Winter Blues

'Yes, yes,' he said, 'I'll get it fixed. Don't you worry about that. Don't you worry. I'll get it fixed before the cold weather comes. I've got a guy does things for me like this. Jim. I'll get him to come over and have a look, ok. He'll fix it. He's good at boilers. I'll get him to come over next week. You here next week? I'll get him to come over and have a look... What day is best for you? He'll have to come and have a look then probably he'll have to order some parts, so it might take a day or two to get them because... these old boilers, well, the merchants don't keep the parts in stock now, you know. You can still get them, like, but you have to order them, you know.

'Ok, so I'll get Jim to come and have a look and then when he's got the parts he'll come back and fix it. You know, it might take a week or two, but it'll be done before the cold weather comes you can be sure of that. I don't want to mess you around. You'll need the heating when the cold weather comes. These old blocks are freezing in the winter - no insulation, see - they didn't think about that when they built them, I suppose. Didn't have the technology, maybe.
'Rightio is there anything else while I'm here?'

'Well, you said that you would fix the window in the bathroom last time you came ...'

'I did, I did! I haven't forgotten, but I need to... I just haven't had time to get to the glass place, you know. But it's on my list. It's top of my list. For next week. I'll get the glass and come over. And fix it. Do you mind me just letting myself in if you're not here?'

'No no that's... '

'I'll come over next week with the glass and I'll... Right, if there's nothing else I've got to get home. Sharon's got line dancing tonight and I said I'd drop her. All right? I'll love you and leave you then, Amanda, and I'll give you a ring when I've spoken to Jim to let you know when he's coming over. All right?

'Yes that's all right, I suppose.'

'Good, good, see you then, then... I must say you've got the place looking nice. Better than the last guy. Still that's a woman for you, isn't it, making things look nice. Men can't be ars... bothered with stuff like that can they, but no, but yes, you, you've got an eye. I can tell. I should take you on, eh? Take you on as a stylist, eh? You could sort them all out, couldn't you? Ok then, bye bye...'

'Bye, Phil...'

She pushed the door closed behind him and turned and leaned against it. She could hear his footsteps on the concrete in the stairwell, the resonating tang of his wedding ring hitting the iron handrail. Then his voice booming and indistinct as he met some other tenant down below. What was he wriggling out of doing for them, she wondered.

She hadn't got it looking nice. She hated it. All she done so far was hang some of her tapestry pieces on the wall. The two garden scenes she done for her degree show, and the framed seascape that Dad had liked so much.

She was desperate to hide the reality of the rooms. The damp plaster, the peeling wallpaper. She knew what she would do if it were her flat but as a tenant, a poor tenant, she was only too aware of the large sum Phil held as her bond. He was a git, she thought. Harmless, but a git nevertheless. He hadn't yet done any of the repairs she had asked him to do since she moved in: the bath tap washer; the leaking cistern on the toilet. Eventually she had given up waiting and borrowed some tools from Marchin and done it herself. Marchin wanted to do it for her but she wouldn't let him.

He had wanted to do a lot for her. She wouldn't let him do any of it. She could feel his Polish machismo in every throbbing sinew of his body. And while she loved that strength, the confidence in his blood, she hated how small she felt against him. She despised the simpering child that she regressed into in his arms. Shrank from every feeling of power she had painstakingly fermented in herself.

So while he became more and more dominating of her she found herself wanting more and more to resist. Their love-making which had been playful, sensitive and passionate in the beginning, became rough and angry, wild and unpredictable. He took to leaving while she slept so she'd wake up alone, wondering where he had gone.

So, when Cameron told her he'd seen Marchin with someone else she had ended it. And he didn't fight for her. It was, she felt afterwards, the typical male tactic of behaving so badly that eventually the woman would end the relationship and then he, as he already had, would take his victimhood and his urges into the bed of another. She'd felt the pattern many times before.

'Fuck him,' she said out loud, pushed herself forcefully from the door and into the kitchen.

'Bastard!'

She put the kettle on and looked out onto the swing park below. Two kids were sitting on the swings, rocking, but not swinging. They were, what, fifteen? Sixteen, maybe... hanging on to childhood securities but too cool to play. She had long hair. He had his hood up. Amanda, even from this distance, could sense the balance of tensions between them.

'Don't do it,' she mumbled to the girl as the kettle switched itself off. 'Don't get taken in by it.'

She made sweet chai tea, dangling and dipping the tea bag on its string. She watched the colour of the water slowly shift in hue until after a few minutes she pulled the bag out, held it over the glass mug with one hand, and ran the fingers of the other down the string to the soaking pillow at the end. She squeezed, and dark droplets fell into the mug like blood into water, clouding and swirling until they disappeared into the brew.

She lifted the cup to her lips and blew.

She looked out again and saw the trees beyond the swing-park had lost their leaves. When had that happened? Last time she looked they had been bedecked in verdant foliage. Now they etched lines against the grey clouds. It was getting dark, too.

The boy and the girl stood up. She studied the chair of the swing, ran her palms across her buttocks, while he hitched up his beltless jeans.

Whatever they had talked about had changed their status. A new stage in their negotiations had been reached because while she stood looking at her fingers on the chain, he stepped up to her and kissed her cheek. She shrieked and pushed him away in mock shock. Amanda thought she could hear her say 'Who said you could do that?'

But Amanda knew that she had said it even if she hadn't used words.

He was brave, though, stood his ground, and evidently had some persuasive comment for the girl. She turned to him and let him take her hands. He pulled her towards him and their faces met.

Then she hit his chest and ran off laughing.

Amanda stood and watched the sky gradually darken. Then, from below, a voice drifted up to her - a woman's voice, singing. A deep sorrowful voice, singing an old song. The notes hung in the air. Maybe it was the black woman who had smiled at her in the stairwell yesterday, now lilting her desperate song out into the early evening.

'... caaaan't help lovin' that maan of mine.'

Ella sings...

She Got A Weekend in Paris

An Electric Tomatoes piece written in just over an hour.  We stabbed words in a book to come up with the prompt - She got a weekend in Paris

Aunt Jocelynne sighed at the other end of the line.

'It was quite quick in the end.'

Her soft accent curled around the words.

'He did not suffer. He was asleep anyway. His heart just... it just stopped. Gave up. It just didn't want to fight any more.'

'Right,' said Phil. 'I'll tell her, Jocelynne, thanks for ringing. I'll tell her when she comes in. She'll probably want to phone you. In a way I'm glad I can be the one to break it to her.'

'She will come, won't she? The funeral... and there will be the... the reading of... what is it?.. in English?.. you know, the wishes... the inheritance... what is it?..'

'The will.'

'Yes, the will. She will come, won't she? There is no-one else...'

'I'm sure she will. She wanted to come before... when we heard he was ill... but she couldn't get time off. She'll be devastated. They'll have to give her time off now. Claude was the closest thing she had to a father.'

'Good, good. Let me know your plans.'

'Course... of course.'

Three days later, at the station, Anna kissed Phil as the London train drew into the platform.

'I wish you were coming too.'

'I know... I know... I do too.'

She clattered the small suitcase up into the carriage, battled the persistent automatic door. Phil walked down the platform parallel to her as she made her way to her seat. But it was on the opposite side of the carriage so she could only see him if she remained standing.

At last the train pulled out and with a final fingertip kiss she waved him goodbye and slumped down into her seat.

She liked train journeys, especially travelling alone and with little in the way of luggage.

She unzipped her backpack and pulled out her book. But it lay on the table in front of her, unopened. Her hands stayed in her lap, her gaze fixed out of the window. She watched the weft and warp of the landscape as it slipped by. Fields and hedges. The running of fence wires, power-lines, the silvered rails of the sister track. All became a conspiracy of lines as the train slithered through the countryside. All scheming together underscored by the continuo of locomotion. She felt the wheels on the rails – ticketataa-ticketataa-ticketataa. Watched the telephone wires rise to the punctuation of the poles then swoop and sag back down again before cresting again. A wave of black lines – the musical stave of the train – drawing her eyes and her ears, mesmerising her, seducing her into the lull and pause of her memories.

Claude. Uncle Claude.

The smell of tabac clinging to the lapels of his jacket. A heady fruitiness to his breath when he picked her up and lifted her onto his knee after Sunday lunch.

She reaches up and touches his face, reading the grey stubble on his cheeks with her fingers. Then he seizes her tiny hand in his great fist so that just the tips of her fingers are showing and he lifts them to his open mouth and noisily plays at eating them. She could feel the edge of his teeth.

'J't' mange!' he said, ''j't' mange, mon petit déjeuner!'

And she would scream and giggle at the terrible monster he had become and flee from his lap, laughing, only to hide behind her mother's apron and wait for him to come and find her.

The connection was straightforward enough and she slept as the Eurostar slipped into the darkness of the tunnel.

When she awoke they were already passing among the banlieu – grey concrete tower blocks with broken windows and graffiti. Factories and rundown estates. The signature hinterland of every city.

But because she had slept it was only on arriving at Le Gare du Nord that she learned of the delays: a suspected terrorist incident at St Lazare. There would be no trains out till Monday at the earliest.

'There's nothing I can do, Auntie.'

Silence from her aunt at the other end.

'Tant pis,' came the reply at last, but Anna could hear the wheeze of emotion in her aunt's voice – her tight breathing,

'We'll see you soon on Monday, then, à bientôt.'

'Yes, Auntie. Baises... bon baises!'

But the line was already dead.

After a visit to the station information centre and a short Metro ride, Anna found her way down a quiet side street, Rue de Paimpol, to a small pension. She registered and was shown to her room where she washed and changed. Then she walked out into the late afternoon sun. Now for the first time she recognised the distinctive odour of the Paris streets.

It was still warm and she allowed herself to wander back down towards the Metro station but then at the last minute she changed her mind and walked over to a small café across the square.

She ordered iced tea.

She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the soft breeze, then reached into her bag and pulled out her book once more.

Le Petit Prince smiled guilessly from the cover as it lay on the table – his crown still as bright as ever. She decided that perhaps she didn't even need to read it. Actually. It was enough to just have it there. She remembered the soft whispering of her uncle as he read it to her. She could feel his breath on her ear.

She stroked the paper cover with her thumbs. She felt the the memory of Claude's hands on the leaves. Then her fingers opened the book, riffled through the edges - and smoothed the page.

Page One.

Here was Claude in her head, in her heart. Uncle Claude...here! Here they were in Paris together, drifting once again, from planet to tiny planet in search of peace.

Leonard Cohen

A poem written in an Electric Tomatoes session just after the death of Leonard Cohen.

Suzanne took me down

She had a place by the river

She put on her old turntable

As I flicked through her vinyl

But all I found to listen to

While the storm outside was raging

Was an album by The Beastie Boys

And Revolver by The Beatles

Then she looked up and noticed

While the boats rocked by outside

That the evening was descending

And that I really should be leaving

So I went and called an Űber

22^nd May 2018

She was a bird

She was a bird
borne above the earth
on softest wings
sunlight glancing
on iridescent feathers

He, a cloud,
grey with pendant rain

And with every beat of her wings
upon the blue door of heaven
the sky began to shake
and the rain to fall
his tears tumbling
upon the cheeks of the earth
until all were spent

And beneath
where dust and death had ruled
new life sprang forth 
and verdant pastures
greened the fortunate land
the air filled
with the scent of mint
and peppermint
of jasmine
and coriander

Are you all right?

Are you all right?

How I hate the question...
What do you want me to say?

Yes, I'm all right
I'm still breathing
Is that what it takes
to 'be all right'?

I won't mention the inner turmoil...
I love you, so
I won't inflict upon you
the twisting and turning
of my burning heart
the hatred and scorn I feel
for my own
self-destructive tendencies

I won't tell you
about how I dream
of slashing the flesh of my arms
with a razor blade
because then you would worry
that the breathing bit
of being all right
might be compromised

You would wonder
who the creature is
that you thought you knew
that you had
compartmentalised

I don't WANT to slash my arm
it just feels as if
that would be some form of release
for the uncomfortable energy
that's churning around in here

Feel the flesh separating from itself
see blood bubbling from within
carrying the toxin perhaps
dropping
onto the painstaking earth
and dissipating

I WON'T slash my arm
Because then you would see...
You could no longer ignore the truth of me

And if you can't ignore it then neither can I

So don't ask
if I am all right
because the truest answer
is impossible to formulate
and even a close approximation
is likely to obliterate
the true complexity

Just accept I'm travelling
and sometimes
the road is filled with rubble
so if you see me stumble
just reach out and
take my hand
for a moment

You take yourself to the mountain top
and sit amongst the clouds
you trek down to the sea's edge
and feel the rhythm of the turning earth
you press your hands
into the sand of the desert
feel the heat upon your skin
seek the place
the heart's honest landscape
where you the earthling
seeking heaven
best fit in

My journey
is a different one
it takes place while I sit here
seeing the thoughts flash by
with the eye of my mind
as if on a train
but the train is motionless
and it is the world that moves
I find doorways in my thoughts
secret passages
tunnels and traps
cloudless skies
red eyes
bloated cheeks
blistered skin

It happens while I sit -
feeling the internal bleeding
counting purple bruises -
but I am confident
that at some point
I will straighten the fibres
twine them together
and draw the thread
across the loom
and all the colours
I have found
will lie in harmony
against each other
and the fabric
will at last
make sense

Rude Awakening

Another piece from an Electric Tomatoes session... Our prompt was Rude Awakening


He hears it below.

A key in the lock.

The handle turns. Hinges grind and squeal into the night. The door expressing its pain at this untimely assault.

A hiatus as whoever it is negotiates the coming in with whatever it is they're carrying.

Then slow steady steps. Feet on concrete stairs as whoever it is manoeuvres whatever it is, whatever heavy thing it is, from one step to the next.

He lies in his bed.

He listens, eyes wide. Listening to the dark echoes rising through the carcass of the building. Listening to large, sharp-edged noises magnified by cold, hard surfaces. Noises like things. Solid. Ungainly. Cracking the darkness, fracturing the thick silence of one in the morning.

It's cold.

He shudders. Pulls the quilt up over his shoulder and under his chin. Squeezes his eyes shut as if this will deaden the din. But the squeezing sets his blood to throb in his ears, it floods his head. It muffles the noise of the ascent into a sinister unknown. He cannot recognise the edges the sound – cannot define the lines that create it. It is darkly dangerous, unfathomable. He releases his eyelids again, softens his grip on the quilt, reaches out with his ears to know the sound he's hearing.

There's a cough of exertion.

Whoever it is is on his landing. Whatever it is is being dragged slowly past his door, towards the next flight. A rasping heaviness. Dragged. Breathing. Heavy, effortful. Each drag of whatever it is preceded by a hit of breath against vocal folds. Not an utterance, not a word, just an exhalation constricted by muscular contraction.

Whoever it is has reached the next flight. The rhythm shifts again. He lies in bed imagining the scene beyond the door. He pieces it together in his mind. A dark figure. Male, hooded, heavy. More than heavy – lumpen. Meat and bone. Gripping whatever it is with large strong hands and yet grappling with the awkwardness of it. Filling the space. Pushing aside the emptiness of the stairwell. Overfilling it. Whoever it is. Whatever it is. Air closing back into the space as whoever it is moves up, step by step, lifting whatever it is, step by step by step.

The sounds are softening – no – shrinking, as they ascend beyond him.

A sense of relief and yet, here, in this darkness the questions pull at his eyelids. Prise them apart. His eyes reaching out now into the darkness for answers, quickly now, before the sounds cease completely. For in the silence the detail will detach still further. The sounds will slip into memory, memory just slip into colour and slowly fade. The light from the window lifts itself out of the darkness, finds the edge of the frame. His mind cues in and settles the room's other features – pieces of furniture, the looming wardrobe, his own body – into place.

He projects his imaginings against the screen of the dark wall by the door. He sees through the building, up the stairs to the top landing. He sees the whoever and the whatever bound together in some deathly embrace as whoever searches his pocket for a key.

He must know now.

He must answer the questions. What is the whatever? Who is the whoever? Why is this deathly escalation being danced in this the depths of darkness? Secretly, secretively, anonymously paranoically. He pushes the quilt back down from his chest. Rolls onto his back. Feels for the edge of his bed with his right foot. Hooks his foot over the edge. Pulls himself to the diagonal and further. Reluctantly complies with the compulsion to get up, to leave the cocoon of his bed and face the mystery.

Feet to floor. Cold, rough, wooden floor. He searches for slippers blindly. Finds them.. It's not too late. He doesn't have to go. He does. He has to know. There's a panic now. The noises from the stairwell lost in the sounds of his own movement. Confused and confounded. He is desperate to cling to the vestiges of the strange ascent, but they are dying. Pining away. Questions. The questions. Demanding in his head. Boiling in his blood. Forcing him to move. He's standing. Groping through the darkened bedroom. No, don't turn the light on or it will all dissolve. Get to the front door. Key. Where's the key? There. Unlock it. Pull the door open. There. Now he's outside on the landing, counting the noise above him, measuring it in his head, feeling how it fits. He's estimating how much longer before it ceases. How can he know? Move, just move! Up the stairs. Straight up. Two at a time. Running up the stairs.

Distant sounds now blocked out by the sounds of his own feet on the staircase. His breathing. His pushing of air into air. Like thunder. Next landing. He stops to listen. Silence... No noise? Then a step and a thump as whatever it is is dropped heavily down. Has whoever it is arrived? Is that it? Is whoever it is there now?

He runs again. Up and up the stairs, not waiting now. Not stopping to check. Full flight. Up and up. Feeling the danger rising in his cheeks, surging up in his throat. The sickening taste of running into his own death. Is this it? Will this be the end of everything?

Another landing and as he looks up he sees above him light. Light cracking through a doorway then splashing, flooding over to the opposite wall. An opening and yet a final opportunity. He knows the opening will close in seconds. That the opportunity will die. That the questions will be unanswered.

But it holds, the light. It stays and still stays, while whoever it is lugs whatever it is over the threshold and into the room. He's on the final flight. Hard-hitting the steps to get to the top.

And then the voice...

• Who's there?

It's not his voice. It's a female voice. Elderly. Cracked. Tired.

• Who is it?

He stops. Shocked.

• I'm not alone! Who are you? What do you want?

She's calling out unseeing. He hears the terror in his voice. She cannot see him. She's just hitting out with words, hoping to strike one feeble stroke against the darkness. Craven in the night-time. Her voice is just thin paper skin, watery blood, brittle bone.

He steps up one more step. He can see her now. But she is still blinded by the light in which she stands,

She is small. A small dark figure. A coat. A hat. She is silhouetted against her doorway.

- Who is that?

She speaks again with perhaps a moment more confidence, grown in the fact that she is not yet dead, that whoever it is has not yet pounced. He has not yet struck her, cut her, collapsed her, cast her lifeless to the ground.

- I have no money. You won't find anything.

- She is stalwart, defiant now.

- It won't do you any good.

- I... I...

He tries to understand why, now, he is here, doing whatever it is he is doing. Pounding the night for answers to that which is no longer a question.

- I... I...

- What?

- I... I heard a noise. I...

- Yes... well.

She is irritated now.

- My case is heavy. I apologise if I disturbed you.

- It's... No... I... I just wondered if you needed help.

- No. No, thank you. No help required. Thank you very much. I have managed.

- Yes.

- Yes... Thank you for the thought but...

Her unfinished sentence packed the moment with a dismissal.

- Well, if you're all right, I'll...

- Yes, quite all right, thank you.

- Then I'll... I'll say goodnight.

- Indeed. Goodnight. Goodnight.

The door is closing. He turns to walk back down the stairs. He glances at the door. It is still not quite shut.

She is watching him. He can see where the light is obstructed by her form. He can feel her eye held up against the door cra

Umbrellas, depression and tightropes

A

-nalysing

the rainclouds doesn't make it rain

it allows you to assess the preparations you need to make

before                                   the                                  deluge

in

ord

er

to

mit

ig

       ate the

       effects

I have a tendency I know to intellectualise and to analyse as a way of addressing my demons.

For me it has to be that way. I have to rationalise before I can deal with the actual emotion although the rationalisation has never itself stopped the darkness from overwhelming me. I'm just trying to understand why I am like this... If I can understand it rationally then maybe I can get a firmer control on it emotionally.

My name is Chris and I am depressed.

I struggle with the word – because firstly, I don't want to be, secondly I don't want to label myself.

I don't want to be defined by the word any more than I want to be defined by a narrow view of what being male is about.

I don't want to use the label as an excuse.

I don't want to feel a sense of addiction to it.

But there is a sense in which this self-diagnosis is helpful. It helps me to forgive myself. It helps me to see my mental and emotional state as the result, perhaps the inevitable result, of the events of my life and the reactions I have had to them. It gives me an opportunity to say 'you did your best' to myself. And now also to say 'You may want to revisit those decisions you made back then and check they are still right for you. You may want to inspect the "rules" by which you have chosen your path in life and see if there aren't some tweaks that it would be beneficial to make. Are those rules still valid? Are they just? Are they relevant any more? Who made them in the first place and do you still respect the rule-makers?'

Depression is a negative thing because it causes the sufferer to feel like a victim of circumstances, to feel they are worthless but at the same time it places them at the centre of it all. 'The world/the universe/life/you have done this to Me...' 'Woe is me!'

The mighty Universe/God/you are all conspiring against me to make my life miserable – impossible even.

Everything becomes about how difficult my life is even though there are clearly those in the world whose physical circumstances are far worse than mine. And that leads to a sense of guilt and self admonishment that drives the depression further in, seats it more heavily within the dark, selfish soul of the sufferer – me.

Everything I experience I am able to fit into this pattern – someone else's wealth, health/fitness, success at some undertaking, artistic creation... all these just go to show how worthless my contribution is, how unsuccessful my efforts are. It's all a fiction, of course, but don't for a moment think that makes it less potent.

And Shame...

for me this is the biggy. I have come to recognise how shame has been passed down through my upbringing and Catholic faith. The subtle insistent undermining and devaluing of human instinct, human appetites, in search of some vague notion of eternal bliss.

I'm not blaming my parents. They were unconditionally loving and kind and warm, but they too were governed by a sense of shame – a moral code that was built upon the Christian understanding of Good and Evil. Everything has been about expunging the Evil, the Dark Side, and honouring only the unselfish, the giving, the loving. I don't know how to 'feel' any different because feelings are such deeply rooted things – they are based on the deeply instilled messages we receive from infancy. How do we rewrite that coding? How are we reborn and allowed to rebuild our world view with a more human/animal based morality – a morality which works for humanity as a social species living on this blue planet at this time in history in the company of a million other species.

Intellectually, I rejected in my thirties the structured religion that I was raised in and yet shame operates still. It's a vicious cycle – I feel shame at not listening to the voice of shame. In some ways it feels as if it's not that I have stopped believing in God, it's just I have determined to live my life without acknowledging God. I know God exists I just don't want to pay any attention to it. So my punishment is still accruing like unpaid library fines.

Shame tells me to behave. It tells me what misbehaviour is and that if I indulge in misbehaviour then I am 'dirty, perverted, immoral, unclean, unfit, sick...' the list goes on.

Shame tells me depression is a 'shameful' feeling – it is not real – it is controllable and simply an indulgence like masturbation, or biscuit eating, or drinking too much. Shame is literally a dis-ease.

So how do we integrate all these elements into one healthy human being?

I don't know.

How do I – without rationalising to some extent – undo the conditioning that has brought me to this place?
I don't know.

All I know is I have to keep asking that question.
All I know is that I have to seek to remove or at the very least recognise where shame is playing its part. Why am I feeling ashamed of what I am doing?

I have become keenly aware of shame having a physical effect upon me. It causes me to squirm, twitch and judder, to tense my muscles against themselves. It is a physical energy within me making me cringe. Sometimes it hits me as a full belly blow – a wrecking ball swinging into my gut. It is literally a physical sensation and a mental image that recurs time and again. The squirming, too – as if I am trapped in my body and that if I can just wriggle and stretch in just the right way I can break free from it and leave all the shit behind like a sloughed skin in the bed.

At other times the energy manifests as extreme sexual longing, an erotic desire for physical love – a sexual feeling of wanting to penetrate and consume another being and to offer myself up to that experience without hindrance from morality and social mores. I want to be consumed in the same way. Feel the passion of which I have always been, yes you guessed it, ASHAMED!

Anyone who follows @KnightAberrant on twitter will have read my sexual, passionate yearnings, for yes he is that part of me. And then sometimes he dies inside me when the shame is too strong. He is a most, in some ways THE most vital part of me and yet I cannot own him... for Shame! Bastard Shame! So I seesaw between binging and suppressing him, it, my sexuality...

And I have suddenly realised that I am writing this for public consumption. Because I can't SAY it all to the people I love but they need to know it because it is affecting every part of my life and not in a positive way.

Depression is a tightrope along which I am walking. As long as I keep my head up and don't look down my feet will find the tightrope and I can function. If I look down, if I examine how narrow this path is, how constricting it is, the whole thing begins to wobble. But I have started to look down. And some of you have seen me start to wobble. Maybe it's time to let myself fall off. I don't have to stay on the tightrope at all. Yes maybe it'll hurt hitting the ground but how much more will there be to explore down there? Down there where I don't have to live on a fucking tightrope! Whoever thought that would be a good idea? Such a narrow, constricted, dangerous existence.

And I know some of you are there with your arms stretched out to catch me... which makes me feel that this tumble may become more a stage surf. Could even be a pleasurable experience if I can just pluck up the courage to jump.

I'm working up to it.

I just hope you aren't disappointed if the person you catch isn't quite the person you thought you knew. He is trying to be more honest and more open and more energetic and passionate. He's trying to be a better human.

And if you've read through to this point I count myself truly blessed in having you in my life.

down the corridor

I have never told you
have I
about the girl
whose name I never knew
with angular features
a long sharp nose
and shaped eyebrows
skilfully shadowed eyes
with hair
cut short
and gelled up
into a fine comb

who had a room
down the corridor
from you in halls

I never told you
did I
how she and I
caught each other's eye
from time to time
how she would smile at me
even while you held my hand
and how
while we were studying in your room
you and I
I would listen for footsteps in the corridor
Fancy a coffee?
I would say
and you always would
and I would dutifully trip along
to the kitchen
in the hope that she might be there too

and sometimes she would be
and while the kettle boiled
we would courteously
dance
a light flirtatious gavotte
between sink and cupboard
kettle and coffee jar

and I would fail to say
all the things to her
that I had planned to
because of you

and she would ask about you
because that was a respectful
and a safe
thing to do

Swinging at the end of a rope.

Something of a departure for me, and feels perhaps like an excerpt from something larger... The prompt was 'Swinging at the end of a rope' and I seem to have taken it very literally. 
I'd love to know your thoughts... 


He was used to this by now, the gradual greying of the light in the cell. Winter light fading.
He sat on his cot in the usual place. Watched the sky thicken through the small high window.
From the bowels of the building he heard the sound of others. Voices echoed. Doors clanged shut. Orders barked, reverberating down the cold, stone corridors. Metal buckets scraping on floors. Someone calling out in pain - anguish rather than bodily sensation perhaps, but they sounded the same in this dark place.
The distant growl of a group of persons approached, consolidating itself, defining itself into the scuffing of feet, several pairs, moving purposefully. Growing louder. The sound growing denser, seasoned with short vocal snaps. A female voice among the male.
And at its peak the sounds transformed from travelling to entering. The feet shuffling by the door. The viewing panel sliding open then closed. The key entering then turning in the lock. The tumblers falling, handle turning, catch disengaging, hinges grinding. Further, further. Voices opening with the door. Filling the air.
"The prisoner will stand."
He had already gathered his feet beneath him in readiness. Felt the chill of the floor against the skin of his feet. Felt the unwilling muscles of his legs tighten as he pushed himself to standing.
In the gloom two officers had entered. One carried a lantern. Shadows flickered.
"Visitor," said one.
Between the two, she entered. Portly, regal, a ship under sail but seemingly creating the wind rather than being driven before it. Behind her a third officer appeared carrying a wooden chair. He placed it in the centre of the cell facing the prisoner.
The woman glanced at the chair then placed herself upon it.
"The prisoner will sit," the guard barked.
He sat again upon the edge of the cot as the woman arranged herself upon the chair straightened the drape of her coat over her knees. Lifted the gauze veil from her face. Placed her gloved hands precisely in her lap.
She looked at him for some moments. He returned her look but could not bear the accusatory glare. He dropped his eyes, wrangled his fingers together, felt the woman's disapprobation. It triggered sensations in his face. An itch at the side of his nose. His right earlobe needed pulling. The actions were involuntary. His hands went from nose to ear performing the necessary tasks then to his head where it ran across his crown, chasing down the coarse stubble that remained of his hair.
At last she spoke.
'Well?' her voice impatient, hard, unforgiving.
He looked at her. At a loss.
He glanced nervously at the two guards. But he said nothing. She noticed the glance, turned to the guards irritably.
"Leave us," she snapped and immediately turned her penetrating focus to him while she waited for the order to be fulfilled.
He saw the guards flick a glance at each other as if in some silent debate then evidently they came to an agreement. One knocked twice upon the door and the sounds of the opening scattered the silence in the cell.
With the guards now outside, her demeanour slackened a little. Her voice previously imperious, commanding, now coarsened slightly.
"When?"
For the first time he recognised his mother.
"Dawn tomorrow?"
"You fool," she said with venom. "You careless fool!"
He could not look at her. He had anticipated this moment and, in many ways he could not comprehend, had dreaded it more than the events that would take place the following morning.
"I know," he said.
"You got caught."
"It wasn't..."
"Don't speak! You utter fool. Have you learned nothing?"
Still he could not look at her save for the black toes of her shoes.
"Of all the brothers it was you caught. Pah! So now what? Now that I must wash my hands of you..."
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry? You're sorry? It is I who am sorry. It is I who will be left to carry on for who will follow me now? Tell me that. Who? Diccon? No, he is a hothead. Barrett? He is a thick head. It was you I was relying upon. But this was my mistake, my grave mistake. Bah. I have only myself to blame. What species of fool was I to think it could be you?
You?! I should have seen it. Your father was no better. Clumsy. Careless. Even in your very conception he showed that."
"My father? Careless? No, father was a thoughtful man, a considered man."
"Oh, be quiet! I don't mean Harold, for Heaven's sake. Your real father. Wyatt. Wyatt."
"Wyatt? Who is Wyatt? Why did you not tell me this?"
"Ah,what does it matter now? You have ended in the same manner as he, swinging at the end of a rope. And for what? Nothing. Because you were careless. Proud, arrogant and careless. One moment of carelessness and you end like this. Ah, what is to become of me?"



Sent from my Huawei Mobile

The heavy table

Another recent piece written at an Electric Tomatoes session.  The prompt was The Heavy Table. Family members will recognise some of the ideas in this piece. 


Grandma died.
On the first Sunday after Easter.
Granddad said she stayed home from church because she felt a bit queasy but when he got back there she was on the scullery floor. She'd been taking clothes out of the twin tub he said. Heart attack.
He said he hadn't known what to do with her so he phoned the ambulance even though he knew she'd gone. He phoned the ambulance and then he carefully stepped over her and finished taking the stuff out of the washing machine. It was his shirts mainly. He just used her wooden tongs and slumped the shirts over into the spin dryer while the water drained. But then he noticed he was splashing her and knowing how noisy the dryer was he thought it best to wait until she'd been... taken care of. That's what he said.
We had the funeral a week later and when everyone was gone Dad had said he was going to talk to Granddad. He took him out into the back garden. But only a few minutes passed before Granddad came back in.
'Where's me pipe?' He said. 'Where's my effing pipe?' He sounded cross.
It was there on the side table next to his chair, hanging in the pipe rack Jack had made him.
'It's there Grandad,' I said.
'Where?' he said. 'Fetch it for me, lad.'
I ran and rattled the pipe from its stand. Dad was standing in the back doorway watching him with a grim look on his face. Mum came in from the kitchen and caught Dad's eye. They didn't say anything but I saw Dad give a little shake of his head.
'Do you want tea, Dad?' she said.
'And the pouch, lad. Don't forget my baccy.'
I popped back to the table and looked for the pouch.
'In the drawer, in the drawer.'
I slid the drawer open and grabbed it and the plastic lighter that rolled up to the front, the smell of stale tobacco rising bitter in my nose.
'Dad?' said Mum again, 'tea?'
'I'll take it outside,' he said, and with his smoking gear he walked past Dad in the doorway.
I could see them through the window. Granddad sat squinting on the bench where he would always sit and Dad stood looking at him. Mum poured the tea into mugs and carried them out. I couldn't hear what they were saying but they weren't smiling.
Then Jack came thumping downstairs. He been up in the guest room looking at the old stack of Beanos and Dandys that Grandma always kept for us.
'A-Team!' he said.
'Oh!' I said.
He ran out to Mum and a moment later was back turning on the television.
'Can we?'
'Yes, but we have to keep the volume down low.'
Hannibal was just lighting an enormous cigar and had a huge smile on his face as Granddad came in quietly and sat at the table. Mum and Dad came in too. I could hear them talking in the kitchen but not what they were saying.
I watched Granddad lift the tablecloth from the table as he sat there. Just the edge. And fold it back. He exposed the wood and ran his hand along it as if he was checking it was smooth. He curled his finger around the corner as he reached it then slowly slid his hand back along the edge again. He saw me looking. Pulled his mouth into a sad smile. I smiled back.
'Anthony,' he said - pronouncing the 'th', no one else called me that. With everyone else I was Tony or Tone or even Ant but with grandad it was always the full Anthony.
'Anthony,' he said, 'come here.'
Even grandma called me Tony.
I went over to him.
'Give me your hand,' he said.
I held it out as if to shake hands.
'Put it there  pardner...' I said.
'No, flat. Like this.'
He stretched his hand out palm up. The skin of his open hand was dry - a little shiny in places. The creases across his palm spelling a clear M.
I pushed my hands out like his, fingers straight, tight together. There were the feint lines of an M on my hand too. 'Man' it would say one day, Grandma had told me, but I couldn't pretend it said that yet.
'Looser,' said Granddad.
'What?'
'Relax your fingers let it go a bit floppy.'
I did as he asked and he then carefully took my upturned hand in his. Cupped his under mine. Then slowly led it to the underside of the table.
'Now... just under here,' he said, pressing my fingertips lightly against the bottom of the table.
'Just under here... .' He slid his hand to one side with mine in it still touching the wood.
'Just under here... Can you feel it?'
'Feel what?'
'Feel again, very gently.'
'What is it?'
'No mouth, just fingers. Feel.'
I carefully spread my fingers brushing the under surface. It was slightly rough.
'It's rough.'
'It is.'
'Like dents in the wood.'
'Pop down and have a look.'
He swung his knees to the side and made an opening for me next to the table.
'Go on,' he said.
I dropped and looked up at the underside of the tabletop where my fingers had stroked. It was dim, dark, but I could just make out some marks along the edge.
'Is it... it looks like... is it writing?'
'It is indeed,' he said. 'Can you read it?'
I peered at the marks that were clearly words forming a sentence but could make out nothing.
'No, it's too dark.'
'And,' said Granddad, 'it's in German.'
'German?'
'Yep!'
'Why? What does it say?'
'It says "Diese Tafel ist für Josef". Can you tell what it means?'
'Er... No.'
'Well what do you think "Diese Tafel" means?'
'No idea.'
'Well, "Diese" means "this"...'
'This?'
'Yes. So "Diese Tafel" means... this...?'
'This... er...'
'Well, what is this?' He banged his hand down onto the table just by my nose.
'This? It's a table...'
'Exactly... ."Diese Tafel" This table...
'Right...'
'"Diese Tafel ist für Josef"', he repeated "This table ist für Josef." Is for Josef.'
' Oh! I said. Who's Josef?'
'My dad! Your great granddad. Josef was my dad and he married my mum, Anna Maria, and they came from Germany to London just before the Great War.'
'Right! They were German?'
'Yes.. Well, Alsatians..'
'Alsatians? Like the dogs?'
'Alsatians are people from Alsace. That's where they came from.'
'Right... So who wrote this then?'
'That was written by my grandma, your great great grandmother, Elsie Dreyer. When Elsie died she wanted to make sure that this table went to Josef, my dad, so she wrote on it. She wrote on other things, too, but this was the only thing for him.'
'And he left it to you when he died?'
'Yes, but he didn't write on it.'
'No?'
'No, he didn't need to. Nobody else wanted it. It was too big and heavy.'
'Right.'
'But I love it.'
'Me too,' I said.
Mum came through from the kitchen.
'Tony, Jack, go wee. We're going now.'
'Why?'
'Because... It'll be bedtime before we get home and you've got school in the morning.'
'But.. Granddad!'
'Yes?'
'He'll be...'
'Oh don't worry about me lad!' said Granddad.
In the car, Mum turned off Sing Something Simple and turned round to us, leaning over the back seat. She spoke in her soft voice.
'So Tony, Jack, how would you to like to share a room?'
'What?'
'What! Why?'
'Because... because we've asked Granddad if he'd like to live with us.'
'What!'
'Yes.'
'What did he say?'
'He's thinking about it. But he'd need a bedroom.'
'But what about all his things?'
'Well he'll bring all his clothes and things of course.'
'And his furniture? Where would we put it all?'
'Well we wouldn't be able to take all his furniture.'
'Oh!'
'So he could bring his favourite chair perhaps, and his radiogram, but we'd help him sell the rest.'
'What? I said,' but not his table?'
'The table?'
'Yes, Josef's table...you can't sell that.'
'Yes, well, it's a bit big. We'd have to sell that. If we could find anyone to take it.'
'It'll go in the auction,' said Dad, 'somebody will take it I expect.'

Morning kiss

I mustered a tentative and voiceless 'morning'
to a fellow walker to work
he regarded me with distant disdain
It was only afterwards
I thought
that my mouth moulding
the silent mumbled 'M'
must have resembled
a precocious
presumptuous
puckering
a sly, lascivious kiss

Sore Knees

Sore Knees

He came back into the church and saw a familiar figure kneeling in the last row of seats.

'Are you still here, Mrs Douglas?'

Father Patrick closed the main double door, sliding the bolt into position to secure the right hand side.

'They've been signalling again, Father.'

The old woman wrapped her rosary beads around her hand, unwrapped them kissed the cross and held it momentarily to her forehead, then lips, then chest.

'Ah, have they, have they indeed?' said the priest, his voice gentle, unsurprised. 'And what did they tell you this morning?'

'Oh Father, I can't tell you.'

'Oh no,' he said. 'Is that so? Keeping secrets, are we?'

'Oh no, Father, but they made me swear.'

The priest continued to tidy the hymn books onto the table at the end of the aisle.

'And it's still the same candlestick they are using, is it, Mrs D?'

'Oh yes, Father, the third from the left. The flame flickers. You'll have seen it, Father.'

'Morse code?'

'Well, Father, something like that?'

'Well maybe I should leave that one unlit, and then they couldn't bother you during mass. What do you think?'

'Oh no, Father, that would never do! How would they get their messages through?'

'Well, I'm sure I don't know, Mrs. I'm sure I don't know. I'll be locking up the church now, Mrs D. Is Derek coming for you?'

'Ah, no, Father, I'm walking home today.'

'Oh! Are you sure?'

'Yes, yes. I'll be fine. I've nothing to worry about today. Derek's gone to London to fetch little Millie, and they said they'd be fine. So I'm walking home.'

You'd be very welcome to come to the Presbytery for your lunch, if you'd like..?'

Father Patrick continued the invitation under his breath for only His Maker to hear

'...But please don't!'

She shot him a look full of foreboding.

'No, no, Father, no I will be fine...'

Well, can I help you up, Mrs D? Pauline will be wondering where I am. She's a stickler for punctuality.'

Another dark look shot his way. 

'If you'd be so kind, Father.'

The priest took her slightly proffered hand and allowed the pressure she put upon it. She rocked back a little, raised her bottom and rested it on the seat behind her. Then slowly pushed on Father Pat's hand and the back of the seat in front, transferring the weight off her knees until she was sitting back in the chair.

Father Pat saw the wince of pain cross her face as she manoeuvred herself.

'Oh dear,' he said, 'sore knees, Mrs?'

'Oh Father I mustn't complain...'

She shuffled her bottom on the seat, preparing to stand.

Again Father Pat saw the muscles around her mouth constrict, wrinkling her lips around a silent agonised cry. She glanced up at him.

'Sure Jesus suffered much more than I, Father.'

'He was a professional, Marjorie, that was his job.'

'Oh no, no! You naughty man!' said the old woman. 'What would the Bishop say?'

She allowed her mock shock to settle into a soft chuckle.

'So what were they telling you this morning?'

'Oh Father, they said... no I Mustn't, I can't!'

Oh, come on now, mother. If it's a message for me well they've chosen you to deliver it. Come on now – out with it.'

'But they'll be angry!'

'No they won't. Come on now.'

She cast her eyes around the empty church before signalling for the priest to lean in closer.

'It is about Pauline, Father,' she said, her whispered voice full of portent.

'Pauline?'

'Yes.'

'What about her?'

'They said... she's poisoning you.'

'Pauline? Poisoning me?'

'Yes, Father.'

'Oh dear, oh dear.' He couldn't prevent the smile that crept across his lips.

'It's no joke, Father. That's what they told me.'

'Ah so that's why you won't come to lunch!' He raised his hand to his mouth to pull the smirk from it.

Mrs Douglas just looked at him with searching eyes.

'I have to say I find it hard to believe...'

'Of course you do, Father, because she's such a good soul. We all know that. All the good things she does. The flowers. Cleaning the church. And with those bosoms...'

'Indeed. So why would she want to poison me, Mrs?'

'Oh Father, no! She doesn't want to poison you.'

'No?'

'No! She can't help it!'

'Right... right...'

'The old woman gripped his hand and pulled him close.

'She is being... controlled, Father.'

'Controlled?'

'Yes, Father.'

'Right... Who is... controlling her? Did they say?'

'Oh yes, Father. They told me, but...'

She stopped, looked at him intently. He could see real anguish in her eyes as she struggled to form the sentence.

'You won't like it, Father...'

'Won't I?'

'No, Father. You won't like it at all.'

'Oh dear. Well I'm prepared now. Come on Mrs D, hit me with it. Who is controlling my housekeeper?'

Her fingers tightened around his wrist again.

'The U.R.C.!' She whispered the words and again cast her eyes around the church.

'Really? The U.R.C.?'

'Yes, Father.'

'Right. And did they mention if it is the National Council of the United Reformed Church that have taken control of Pauline's mind? Or is it just the local congregation?'

'Oh Father!' She looked even more troubled. 'Do you think it might be Reverend Dalton?'

'Mrs Douglas, I hardly think...'

'Oh no! It's all my fault! It's all my fault!'

'Calm yourself, dear lady, calm yourself!'

'I shouldn't have told you. I know it! They'll be so angry.' She started to rock herself back and forth, screwing the rosary beads in her fingers and lifting them to her lips.

'It's all right, Mrs Douglas. Just sit quiet.'

'Father, oh, Father! What have I done?'

'I'll bring you a glass of water. I've got some in the sacristy. Just wait here, I'll fetch you some. Calm yourself. I'll be back in a moment.'

As he walked the length of the church he turned to see the old lady still rocking in her seat. He pushed his hand through the side slit in his cassock and into his trouser pocket. He clicked his phone to life and flicked quickly through to his contacts. By the time he reached the sacristy the ringing tone was answered.

'Yes, Father?'

'Hello, Derek... It's, er, Father Pat...'

'Yes, Father, I know.'

'Yes, I'm afraid it's your mother...'

'What now?'

'The usual, I'm afraid. She said you were in London though. Is that right?'

'No, no, I'm just in the Admiral. London was yesterday. I'll be straight round.'

'If you could. If you could.'

He hung up, poured a glass of water from the glass jug on the side table and carried it back to the woman.

She was calm now.

'Lovely flowers this morning, Father. She's done a good job this morning.'

'Pauline? Yes. A good job.'

'She's a good soul.'

'She is, Mrs D, she's a good soul.'

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Caliban

What wild Caliban is this within?
The bastard monster progeny of my lust
that stalks the bloody corridors of my heart
squeezes the weakest part of me
inhabits these bones against my will
seeps like lymph beneath my skin

he steals this blood
sets adrenaline running
pumps the drug
into spongy lobes of flesh
invades these fingers
sends senses humming
tangles thought and feelings
weaves meat into lascivious mesh

Yet I abhor this seething fat-pricked grunt
who hunts raw, purple-lipped prey
his clawing digits open bleeding holes
part curtains of God-manipulated clay
delve into damp recesses
where my soft daydream led
and some swift satisfaction lay

and yet his eyes are mine
mine his hands, his tongue
mine his devouring teeth
mine his salivating orifice
his penetrating priapism
his appetite
his hunger
his lust
mine
his, my wanton amorality
his Cyclopean cannibal code
he fucks with the shade
of my shadow
leeches the colour from my cheek
bleaches my humour
moulders the outskirts of my soul
starves me of the oxygen of joy

he, my brother is
my mirror twin
my double-dazed reflection
the bully butcher brother
who beneath a veil of loving kindness
slaughters laughter
massacres emotion
murders the moment of joy
with his acidic orgasm

It clicked

When Dad smiled

and his cheeks

drew back

from his teeth,

there was a little clicking noise,

so even when

he was behind you

you knew

he was there

smiling.

When Mum died

he wanted us

to all carry on

as if nothing had happened

and we tried

but I got cross with him

so much

especially when

he ran the stew

under the tap.

And then one day

when I was going back to school

after lunch

I told him

that I loved him

- I made myself -

and he cried

and watched me

out of the kitchen window

go

all the way up the garden

well, up to the fir trees.

And I thought

Dad! Grow up, will you.

But actually it was me

who had to.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Dead Pigeon

Walking home the other day I came upon a dead pigeon in the street.  The way it lay and the colour of the carcass led me to imagine that rather than being crushed into the pavement it was actually emerging out of it...

I snapped a photo of it and my talented friend Adry Ruiz (@xxxadryxxx) translated it into a pencil drawing to accompany this poem

From the ash of the asphalt I am born

fledged from flagstone streets

I will dance for you through broken air

for you will I thrill in flight

I am the chill of the wild in the town

I am a child in the still of the sky

settle my soul in the spirit world

fashion me feathers and fly

as a shaman's cape will I shelter you

although I am crushed and torn

for though my entrails grace the ground

no harm to me now can come

I'll dance once more through the greasy air

dance once more by the bridge

dance once more on the frosty street

where you creatures of the city live

come, dance with me as the day begins

dance with me as it ends

feed me scraps from the morsels bag

feed me love from your lips

I have the courage of an iron bear

the grace of a violin

I have the strut of an ancient mare

that drinks by the river's brim

for though I am crushed and split apart

though I am shattered and crazed

I live with you in the city's heart

wherever a city is raised