Well, I got the book out of the way, smashed the champagne against its hollow hull and sent it sliding down the slipway. Phew. And here's where the work ought to begin, all the pushing and shoving, the hyping and triping. But you know what? I haven't the strength, haven't the energy. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but I really don't have the interest in that side of it. Yes, I'd love people to read it, but that isn't the reason I wrote it. I wrote it for me, wrote each of the stories for me. I got an idea, started to write and off it went with a mind of its own. No planning. No sketching out. I just write and see where the people take me. Endings suggest themselves. Themes spring out of the ether. Done!
Don't get me wrong, it's hard work - not in a grave-digging way, not at all - but the stories mostly flow and write themselves. Okay, so I read them through a thousand times and make them mine. That goes without saying. However, I simply start and know they will go somewhere. They have to. It's what life does. Nobody ever got life-block, they just kept on living. And so with a story. On and on to its end.
And once the book was sailing merrily away, I wrote down a poem that had been slowly forming over a day or two. It's about... well, it's typed out below if you want to read it; if I could tell you what it's about then I wouldn't have needed to write the poem, would I? I think the answer to that is no, though I am not entirely sure. Anyway, here it is:
Cavegirl with a cellphone
Upright, naked, prowls the plain
An alien race, self-conscious brain
An ember born of sparking flint
A revolution with no hint
No light to shed where it may lead
'Tis here I hone my guilt, my greed
My sisters venture north, east, west
While clasping newborns to their breast
And ripping meat from rigid bone
A cavegirl with a cellphone
*
The beast collapses, breathes its last
We fall upon it, kill the past
Eternity of hunger, fear
We dared, now share, grow ever nearer
Cling together, fight and flee
We feed and fuck, I speak and see
While way beyond our understanding
Stalks unseen a monster hand in
Hand with demon seed unsown
A cavegirl with a cellphone
*
Flickering flames dispel the night
We huddle, cuddle, till the sunlight
Frightens off the circling pack
He hunts, I gather, hurry back
To him. Yet waiting in a gloomy
Future perfect secret room he
Lies, a smooth, sweet-smelling creature
Svelte sophisticated teacher
Anthropo-scenic beauty once unknown
To a cavegirl with a cellphone
*
I accept my lot, my life-long mate
And cosy cave to decorate
Existing in simplicity
With fur and fire for luxury
Yet out there in the ether
Hides a snarling monster neither
Of us has the genes to beat
Clicks are all it takes to meet
Now I'm found out, thrown out, living on my own
A cavegirl with a cellphone
*
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