Angela Goldsmith's Blog

Author- Angela Goldsmith


Strip bald sustained drab-drubbing turbulence

Impel, stub-out this throbbing-thrumming pulse

Left swelled to rank resound, reverberating in discord

Expel echoes of fury, like the tenor of the poor player,

Note how silence prevails, and profound peace endures

Creeping-circumspect, tiptoed-forth like novice nurturer

Extracting the timbre of tumult, and installing solace


The Graveside Bride

I have just noticed that two of my #books The Graveside Bride and The Peculiar Predicament of Ezra Strangewood by Angela Goldsmith are #Now available on the Waterstones website (A prominent bookshop in the UK) I am thrilled by this. So super excited. Here are the links

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-...

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-...

A small honey covered seed

Like the witches impetus

Poured into the King’s ear

When planted plain

In the barren belly of the land

A fertile ground

This germ is as persuasive as Iago’s silver tongue

Which with tenacious flair

Targets the tenue

Synapses spark

And the spore forms

Swathed in it’s silky cocoon it cogitates

Gradually encased in lustrous layers

It blooms into monstrous malady


Like a siren song, to lull a weary sailor

Molten gold, is spilled out like sweet syrup

By a malevolent mason

Until ripe, when it solidifies

Like the grit in the craw

It roots itself into reason

And like the grain of sand in the shell

This gem becomes the imposter here.

The cuckoo in the nest

It corrupts

The fragile membrane

Sprouts forth, fantastic rhetoric

In a tangle of weeds

Like frank faith

It is a constant, false deity

A pipette that drip, drip, drips

With the insertion of the line

Force-fed straight through the vein

Reinforced with flamboyant flourish

That distorts the optics of rationality


Like a camera forced out of focus

This obscurity becomes reality

Indistinguishable

If sticks do break bones

Then words can be poison

Potent with the power to damage

When delivered up by a clever salesman

The manipulation served by

The play of a puppeteer

This mendacious employment

Turns night to day

Left to right

And the time taken to break the circuit can be infinite

Laundry day (The Wendigo)

By Angela Goldsmith


A cold, clammy winters’ morning

The damp lingers in the air from the previous night

A mournful chill, that hangs here still

Like a gossamer veil,

Palpable, a tangible tension

Like sticky strands left hanging

I feel like I am walking through a spider's web

Later you will gobble away these strands

In your jagged jaw

There will be no resolutions



I am hanging out the washing in the garden

The linen, boil-washed

Bleached to the bone

Pure-white like an eggshell

Gleaming on the line in a graceful garland

Rows of white milk teeth

With a gap I cannot fill

A red stain on cold compress

Fills me still with an age of anger

I blink at it in the cold blue morning light

It is a blot on the snowy white landscape

And like me does not belong here



The laundry is still hot, the steam rising

Gaseous, and gauzy

Diaphanous, and distorting

Wrung raw

Drawing water out with my bare hands

That crack and split with red sores

Where I have had to scrub

With the nub of soap

The red bloom of a circular moon-like stain

With fingers blanched white to the knuckle

They bleed unabashed

"Who afforded you that luxury?" you ask

"Be more grateful" you say

I nod my passive humility

The cold numbness makes me mute

You have sucked away my warm blood

vampiric

I must be careful not get my ‘dirty’ blood

On what you call your perfect robes

Trying not to leave any faint yellow taint

An iron-impression

Which will inflame your beastly displeasure



As I hang the last sheet

You appear outside again

I am shocked to see you in my domain

I can only see your antlered outline

Your horned head

Behind the white filmy sheath

Almost as if sanitized by the sterility

You did not come home last night

I can smell a stench of sex and sweat

Acrid, asinine

Out of your rancid rotted mouth

With carnivorous incisors and gamy gums

That snap at my febrile flesh

And a wish to devour it whole



The stale booze makes you snort like boorish beast

A small clout of breath puckers the cloth

Heavy- headed, stubbornly sore

And feeling fragile-sorry for yourself

One of your antlers briefly hooks a sheet

You shake it off Irritated, irascible

Anger flashes like hellfire

Scorn poured on me

From your bottle-mouth In a flood

Foul and feral

I am not perfect, that is my fault

You say that is my poor design

The line is drawn in the sand

You fiercely flash at me your fiendish eye

You hurl curses and blame at me

I carry on with my chores in silence

I tell myself I must not stumble on the footpath

My step uncertain

The flagstones fractured

But I perform the usual ritual

Perfectly on point

Like a dancer with much coordination

Determination not to trip on tiptoes

I guard my words with steel girders

"Silence is golden" you say

"Less is more"

The cold cracks my lips



I must pave over the ruptures

But lava boils underneath

Biting wind lashes out at my delicate cheek

Like the thrash of your belt strap it stings my face red raw

I have a ringing sound in my ear, profoundly permanent

Your true temper showing

A crack in the veneer

Blue, purple veins rise to the surface of my veritable visage

They map the journey to this place

But I wish the tale would turn around

The music of a different dance

I suppose that is my delusion

Expecting a different result next time

"Don't tell anyone." you urge me in cowardly tongue

Looking not for the first time like a frightened deer

I 'choose' to stay silent

No one will believe me anyway



But spinning a yarn, is what you are good at

This is your domain

I step back into the gauzy spider web again

Weaved threads

And I am reminded briefly of candy floss

And the sweetness of spun sugar

You brought me a treat

A puff of cloud on a stick

At the fair on our first date

Full of fluff and frivolity

And I was captivated by the dazzling bright lights,

The whirling of a Ferris wheel dizzying

I put a clump of cotton into my mouth

The sickly sweetness turned to a hard mass in my mouth

A rotted tooth, ripped out at the root

Only a small blow

That time

An imprint of white like a memory

Appears and stings my sensitive skin

Seared into my flesh, as if branded.

Warning lights on a red setting

I think of my veins as a network of rivers

They briefly transport me away

Drawn like a route taken by great explorers

I escape on Herculean voyages

Ancient wounds open like a red Erythraean sea

And I try to think of great men instead.

Wise men, explorers that discovered treasures hidden

Buried beneath the smothering sand

"Best to leave them buried" you say

These imperfections on my salt-stained skin

Remind me that at least I am still alive

I brush back layers of hair from my face

The whiplash of the wind

Brings tears to my unslept eyes

Black ringed

Rinsing them with a balm

You stand there watching me

Stag-headed and obdurate

Insatiable in your lust to consume my flesh

When I am gone. disappeared

You will move on to the next one

This is a short poem about being inspired to read when I was a child. I grew up in quite a working class part of South London When I was a child I was continually told that because of my background, that reading and writing were 'not for the likes of me' and the arts were only for 'other people.' Not really sure who these other people were? Perhaps they meant upper or middle class people. At school I remember reading a lot and becoming inspired to read more and write myself. (Which I realise sounds a little like the plot of Roald Dahl's book Matilda, a book which I love,)
As a child I always loved rhymes and poems especially those of Lewis Carroll, Spike Milligan and Dr Seuss. I believe I really connected to the sounds and rhythms of certain stories, particularly Alice in Wonderland. At school we read Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth and acted them out in class which I really enjoyed.

This is a very very very rough 'poem' to try to show how Reading Books, has inspired me.

Wherefore Art

You are the catalyst
Chemical and urgent
A match tip struck against red phosphorus
That ignites my inquisitiveness
As I dig through underground tunnels
Casting away dull domesticity
To be replaced by luminous layers
Of labyrinthine discovery
Resplendent like Romeo’s Jewel
A world forbidden to me by fate
Or foolish fortune
A closed curtain of incivility

Against this backdrop of civil unrest
You lift the stage curtain
I stand on Juliet’s balcony
Everyone around me is fearful
In class we read ‘toil and trouble’
The spell transports me back
To when I could gimble like Alice
Jibber jabber
My love of verse as a child
First welcomed in a world of wonder

I am Columbus or da Gama
My new, found land!
I look for refuge here
In your hallowed halls
Adorned by holy gold
Strange circumstance
Lead me to read tales of Mary’s monster
You inspired me to imagine
To chisel from charcoal
Roughhewn rhymes
When others told me
“Reading is not for the likes of you”
You were my sanctuary

I am not good at writing Blogs so below is a quick poem by Angela Goldsmith for the Monday Blues

Monday Mourning

Buried deep,
Drugged, flogged, and finely thrown
Hurled unconscious into a subterranean vault,
In a tumult of great unrest,
When I finally awoke I found a raven
Perched heavy on my breast,
Studying me with a scathing jest
In its’ bulbous moon eye,
This wretched creature
Dressed in dark and ragged robes
Strove to Judge me!
At its’ masters main request, no less

With scour scorn, this guest
In my mournful chamber where,
Bare lies bring to bear bloodshed,
Ensnared and ensued my downfall
My untimely undoing,
A solitary red rose is all that blooms here
And sheds a single petal for my ruin.