Earlier Times

A friend posted some lines of Edgar Allan Poe on Twitter today, which triggered a little exploration. This in conjunction with the season - Hallowe'en and the descent into a darker Autumn - provoked in me a sense of romantic melancholy. Time for an exercise in pastiche.

The Victorian Gothic sensibility had an epic grandeur about it. There is a formality to the poetry of course - literally, in its structure, rhythms and rhymes - but also in the dance between passion and restraint. The form holds the passion captive, such that the poet must become even more expansive in her expression. The beating heart of the poet is held chained within the iron bars of the form, leading to a sweet desperation of tone.

Had we been born in earlier times,

When stars were mysteries, and poets' rhymes

A commonplace, nay, expected too,

I would have scribed this verse for you.

I would have sharpened nib and dipped,

That from my pen the ink which dripped

Might flow to you, express its fire

To tell you of my heart's desire

On parchment I'd reveal my soul

And pray my words would fire the coal

Of love, within your darling breast

To match the burning in my melancholy chest

And to your beating heart I'd press

My hand, that my fingers might caress

And coax the glimmering flame alive.

And hope, ignited in my soul, would live.

May our destiny be one.

May our sorrows all be gone.

May our hearts beat sound and true.

May our love be ever young.

1st November, 2023

Laundering Money - old school

Back in the days of paper money and a decent postal service, Ruth's mum would slip a crisp £5 note in with a birthday card.

It had to be crisp, preferably fresh from the post office counter. You simply could not put a crumpled up note in as a birthday present! That would never do.

On those occasions when a fresh, crisp one wasn't available, she would take an old one from her purse, run it under the tap, then hold it flat in the palm of her hand and gently rub the soap over it a few times, working it into the paper, watching the suds turn muddy grey between her fingers, before a final rinse. Then she'd press it flat against the side of the bath to dry overnight, retrieving the note in the morning freshly washed and ironed.

It may not have had quite the allure of a note in mint condition, but it was at least tidy and clean with a patina of care and attention.

And just a hint of Imperial Leather.

Nonsense Descends Into Madness

Aurora said the gun dog was able to obliterate the weak-minded lawlessly

Auspices said the gunfight was able to obscure the weakness laxly

Austerity said the gunfire was able to obsecrate the weal lazily

Austin said the gunge was able to observe the weald leadenly

Australes said the gunite was able to obsess the wealthy learnedly

Auteurs said the gunk was able to obsolesce the weaner lecherously

Authors said the gunlock was able to obstruct the weanling leeringly

Authorities said the gunman was able to obtain the weapon legally

A poem for Uvalde and all the victims of mass shootings in the United States

The View From The Window

Flora could climb the door frame.

    She had seen Joe do it, and now she could do it too.

    She learned to push her hands hard against the wooden jambs on either side, then lift her feet one by one to do the same. Holding her arms strong, she could climb right to the top - like the chimney sweep’s boy she had heard about who climbed the flues in Offord House. Flora could not imagine such a thing: climbing the dirty stonework in the dark chimneys, brushing the soot down as he climbed, soot falling in his face, in his eyes and mouth - and the sweep below shouting up at him, “Faster, boy, faster! There are seven others to sweep before y’are done.”

    She could hang like a spider in the top of the door frame. From
there she could see out through the kitchen window, across the yard, over the valley to Offord House which sat upon the hilltop like a tiara crowning the town, dressed around with cedar trees and pines. Flora loved it when snow fell and blanketed the whole town, and it looked as if all the houses were wrapped in ermine with charcoal black smudges for windows. And Offord House was like the palace of a great snow queen. But then Flora’s arms would tire and she would drop like a cat to the floor, and go and curl up by the fire and hold Lucy, the rag doll Aunt Glad had given her, and whisper stories into her ear.

    Father grew worse with the snow. The fires were lit and black coal smoke hung heavy in the air. He coughed in the mornings when he sat up in bed. Flora could hear him as she broke the bread crusts into her warm milk. It was as if he could not stop. She was glad when mother told her to step out and feed the rabbits and hens. She could hear him still but the animals took her mind from him and let her smile again. She breathed misty clouds into the brisk air and traced her finger along the ice ferns that glazed the kitchen window.

    When she came inside again Mother had gone upstairs to him. She could hear the creak of the bed springs and the soft murmur of her mother’s voice as she talked to him in soft breaths. She could hear her father struggling to swallow down the vile infection, and then the wracking cough once more. Flora sat on the bottom step of the stairs and picked at the splinters of wood on the edge of the tread.

    Mother came down again when he was calm, but her face was ashen.

    “Will he die, Mother?”

    “Don’t ask such things, girl.”

    “But will he?”

    “‘Tis not for you to consider such things. Now get off to school.”

    As she walked down to the school house, Flora counted the icicles that hung from the porch of St Mark and St Matthew’s. Flora could add numbers in her head. She could read and she could draw. She would one day, she hoped, go to work in Aunt Glad’s shop - folding up the handkerchiefs, or lining the shelves with paper, straightening the gloves or re-rolling the ribbons when they were unravelled. She would prepare the orders for Arnold to deliver on his bicycle, package up the lacework and damasks, the bobbins of silken thread and parcels of pearl buttons. Working in the shop would give her ‘standing’. She knew that, she had heard Mother talking to Aunt Glad about it. To work in the shop would give her standing and Aunt Glad said she would consider it, but not until Flora was fifteen.

    “Fifteen?” Flora complained to her mother. “How can I wait so long?”

    “You’ll wait, if you’ve any sense, girl.” But Flora could hear the disappointment in her mother’s voice.

    In January, Father was worse still and could not work at all. And though Mother took in laundry for Aunt Glad and some of her customers, and cleaned the schoolhouse on Fridays, and although Joe sent money home from time to time - times were hard and money was scarce.

    On Saturday, Mother told Flora to put on her best dress - the dark grey one with the lace bib - and to clean her shoes.

    “Are we going to Church?” said Flora

    “Not today, girl. Not today. Now hurry. It won’t do to be late.”

    Mother gripped her hand tightly as they walked. Down past the church and the schoolhouse and into the market place. The snow had turned to brown slush and Mother kept on at Flora to mind her shoes. They climbed Angel Lane and passed the Museum then out along Cranbrook Road and on towards Offord House. Flora felt her heart racing - she had rarely been this far before, except in her mind. In her thoughts she had walked the length of the great stone wall and stood before the great iron gates. And the great iron gates had opened to her and she had walked between lines of footmen who bowed before her as she passed, and the maids who curtsied low, and up the steps to the magnificent front door through which came a fine lady dressed in jewelled crinolines with snow white hair piled high upon her head.

    Flora’s mother pulled at her hand.

    “Come along, girl!”

    Today they did not stop at the great iron gates. They walked straight past and on to where the wall turned a corner and opened through into a stable yard at the back of the great house. As they walked into the yard the stable boys paid them no mind at all. Mother stopped a moment, then led Flora to a small black door with a brass bell pull. Mother pulled on the bell and Flora could hear a distant jangling. Mother turned to her and pulled her collar straight and tucked her hair behind her ears.

    “Speak only when spoken to,” she said, “but then mind you do.”

    “But...”

    “Hush now.”

    The door was opened by a young man in a white chemise, powdered wig and breeches. He led them down a stone-flagged corridor to a room with a glass-paned door upon which was a brass plaque bearing the word “Housekeeper”. The young man knocked. Flora could see a grey-haired woman sitting at a desk, writing.

    “Enter,” said the woman without raising her eyes.

    Mrs Gateley stood Flora in front of her. She held her shoulders between her thumbs and fingers.

    “Stand up straight, girl.”

    Flora felt her mother straighten her own back, behind her.

    “Show me your teeth,” said Mrs Gateley.

    Flora clamped her teeth together and stretched her lips back.

    “Hmm,” said Mrs Gateley.

    As Mrs Gateley continued her examination of Flora, Mother spoke quietly to her of Flora’s accomplishments. Mrs Gateley sniffed.

    “Well she'll need no reading here,” she said. “Be here at six o’clock on Monday morning. Bring underclothes but nothing more. You will work for Mrs Dunbar in the kitchens until we discover any aptitude. You will be known as Sarah, for the sculleries are always Sarah.”

    “But what about school, Mother?” said Flora as they walked back down into the town. “And what about Aunt Glad’s?”

    “Needs must, when the Devil drives,” said her mother.

From the window on the landing of the servants’ stairs, Flora could look out across the town - down past the Museum and over the market place. There was St Mark and St Matthew’s - there the schoolhouse - and there, as the road climbed up out of the valley, she could see the rows and rows of cottages. And there in that one, that fourth one along, she knew her mother would be sitting on her father’s bed and stroking his hair until his coughing ceased.

Prompt: the view from the window

The Viewers

The afternoon had slipped from the house without saying ‘Goodbye’ - Clement could see it through the frosted glass of the front door, just hanging around, loitering in the street. He sat on the stairs watching the blurred shapes of people passing. Periodically, people would come up the path to the door.

‘We have more visitors,’ Uncle Pieter would say, at the jangling of the bell. Aunt Cecile would appear again from the back parlour, stand at the hall mirror and raise her hand to adjust her hair as necessary.

Uncle Pieter would open the door and greet the visitors, taking hats and coats and laying them across his arm.

‘Thank you for coming,’ he would say. ‘Thank you indeed.’

‘We wanted to pay our respects. Such a lady, such a lady.’

‘Thank you, thank you. Cecile will take you in.’

Aunt Cecile would greet them then, and guide them along the hallway into the gloom of the back parlour. Clement could hear the door opening, the creak of subtle hinges and a silence descend upon the party. The door would close and then after a moment, low, indistinct voices would rumble around the room - a reassuring rumble, like the rumble of the weights in the sash window in Clement's bedroom. After a few minutes the rumble would cease and the hinges of the door would creak again as the party re-emerged. Breath would be released and the visitors would move slightly more quickly towards the front door.

‘So peaceful,’ one would say, as Uncle Pieter returned his coat.

‘As if she had just fallen asleep.’

‘Such a lady. Such a lady.’

And the visitors would wish Uncle Pieter ‘goodbye’ and tell him how sorry they were that Mutti was gone.

‘Oma,’ muttered Clement to himself. ‘She is my Oma.’

Sometimes someone would see him sat there upon the stair, running his fingers around the turns of wood of the bannister. They would see him and grant him a soft, sad smile. Maybe they would turn to Uncle Pieter and ask ‘And how is...?’ but they would never say his name, but simply angle their heads and slip their eyes sideways that Pieter might fathom their enquiry.

‘He... he is calm. He is young.’ Their eyes would drift up towards Clement. ‘Cecile will take him.’

‘Good. Good. Well, if there’s anything...’

‘Thank you, thank you.’

And then the hallway would be empty again, and through the frosted glass Clement would watch the blurred shapes of the visitors move swiftly down the path to the road and away.

The clock in the front parlour counted out eight soft chimes.

Uncle Pieter came through from the back parlour where he had been sitting with Oma and Cecile. There was a practical energy in his movements that Clement knew from when they had gone fishing together, or from last Christmas when he had watched Uncle in Oma’s back yard splitting wood on Christmas morning.

‘There can be no more tonight, surely,’ he said as he swept the heavy woollen curtain across the front door. He turned and winked up at Clement. ‘Are you still there, young man. Time for bed, is it not?’

Clement stood and climbed the stairs. He lay on his bed feeling the ceiling solid against the evening sky. Usually his mind would float through it to distant shores. But not tonight. Oma was gone and tonight the ceiling was fixed and heavy and would not release him. There were cracks across the plaster, and a grey cobweb wrapped around the chain that held the light. Tonight the brown mark that spread from above the window and across the ceiling was just an old water stain, not the cloud palace that Clement always dreamed it to be.

Oma had shown him places in the photograph albums in her study. Places she had seen - desert places, high mountains and dark ravines. Places with exotic names - Samarkand, the Hindu Kush. Cities in the sand. Black and white photographs of Mahouts upon stately elephants, of Bedouin nomads and their caravans of camels, people wrapped in strange clothing with dark brooding faces. Photographs of children with gaps in their teeth and earrings in their ears.

‘You, too, will see these things,’ Oma told him, ‘for you are an explorer of worlds. And this world will open to you just as it has to me.’

He felt her eyes settle upon him and her hand upon his head - the aged hand, the ringed fingers and the gnarled knuckles - gently stroking his hair across his forehead.

‘But you will go further than I,’ she said, ‘for you are stronger and braver and cleverer than I.’

But now Oma was gone. And the young woman who had taken the photographs, who had ridden the camel, had smiled at the children with gaps in their teeth and earrings in their ears, was now lying in a wooden box on the table in the back parlour. And Clement was no longer sure, and did not think he was brave and strong and clever. And now, nothing that Oma had said, would she ever say again.

Chinese Lantern

 It seemed appropriate.

You were going.

You had always loved them so we made one in the afternoon, from tissue paper and fine wire.

At seven, we carried it to the top of Melham Hill.

You said it was like saying a prayer. It would be good luck.

We set the burner alight - just a couple of candle stubs stuck to a jam jar lid. It took a few minutes to heat the pillow of air but then, at last, it slowly began to rise.

“Wish on it,” you said, “Wish on it, quick, before it gets too high.”

“What? Wish? Don’t be daft,” I said.

“Do it! Close your eyes and make a wish.”

You closed your eyes tight. I watched you, your face pale in the gathering dusk. Your eyes flickered beneath your eyelids. You lips were closed still, but I could see them moving, as if you were saying a prayer in your mind.

You were beautiful.

I didn’t need to think. I knew what I wished for and I knew it would not come true. Could not.

Up it went into the still, evening sky.

We watched it climb higher and higher, getting smaller and smaller. A tiny living thing in the darkness.

“How high do you think it’ll go,” I said.

You turned and looked at me, a slight frown on your face.

“All the way, of course,” you said, your voice tinged with mild indignation.

“Yeah, right,” I said, and you hit me on the chest.

“Don’t spoil it,” you said.

“I’m not spoiling it - it’s lovely.”

“Yes, you are,” you said. “It’s a dream, it’s a wish - it goes up and up and up until it comes true.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to spoil it for you. You were going. We didn’t know when you would be back.

“Come on,” I said when we couldn’t see it any more. “Let’s go home.”

You turned in to me and pulled my coat around you.

“I don’t want to go,” you said.

“No,” I said. I could not say anything else.

You pulled on my coat collar and our lips met. Then I kissed your eyes and face. There were tears on your cheek.

The taxi came at six in the morning.

It was misty waiting for the London train. The rails disappeared into the grey. We heard the quiet grinding growing steadily louder and then the train loomed out of the mist. Suddenly you were busy. You kissed me quickly and gathered all your bags together, pulled up the handle on your suitcase.

“I’ll get that,” I said.

We guessed where the door might be when the train stopped. We were nearly right.

There weren’t many other passengers but a few doors opened for people to get off.

I picked up the case and carried it onto the train, but my being on board made you edgy.

“Get off quick,” you said, “or you’ll be coming too.”

It was hard to say anything, so I just hugged you and went back to the door. You chased me back down the carriage and grabbed me again. Kissed me. But the guard was slamming the doors. I had to get off. I ran back along the platform to where you were sitting, but the windows were so dirty we could barely see each other. And there was someone sitting in the window seat.

I ran a little way beside you as the train slowly moved off, trying to keep up with you. But it was soon too fast for me. I stood and let the train slip away, watching the end door as it grew fainter in the mist, getting smaller and smaller.

I walked home.

It was still early and the dew was still wet on the grass. Down the lane the cow parsley was in full bloom. It leaned out into the road, glistening in the sun.

I had not even told you I loved you.

I felt sick.

I stopped at a gateway and looked into a field. The mist had lifted. Cows were grazing. One lifted its head and looked at me but soon lost interest. I watched its tongue wrap around the long grass and tug it up into its mouth. I remembered the tip of your tongue touching my teeth as you kissed me goodbye. The taste of your lip balm.

I came to the path we had taken to climb the hill the night before. I wanted to climb the stile and go up again, to find you there again, for it to be you and me, there, together again. For ever.

I could not. I hit the stile post.

You were gone.

I walked on past the honeysuckle in the hedge that you had stopped to smell. A spider had caught a wasp in its web. The wasp was buzzing still, but the spider had already wound it in silk and held it wrapped in its legs. It could not get away.

I held you in my coat last night. You escaped.

Then as I walked on, there it was, lying in the road - a tangle of wire and sodden shreds of tissue paper. I picked it up in my fingers, felt the coldness of it, the tattiness of it, felt how it was wrong.

“It goes up and up and up until it comes true,” you said.

It had not. It was not magical, it was not a wish - it was a dead thing, a piece of trash. I flung it into the grass beneath the hedge. Then I went and picked it up again. Held it again. I crushed it in my hands. Crushed the wire frame into a small ball in my hands.

And I put it in my pocket.

Until it comes true.

prompt: Ten Chinese Lanterns (I lost nine somewhere along the way)

Of paint and passion

 At the party of a friend one night, Geraldine was wooed and seduced by a painter.

She was drawn to his muscular physique, his dark brown beard and sensitive eyes. She imagined the delicate brushes in his hands, the soft caress of squirrel hair on canvas, the thick urge of paint teased slowly across the creamy sea, swirling voluptuously under his control. 

In the darkness of the cab, her heart beat fast as he unbuttoned her blouse. His hands sculpted the soft clay of her breasts. 

She felt the caresses, the strong fingers, as his thumbs found her nipples. The blood rose in her veins. She became liquid.

On the bed in her apartment, she opened herself to him, contained him, devoured him, swallowed him. The brush of his hair, the salty savour of his skin, the stippled goose flesh, the long, washing strokes of his tongue.

In the morning, they walked to the bistro. He ordered a velvet Cappuccino for her, a double espresso for himself. She watched the crema cling to his upper lip as she lapped white foam from a teaspoon. She remembered him last night, hot and firm between her legs. As they sat, facing each other, she slipped her foot from her shoe, lifted it into his lap, and nudged him with her toes until he rested a secretive hand upon them. Held her there as he grew against her.

Afterwards, they walked into the square, found a bench beneath the plane trees. She felt the warm sunlight playing across the golden curve of her bosom. He had kissed her there.

She gripped his hand, and twisted herself into him.

'Would you like to paint me?' she said, 

'Paint you?' he said.

'Yes,' she said, 'naked?'

'I don't think I could,' he said.

'Why not?'

'I'm no good,' he said. 'I've no talent.'

'I'm sure that's not true!' she said. 'I'd love to see your work.'

'You would?' said he. 

'Of course.'

'Well then,' he said. 'Look over there. That house in the middle. I painted that. I've done lots round here, I'll point them out if you like, as we walk.'