David Hadley's Blog, page 149

Bedroom Adventures

It was, almost as a matter of course, not one of her better ideas. Although, having said that I must – at this juncture – point out that I, without any shadow of doubt whatsoever – always see her ideas as being some of the best, if not the best, ever put forward in the history of civilisation.

It is – obviously – that circumstances conspire against her and she should – under no circumstances be regarded as at fault when this universe fails to live up to her - somewhat rather exacting - standards.

Obviously….

Now, as was the one with the badminton racquet and the flippers, it fell to me to stand next to the bed, while she gave the watermelon a final polish* before preparing to bowl it towards where I had – I thought, at least – arranged the tins of mackerel fillets in tomato sauce in a rather artful arrangement.

Say what you like about beauty, and art and aesthetics, but I do honestly believe – and not only while she’s looking – that there is no finer sight in this universe than a stark-naked (except for the obligatory fur trapper hat, of course) lady of a certain age standing on a bed in the privacy of her own bedroom, preparing to bowl a highly-polished watermelon at a stack of mackerel fillet tins.

As I’m sure all red-bloodied males would agree… especially if within her earshot.

But then, just as all seemed perfect, we suddenly realised it was time for the next episode of Downton Abbey, so what could so easily have been a perfect moment was ruined by the vagaries of TV scheduling. It is – as I’m sure you would agree - about time they did something about it.

 

* Not a euphemism

Thursday Poem: This Delicate World

This Delicate World

We go, just you and I, to look upon
this delicate bright world, bend close and peer
into all that is not so easily
described. We think it would be wrong to give
a name to what we see when it remains

as something like a mystery, not taken
so easily into the hand and held
but left to fly so far away and free
up to the topmost branches of the high
and furthest tree. A place where it can have

the world beneath it, waiting there for it
to take it all, then hold it safe, away
from reaching hands that stretch towards it all
each wanting to devour, destroy, to take
these precious moments all away from us.

Getting a Pet

Well, it was not as if I really needed one. I didn’t have – or so I thought – the kind of lifestyle where a pet would be suitable. After all, with all the exotic night life of the city, my wide and cosmopolitan circle of friends, a full and satisfying career, the….

Then, I realised my days were spent mostly alone, staring at a computer screen where my latest opus was failing to arrive with all the alacrity of an arthritic snail on a work-to-rule and my evenings were spent either reading other people’s books to steal their ideas, or falling asleep in front of the TV. It was hardly the life of a best-selling author.

More accurately, it was the life of a barely-selling author. One who sells just enough to fool himself that he can put off having a proper life – like the rest of the population – because the big time is just around the corner. The fact that the corner seems to be going on forever without ever straightening out into the back straight down to the big time was – perversely – why I kept hanging on, hoping that soon that long slow bend would come to an end.

Anyway, a pet….

I realised that I did have the time… too much time… and, yes, I was lonely. I was hoping for a dog I could take on walks and meet people... well, meet women. I wanted something cute and lovely that would hint at an exciting life for me, or, failing that, a cat that I could engage in philosophical discussions late into the evening.

Instead, though, for some reason I could never fathom, I ended up with a cute, loveable fire-breathing baby dragon for a pet, one with a very unsettling habit of setting fire to the clothing of every woman I chance to meet when out walking it, which means I only ever seem to meet them the once.

The Gathering Place

It became a gathering place, more by accident than anything else, although, it had the river and the sea which were both useful. It was small enough for us all at first. When we arrived there were just the six of us, but after time more arrived, slowly in the beginning; one or two every six weeks or so, but soon I found myself Lord of a small village.

I did not want to be in charge. I’d had enough of that before The End came. I’d been running my own business and getting sick of all the petty administration and government rules and regulations. I had seriously considered selling-up and getting out. Then The End came and there was no more business, no more government and – mostly – no more people.

Now I am the government. I still hate government, but now I see it is necessary… even though I do as little of it as I can get away with. I’d much rather be working the fields, fishing in the river or out at sea in one of our boats. I prefer even herding the sheep to looking after the village, even though the similarities always tend to make me smile.

It is the endless bickering about who does and who doesn’t do ‘their fair share’ that get me down, that and the arguments over women. You would think, well, I used to think – before The End – that somehow if humanity could start again, reboot our civilisation, and that the next time we’d do it better, especially after all we’ve learnt.

Instead, I should have looked at all those ‘revolutionary’ societies, the communists and fascists and so on and how they had all fallen apart trying to create something new.

It seem that humanity will always create some kind of balls-up when more than a few of us get together to build something. So, these days, I just try to sit back and let it – sort of – evolve, sort itself out.

Sometimes, I even think it will… eventually.

Monday Poem: A Possibility of Creation

A Possibility of Creation

This could be anything, a shape that fits
Easily into the curve of the hand,
Becomes a possibility of creation.

A tool or a weapon, or something
That can be used to twist a new day
Into motion, as we wait for the world

To come into being all around us
And move beyond what we hoped
And what we always dreamed would be.

Needing the Touch of Water

She ran down to the sea, needing the touch of water, needing to hear the susurrations of the waves and the circling cries of the gulls. She needed to see far out to sea and the horizon where the ships disappeared off into the unknown beyond the edge of seeing.

I stood further back, at the edge of the soft sand, just beyond the tide-line where the flotsam lay like some rejected offerings to a fastidious sea-god, watching her. She had already shrugged off her sandals and her feet were under water, her dress clutched in one hand, the free part of it fluttering in the sea-breeze. She was looking hard into the water; as if she was decoding some secret I could not see.

I could see from the shape of her body, the way she leant out towards the depths, that she wanted to be out there, swimming free, escaping something that lay on the land behind her, something beyond the dunes, back in our real life, something she did not want to face.

I, though, felt anchored to this dry land, mistrustful of the promises of the sea and still wary of the stories told by my father and mother, my uncles and their wives, the tales of the deep and the enchanting songs of the mermaids, of how the promises made by the sea could exact a very high price. I had seen the waves that could tear a life away from a shattered deck. I had seen the sea’s rages and its torment; so I stayed back while she listened to the gentle lapping waves whispering to the beach, believing all the soft promises they made.

Where the Minutes Sigh

The hesitancy of moments found in a place where time is taken and held, there, poised and waiting for the next second to fall into that space between my fingertip and your skin. We know too much about this world and turn away from it to escape into a world of our own, limited only by how far we can throw these unnecessary sheets away from the promise and honesty of nakedness. The place where fingers stroke down the seconds and the minutes sigh into hours of delicate motion and this day becomes timeless, existing outside of everything else while holding us safe together inside it.

We have seen how that world beyond this room takes dreams and stamps them down into the mud of an ordinary day, how it takes possibilities and smashes them in the face with cold reality. We have seen how happenstance, hazard and chance conspire against all we could hope for, and hold our futures hostage.

So, we have turned our backs on all that and closed the door of this room against everything but the here and now and the now and together, this is where we will stay while time and the world lay siege to the locked door, walls and closed window of this room.

We know we cannot hold out against time and the world forever, but as long as we are here with each other then that short time will be long enough to last us for eternity.

It Came Out of the Sky

It came out of the sky like a great tumbling avalanche that threatened to engulf the whole world, spreading chaos and destruction for miles around.

Oh, the humanity!

There was paprika everywhere.

Quickly, I closed the cupboard again before any more could fall out.

Such is the lot of every human, except – it seems – for those who live in that strange part of Media-land where their cupboards are never over-full and they live lives of calm and contented domestic containment where nothing falls out of cupboards, nothing is too big too fit in that cupboard and there are no teenagers and young adults who all seem to suffer a medical condition that prevents them from lifting anything back into a cupboard, except when the box or container is almost empty. In which case it is put back in the cupboard with too little in it for anyone to use again, until – many decades later – it is found at the back of the cupboard for everyone to marvel over how the packaging has changed since then and whether the contents of the container would be interesting enough for it to be worthwhile contacting a 24-hour emergency call-out exiobologist, especially when the last one we called out was eaten by that thing we discovered in the fridge a fortnight ago.

Anyway, such is the nature of Cupboard Space, that there is always never quite enough room for everything you want to put into a cupboard, but it never seems to contain whatever it was you were looking for – especially the paprika which is now spread all over the floor, while your pedigree Labrador is now – mostly - bright orange, rather than golden.

Thursday Poem: The Space Between Words

The Space Between Words

Just some more words to fill up
the endless white emptiness
that spreads out from this page,
out into the infinite space
that lies between all our words.

The space between these words
we can fall through and go on
falling forever without ever reaching
a place we can land and turn

back to face what we have spoken,
what we have written and what
we meant to say, as the words
fell into silence and the emptiness
spread out across all our lives.

A Second Honeymoon

And then, of course, there was the helicopter. Although, saying of course in such a context does somewhat presuppose a familiarity with the current trends in second honeymoons that are not normally touched upon in forums such as this… at least not without using a bespoke bejewelled touching stick and sterilising it properly afterwards.

Anyway, as I was saying before we were taken off course by one of those deviations that seem to turn up at times like this. You are – despite all the indications to the contrary – no doubt a very busy person and you like your little dalliances on such interludings and waysides of the worldwide wankfest… web as this cosy and bijou… er… whatever it is… to be as brief and to the point as … well, as something brief and to the point.

I understand completely that you are indeed in a hurry and want to get to the implied dirty bit of this peregrination without any of the asides, preludes, diversions and deviations – except, of course, that sort of deviation – as soon as possible, preferably before anyone else walks in and catches you frequenting such insalubrious pages as this one, which – despite the decorations and so forth – does seem – at best – somewhat tacky and of dubious literary merit.

Anyway, about the second honeymoon – and the helicopter: We are running out of time here, so I’d best make it brief… which – coincidently is exactly what she said ruined the first honeymoon, and that didn’t even have a helicopter.