On the street where the soles of my shoes touch down
I wonder where you paced,
Did you look out upon the waves
And long for your grandmother’s face?
Was the world so different, then to now,
That we would not understand
The other’s view, the other’s soul,
Her journey through this land?
Did you feel the thrill of life and love,
As the boats at sunrise moored,
Before you set sail to somewhere new
With a hand so newly yours?
Did you wonder what would come,
That five from two could be?
Then many more hearts in time
To pace long after me.
Tag: creative writing
Like Today
On a day like today,
When a mariachi band will rip and whirl through a carriage dense with tears unwept,
The wild joy and mad shift
Makes one smile, makes one laugh.
On a day which hurls rain,
The shock it won’t stop moves to disbelief when it does,
By a lift of light so sharp, so steep
It takes one’s breath, stops the heart.
On a day when it’s just
The meaning of life as the rest has fallen away,
It’s a moment in time
Of peace, of love
And one to hold, always.
Light On
Found an old simple poem! Maybe better spoken…
Sleeping with the light on
And I’m no child.
My night’s been wilder
Than the deepest jungle
At midnight and I’m riled
For it’s silly to be
Sleeping with the light on
When I’m no child.
Hiding under blankets
And I’m no child.
My dream was rockier
Than the steepest mountain
Walk at midnight
When friends are snakes
That come for a squeeze
So I’m ill at ease
Without my blankets tonight.
Tears on my pillow
And I’m no child,
I’m big and tall
But rolled in a ball
For I’ve joined the strangest circus in town
And if I’m no child
Then I’m the star clown:
Clutching at blankets and needing the lights
To get me through these pitch-black nights.
Missus Grotesque
Missus Grotesque has skin so see-through that broken blue spiders lie visible at her temples. The effort to form even uncertain words revives their legs in pulsing flexes and they believe her to be trying DVD pilates again, such is the stress on their limbs. In fact, Missus Grotesque has gone to buy some candleholders.
She has made it through the obstacle course of dining tables, kitchen tops and couple-strewn sofas and now she slows to a stop as she sees them lined ahead of her in polished battalions. This has never been her job, to be making these decisions. She hadn’t put it on the list for Jean and now her chest pulls in rotting elastic band stretches, twisting and knotting into a hard and shifting ball. The tearing, bloody strips loop and fasten over and again as she tries to make sense of what she should do.
There are the shiny and matte kind. Then some are bright and some are neutral and others are patterned. There are big ones and there are small ones and some have quirky designs and some are sharp and others are curvy. And she has always been a classic kind of a lady she thinks, but she can’t be sure. Perhaps she is, but wouldn’t Mister Grotesque say that he is a modern kind of a man? So perhaps something black; wouldn’t that be very modern and wouldn’t he say it was minimalist? Yes, he’d say it was a bold candleholder and a very bold choice. The mesh of elastic tears into long and writhing eels in a shallow pool. Sunlight breaks the darkness fast and the eels relax into spaghetti and Missus Grotesque is dizzy and must sit down. A minute passes and in the next Missus Grotesque notices that she’s sat at a mahogany bureau. She imagines writing letters with a fountain pen, from Victorian India, for Kipling. She’d sign off with a ‘Yours. Alice’.
On the way home her shopping bag holds two of a sleek type. These candleholders are brave; they know their own mind. They will stand there in the centre of the table, in the middle of all the dining guests and they’ll be a talking point for the room. Someone will end three or four conversations with a loud, “I just have to ask -“. Forks will drop, breath will be held. “Which one of you chose such excellent centre-pieces as these candleholders?” Missus Grotesque will say that it was, in fact, herself that went to the shops and chose them. Mister Grotesque will look across the table at her with pride and tell the room, “Her excellent decision-making is one of the many reasons I married her”.
They are all downstairs. Missus Grotesque is in her powder room. They’re waiting and she should already be seated but there’s no ball of panic, no bullying inanimates. The mirror in front of her reflects her as she is and she was right: she is a classic kind of a lady. She smiles for her rouge and then smiles for practise. Then finally a real smile, remembering the alarm she had felt in the shop. She sprays some perfume and stands. Her shoes feel secure under her feet and she feels that she is strong.
Missus Grotesque opens the door to the dining room. “Oh and here she is!”, Mister Grotesque rises to introduce her. She holds the handle for support and waits, made entirely of pumping heart. “She who bought some very fine candleholders. But who forgot the candles!”
Sleeping With The Light On
Sleeping with the light on
And I’m no child.
My night’s been wilder
Than the deepest jungle
At midnight and I’m riled
For it’s silly to be
Sleeping with the light on
When I’m no child.
Hiding under blankets
And I’m no child.
My dream was rockier
Than the steepest mountain
Walk at midnight
When friends are snakes
That come for a squeeze
So I’m not at ease
Without my blankets tonight.
Tears on my pillow
And I’m no child,
I’m big and tall
But small in a ball
For I’ve joined the strangest circus in town
And if I’m no child
Then I must be a clown:
Clutching at blankets and needing the lights
To get me through these midnight nights.
Chapter 5
Samuel and Theodore believed that Maxwell couldn’t speak but they were mistaken. Ten years ago Samuel and Theodore had been heated-debating. It may have been about whether ducks really were “lazy-mouldy-bread-eating quacks” or a revert to the controversial and emotional subject of the Disappearing Red Squirrel but it was definitely a crisp but sunny February morning, over breakfast. Maxwell felt his heart hit hard against his ribcage, more urgent this time and he had had enough. He was diagnosed with acute stress and Dr. Otter prescribed 72 hours of bed and voice rest. This was welcome enough news for Maxwell to kiss Old Otter hard on the mouth but of course he wasn’t quite friendly enough to share his line of work. Otter would have had The Pigs out pronto, those lowest of animals. Those that send out a stink which one very quickly learnt to associate with a nasty, punishing pain. They were down on the farm, looking to the untrained human eye as foolish and high on filth, when in reality they were military style training for the fight against the growing number of rascals about. The hard work took a toll on their rubbery pinkness and the swelling was from all of the exercise. The 72 hours passed in peace and pleasure in the form of television through windows and his partner, Tansy. She created a cocoon of nut roasts, bubble baths and other pampering scenarios which Maxwell would not detail to his friends, but a well-timed wink meant that he was a hero after the gymnastics they read into his three days in bed. Maxwell had intended to talk again but he suspected that Tansy preferred him schtum and anyway, he enjoyed his right to remain simply silent. Although lately he’d considered getting out of the business for good and doing a bit of yoga-meditation down in Brighton.
Chapter 4
Again, night. Benjie lay where he was left, at the side of the road. The light from the lamppost reached him and warmed his side. One pair of shoes passed and made their way somewhere, quickly. Benjie lay alone. His smell had grown to rage then left to explore as the day cooled. He was a mangled clump of grey and congealed blood, a perfect nature morte, a talking-point in an art exhibition. A nearby bush shifted and rustled, then was still. A few minutes later the heads of three grey squirrels appeared above the foliage, swung left, right and forward in unison and their bodies promptly followed, taking quick, careful steps through the leaves. Hazelnuts were clasped to their bellies as a last respect and their eyes glittered in the light of the lamp. They stopped in front of the bird, placed the nuts on the ground and began to speak. “Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name”, one of them started sombrely, snout to the sky, at once holy and reverent. “ Not the place, nor the time, Samuel”, the squirrel next to him cut in, shaking his head. “And you’re not of the religious persuasion”. Affronted, Samuel turned to him and replied, “But what art thee saying? How could thee doubt it? And if I ain’t, well, Theodore, what life in the world don’t need prayer?” Then, an answer of the darkest blue, perhaps the satin-ripple fall of a figure’s cloak and for five long moments they could not see. Instead, their blindness gave their ears the power to evoke Westminster, to hear Big Ben chime midnight. The great bell swung, heavy, under a spell and between each deep gong the three squirrels fumbled for the gasp of their breaths, the only other sounds they could hear. Each gong pronounced them alive and Benjie dead. Then, just as suddenly, everything was as it was. Only, by degrees, the temperature began to rise. Not that the squirrels had noticed yet. “What the bleedinell ‘appened, there?” Theodore recalled seeing Samuel’s expression before. It was when they thought they were going to be caught, in the last robbery. The fear had started in his foot paws which were rooted to the ground on tip-toes. His knees had wobbled and his hips had followed, shaking up to a face that sweated with the concentration of staying alive. His shoulders and his arms had held a trembling trophy of bananas in the air above his head. He appeared as though doing some form of complex Latin dance. The monkeys of London Zoo had torn and “a-a-a-a-ah”ed overhead, enraged. Samuel and Theodore sold the bunch to some rich and greedy pigs for twice the going rate to make up for it all, over at the city farm in Vauxhall. But Samuel’s face relaxed into its habitual amused order. “I’d have asked Maxwell but e’d be no help” he said, regarding the third squirrel lovingly. “Dumb pet.”
Chapter 3
Shortly after, Winston was on his shift. He started at Putney Bridge and as usual began to remove the chewing gum from the pavement. It was easier now that they had given him the stick and claw. It was kinder on his back and he could play games with it. He challenged himself with picking up a bottle top in one go or tweezing an apple core by its stalk. The bridge was wide and long and only ever very busy if the rowing was on. He crossed it, picking, then walked back, shaking his head yet secretly pleased at litter freshly dropped. He crossed the road and worked his way up the other side, picking. He would then negotiate Putney High Street and at this point it would become extra challenging. Today, though, had been unusually hot. The heat made crispy the teenagers, flirting, flustered, often leering, they would prowl and parade. It slowed and made sweaty the sports fans who he’d see again later, jeering and punching each other. As always, Winston became tangled in leads guiding guinea pigs for dogs but today they yipped at his ankles in irritation too. Like normal, prams blindly and sometimes not so blindly pushed into him but today he ducked, dived and had to weave around charging children too, loaded with ice-creams and whatever else they’d commanded. Winston had to fight the urge to use his stick and claw like a baseball bat. He passed the station to the hill and it was simpler, quicker and he would finish at the top of it. He was outside the Green Man pub and about to begin his last cigarette butt mission of the day when he saw Benjie. He stepped into the road, bent down and picked up the bird. The body was hot and heated Winston’s glove until the latex began to melt. He moved to the side and softly placed the bird in the curb’s cool shadow and protection. The people at the bus stop looked at Winston in a dismay that was quickly overcome by a familiar contempt.
Chapter 2
They had been waiting all day for night’s desolation and now it was time. The feathers had fluttered since 2.42pm when Benjie had been hit by a car. The tyre had pasted him to the road and took part of him, rolling, to a driveway in South Norwood. His blood had oozed out a short while later and ants had fanned away from him, out of respect. People at the bus stop turned away, suddenly strangely saddened, despite the plague that the living Benjie had symbolised to them. His pecking, scratching and scavenging had earned their disgust and they talked about him even when he was close enough to hear them. In reality Benjie held a mirror up to them and somewhere deep they knew how close their lives were to his. In front of them the wind cut through the heat and brought distress to Benjie’s right wing, which spread in the air as though about to take flight. His family had been incapacitated with confusion. They surrounded him in disbelief and horror and a few jabbed at gravel, mistaking it for food. A car then rounded the corner and they flew, wailing. The heat bore down upon the bird, beginning to heat and cook it. The blood seeped into the tarmac and the air was thick and sickly sweet.
Central Park, New York City, Day 1
A feeling such as reading the most beautiful, most vivid book. Sounds are so clear, colours are too bright to be true. Or is it a vision I’ve created so often in my mind that it’s now only almost tangible? The new winter’s cold revitalises, warmed through by the falling browns and oranges of a fading autumn. The lakes glitter and it’s midnight magic at only 5pm. Joggers and cyclists pace past with purpose. I’m going nowhere particular yet feel as though I’m going everywhere all at once, such is the completeness of emotion, of the senses. It can’t be picked apart this time. It’s clumped together, taking some inner, indistinguishable plasticine form. I’m mindless and may as well be formless. It feels as though I’m happy.
Sarah Lamptey 