto her chest. And, in her mind’s eye, was a scene of a young woman out in the windy, green-brown flatlands of the Fens. It was clear as day, as if it were her that’d been there. She saw the young woman’s brown curly hair whip her cheeks rosy pink. The young woman could barely see a thing through her bright blue eyes for all that hair, but she strode on in defia

  That’s a good plan shall we go the long way round                                                            to the Lion bridge so that you can scoot                                                              ok I’ll carry the scooter until we get to the downhill bit the gravel is difficult isn’t it what have you found a funny stone it is isn’t it just like a tube it’s a fossil called a belemnite they are really old yes we can take it home and show mummy and daddy they will be interested to see I wonder if we will find anything else can you see the deer over there under the trees we can do if you like oh off you go then don’t go too far ahead you go so fast on your scooter I cant keep up with you I am sure you can do wheelies but don’t do what you did last time and look back while you do it and fall off wait at the roundabout because we need to turn left there to go to the Bridge then we will find a place for our picnic….. Yes I

  Photo by  Harry Shelton  on  Unsplash As woodlands go, my time on this planet was short lived. My origins sprang from gravel extraction during the First World War. Not grand by modern 21 st  century standards, mere scrapings by comparison, with no deep pits, just shallow hollows that left hillocks of sandy spoil and low spots that filled with water during winter rains. This was enough to sustain the growth of willow in the wetter areas and the botanists would come to describe me as a wet woodland with a patchwork mosaic of grassland, reed and bramble habitats in the drier peripheries of my domain. A couple of deeper small ponds were dug and left with their gravelled tumuli standing sentry duty by their sides. The gravel seam was limited and soon the workings were abandoned for richer seams further north and, in time, these new quarries became deep pits of crystal clear water, the banks of which limited my expansion as a woodland, leaving me to dip my roots in their margins. As

  Branimir Balogivic should have been like resting on smooth glass flattened and spread out in absence and distance and timeless... the resting place of angels tired and breathless from the fighting and tyranny   but i never found that reflection of the centre the mirror of the hollow, the moss lined cave the pearl in a shell the glass was always smeared and the more I wiped the more what lay beneath fell further away as if sinking into the depths of dark ocean   there was a time just once   fog descending like a blanket walking through a cushion seeing the fen but not with my eyes stillness no wind just icy cold fingers stroking my face stillness no wind no rustle no snap no flush no flutter seeing the fen flat in my mind mapped by the drone of slow car over there           I’m here                     over there Where’s the dog? Colin Stevens

    Asmin Khosrobeygi I am the face of silence riding a dark cloud Leaving my ghost to lurk at your bedside. Free no more to wander the silent paths of green Snow blanketing the hilltops too far away To hear the footsteps of explorers Looking for the salve to save the earth from you, For me.   My shadow hides in the silence of light travelling   To the pole star - a lonely place to find myself Running round and round in circles, endlessly, in chains Of purple plasmid, quietly seeking a warm place to settle, A place to hide away from the scalpel and the iron lung   Where the stealthy sound of time rests between beats: Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out, not. Come softly, touch the quiet of silver skies, Hear the sound of silence against your wings Turn your worn face towards the warming Landscape of the sun and greet the emptiness of Forever, the endless journey of flight.   Jean Rees-Lyons