LES BIJOUTIERS DU CLAIR DE LUNE

Leaving the Rex cinema, hand-in-hand with Stephen Boyd,
walking home in the pouring rain.

Soaked tee-shirt clinging to every curve,
accentuating bra-less nipples.

Panda eyes sliding southwards,
gradually darkening pale pouting lips:

a sensual mingling of grease paints.
                          Later, I am Brigitte Bardot
singing in the bath,

a world-wide phenomenon
in her lily scented steam spotlight,

and someone else is reaching through the haze
of imagination's infinity, someone intimately known:

Ursula, my cinematic alter-ego
plugged into the undertone of lust

where all-absorbing obsession is the norm.
Suddenly alive: Lambert in my bed

in the dark. Oh such passion! There,
on the outer limits of experience, dying

for the sadist, the cold-blooded murderer.
Ursula and Lambert...that night Heaven fell.


I am currently staying in the heart of the New Forest. Connection is rather poor, but I will try my hardest to visit you all...:)

THE MACHINIST'S MONOLOGUE

The room is silent, only these thoughts
inhabit it's unpeopled stillness.
The machines are turned off, the long day done. Now
finally, blissfully, I can relax.
There is actually time
to listen to the clock ticking;
to study the nude model on the calendar,
her blonde hair so pale in comparison to the blue sea.
A distant islet rises out of the horizon
and as I gaze at that distant mound -
so faint, so misty, in it's ethereal splendour -
I will myself there in the midst of that solitude
where there is no clocking-in machine,
no constant BANG BANG BANG assaulting my ear drums
day-in and day-out, while my yearnings flow
a million miles from this concrete prison
with it's electric and steel torture implements.
Five-thirty on a Friday evening is all I live for.
It brings such eagerly awaited blissful reprieve
from a life sentence of dull monotony.

Often, it seems a supercilious mindset is mine
for I crave so much more from life
than do my co-workers, most of whom appear content
to slog without question under blinding strip lights,
while cheerfully discussing next year's
eagerly anticipated holiday in the sun
that they've been saving for all year.
Such enthusiasm stuns my mind into vacancy,
makes me despise even more
this artificial environment that sums up my existence:
the sight of coveralls and eye protectors, the constant din
of cutters slicing through sheet metal - all combine
to subdue my spirit into aching despair.
Being so cut-off from tree and field, from Nature's open spaces,
reminds me how unattainable my own dreams are:
these most private of deeply-felt hopes and aspirations
that keep me going, that I feel unable to share with anyone.
Yet, as if to taunt me, they intensify daily
into a virtual reality that I can no longer live without.
But alas, these glowing images are nought but vain fantasy!
They simply fade away and I find myself back in this dismal place.

Oh how I long to lock these doors and walk away
from the future I see beckoning more ominously each day -
a lifetime of wrestling with cold steel, followed only by retirement and then death.
But what if I should attempt to break the mould
of family tradition and follow my dream?
What then?
Would the machinist turned latter-day Hippie
regret his farewell to society and descend
into isolation-induced madness?
The choice appears a simple one:
stay and stagnate, or find the courage to embrace the unknown.

This was never the role I envisaged for myself
when a younger me used to sing
of freedom of spirit and escape from convention,
while strumming on his brother's guitar
with nimble fingers and an innocent heart
that had no notion of toil or reality checks.
In those days, they were just songs - pleasing melodies
accompanied by beautiful words
that planted within me the seeds of idealism.

And those seeds have been growing ever since,
transforming into a kind of crazy hope
that there could be a better life out there
if I only knew how and where to look for it.
And how long I've mentally searched!

But, today, I seem to have lost my singing voice
and my quest has gone cold and died,
along with the last rays of youthful hope.

There is no wild distress. It has been
more a gradual surrender to inevitability:
a succumbing to the hopelessness and subservience
of a severely limited self-image...

OBITUARY

In memoriam,   Christopher Lee


Last week I dreamt of death's dark void
in a nightmare scene of wooded mountains
and Gothic castles on moonless, starless midnights.
In trepidation I traversed narrow passes over bottomless ravines
that seemed to mean so profoundly much.

And on waking prepared to face the division
of myth and man and mourn the latter,
whose commanding presence conjures up
vivid images of black coaches, shrieking bats and baying wolves
that without him would surely revert to mere folklore.

Next day your face was full of farewells.
Then as the Veil parted and you stepped through,
oh how I longed to follow - a more than willing victim,
bare-necked and spread-eagled beneath the full moon
with not a Crucifix in sight. But you never came.

Will the great Hammer now become meaningless logo:
a quaint hieroglyph of antiquated long-forgotten legend?
But before it fades to nothingness,
please, please teach me the language of the Vampires, that I might
occasionally call you back and so dispel dejection's heavy shroud...

Peripheral vision registers something blackest black
and cloaked lurking in the room's darkest alcove.
"I've come to say goodbye" the wind outside murmurs.
Oh my shape-shifting friend, what are you really?
Whether man, actor, or diabolic fiend I am no longer sure.

And will mere tomb contain such a creature
who has ventured so far into the abyss:
whose very name evokes images of blood,
sharp fangs and literal hell on earth?
Perhaps the Angels, too, are confused (you were incredibly convincing)

so will keep you at bay, suspended for all eternity
between Otherworld and Earth in some ghastly half-life
where Dracula presides over his archetypal realm:
where your origins and my future converge
in cold stone and ornately carved letters

that never were, yet ever shall remain
in memory's poignant domain - and in my Soul.
Oh what an obituary! It hurts my eyes to read
such misunderstanding. Your passing makes me say
something entirely different:

I shall not mourn, I shall not weep
nor bid you "rest in peace".
Oh Master of Horror, I shall not miss you -
why on earth would I, 
when you and I both know
an Undead cannot die...

INTO THE FIRE

The candle flame dances in a sudden breeze:
a crazy tango, frantic, urgent.
Her heart joins in - leaping, spiralling,
while she lies there frozen rigid,
crucified by guilt.

She hears his footfalls on the stair,
wants to run, to escape the inevitable.
Yet there on the bed she remains, transfixed, unable to fight it.
Oh she knows how wrong this is,
but her body so desperately craves his.

As he's framed in the doorway, the candle flame
grows to encompass the sun
and her eyes, her lungs,
are burned to cinders.
Dear God, what can she do?

The room turns golden. She's somewhere else
in ecstasy. Separation of mind and body
somehow makes acceptable what happens here
once a week, every week.
This is what she lives for.

Oh she knows what he is - all those other women.
But it's OK, because she's only an observer.
When she leaves this hotel room,
tonight's liaison will never have happened
because she was on a girl's night out, miles from here.

And tomorrow he'll make love to his wife,
while she'll be with her husband,
assuring him she would never even look at another man.
Two strangers will again be living separate lives...
but deep inside her the fire rages on.

DUALITY

Inspired by the movie, "Mary Reilly"...


I am duality,
                      am in continual conflict
between light me
                      and shadow me.
My life-force is stretched
                      to breaking point
between light me
                      and shadow me.


Everything is vague,
                      everyone fears me in shadow form.
I represent their worst nightmare.
This me is undeniably handsome, yet beneath
lurks something hideous.
Each night my teeth and nails draw blood.
My instincts are vile, loathsome.
You'll find me irresistible - at least superficially:
Venus trap to a fly, chicken to a fox.
Bright moonlight over skyscrapers cast it,
my habitat of deep shadow
where I prowl in fiendish delight.
In this blackout you'll not know what hit you -
and they'll be little left to tell...


But in light form
                      I'm quiet and studious.
This man's without vices -
                      at least harmful ones.
His heart longs only to love,
                      his hands to gently caress.
Lips crave yours without ulterior motive,
softly whispering,
                      "Be my love, free me from this infernal curse!"
And you'll never, ever, suspect
there exists this other me.
You'll see only your ideal lover
who daily brings you flowers
and fulfils your every desire:
elevating humble housemaid to grand lady status,
while strolling beside softly murmuring brook
where you'll see a future beckoning in rosy pink hue...
but then inside I'll feel him rising,
growing angrier by the moment
at such mawkish softness.


And when the sun sets
                      and the shadows deepen,
he'll toss me aside -
                      being so much stronger than I -
and will force me to watch
                      as he tears you limb from limb.
Oh why did I ever even contemplate
                      experimenting with that infernal concoction?


Perhaps it is the tear in my Soul
                      that has left me with a taste for oblivion...

SHATTERED DREAMS?

That day, a week ago,
what terrible fears did our silence conceal
as we left the hospital and crossed the car park?
I reached out to take your hand, but whether
to offer comfort or seek it I cannot truthfully say.

You'd just been rendered defenceless as a baby.
I longed to hold you then as never before
but, embarrassed and numb inside,
I said and did nothing.
All around us life went on as usual,
totally oblivious to our personal tragedy.

Oh surely, while a heart still beats, there must be hope.
There has to be. Mine was aching. Was our story to end
after only thirty-eight years? Must it end soon - no more to tell?
There is no answer in the chaos of a shattered dream.
Oh what shall I do? I screamed inwardly.
But no one seemed to hear.

I hardly remember the long drive home,
being focused on how to tell our only son
that the sun may soon be setting early.
Gut-wrenching guilt: it should have been me,
as punishment for being the less-than-perfect wife.
On auto-pilot, I demolished the daily chores.
It was only later, alone in the shower, that the dam finally burst.

That evening, we watched a movie together.
It was a sad one, full of ominous subliminals
that served only to increase my sense of impending doom.
I looked at you and stark reality hit me.
Oh God! Will this chair, like my arms, soon be empty?
How can I face a future without you?

But life has no compassion for the selfish.
Over the years I'd developed a child-like dependency,
an assumption that you'd be there for me forever.
Oh how I'd taken you for granted!
Now my foolish complacency had imploded.
Heartless wench! You'll need to grow up fast now
if you're to take the family reins...

STOP! Self-recriminations are futile.
Better to just let the feelings flow -
no one can hide from their own fears,
nor from the harsher lessons of life.


Today, I can still see the consultant's eyes,
hard, from trying too hard to remain aloof from others' sorrow.
Oh yes, I'll remember that face for the rest of my days,
along with the sobering words he uttered without emotion...
as if your beloved heart was merely a clapped-out machine
that they may, or may not, have the ability to fix.

As I sit here in the garden now,
in the bright spring sunshine,
all I can feel is your possible death sentence
hanging heavily in the air...



I am taking a break from blogging for a week or so.
I will truly miss you all, and will be back as soon as I can.

Have a great weekend. xxx

THE CHERRY TREE

My earliest memory lingers:
my parents' cherry tree.
Reclining in my push-chair
and gazing up at the crazy patterns of sky:
bright blue patches
between lush green leaves.
Cool shade on hot summer days.
Rich red fruits, like crimson marbles
that I desperately wanted to grasp
but hadn't yet the co-ordination.

Later, playing with friends:
Cowgirls and Indian Squaws,
beneath the huge canopy of that tree
whose shadow now embraced
over half of our lawn.
By then we could reach those rich red delights -
at least those on the lower branches,
so gorged ourselves to our hearts' content...
or until we made ourselves sick -
which we did. Frequently.

I recall my father high up on his ladder,
cherry picker even higher.
Then mother baking cherry pies,
cherry crumble, jam and tarts;
and still having ample fruits to pack
into cardboard punnets to sell
at the end of our drive on Saturday mornings
for a few pence each -
my summer pocket money.

Waking on school holiday mornings
was utterly enchanting,
thanks to that beautiful tree
whose highest branches on stormy days
tapped against my bedroom window panes:
a secret code language between best friends
of different species.
It provided the ideal playground for birds too -
from the minute wren to huge black crow,
they all seemed to adore it as much as I did.
And I loved nothing more
than to fall asleep on windy nights
to the rustling of it's leaves,
knowing I was totally safe
with this giant Guardian just outside.

Then, tragically, it became too huge.
The entire lawn and half of a rose garden
had grown gloomy beneath it's shade.
My mother was cross - she had lost
her favourite sunbathing spot.
So, that spring, my father cut it down.
In it's place, lay a pile of severed limbs -
it hurt as if they were mine -
and it's snow white blossoms filled the air,
rising on the breeze and swirling around me
as if it's noble Spirit had come to say goodbye
before rising to the Other world beyond.
And no one but me seemed to care.
I was completely broken.

Nothing was ever the same after that fateful day.
Bare blue skies of the summers that followed
seemed somehow much duller, joyless and barren,
whilst birdsong took on a decidedly mournful air.
And nights devoid of comforting leaf-murmur
became reminiscent of a lead-sealed tomb.
Even our lawn in sympathy shrivelled
to barren lifeless stalks,
as did my painfully sun burned skin...
without our beloved tree.