Wordland 5: True Love

By theEXAGGERATEDpress

What is love?
Is it the first flush of desperate passion and emotion unleashed when two hearts are first entwined?
Is it the steady affection of the long-term couple?
Or is it something stranger, less easy to define:
the love between two friends,
the love between human and object
the all-consuming obsession of the stalker
the energiser of murder, mayhem and war?
Can it span time?
Can it span the unthinkable distances of space?
Can it span the awful gulf between life and death?
Can it be described at all?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326171438

Book preview

Wordland 5: True Love

WORDLAND 5: TRUE LOVE

Edited by Terry Grimwood

theEXAGGERATEDpress UK

WORDLAND 5: TRUE LOVE

Edited by Terry Grimwood

Copyright © 2015

The right of Terry Grimwood to be identified as editor of this publication has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents act 1988

Copyright © Terry Grimwood 2015

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-326-17143-8

The rights of those appearing in this publication has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents act 1988

Cover Art © Terry Grimwood 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written  permission of the publisher, not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

Published by theEXAGGERATEDpress UK

http://exaggeratedpress.weebly.com/

A VOW | Hal O’Leary

My

love

will be

a silk scarf

thrown lightly about

the shoulders lest it stifle thee.

DEFINITION | Douglas Thompson

Love is the feeling not just of empathy for someone else, but the desire to help them and comfort and support them. It is also a fascination to learn more, to be near that person to be able to enjoy at every available moment all the miraculousness of their physical presence, mental prowess

and emotional generosity and unpredictability. Like two mirrors, a reflection occurs which tends to infinity: we admire their admiration for us. We are moved by how they are moved by us. We are comforted to see that we can comfort them. These feedback loops give us the momentary impression, which is not necessarily an illusion, that we can exceed the limits of ourselves, the limits even of us and our partner, the limits even of being human. If we believe that all sentient creatures are fragments of the force that created us: a God who is being built in the future through all life finding itself and becoming aware across time, then love is the tangible miracle of that interaction between two such fragments. We discover to our delight and our amazement, that we fit, that we are not just arbitrary individuals but living jigsaw pieces, whose unity when achieved: points the way to a higher reality occupied by the life force itself. That glimpse is exalting because it imparts to us the knowledge of what lies at the heart of that life force: infinite compassion and tenderness, patience, forgiveness and unstoppable power.

A MYSTIC VINE | Richard King Perkins II

Fools fall in love

because there is no other way

to go about it.

All the bending and twisting and angling

that must occur is a fool’s errand at best.

In a decade or two

they will each wonder

who was the greater fool

to end up in this ridiculous state.

But they will have been fooled again.

Love is not static. Love is not refined.

Love is a mystic vine

bending, twisting, angling

redefining itself every long day

ensnaring even old fools

because love is willing to live

in the absurd even

if it lives just a little.

CYNTHIA MOON | Clinton Van Inman

Go drag your white skull before blind seas

That tumble dazed to your mono-eyed magic

Go string the treadmill tides around the poles

And make all starry lovers pale and sick

Go tell Neptune when the night is through

Charm him too with your waxing and waning

Awaken the Triton and all your mermaids too

Let them revel in your nocturnal wandering                        

But you can’t catch me with those half smiles

As your borrowed brilliance exposes you

I have seen how your darker side beguiles

As I learned too late that you are never true

Go charm some other star struck rhapsodist

Lure him too into your midnight mist.

EIGHTH STAR | Ginette Pywell

It was written in the stars and I should have known. The Plough. Seven stars for seven years.

Dubhe - the brightest of the seven stars - for the year we met. I had given up on love and resigned myself to singledom. And then you arrived. The years hadn’t been kind to your waistline you told me. I thought you were beautiful. That first holiday on the Isle of Wight. One night I fell in love with you and that love was as clean and pure as the night-sky. Do you remember? Lying side-by-side while I held up your hand and pointed you to each of the seven stars. I’ll love you to the Plough and back a thousand times. I’ll love you to the Plough and back a million times.

Mizar and Alcor – this pair are only 90 light years distant which, in astrological terms, is very close. Inseparable. We were so lucky to have found each other after all those in-between years, weren’t we? You were my Mizar and I tried my best to keep you close.

Merak - a bluish-white star in the loin of the Great Bear - were we guided by hearts or by our loins? Both, perhaps. Snatched weekends in my attic flat above the roofs. Tea, toast and making love amongst the crumbs and the sun lighting up the dusty particles like millions of tiny, celestial bodies. The sweet ache of parting and the late night, long distance whispered I love you’s. I’ll love you to the Plough and back a billion times.

Megrez. Poor star – its only claim to any sort of distinction is that it has been accused of having faded over the centuries. The dog and I moved up to yours. You bought me a ‘Welcome Home’ helium balloon. But I missed the forest and the sea and the unpolluted skies and I tried to make it work but I couldn’t quite reach you. Our love-making soon replaced with quick, embarrassed kisses and our conversation dry and heavy as a stone.

Phecda and Alioth - a possible cause of a great blood bath. And so began the end. The spare room became my cocoon where I shielded myself from the heavy silences and the spitting bitter words that burned into our hearts. And the inevitable bombshell. The ‘I love you but…’ I tried to deflect the words. I wanted to cover up your mouth so that you wouldn’t say those things. But the words kept coming and the pain they caused was like a crushing, suffocating weight. But in the end I knew you were right. Did you know that The Plough actually includes an eighth star? Alkaid moves in its own direction. The dog and I moved back to the forest.

CRUSH | Sarah Doyle

I’m jealous of your duvet – it cuddles you in bed

I’m jealous of your pillow – it holds your sleeping head

I’m jealous of the mirror that sees you, freshly woken

I’m jealous of each word inside your mouth before it’s spoken

I’m jealous of your shower gel and jealous of your flannel

I’m jealous of the toothbrush that cleans your mouth’s enamel

I’m jealous of your trousers and I’m jealous of your socks

I’m jealous of the keys that slip, so nicely, in your locks

I’m jealous of your sandwich – cradled, and bitten

I’m jealous of your bag of crisps that must be wondrous smitten

I’m jealous of your hand that sits, blithely, on your thigh

I’m jealous of the sunglasses that look you in the eye

I’m jealous of your cigarettes, I’m jealous of your beer

I’m jealous of the mobile phone that whispers in your ear

I’m jealous of your scarf and gloves, I’m jealous of your coat

I’m jealous of the buttons that get pressed on your remote

I’m jealous of the magazine through which your finger flicks

I’m jealous of the envelope your wonderful tongue licks

I’m jealous of the lucky books that sit upon your shelf

And if you so much as looked at me, I’d be jealous of myself

THE BOY WHO WASN’T IN LOVE | Martin Feekins

Saturday 16 August

A new girl moved into old Mr Gellan’s flat today. It’s less than a week since he was carried out on a stretcher after that heart attack or stroke or whatever it was. Mum and me hadn’t even known he was dead. Mum said that was typical, we lived on top of each other in these blocks, but barely knew each other. Which was true, but Mum’s the worst for not mixing. (If you’re reading this diary, Mum – and I know you do read it, because this flat’s not big enough to hide anything – then yes, you’re the worst. Don’t act offended, it’s nothing I haven’t said to your face.) Mum had some excuse with us living at the end of one of the legs of the X, so we only had a neighbour on one side, and it had always been Mr Gellan, who kept himself to himself, and the flat beyond his was empty. Yeah, we live in the Letters. X marks the shit, Mum says, but all the Letters are bad. Back in the ’70s some architect had the idea of building blocks of flats in letter shapes, so there was V, W, X, Y and Z. The arse end of the alphabet, Mum said.

I was sitting on the chair when the new girl came up the walkway. The chair was tubular metal with a stripey plastic seat. We leave it out so we can enjoy the view from the fifth floor over the concrete courtyards to Y and Z and the city beyond. No-one bothers to steal it. A couple of times kids have thrown it over the balcony, but it’s so light even a five-storey drop doesn’t damage