Flung

Photography: Trish Jean

I joined in a really great writing workshop at the Uni of NSW the other night. One of the exercises we did was to write either a poem or prose using the following words, which were selected by the participants.

expedite, cockroach, psychosomatic, basically, intention, phantasmagorical, kernel, debunked, panache, disseminate.

Here’s what I whipped up…

She wanted to expedite the death of the cockroach. Watching from her kneeling position on the floor she was a hunched mother beneath the burning candles in a cathedral. Enthralled, the writhing of the cockroach was basically a physical tintinnabulation on her skin, a psychosomatic playing out of her own pain. She debunked the notion that responsibility for her children’s state was disseminated amongst their medical practitioners, teachers, friends or even themselves. With panache she flung her head back, her intention to hold the space. The cockroach became the kernel that contained her sense of self, and in slamming her hands down upon it she unleashed a phantasmagorical power that she wished was true beyond the kitchen walls.