What About Reeva?

Opinion piece on why how the media have forgotten about Reeva Steenkamp.

‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’

With the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lady Ardour takes a look at the city as it stands today.

Why You Should Watch America Horror Story

A persuasive article on why the world should watch American Horror Story, including you.

Party Blues

Hand me an apple and an orange

perhaps a champagne bottle,

full of course. For my party

you can take a few pictures

of the things I will wish to remember

and please make a cake that remains uncrushed.

 

So I can keep it in my bag uncrushed

and when I reach for my pen or pencil, the orange

Happy Birthday icing will stare me in the face and I will remember

You. And when I reach for my perfume bottle

the little rabbit and squirrel pictures

will dance around my fingers, like animals that like to party.

 

And next year when nobody comes to my party

and my heart is crushed

then I will remember the pictures

you took last year in the tungsten orange

light as you gulped off the last of the champagne bottle.

I will smile and remember.

 

The next day you will call to say you just remembered

my birthday. Ask if I had a good party,

that you are busy now with baby bottles

and making your new husband strawberry crush

pie. You will tell me you’ve picked orange

paint for the nursery, and you want to see the pictures.

 

You will hang up before I say I have no pictures,

no memories made to remember

because you were too busy picking orange

paint, too busy to party

to make some uncrushed

cake and finish the champagne bottle.

 

Only interested in baby bottles

and baby pictures

and crushed

baby food to remember

my party,

to hand me an apple or an orange.

 

So ill bottle it up and try not remember

burn the pictures of last year’s party

you crushed my heart choosing paint that’s orange.

 

As part of a Creative Writing class that took place here at five oak avenue one of my fairies took my piece of prose,  "A Lonely Back Garden" and changed it into a poem. It turned into something extremely different, yet the sentiment is still there.

 A Lonely Back Garden

A labyrinth of sunny days and fairytales.

Forgotten fields of climbing trees.

Smashed flower beds of soccer balls.

Cracked windows and an angry mom.

Winter nights of fireball stars,

smells of sleepy logs.

A different kind of waiting room,

Spider webbed Silence.-

Washing lines of socks and ties.

Whistling birds in gutters.

Beneath empty shells and broken dolls

 just swingless Silence-

Laura Roddy

This was the original ( which I had posted on here, but somehow managed to delete)

The worms are coursing through my veins, my blood I need to breathe. The wind glides through the grass upon my crown; it helps me to keep warm. But, its winter now and the frosty mornings make for ice down through my tummy. It’s the time of year when I’m coarse and hard and have no sympathy for pecking birds. Birds that must fly south every year and I blame it on the elements. The ice and cold are not my friends too much of them cause me damage; they stunt the flowers within my growth and cause for municipal rooting. In the spring time when it’s wet and windy and I just wish to be left, its then you come with your spade and start to dissect.

            You tear the grass from my head and start to dig holes, placing flowers in me that reach down to my bowels, extracting my life and nutrients. You have dug me up before, built a wall on me, an extension and a garden path, but don’t you realise... I am the soul of a lonely back garden, the foundation you needed for your family home, your wooden shed, your happy children. They played soccer on me, they made scuff marks on me, they slept on me and like you tried to dig me. You placed a swing on me, stabbed its feet into me. It hopped every time she swung on it, and I felt jabbing pains in my stomach, but I didn’t complain. I liked the sound of your children’s laughter, it helped me flourish. Your dog’s bountiful leaps on me, the sound of his bark, the way he too tried to dig me up with his snout burying bones that are still embedded deep under my skin.

            Your children have grown up now, and you took the swing away. The dog sleeps in his basket all day, occasionally getting up for dinner or to greet you from work. It seems that I am the only part of your family that is still left. I wait for the sunny days, when you come to the outer shrine, lay down your blanket and lie on me, the worms still eating through me -Our pulses beating as one. I am the soul of your back garden, please don’t forget me.