Sneak Peek 2: The Year Just Gone (2013)

Every year, C.M. Simpson gathers up the short stories, flash fiction and poetry she’s written, published, or prepared for publishing, and puts them into a single volume. This year, there are two volumes. The second volume consists of all the work produced, prepared for publication or published in 2013.

As C.M. explains at the beginning of each volume “poems and short stories form the playground I use to explore ways of putting words on paper to create different effects” and each volume contains a variety of styles and subjects, accompanied by what it was that inspired her at the time. Sometimes, the inspiration comes from elements found in the real world or a combination of elements from the real world.

After the Fire

Written on December 31, 2013, for the December 29 entry of 365 Days of Poetry, this poem started with brown leaves and grew from there.

The leaves are all brown.

The ground they have covered.

The trees stretch skeleton arms

to the sky.

The bare earth is blackened.

The fire has devoured

all that it touched.

Those not swift enough

died.

Come the rains soft and gentle,

come the cloud days

protective,

Green sparks the shoots,

from black earth

and trees.

Green sparks the shoots

from the skeletal

collective.