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: words
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.
Day #3
Iceman: A man who is skilled in traveling upon ice as among glaciers
Desponsage: Betrothal
Hyetograph: A chart or graphic representation of the average distribution of rain over the surface of the earth
—–
Flakes of ice scattered in the wind, like frozen confetti thrown over a newly married bride. The Iceman tested the strength of his pickaxe’s hold, three sharp tugs followed by a pause and then two more. He was always cautious when climbing on glaciers. He’d heard too many stories of people being dragged to their death by a desponsage between their bodyweight and gravity. But not him. He had work to do.
After a climb of several hours, the Iceman was finally approaching the top of a sharp, frozen incline somewhere deep in the wilderness of Montana. Clouds hung heavily above him, as if watching with curiosity. Their dark flanks rumbled territorially and it was clear that a storm was going to break sooner rather than later. The Iceman ripped his pickaxe free, dug the spikes of his shoes a foot higher and smashed the axe back into the ice. He heaved himself up. The movement was almost metronomic now.
A wry grimace flitted across his face, stained desert red from a hidden sun, bleached Siberian white by permafrost. He knew that the thick, thermal suit he wore was keeping him alive, but at the same time he knew that from a distance he must resemble little more than an insect clinging to the side of some giant structure. A woodlouse on bark. Rip, kick, heave, smash, grunt. Tick, tock. Rinse and repeat.
The wind was getting stronger, almost sadistically so and the laminated map that hung around his neck was flapping wildly, a startled bird. He managed to grip it between his teeth, their creamy white somehow purer than the deep blue-white of the glacier, then pulled himself up over the final ridge and onto the top of the icecap. He lay on his back staring up the sky, ragged breath spraying a sea salt mist. Overhead the swirling miasma of darkening cloud boomed a congratulatory note.
Knowing how dangerous a breaking storm could be for anyone in his position, the Iceman pushed himself up, ignoring the silent screams of his aching body. He just had to grab a few core samples for the annual hyetograph and he could leave. It seemed like an awful lot of work for what was essentially a glorified jam jar weather report. No sharpie marker pens to note the rainfall here. He thought of the abseil back down. He enjoyed that part the most – an effortless glide down the back of a ten thousand year old monster.
The Iceman suddenly felt very small again, acutely reminded of his situation: a tiny shellac mosquito, leaching frozen blood from a dinosaur. Hemmed in by the endless snowfield of clouds above. Hemmed in by the frozen ocean beneath his feet. The glacier rippled a strange turquoise colour when the first crackle of lightning erupted.
Day #2
Unbowed : Not bent or arched not bowed down
Papyrine : Imitation parchment made by soaking unsized paper in dilute sulphuric acid
Approving : Expressing approbation commending as an approving smile
—–
It was the perfect plan. Gaston had spent months scouring the archives, memorising the shapes of letters. The curly flourish of a capital ‘R’. The crucifix of a small ‘t’. The endless ouroboros of the letter ‘o’. Of course, he had been helped along the way, spending countless hours alone with nothing but scrolls, the thick stub of a candle and the Pastor, who despite his saintly façade stood to gain as much from Gaston’s plan as the man himself. After all, it never hurt to have the Lord’s backing.
The Pastor, an elderly man whose back was remarkably unbowed despite his age, was a common fixture in the village. Trusted and feared in equal measure by his flock, he was always willing to interpret God’s word in a particular way if the gold coin bent between his teeth. Bent coins always gave way to a cackle and the same old tired joke that it was a ‘special communion wafer’ rather than bribe.
Was it really a bribe though if the word was never mentioned, or was it merely engendering oneself to God’s approving gaze? And therein lay the rub: you had to take the Pastor’s word for what constituted good and evil. If a gold coin slipped between sweaty fingers was acknowledged as good, then so be it.
Gaston worked in the village tannery. He awoke at dawn, made his way to the butcher’s abattoir and collected the previous day’s hides, many still covered in the yesterday’s gore like a bad dream. Over time his nose had become numb to the smell of rotting flesh and he had learnt to tolerate the buzzing of flies, flitting around the freshly deceased like children clamouring for honeyed gingerbread.
By the time the village slowly began to grind to life, Gaston had already trimmed, salted and washed dozens of pelts, then dumped them in the pit to wait until the hair rotted off. He hated the pit. It was filled with a lime and water solution that smelt so sickly sweet it made him gag. Death shouldn’t smell of flowers.
He wasn’t trusted to tan the leather yet, that came upon completing his apprenticeship. But still, the smoke of the furnaces and the faeces that stained the leather often made his eyes water and his throat burn. It was more a punishment than a job. But the rumor kept him going. He had to cling to it.
The Pastor had pitied Gaston, said he had known the boy’s mother before she died giving birth to her only son. The wily old man had even mentioned that Gaston’s mother had moved in prestigious circles, very prestigious indeed, especially before Gaston had been born.
A stolen gold coin later and here they were. Gaston, memorising his letters and then re-writing his own birth certificate. Gaston watching the Pastor gingerly submerge paper into the green tinted acid, the resulting papyrine indistinguishable from real parchment. Gaston hoping to start a new life. The gappy grin of the Pastor flickering like an empty skull above the flicker of a candle.
NEW PROJECT: 3 random words = 500 word story
Ok, so I’ve just finished work on the first draft of a longer piece (dropping the word novel just seems to imply a lot of negative connotations – after all, who “isn’t” working on a novel…).
To occupy myself whilst I let it breathe, I am starting a new project to keep my creative juices flowing. It works like this:
Each day I generate 3x random words from http://www.wordgenerator.net/random-word-generator.php .
Then I take these three words and build a short 500 word (max) story around them.
EDIT: Don’t forget to follow the blog to keep up to date on how this all pans out!
Stories On The Sofa 