Hunchback
Back crippled over, anticipation, head searching, peering through twigs, brambles and leaves ‘Ouch!’ bloody branch in my face, look forward, ‘There!’ yes there I see it it’s waiting for me, I’m sure I got it right this time… no, not this time, this- I don’t know what this is, but I’m sure around here there must be some friendly family.Yes something edible must be around here, not more of these unknowable, unknowing fungii.
The air becomes damper in certain sections, and this feeling of droplets forming upon your brow is a sign, that an area could be close where a little feast can be found. Well a feast after searches, but atleast a little cep, a little red cap, something small and tasty. I found that after my first unsuccessful mushrooming that if you look through the bush, and trunks, you see these little gems poking out through the forest floor, poised and announcing there presence. From above in hunchback, you don’t tend to find anything, as the ground is a riddle of earth colours spinning your head, and illuminating illusions, as any fungal presence becomes a jewel normally of the non-edible variety.
Either which way searching, gathering produce, wandering through a forest and finding these gifts is truly special. It is an incentive to walk, and discover, and if nothing else, you see a different world beneath your feet- crawling, moving, puffing, breeding and heaving with miniature life ready to be explored.
Source: maps.google.com
Tattoo’d
You sit and wait in a very public place. Wait you will, but what you are waiting for will most certainly not arrive. If it does… well I will leave that to the lucky few. For i am waiting for waiting’s sake. I choose the public place because of it’s proximity to true ‘nature’, in this case the river. Although true nature is up to your choosing too. I then sit and wait, for some sense of acknowledgement, of myself in this place, of this place within me, and of what this place can create in my body’s memory. I will this place to become a part of my narrative, for whatever purpose. And because of the unlikely certainty of it ever being an innate part of my life (this probably being due to impatience) i will cheat it into an existence by writings it into these lines.
I will only remain public so long as I can be seen, for once the lights crackle off I will shut down, and re-awaken my bones aching from sleep. I am impressed with how they re-made me, but my God- they could have had some sensitivity to fragile ancient limbs, it is hard to re-awaken when such force is built into you. I still reel from my days of walking free the mud dripping, sewage grabbing, bodies falling, writhing, hanging off of me, wailing with a seductive cackles and groans, roars and moans, screams, cries, how I loved to see them die. Pretty I am now. Acceptable.
So written it becomes a verse within my fingers. Public it rises, like a whisp of smoke inhaled deeply through my nose, held within my lungs and allowed a moment to stagnate, creeping and to crawling into my veins. A period of transformation, and the place can be found in a name and voice within myself.
And stay it will, tattoo’d for a time, mocking your walking life. It is not quite the same as having experienced with another the taste of love which sticks onto walls with such force it is hard to ever remove, your ghosts being presented to you as you walk alone down busy streets waiting, waiting for waiting’s sake.
Source: maps.google.com
‘You look weak’ she said
Meeting with a close friend in Soho on a slow going day. It was a whispy afternoon, the miniature weather systems pushing through drafts of warm air between the stone cold radiation and sun bouncing three times free to reach our eyes. She turned the corner of d’Arblay and made her way towards me looking almost through me, but coming closer looking direct at me smiling, she kissed my cheek and said ‘You look weak’.
We sat and talked, and elevated through kinship I was raised. ‘Weak’ remained, and although the word was an element to my disposition, I had no reason to dwell upon it. Nor did I have reason to understand it.
——-
Today I will take a train which will take me upon a familiar journey. It will take me to a house, located on a small green country lane.
It’s a space of ochre, and grey with blue light trickling through piano keys of ashed and clear glass roofing. Old facias adorn the outer ring of the site - the Parcel Office, a Refreshment store, and a trusty time-piece still ticking to tell commuters the moment of departure. The white, steel, triangular arches of light which hold the space together are now depleted in importance by commercial outlets, the glowing contours of which sell everything from refreshments and snacks, to music and stationery. Little huts scattered across the main hall continue this trend. People stand staring at the board, below which the trains sit waiting, an orange glow illuminating the details. A large screen to the right offers feeble news references, only ever interesting during the apocalyptic rush hour haul where it becomes a promising form of ‘Breaking News’ and possible destruction to the monotony of momentum.
This station can have it’s very own haze of psychoticism floating about it. The mass of people, unavoidable, filled with a paranoia and frustration, waiting, waiting, thronging around the board, pushing through to reach their very own Terminus slowly but surely, pushing past and through with blinkers. This space held the possibility for an end in itself, and so the stress of commuting was suddenly elevated to a threat upon existence. It gave the whole experience of travel an anarchic glow.
Source: maps.google.com
Waiting for a rooftop
From that point I will sit upon, above them all, and horizon might be achieved. There will probably be no end to it, no sense of having reached the end, but I will be closer than before. Closer to the conversation taking place all around.
The wind will whisper to the concrete top, windows alongside grabbing for stability, reaching to be at a point where the force will hold them down, wings they don’t want to be. The clouds meditating over this rise in the earth, contemplating loss for themselves over a miniature precipice, moving to touch and understand, before swiftly being escorted onwards. Birds hovering with interest, landing for a peak to decipher their zones and perhaps even lost insects whisked up to this platform, in search for a stable ground but destined to dive towards familiarity or extinction. The apartments all around below, filled with ritual and intent will glaze over tasks waiting to be performed, won’t know of my arrival. Nor likely will they care. But I will be there waiting for a narrative to unfold, and it will.
She is arriving, it is said, and will be there, almost forever in a music box of my choosing. Moving senselessly waiting for him to become a voice, moving towards him, when he arrives, going close to him as he moves, making a chance at his innards, trying to make them move without of her. He is still down below for now, he hasn’t reached the staircase yet, but she waits, circling like a hawk catching streams to rise and fall, barely flapping her wings, hovering.
In the same as the sun will rise and set all around this is where I will see a day pass. She can’t see me, and hopefully won’t. I don’t want her to see herself, miss her dance upon this rooftop, alone in her flight.
Source: maps.google.com
Escape from the Sea
Arrival back, never cheery, was this time something quite harsh. Vistas crushed by enveloping sprawl, pathways leading to inevitable loss.
My sea legs, newly baptised didn’t like this new ship they had landed upon, wherein they had unlimited space for movement, but little space to experience expanse. ‘But where can we go worth a penny?’ they inquired as we waltzed through tiled sub terrains and rubbled out tarmac, ‘what is the value of each step we make for you?’. Well atleast my feet never complained, I stood on their voice at every given opportunity. Vocal limbs are something to be left behind when ever possible, trained into submission they are ready to be whipped into action, left with a voice a compass will be little use. The heart tends to intervene in long drawn out arguments of flesh and bone, always attempting to be diplomatic, always trying to balance out the requirements of each individual artery.
The complaints of the body began to die out after the first few dances on board, and silence, an even more terrifying prospect began to take hold. Even the heart had nothing more to say about the ship which sailed to nowhere, neither too did any of the others. The skin became more weary as each hour passed however, always looking paranoiacally to the left or the right, trying in shying away, hiding itself to no avail, and ultimately suffocating all of the others with it’s need to dissolve, evaporate into a land of its own.
