Cat’s eye
I’m not a cat;
I can’t see in the dark
yet it’s always dark
when I awake
and draw the line
under another night’s sleep.
My Words, My World
First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing
2015 in review
Thank you to everyone who stopped by, read or commented. Much appreciated.
Onwards and upwards for 2016.
Have a great New Year one and all.
Chris
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,500 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.
Contradictions
Love is a stroll in a sunlit garden, under a perfect blue sky
Love is the lurching axeman, blood dripping and stumbling through corridors hard and white
Love is the warm sun and a light summer rain
Love is the vise-grip of ice, the cold that rips the breath from your lungs and tears from your eyes
Love is the warm bed, as sunlight drifts through the gaps in the blinds
Love is the sword on which we commit the ritual of Seppuku: and give all.
Leaving
The hand moved across the table, casting a shadow under the glare of the uncovered light bulb, now dull with dust. There was still strength in the hand, and a life of hard work and physical activity showed in the knots of vein and muscle as it moved.
A muscular forefinger which had shot and killed men in war, under orders and without hesitation, now lifted, paused then started to tap, without rhythm, on the plastic table. The window rattled as the wind picked up snow and threw it against the glass, a draught blowing past the single pane. The finger stopped while a deep, chesty cough ripped the silence and echoed in the room devoid of furniture except the table and two chairs. A car horn beeped twice outside
“It’s time,” said the voice, finding breath once again.
“Yes love, it’s time to go.”
“They’ll look after us Eve.”
The hand reached out across the table and grasped one no less young but smaller and softer and cold to the touch. A sob broke the brief silence.
“54 years in this house George. We raised children who’ve raised their children and all the while we’ve stayed here. It breaks my heart to leave it yet…”
Another gust of frigid air escaped from the rattling window pane.
“At least we’ll be warm my love, and we’ll have company our own age.”
The smaller hand gave another squeeze.
“You’re right George, I guess we have to go.”
The hand, cold and white at the fingertips, helped Eve to her feet and into her coat. It reached for the light switch, and hesitated, as it touched away a solitary tear from a wrinkled cheek. Wind tore past the loose window pane.
“At least we’ll be warm, Eve.”
So you keep writing
So you keep writing. At least, you try.
You lie awake in the darkness waiting for the morning sounds; the crows in the fir tree, the far-too-early church bells, the Harley Davidson that surely must have an illegal exhaust system stuck on it. And so you lie awake and you write, except it’s all in your head. You know you should get it down on paper lest you forget (and you will) but you don’t want to disturb the part of the bed whose soft breathing confirms she has finally found sleep, so you continue writing in your head.
Enough! You ignore the hour, you defy the fact the crows are not yet even moving, let alone crowing in the treetops. You’ve anticipated the church bells and the (no doubt fat, short-legged) Harley Davidson owner is probably still tucked up in bed, riding noisy dreams.
The pen and paper await you like dogs waiting for their morning walk. You ignore the need for coffee as you rush to put on paper that which was rushing through your mind, lest you forget.
Sat at the table on the balcony breathing in the cool morning air with pen-scrawl for company. A pink-blue sky crawls out from under a dark cloak. A small bank of cloud above Mount Tamaro resembles the first huffs and puffs of a volcano, cars hiss along the distant road and birds chatter their morning stories.
The words on paper reveal themselves to you in the cool, blue light of day and have taken on an aspect and meaning different to that which came to mind, lying there in the darkness. The words that ran like liquid silver now seem lead-filled, dull and heavy.
So you keep writing. At least, you try.
The night, the chemical night
Every now and again my long-term sleep problems find their way onto the written page; it’s how I feel when I pick up the pencil. I can’t tell of flowers when I see monsters.
***
The night;
star-less, aimless.
Fitful twists and turns and sweat on the pillow
tempted by sleep, made
hidden in foil
just within reach,
enticing, seducing.
The night;
I give in,
because I’m damned if I do
and I’m damned if I don’t.
Irrationality becomes normality
as sleep descends:
a benzodiazepine dream
Daydream
The day is for dreaming
What you could be
or want to be
What you could have been
or will be
The night
I avoided its darkest depths
lest from my pharmaceutical dreams
I returned; empty.
Trapped
in their batwing-leather embrace
to wander alone.
The night,
the chemical night.
Sounds of morning
The summer sun sighs through the strains of a morning
So humid
I open a window;
to sounds that fill my space
The unwinding of the blinds on another day
A car coughs
and a motorcycle
screams down the motorway
Birds wittering and nattering in an air
thick with heat
a fly whines, a bee hums
as a cat pads through grass
No breeze murmurs in this sultry morning,
just scratching
as my pen rolls across the page
like a bead of sweat between the shoulder blades
Bonds
She haunts my dreams
And waking hours
She is gold and silver
And ringed with flowers
Her presence stills me
Her words enthral me
I am hers
And she is mine
A train, and Ernest
The train leaves Milan Central station and heaves over the tracks in the rain which streaks the dirty windows; its carriages are packed with steaming rush-hour tiredness and anger.
The young man sits in the corner up against the window, as the rain beats time, with Hemingway’s words falling off the pages as he tries to concentrate but can’t. For Whom the Bell Tolls? The bell was tolling for people who want peace and quiet on a train carriage to allow them to read, he thinks.
A fat man who’d possibly eaten only garlic for lunch sits opposite, hand wrapped around his phone in some strange death-grip as he seethes and steams, letting the person on the other end know as well as the other three occupied seats around him that, Cazzo! the fucking contract has to be there by Friday or it’s not just his balls on the line, understand?. He doesn’t say which line, which is OK; the less he talks the better, the young man thinks, his own anger rising.
Through the red mist that descends before his eyes the young man looks up and sees her, in the opposite seat across the aisle. Her silky, shoulder-length hair is dark, and her hazel eyes strike out from her face which seems to have had the benefit of a tan recently. In her jeans and blue sweater with white stripes (a little French he thinks: oui mademoiselle, oui), she becomes his calm in a storm-tossed sea. He watches from a distance, as her forehead wrinkles and she glares at the woman opposite her.
This woman opposite has her tablet on her lap and has wires and a mike stuck to her head as she babbles continuously, her voice rising, informing everyone that didn’t want to know that Cazzo! how the hell is she supposed to fit in another meeting on Thursday, she isn’t a fucking machine you know. Sat there looking like Robo-Queen that could be debated, the girl thinks, as she lowers her head and raises her book in an attempt to block out the irritation. As she does so the young man opposite gasps. A Farewell to Arms – Hemingway; she’s reading Hemingway!
Mr Garlic is making another call but its wafting anger slips into the background as the young man looks only at the young woman across the aisle, his book held up to his chest, now half-forgotten. The train starts to slow.
Robo-Queen finishes her call and transforms into e-bitch as she proceeds to beat the hell out of her tablet, with two fingers having some maniacal life of their own as she sends an email, probably shouting Cazzo, cazzo, cazzo!
The fat garlic man wheezes his bulk into an overcoat big enough to protect a small car from winter frost and grabs his briefcase, stuffed full, as its leather creaks for mercy, and he makes his way to the door.
The young woman looks up. She sees the young man looking at her and her eyes drop to his chest. She sees. Fine lines around her eyes appear and she gives him a smile. He returns it just as e-bitch starts to make another phone call. He waves her over to the now-vacated seat opposite him and they whisper words of Ernest, in earnest, as the train takes them home.
Balcony
The cat, bird stalking,
early morning dog walking,
the sun rises over the eastern hill
behind the fir trees.
Spring morning chill
meets
spring sun warmth.
It is still early.
The plants, freshly watered,
drip and gleam in the light.
Geraniums, pink and red
and rosemary lifts her violet head,
the lavender flowers, purple
while bees flit, feeling Provençal.
Sarracenia, the fly catcher, lies
and dreams of catching flies.
Dawn
The brevity
of morning’s clarity
Crystal-crusted peaks
standing sentinel
A sheer-sided cliff
black against blue
hides the sky above me
Its sides thick
with winter’s skeletons
stalking stick shadows,
stark
against night’s incandescence
which chases up the sun
A once waterfall
in winter suspension
and, like us all,
awaits the sun.
Blocked?
Every letter lingers,
and every word wrings,
while the stubborn sentence stabs
the pained paragraph.
***
Ernesto, has the sun risen?
The sun also rises.
Donde esta la fiesta Ernesto?
The sun also rises. It rises on a new day, in a new way, earlier than yesterday and later than tomorrow, when the sun also rises.
The sun also rises in a cloak of washed pink, when the blue finally lets go and after the black has given up the ghost. Eventually it will shine a light on the eastern-facing peaks 5,000 feet above my right shoulder as I sit.
The sun also rises on new hopes and old fears. Hopes are always new, even if they’re the same hopes you had yesterday, last week or even last year. Hopes are renewable, and like solar power, and are renewed with the coming sun.
The sun also rises on the birds that sing in the new day. Each voice different, discernible from the others. If I was a cat I’d be at my wits end figuring ways to go and catch one. A swift bite to the neck and it would sing no more. But I’m no more cat than I am prehistoric Auroch, and the birds fill me with pleasure. I can leave them to their song. What do they sing anyway?
The sun also rises on a short night of discarded dreams. Dreams, and drugs to make you sleep, but don’t. The sun also rises on tiredness, which I fight with everything I have to hand; my 2H pencil and notebook. I write.
White bulletproof shroud
White bulletproof shroud
Head to toe protection,
salvation
while fishermen in storm-tossed seas
knee deep and needing
breaking bread
taking water, taking wine
as you walk unhindered
undisturbed
stone rolled, risen
given
to man
to remember
to forget
to honour
to regret
White bulletproof shroud
lies in tatters
at your feet
as women weep
and men wander
and wonder
Wander, wonder
Bleach dilutes
Heart
stopped
Sliced by razor
made hollow
bleached with sorrow
Hung out to dry
to die
Then I
saw your smile,
felt your kiss
The razor’s wound
internal, infernal
but never eternal
As the heart beats once again
Drown me
Walking
waves breaking
white foam
flying
gulls crying
as the wind whips their voices
Behind closed eyes
salt sting
breathing
as the sea sighs its song
And laps and slaps the strand
Fickle mistress!
Ever moving
ever changing
From a shallow sigh this ocean roars
as the gull soars
lighter than the air
that carries its story
on the wings of the wind
Love thy neighbour…give me space.
Enclosed space behavioural patterns, what’s it called, lift behaviour? The doors close on two people who only seconds before were having a friendly chat over an espresso in the hotel bar. Now they shut up shop and silence ensues when the doors close like a pair of folded arms. The will to wish the lift to rise is strong and the relief is almost tangiable when it arrives. It seems like the lift and its occupants are holding their breath and finally let it out when the doors open, when those arms unfold. It’s a unique situation; it doesn’t happen when four people are squashed into a car. Space.
Then we have train space conservation; we do, so bear with me.
Four seats and only one of them occupied, their occupant relaxed and probably reading, playing Candy Crush or possibly, Heaven forbid, writing, with a pen and paper don’t you know. A second person arrives and sits down diagonally opposite. A shuffling of feet and space, reluctantly, is conceded. This is still bearable. The first occupant continues as before; reading, Candy Crushing or maybe writing. The new arrival starts to rummage in his bag and out comes a book, a phone or maybe, just maybe, a pen and paper. Two people sitting diagonally can share the same space comfortably; they may even swap greetings – sometimes it still happens, it really does. This sense of conviviality continues, each to their own doing what they’re doing with possibly the occasional glance out the window, looking at the black and white cows in the fields. Why are all the cows black and white when seen from the window of a train? Where are the other cow colours? Is there a law that says only black and white cows can graze near railway lines?
Then the train pulls into the next station. Both occupants look up from what they’re doing, look at the seats next to them, move their bags half an inch nearer their feet and wait. They hold their breath. Time doesn’t stand still but they wish it would; they want to remain with an empty seat next to them forever. They don’t want their space encroached upon but they know it’s going to happen, it has to.
The doors of the train open with a swoosh and people file in, looking for a seat, any seat. It doesn’t matter next to who, they just want to sit down, to have their own place where they can sit and read a book, play the telephone or possibly write. The two original occupants frown, engage in more feet shuffling and move their bags another half an inch to see if that is enough. If not they will sigh, sometimes audibly, and rearrange their space; four seats, four people. With space dramatically reduced the original occupants will have to get used to it. The two new arrivals on the other hand are as happy as Larry. They have their seat and now they can relax, coat off and a big, happy sigh of relief and then out come the books, phones or pen and paper (all four of them? Oh come on…). They’re on holiday these newcomers, look at them! Any more relaxed and they’d put their feet up (well, if the seat opposite wasn’t occupied) and ask the ticket inspector for a pina colada. The two original occupants are most definitely NOT on Holiday. Their winter has returned; it’s darker now the light from the windows has diminished in the crowded carriage. The book has become harder to read, Candy harder to crush and the thoughts transmitted from pen to paper are harder to come by. Frowns indent foreheads and half-hidden glares stared. Goodwill to all men, except those sitting next to you.
Love thy neighbour, but only if you have the space to do so.
Fear the night
Sleep eludes me, deserts me
It skirts my nighttime like a seige
Sleep seized from the grasp of the sleeper
Who should now be in deep slumber
As I fumble for words
(I write)
“Sleep sir, sleep!” I hear
As once again I fear
To go to bed
Lest nightmares awaken me
Awaken me?
And dreams haunt me
Dreams? Ha!
You have to sleep to dream
Sleeps eludes me, deserts me
My night perched on a precipice
A night-borne orifice
Black and deep
Like the narcotic sleep
(I crave)
The last long day
Today I left my place of employment after more than 11 years. The big hole that has been left by such an absence will be filled however, as I am now studying the Cambridge CELTA course to teach English as a foreign Language. As one door closes…
*********
The last long day
I’m left static and still
and I must keep moving
just keep going
never slowing.
But now, but now
a halt has been called.
Time to take the time that’s mine,
to use, shape and mould
As a new life chapter unfolds.
I won’t be lead blindly
as I carve and scythe
and make my way
with my destiny
in my hands.
Over yonder
Do not step into yonder pasture,
however the grass may be greener.
Do not follow the grass-flattened footsteps
of another,
who will lead you tither.
For the fickle will change
and though you may rage
and cry against your injustice
and spill tears that are useless.
To whom will you turn
when the wild winter wind burns
your face and tears your eyes,
as you stumble and chastise
your decision taken,
your intention mistaken.
For however that distant green field
may taunt you,
do not stray across those borders,
entrapped by those hoarders,
who will suck your soul
and bleed you dry and left to lie;
choked and broken
Whereabouts
-
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My Words, My World 