That’s a mighty big schweppe lad;
With your upright sitting posture,
And your hands clasped in lap,
The product smothered beetles
Wriggle in your tree sap,
You’re twiggy resin,
Wearing a birds nest for a cap.
Sore red spots, ink dot gumdrops,
Hand holds for daredevils and rock climbers
Potted plants for office two timers
Greasy with lacquer, teak soaked in oil
Varnish the skin before it bubbles and boils.
Tie it together with a skipping rope beard
Arching from ear to ear, a keratin grin,
Patchy muffler, a scruffy neck warmer,
Nobody puts hindsight into the corner,
No they team it with pristine white jeans,
Bright and blazing; eyesight blinded, fading.
A white hot sunset in snowy cotton threads,
An un-ironed heat haze over khaki coloured treads.
Suddenly he jumps up, gives his seat up
To a young woman with a smile and wink,
Zips up his top to hide the
Mustard splashed t-shirt, pastel pink
The sort of stain you should soak in the sink.
Tag: Creative writing
20th May Commuter
Pencilled on eyebrows rage against the dying light,
Shellac nails and a bun pulled tight;
Taut features, smooth yet stressed,
A slack shirt freshly pressed.
Yet Somewhere
Beneath the fake leather coat, a beetle black cloak;
Beneath The shiny metallic zips, fools gold for pouting lips;
Beneath the glued on nails, as thick and dark as credit cards
Something changes.
But I don’t know what.
Hands hang from sleeves, crisp and cracked as autumn leaves,
Ready to brown and shatter,
A road map of wrinkles clad hands in
Gloves of age, jaundice yellow, a fading, sun stained page.
The golden tint of nicotine daubs her in
Turners soft hazy hues;
Turns her face orange, keeps her veins blue,
And twirling infusions of perfume linger on
Longer after her stop, long after she’s gone.
18th May Commuter
His greasy green coat glistens like the skin of a wet reptile,
A slippy, gangrenous bath tile,
Tangy as a venus flytrap’s saliva
Sharp as limes, stuck in the mud
Smoking sativa, eyes rosy with bud,
Slumped on the back shelf,
Puffy tunnels lined with filo gargoyles
And melting crenelations. Floating here and there
Lost en route from station to station,
Shifty as twilight, a golden hour caught
In a cat’s eyes at night –
Use your walnuts to polish them bright.
Skipping down, I’ll go out on a limb
And call that skinny moustache a scuff mark on his chinny chin chin,
Flickering like train tracks,
Skittering ripped bin bags in the winny wind wind.
As above, sew below, the ripped
Knee holes blink open and find that they’re blind
Thanks to each awkward shuffle of a restless behind.
May 16th Commuter
I’m staring at a Black watch,
A heavyset onyx rain drop,
Squeezing the veins of a forearm
Riddled with blue worms. Pulsing,
convulsing as the blood pumps under
A knuckle bump.
Slim fit t-shirt the dark grey of a
Burnt out coal lump. Embers remember a
Shadow waking up then slipping off
So Stick it on with soap if it gloats, or
Stick to sewing with thread if in bed and it’s dead.
A tummy rumble,
Squawking brakes
Compete against the train’s grumble.
Ochre shoes sit among the gum and the grime,
A pair of glass slippers preserved in hotdog brine
From which dangles the hypodermic needle
Of a shoelace’s head, the plastic tip is
Feeble and cracked on its deathbed.
Spilling fibers frothy as the mouth of the Tiber
White as the grin smeared across Tony the Tiger.
And he could be much slier
When disguising the dire
Sweat stains that make a
Black shirt turn blacker
Than a burnt egg frittata,
Or the Old El Paso beans in Wahaca,
So Roll on your deo
Cos you’re pungent and
Sweetly sweat lacquered.
May 8th Commuter
Courtier curls, raven black,
Flap around a thick stump of neck
Home of hot air, sweet breeze uplifting,
Treading on words like sand sinking under a
Caramel complexion stained by tea,
Mapped onto heavy set features.
A proud eagle beak nose soars above the shadow of a beard far below,
Imperiously jutting, slicing through air, cutting,
Broken by a ripple of lips, fat as fish breaking the surface
To glug the inhale exhale of fresh air,
Sharp hair, twilight skin softened by the
Sparkle of a vanish white tee, prisitine, bare.
He grasps a plastic mac in his lap
Budding like a flower made of bin bags
Sodden with sky sap
Drizzling over arm hair sharp as gorse
The sort that tangles and wrangles the
Cloudy sheep whose cotton clads the skin beneath.
May 6th Commuter
I’ve started writing little ditties about the people who sit opposite me on my commute home. They’ll mostly appear under the ‘Commuter Poetry’ link in the top menu.
Cheque shirt, check mate;
Empty eyed matey checking his phone
Double-thumbed like no-one’s home.
Rimless glasses half full of glare
Half sagging bags beneath the saucer stare.
Hair as grey as a soft ash fall,
Ebbing over forehead creases,
One, two, three, four
Resting gently on eyebrows
That sit heavy as bracken on a forest floor.
One on top of the other like undeliverable mail,
Or the pinstripe of geological strata,
Years etched into yellowed skin,
Slack like yesterday’s paper, faded glyphs
Hidden amongst the kaleidoscopic noir of
This mornings stubble.
Hanky handed from palm into pocket
Need to save that for later,
As over the shoulder, pop goes the blazer.
Day #32
Apophyge: The small hollow curvature given to the top or bottom of the shaft of a column where it expands to meet the edge of the fillet called also the scape
Prescapula: The part of the scapula in front of or above the spine or mesoscapula (like lymph node)
Donatist: A follower of Donatus the leader of a body of North African schismatics and purists who greatly disturbed the church in the 4th century They claimed to be the true church
—–
Picture the scene:
The artist commissioned to paint your portrait hasn’t been seen for months and has presumably disappeared with your money. Upon breaking and entering into his studio, you find a letter addressed specifically to you. It states that the artist made a deal with a spirit and rightfully fears for his life. There is no signature.
This was the exact situation that Mr William Withers found himself in on the 17th morning of March, 1863.
Withers scrunched the letter into a chrysalis with his right hand and let it fall to the stone floor. The room was dark and stagnant, dust motes hung lazily in the air as though held by invisible spider webs. A terrible stench of rotting milk pervaded the air, from the apophyge of the Doric support columns down to the crusty grout upon the floor. Withers held his handkerchief up to his nose and looked around the small, dimly lit studio. The walls were covered in paintings that had been hung about with white muslin sheets. It looked as though no-one had been here for weeks.
The devilish swine, thought Withers with indignation, jiggling the few remaining coins in his trouser pocket subconsciously. A pittance. When he found the artist, there would be more than money to repay.
As though expecting to find a clue to the artist’s location, Withers began ripping the white sheets from the paintings. He was disturbed by their content and shocked to find in each image a recognisable likeness of the artist staring back at him. A hideous half-man, half-dog creature with bulbous tumours sprouting from its prescapula and fore-shoulders. A heretic being burnt at the stake by an ebony crowd of Donatist separatists. A man stretched upon a rack covered in spikes. A wretch nailed to a crucifix atop a mountain peak, eagles with bloody beaks feasting on his gizzards.
Withers turned away, fearful and disgusted by the paintings. Yet rather than the graphic subject material, he was more alarmed by look of pain and fear that shone from the pigments of the artist’s face in each scene. So much depth and resonance; the bulging whites of the eyes, flecks of white spittle smeared across his face, taut and tense muscles that strained as though they were being ripped from the bone. It was as if he were actually feeling his tortures, as though they were more than simple paintings, but momentary glimpses into some distant occult scene.
Highly disturbed, Withers turned to leave but as his hand touched the door handle, a scream of pure agony ripped through the small studio. Drenched in a sudden cold sweat, Withers looked about the room but could see nothing. He removed his shaking hand from the handle. Averting his gaze from the uncovered paintings, Withers hurried towards the artist’s desk, grabbed the crumpled letter from the floor and shoved it in his pocket. Without looking back he left the studio, the echo of a scream forevermore ringing behind him.
Day #31
Aves: The class of Vertebrata that includes the birds
Frogs bit: Frogbit, flowering lilypad
Overwrought: Wrought upon excessively overworked
—–
The smiling faces of my family trickle towards me, one after another. Overwrought grins, pearly white like bathroom tiles, bloom brightly for a moment then sour like milk when they think I’m not looking.
‘How are you Grandad, are you well?’
The voice belongs to a young man who I don’t recognise, but he seems to know me, so I just smile and nod. He rolls his eyes as he turns towards another conversation, seemingly annoyed at something. I hope it isn’t something I’ve done. I don’t like to upset strangers, it isn’t polite.
There are people all around me and I suddenly feel claustrophobic, like a gorse seed tangled in sheep’s wool. I sit silently, hoping that they won’t notice me if I shrink into a corner. I try to take in my surroundings, assessing my situation, trying to spot an escape route. I’ve had to do this before, so I know what to look out for. It was the German’s last time, but everyone here is speaking English, which confuses me. I don’t remember the camps being so shiny and bright either, so maybe I’m not in Germany anymore.
There are photos on the walls and I try to match the faces with the people in the room. Some seem to match up, but they look different, tired like pages in an old book. I can’t recall the last book that I read – I find it hard to keep track of the stories these days, the words blend together and fly away as the pages turn, spreading like a bird’s wings.
‘Aves,’ I mutter to myself. A man nearby looks at me strangely. I tell him it means birds, but he doesn’t seem too interested. I learnt it at school and it feels somehow important, but I’m not sure why. Perhaps this man nearby knows, but when I ask him he smiles, nods and walks away without answering. I wonder if he is going to ask someone else what it means. He doesn’t need to as I can tell him the definition. He merges into a group of people and then he’s gone.
I examine my hands, enjoying how the light falls on my wrinkles, shadows just like puppets. There once was a man who used to hit a lady with a bat to get some sausages, he should have bought her flowers to apologise. When I was a boy, Alfie and I snuck into Mrs Pickens’ garden to steal Frogs bit from her pond. We were courting two sisters and their favourite flowers were the fluffy fuchsia ones that sat on the lilypads like colourful frogs.
A woman, one of those from the wall, approaches me with a plate in her hand. It’s got a piece of cake on it, like a frog on a porcelain lilypad.
‘Sarah and Alice wanted the pink frogs from the middle of the pond,’ I tell her, ‘otherwise they wouldn’t come to the pictures.’
‘That’s nice Dad,’ says my daughter, smiling.
Her teeth look just like pearly white bathroom tiles, but her grin sours like milk when she thinks I’m not looking.
Day #30
Denizenize: To constitute one a denizen
Vast: A waste region boundless space immensity
Euphrasy: The plant eyebright Euphrasia officionalis formerly regarded as beneficial in disorders of the eyes
—–
It’s the dead of night in the middle of the day. It’s the colorful reflections in a pool of oil. It’s the thick, heavy cowl of an executioner.
The trio – a man, a woman and a young girl – were walking slowly across a vast open plain. It was a wasted region, dry and arid, flecked with small, coarse bushes like balls of twisted copper wire. Between the sporadic vegetation, slow growing melanin deficiencies, the russet dirt had become the daily canvas for their feet, whilst up above a low hanging sun offered little beyond a weak, anemic twilight, punctured with heavy, ominous clouds. The air pressed at their skin, kissing it, as though a storm were waiting to break.
It’s the nightingale’s feathers. It’s the bottom of a wishing well. It’s the skin of an olive.
One word hung in each of their minds, a monotone chime that rung ‘home’ with the swell of each heartbeat. Father knew where he was going; he knew how to reach safety, how to get ‘home’.
The girl, Little Rosa, had run on ahead and stopped abruptly, standing over a body lying in the dirt. She’d screamed.
Her mother, Marta, assured the small girl than the man was ok, that he was merely blind and taking a rest. That is what the blind did now, there was no way he could find ‘home’ without sight, let alone walk, so he would rest instead.
‘It is what happens if you eat too many grapes,’ said Marta matter-of-factly. ‘ The juices fill up the stomach and spill into the eyes, filling them up until you cannot see.’
‘Why the eyes? Why not someplace else?’ asked Little Rosa.
‘Because the eyes look like grapes the most, they feel familiar to the grape juice,’ replied her mother.
Father shuffled over to the dusty man, his sunglasses reflected two bodies, dull and muted. He mumbled slowly over the body, always the same words, a token gesture before moving on, ‘I denizenize you as member of the human race, may you rest in piece.’
It’s the dilated pupil of a white-eyed Lion. It’s the Cimmerian abyss. It’s the self-effacing tabula rasa.
*
The moon is out and still the trio walks. It is cooler now and the insects have retreated for the night, a welcome respite. Yet the stillness is too eerie, too real, too much of an emphasis on how alone they really are.
From pocket to hand to mouth, Father chews buds of euphrasy flowers into a bitter paste. He stumbles onwards, reeling in ‘home’ like thread on a reel. He feels the dirt between his toes, the air on his face, the whistle of shifting sand in his ears, and tastes the iron tang in the air. He swallows the euphrasy paste with a grimace and then futilely adjusts his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.
‘Just follow Father, he knows where to go,’ says Marta as if repeating an oft muttered mantra. She’s crouching so she can meet her daughter’s gaze, wide-eyed and trusting. It breaks Marta’s heart when Little Rosa looks up towards Father, an uncertain look on her face.
Unaware, Father simply gazes out towards the horizon, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses.
Day #29
Zymose: An enzyme, occurring in yeast and in the digestive juices of animals, that causes the inversion of cane sugar into invert sugar.
First: Preceding all others of a series or kind the ordinal of one earliest as the first day of a month the first year of a reign
Lapp: Also called Laplander – a member of a Finnic people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and adjacent regions.
—–
‘Steady now son, hold that position, follow him with a firm eye, caress the gun, cradle it, not too tight but not too loose. When you’re sure…take the shot.’
The whip-crack of the gun ripples across the snow, humming as the pellets inscribe a full stop at the end of the caribou’s life. The boy lowers the weapon, his shoulder hurting from where the butt had jerked backwards. His fingers tremble and any joy he should be feeling is hollow as a rifle’s chamber, as though an emptiness had suddenly been awakened inside of him.
Looking up at his father, he sees the crease lines of a smile beneath the man’s frost-covered stubble.
‘You did good lad,’ says the man, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Your first caribou… Wait ‘til your mother hears of this!’
‘Dad, no, it’s fine, honestly,’ says the boy, embarrassed, ‘can’t we just say you killed it?’
His father looks at him curiously, a mixture of anger and sad resignation etched into the crease lines of his forehead, four short, horizontal lines you could compose upon. His ruddy cheeks flush rosy as holly bush berries, letting out a huff of dissatisfaction swept away by the wind.
‘Ok Hurman, we won’t tell your mother.’
‘Promise?’
‘On my honour as a Lapp!’ grins Hurman’s father, ‘besides, I wouldn’t be much of a Lapp if I didn’t try to claim as many caribou kills as possible, would I?’
His throaty guffaw echoed like another gunshot, short, sharp and loud. The white blur of a hare ducks into the overgrowth, probably saw what happened to the caribou.
Hurman and his father slowly approach the caribou. It lies silently, stewing in a pool of dark, steaming blood that had dyed the snow around it a vibrant strawberry pink. The creature was dead, bled out by a single bullet. Most impressive declares Hurman’s father, but Hurman doesn’t think so.
The pair work quickly, draining the blood and gutting the internal organs. They keep the tasty ones – the slippery bean-shaped kidney, the grey disc of the liver – still juicy, still warm. The rest they toss to one side in a slobbering heap, let the wolves have theirs, says Hurman’s father.
Still feeling queasy and with his knife deep inside the caribou’s belly, Hurman nicks the creature’s stomach and a flood of partially digested berries, seeds and vegetation spill out all over his hands. The stomach acid, rich with corrupting zymoses, stings Hurman’s skin and he yelps in pain, a sickly sweet smell filling his nostrils.
‘Put your hands in the snow!’ yells his father, sharply.
Hurman pushes both hands deep into an envelope of snow and screams loudly as the acid is slowly and painfully neutralised.
Pulling them out, Hurman’s hands are covered in dark purple scars, like the reflection of lightning rippling on the surface of water. The pain flares like a lit match, even the unscarred skin isn’t left untouched, stinging badly, the agony throbbing in time with the pulsing of his heart. The agony drip dropping like the tears of happiness on his cheeks. He’ll never hold another gun again.
Stories On The Sofa 