From Belinda's workshop @ October gallery

Mother, I cannot read forecasts.

Especially of those who hide beneath a talking, spouting shell.

Is the weather rain or sunny beneath their veneer? Beneath yours?

Does the rain come with thunder and arrowed clouds?

Clouds harsh like bleachy plumes of liquid from the bottles of toilet cleaners.

Shouldn't we really turn to eco-friendly toilet cleaners?

So that the clouds about our covers will no longer let off parachutes of acid

That erodes the cliffs we once thought of as god's henchmen erect for morning's inspection.

Cliffs are large, lonely beasts tollerant to our digging at it's scalp to bury our dead,

Or plant our farms or plate our homes.

The echoes from the animals aquatic or in aviation perform a tale for the cliffs,

In the broadest proscenium arch theatre.

The cliff's way of applauding the theatrics of the sea is to bud blackberries for plucking beaks.

Blackberries pregnant by some descendant of both a seaweed and a hummingbird's eye.

Blackberries bursting with the snapshot of an old tragedy the cliffs watched where a prince,

Broken yet noble, carried his father in law with him to the afterlife where his only daughter waited -

So he could be there as they married.

Written by

Chima Nsoedo