She felt an urge to run. To run for the fields. To run for the trees. To feel under her feet something which wasn’t dead, which wasn’t tarmac, something which was organic, something real. Whatever that meant. She let her hair down. She stuck her hands in her pockets and pulled out her phone, her keys, her wallet. She gave a cry of alarm and threw them violently on the floor, as if they had burned her fingers. She walked out the door, leaving it unlocked and open. She started walking, fast, fast, her hair flying behind her like a black flag. Her eyes didn’t take in anything around her. Her ears were ringing. Her thoughts were mingling, intertwining voices, broken and desperate, convoluted and conspiring. She realized that she was in front of the train station. She walked past the ticket booth, ignored the protesting voice which told her to pay, to pay Miss, to pay. She stepped into the train just before the doors shut with a hiss and a sigh, found an empty seat, sat down and closed her eyes.


.

Billows of smoke rose lazily from a scarlet pout. The cigarette slipped to the right of the lips as they unfolded into a broad smile. The smoke vanished into the air, and two blue orbs appeared. The intruder stepped forward, a blonde in boots, with a purple dress and matching beret.

A Much Needed Update

Man, I haven't posted to this blog in almost a year. That's a long time, even for me. This has been the busiest year of my life so far, but I have been writing. But not poems. I'm still working on that novel - the characters have come to life; the plot, which will still be evolving a lot in my mind, is clearer than it ever was. I even still have the motivation. I might even post an extract online sometime. We'll see.

Alive

She stood barefoot, her back against the old oak tree. She shut her eyes. She dug her toes into the rich, welcoming earth which lay between the oak tree’s gnarly roots. They were warm in the primeval dust which had swallowed them up. She almost felt them grow, reach down deeper, further, closer to the timeless, abyssal mysteries. She slowly raised her arms above her head. She could hear the suave whispering of the leaves above her. The wind, evanescent lover, stroked her hair, caressed her soul. Her face glowed in the sun. She could feel its fingertips on her cheeks. She smiled. She knew at that moment that she was alone, utterly, fatally alone. But she was alive. And that was enough.

Moon Hill

On an ancient hill in Yorefolkshire
Encircled by the whispering oaks,
Who sway in the wind’s gentle stir,
Unremittingly striving to coax
The Moon out of her silver dress,
I lie, enthralled by her quiet caress.

The Moon gives in to the oaks’ plea
And slips out of the cloud she wore,
Casting her smile on all, with glee.
I look up and with my eyes explore
The expanse unveiled by her light,
Enchanted by the pastoral sight.

A brook nearby laughs with a star,
Its image caught in her nacre lips;
The blue meadows that stretch afar
Into the night, speckled with cowslips,
Form a tranquil ocean of shapely waves,
Which my melancholic soul enslaves.

Wet with dew and on the hill supine,
For a more innocent age I long,
For a forlorn communion I pine.
We once belonged to the same Song,
The trees, the stars, the brook and I;
A symphony from beyond the Sky.

18 September 2008

Monolith

Flamboyant they came,
Hapless they went;
Lovers, suitors, hopefuls and friends
They fled.

Her body was open,
Hers arms Christ-like
But her heart -
Och! - her heart…

How many young ships,
Eager to dock,
Breached their hulls
In her murky waters?

I knew such a man;
His heart went for a dander
And never came back.
His mind is gone.

But the murderess
Was herself
More ensanguined
Than her ghosts;

For cruel, she was not.
Nicht wirlkich.
Naïveté
Was her bane.

The stone slab
That her ribs housed
Was never engraved
By anyone. Ever.

This, one supposes,
Is her epitaph,
By one detached enough
To care.

August 2008