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caroljforrester.bsky.social
@caroljforrester.bsky.social
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caroljforrester.bsky.social
#poetry
To the influencer telling me “pull the pin” at the top of my head, release the anxiety leashed between my shoulder blades. I don’t think you understand how tightly packed this fury is, or how it grows like a hurricane at sea the longer I think on it. We raised generations of girls to thin the fat from their bones thicken their skin into plate mail, a resting bitch so smooth, the insults slide right off our waxed bodies. The fuel simmering under all that armour has had such a long fuse that men who claim to love us, take turns with their flaming tongues, jabbering like magpies at the fire reflecting in our eyes. Such clever birds, their oil-slicked feathers, shimmering in the sunlight, almost begging to go up in flames.
June 4, 2025 at 10:38 PM
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mikaelawalker.bsky.social
Very pleased with my recent acquisitions from The Haunted Bookshop, Bristol - Stone Tongued by @caroljforrester.bsky.social & a lovely tarot set.
I've only read the first couple of poems but I already know Stone Tongued is very much my vibe & I look forward to reading the rest.
Poetry collection - Stone Tongued by Carol J Forrester "We counted all the non-witches. The waterlogged women parcelled in their tiny, tidy, Christian graves." Witches are woven throughout the book, alongside warriors, rebels, sex workers, goddesses, and everyday individuals. The phrase 'Stone Tongued' emerges in the first poem, where accused witches are declared innocent and tucked away in graves paid for by the Crown. Sulis reads through curse tablets in her temple, Johanna Ferrour remembers the Peasants' Revolt from her kitchen, and Mary Jones throws her dinner in the face of the workhouse headmaster when he tries to silence her. Brought together to create a coven of powerful and sometimes, violent women, these poems show that power might be hidden but not forgotten. “We arrived in this world screaming for revenge.” Tarot set - cards & guidebook
February 28, 2025 at 8:51 AM
caroljforrester.bsky.social
Someone point me towards the witches, the poets, and the feral feminists.
#poetry #witch
January 18, 2025 at 4:19 PM
caroljforrester.bsky.social
Can someone point me towards the #poets please?
starting small fires and other ways to be a poet prompt by @theconstantpoet I hate the toothed bite of a lighter when you strike it. They’ve popped up all over the house slick bodies catching light like flames, lilacs, oranges afternoon sun warming the coals of a handful in a bowl that should be fruit. There is a poem somewhere in this, but it drifts cloying as ash or dust motes— leaving a sheen on the surfaces dead skin cells gathered on shelves relics caught between calcium and charcoal. The pad of my thumb stings each time I press, the tang of butane on my tongue.
January 4, 2025 at 11:22 PM
caroljforrester.bsky.social
#throwbackthursday #poetry
November 28, 2024 at 2:37 PM
caroljforrester.bsky.social
Anyone else with wonky knees? #poetry
It has only ever been a little your fault. My wonky chair of a knee, taped up, and rocking on the slate floor of my skeleton, these clumsy hands attempting to press you into a space not quite grown to hold you correctly. I’ve been trying to reshape the house around you. Honestly, it is not lack of love that leave the physio bands draped like forgotten throws over the back of the settee. I sometimes remember to wrap you up against the elements, and you remind me in the week following, each time I climb steps that there are nails loose in your framework, sharp edges I’m supposed to be accounting for every other day, for fifteen minutes or so, not just when I remember. After a decade of complaining, where I was the only one who listened you are welcome to a little anger. A little discontentment when I push you further than you wish to run. You’ve yet to give me up in the moment. I should thank you more for carrying me across finish lines, without any sort of care for the softness inside you. Poetry by Carol J Forrester
November 16, 2024 at 8:50 PM
caroljforrester.bsky.social
New platform, old poem (sort of). 2024 is the year I accidentally wrote my third #poetry collection ‘Becoming The Bone Mother’.
With almost five years between ‘Its All In The Blood’ and ‘Stone Tongued’, this was unexpected.
Terrifying, exhilarating, and completely unexpected.
Portrait of a woman as stone fruit #TheConstantPoetPrompts Google tells me yes. Some stone fruit such as apricots, cherries and plums, contain amygdalin which is what converts into hydrogen cyanide (a poisonous gas) when processed by the human body. As reassurance, Google explains there’s little danger if we’re considering apple pips swallowed by accident, but smoothies made with unpitted fruit are a completely different matter. I wonder if I count as unpitted fruit? Being polite too often meant taking a knife to my skin and core, paring hardness that might be called ugly so there was nothing of me you might break your teeth upon. These days, I long to be a choking hazard. Catch me between your molars, and spend the day grinding me down. Nothing preps this type of poison better than chewing on the leftovers. You get to be the one who makes me toxic. Trust me, there’s little as dangerous as a woman’s anger cracked open, and a man with an empty belly unhinging his jaw to eat.
November 14, 2024 at 6:07 PM