David Hadley's Blog, page 124

Pose

Pose

We have photographs, but they do not speak
of anything, except certain moments
frozen into meaninglessness.
A gesture of a hand, caught in motion.

Would it have become a caress or a fist?
Could that open mouth be speaking of love
or does it spit out sweet sour hatred?
Why are all eyes turned to beyond the frame?

Is someone running by dressed in nakedness
or is some mongrel pissing up a lamppost?
That faded auntie on the very back row
of your favourite wedding photograph,

is she caught - mouth open - wishing the couple the best
or complaining about her brand-new shoes,
maybe even questioning the bride's taste in dresses,
in bridesmaids, or even her choice of man?

I Knew Everything

Back then, I knew everything. I could look into the eyes across a room and see all the secrets they contained. I could see all her hopes, all her fears and I knew I could weave the magic with my fingertips that could satisfy all her desires. I was a poet who knew the secret language that ears like hers longed to hear. I could tell the stories she had dreamt of since she was a small child. Right back to the time she wanted to be a princess and dreamt of princes riding out to take her away to those magical kingdoms that are the birthright of all such true princesses.

I knew too, that it had been a long time since she had dreamed of magical princes and high towers with banners blowing in the breezes. I knew now that she had other dreams these days and I had the keys that could unlock all her secret boxes where she kept her dreams safe from prying eyes and unwelcome attention.

I knew everything and I knew what she wanted, even when she dared not admit it to herself. I knew too what she saw when she looked around at those other boys and men and found them all wanting.

I knew everything.

I knew how to say all the things she longed to hear. I knew how to do all she wanted someone to do to her. I knew all her secret desires and the spells, chants and keys that would unlock them all for me.

The only thing I did not know was how to say those few words that would get her to give it all to me, because I knew I could never allow myself to tell her how much I loved her.

The Winter After the Gods

This was such a cold place for so long. The winds blew us around, turning every corner into an ordeal of gritted teeth in the face of the howling storms. The snows and the cold rains reshaped the landscape around us; the fogs and mists came down and stole our world away. Making this land we thought we knew into some strange foreign landscape where nothing was the same or familiar.

We huddled together, hiding under furs and as close to the stuttering fires as we could manage, eking out a living from the frozen ground and the few animals that – like us – managed to survive.

We thought it could not get worse. We knew either we had abandoned the gods, or they had abandoned us. Of course, in places like this, far from the centre of the Empire, the gods do not have a hold on the people they have where the priests can enforce compliance. Our last priest died a long time ago, even before the coldest of this long winter began. Some laughed and said the gods took him before the worst of it. The rest of us laughed because we saw it proved there are no gods and there never were. Those that doubted were soon persuaded as the winter tore everything from their frozen hands: everything they cared about and all they held dear, taken by the cold and the dark.

But now… now the spring returns, slowly and tentatively. Even the snow no longer falls as the days grow longer and we wonder if the gods will return. Now the roads are passable once more, we wonder if the capital will dare send us another priest to make us recant the error of our heathen ways.

The Time of Inadequate Underwear

It just so happens, well, sort of…. I don't know why it does that. Maybe it likes you, or maybe it is your warm hands, I don't know. Anyway, I'll just go and get a tissue… or a cloth… er… maybe a mop and bucket would be best.

You must admit though, it does look impressive in a certain light, and from the correct angle.

No?

Oh, well.

But, enough of all that let us talk of other, moister, things. I see from the way you adopt the stance of a Trainee Supermarket Manager, that you are new to these parts. Come on in, take your clothes off and partake of a sheep, a goat, or even a duck or two, if you are of a mind to. There is no need to worry; this is a very informal place. After all, very few of the photographs taken of you and the farmyard animal of your choice will be used for the purposes of blackmail. Then only used in a pure spirit of common siblinghood and for my own personal financial enrichment.

Soon will come The Time of Inadequate Underwear. We, brothers, sisters and ruminants must be ready for that day. We know the tribes of feral Estate Agents are gathering deep in the midst of the jungles just outside Walsall. Soon, only too soon, we will hear their war drums and our local free press will be weighed down with all their advertising.

But, will we be ready?

Such a Small Word

Perhaps: such a small word, that holds so much of possibility within itself. Perhaps you will step out into one particular morning to find the world has unfolded itself as if just for you. The world will be there, waiting, with its petals open to the sun for you to take that morning for your own. A world created just for you to walk through.

Perhaps this life will twist and turn against you a whole sea of troubles turned tsunami, washing everything away that you cared about, flooding through your life in an instant, wrecking everything you have and have ever wanted.

Perhaps tomorrow will be just like today and all your yesterdays. Perhaps that is good; perhaps you live inside a world, a life that you don’t want to change in any way, except for maybe one or two little things… perhaps.

Perhaps your whole world is already a nightmare that scars your days and ravages your nights. It leaves you torn and bleeding on the floor of the morning, too ripped apart to even acknowledge it is another day, just longing for them all to be over.

Perhaps: such a small word, that holds so much of possibility within itself.

All Of These Nights

All Of These Nights

All of these nights hide our faces
from each other. We cannot know,
we cannot allow ourselves to see
the stains we leave on this world
revealed by the cold light of day.

We carry on as though these nights
have no consequences, as though
we stand on the outside of history.

We wait for partings at dawn,
longing for them to be over
and done with, while we stare
at the clock, hoping to freeze time
down to this one moment, forever.

The Endless Shore of Ordinary Days

She was there, down at the shore, near the edge of the sea of possibility, launching her dreams to sail across the waves to let the tides take them where they would.

She had turned her back on the dry inland and come down to the sea's edge to find a place to set her dreams free. Sending them out into the wider world, sailing far away from the narrow peninsula where her slow life lapped against the long beach of an endless shore of ordinary days.

She wanted to ride the waves and see the wonders the sailors saw when they were far from land and free of the ropes that tied them there. She wanted to see foreign shores and walk along streets of strange languages feeling the dangerous comforts of being alone and far from home.

She wanted to find somewhere new, where she was not known. A place where she had nothing expected of her and nothing to live up to. She wanted to find a place where the people had not turned their backs on the dreaming sea to search for treasures amongst the flotsam along the tide-strewn shore.

She wanted to sail to some faraway place where no-one can watch and tell distorted stories of how you come down to the beach each morning to set your dreams sailing free. Before turning to go back to your narrow peninsula life and the expectations that weigh you down so you are always nearly drowning on dry land.

All-Nude Alfresco Lamp Post Fondling

Be that as it may – and it may as well – it is not often you see something like that out on the highways and byways of this once-great nation; at least, not during the hours of daylight. Well, not outside the security fences that separates most of us from those who would engage in such activities at the drop of a hat. That is, if they do have a hat to drop at the time, which – considering their state of undress when the incidents have a tendency to occur – is not all that often.

However, once upon a time, back when the world was black and white, there was a propensity for the devotees of football clubs to wear a bobble hat in their team’s colours – possibly even a scarf too. These days, though, such is the general lack of clothing worn by the devotees of this particular pastime that, even dropping a bobble hat would turn the event into an occasion, or one would hope so.

However, such is the nature of all-nude alfresco lamp-post fondling, that even wearing a hat of any kind looks like cheating, and not entering into the spirit of the sport. The sport’s many devotees claim its satisfaction lies in disporting oneself against the lamp-post of one's choice whilst wearing no clothes whatsoever, except perhaps a pair of wellies, or a silk scarf.

Just why the sport’s adherents regard these acts as an exciting – or even an interesting - way of passing the time is shrouded in mystery.

The use of a shroud, mysterious or otherwise - one often feels - would be a better way of undertaking this pastime for most of its adherents, rather than the all-nude version we are forced to witness. Thereby forcing us to muse upon why it is so often the case that those who enjoy removing their clothes in public are the very ones we – the rest of the populace – have no interest in seeing naked.

But then mysteries are an inherent part of the human condition, unlike - at least so often in these cases – a useful quantity of underwear.

It is Something

Yeah, well…. I have to admit, it is something…. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure what that something is. I mean, I’ve seen some things in my life. Quite a few of some things, as it happens. That, though, is not some thing I’ve ever seen before.

You only have to look at it to see it is something. I don’t know what it is about it, but there is something there that says quite simply and quite obviously that it is not from around here.

When I say not from around here, I mean not just around her, not just the Black Country, not even England or the UK, Europe, even. I mean it is something not of this world.

There is something alien about it.

It is something, all right. What that something is though…. I mean, at first glance even, you think there is something over there, some shape, some form. As you get closer though, you realise what attracted you about it, is that it has no form, no fixed form anyway. I mean it is as solid as everything else here, seemingly, but it shimmers, shivers, as though in a heatwave. It changes too, whenever you try to nail down what it look like. It senses somehow, as though it can feel your mind reaching out to grasp it and it changes, alters itself so you mind can’t get a hold on it. Almost as if its indistinctness is some form of defence mechanism. As if it is aware… alive.

The Morning After

So this was the morning after. Elsewhere it would have been just one more ordinary spring morning. There had been some rain overnight, so the ground was still damp. Here and there a few of the bare trees were showing signs of budding and there were still a few snowdrops around and some daffodils were in bloom, bright yellow on the slopes of the undulating ground. Lower down, amongst the bodies, the ground torn up by the feet of the fighters and their horse’s hooves. There were a few early birds, crows strutting amongst the bodies, loose clothing fluttering in the wind and the flights of arrows trembling as the breeze passed through them.

Stunned, those of us still alive staggered around checking the fate of those we had laughed and spoken with only a day before. We took what we could take from the bodies and muttered a few farewells to those who would not hear.

We left the bodies of the soldiers, once we had stripped them of what was useful, but our own we piled up and burnt in the usual way of such things. Back before the gods had gone, a priest would have spoken as the flames took the bodies. But now there were no priests left, at least no-one who would admit to being one... not now.

So we stood watching the flames in silence, a few people muttering under their breath, but whether those mutterings were goodbyes, or half-remembered prayers, no-one else wanted to know. We left one another alone with whatever thoughts they had, then we turned back to the road and wearily moved on.