ECHO 30/4/06 – Keswick
Lucky Strike
Heron fishing alone in the dark at a point where the river runs widest; night-time darts of the head, the ghost at the water’s edge (in the shadow of Luca’s pizzeria!) – The beast hunkers down; that long neck poised - then the flash fast move into the shallows to catch prey (minnow, stickleback) and the quiet, gentle retreat to stand motionless once more, waiting, watching – Pol says she loves the things my eagle eyes find. It is one of those simple, breathtaking moments; Pol says she will fall asleep thinking asleep thinking about the heron, the way he appeared out of the darkness only feet away from the Saturday night revelers, drunkenly making their ways home.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Friday, April 28, 2006
The Alacrity Of A Headache
You arrive. It is late afternoon. You are a stranger in familiar places. You are confused, hurt; a little lonely. Travelling always has the pay-off of coming home. There is acceptance of this behind the eyes; deep in the skull. Deeper than the deepest ocean. There is some pleasure in the recollection of memories: stretches of the river, the same noises, these things. But you have a yearning. Aching for the place you have just left; yet you do not want to be there either, not in the way you have just been, with the things you have seen, suffered. It is a riddle. One that only sleep will answer. The quiet decimation of memory. . . . . Take four of these. They will help.
You arrive. It is late afternoon. You are a stranger in familiar places. You are confused, hurt; a little lonely. Travelling always has the pay-off of coming home. There is acceptance of this behind the eyes; deep in the skull. Deeper than the deepest ocean. There is some pleasure in the recollection of memories: stretches of the river, the same noises, these things. But you have a yearning. Aching for the place you have just left; yet you do not want to be there either, not in the way you have just been, with the things you have seen, suffered. It is a riddle. One that only sleep will answer. The quiet decimation of memory. . . . . Take four of these. They will help.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
ECHO 26/4/06 - Italy
The nightingale re-appears. An almost absurdly easy sighting. He jumps into view in the topmost branches of his favourite tree at the foot of the garden, up where the growth is thinnest. And he sings. And I already have my binoculars; he sits there breast puffed out fluting, head tilted up toward the sky. He’s learnt a kind of pre-warble whistle which he lingers on for a while showing off, before letting rip the main song pattern.
A walk on the ‘white roads’:
Dusty roadside buttercups; a triumvirate of hidden nightingales singing close to the railway line; fallen pinecones; swallows and larks chattering - in an olive field I watch martins reel and dive for food on the wing; they have the power of illusion, for as they turn at speed they literally disappear before my eyes, swooping down on one flight path then gone, winked out of existence as they twist into another only to reappear further up the slope some distance away, then repeat it all again - beyond the hamlet of Poggi I expect to see the odd, surreal wooden cross with its cut-out steel cockerel on top that I have gazed at often in the past on walks out here; that weather beaten, almost pagan artefact that a farmer must have put together as a joke some sixty or seventy years ago; its features cracked and the red paint of the cockerel flaking away - a lovely thing to behold as an element of landscape, set in a cluster of olive trees. Except now it has gone, replaced by a plantation of young plane trees and cultivated meadowland - a marker post that has significance now disappeared and I am saddened by this -
The nightingale re-appears. An almost absurdly easy sighting. He jumps into view in the topmost branches of his favourite tree at the foot of the garden, up where the growth is thinnest. And he sings. And I already have my binoculars; he sits there breast puffed out fluting, head tilted up toward the sky. He’s learnt a kind of pre-warble whistle which he lingers on for a while showing off, before letting rip the main song pattern.
A walk on the ‘white roads’:
Dusty roadside buttercups; a triumvirate of hidden nightingales singing close to the railway line; fallen pinecones; swallows and larks chattering - in an olive field I watch martins reel and dive for food on the wing; they have the power of illusion, for as they turn at speed they literally disappear before my eyes, swooping down on one flight path then gone, winked out of existence as they twist into another only to reappear further up the slope some distance away, then repeat it all again - beyond the hamlet of Poggi I expect to see the odd, surreal wooden cross with its cut-out steel cockerel on top that I have gazed at often in the past on walks out here; that weather beaten, almost pagan artefact that a farmer must have put together as a joke some sixty or seventy years ago; its features cracked and the red paint of the cockerel flaking away - a lovely thing to behold as an element of landscape, set in a cluster of olive trees. Except now it has gone, replaced by a plantation of young plane trees and cultivated meadowland - a marker post that has significance now disappeared and I am saddened by this -
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
LIBERATION DAY
Dogs bark at clouds and magpies -
The eon smell of wisteria in the head -
I know my blood and yours and we can dance together
Listening to the afternoon’s glorious passing -
We are in thrall to sheaths and scythes -
The cities are open -
Dormice return to scatter wood in the eaves of farmhouses and eat lime -
It is bright where the Tiber narrows
And a million feet correct the day, alter the turn of the earth -
Swimmers aim delicately back to the monochrome;
Brylcreem faces smiling beneath jubilant bells -
As this occurs it cracks the shell-shocked, they repeat chants and prayers:
repose, repair, repeat: I am the living mark
of man made better by memory;
delicacy is my widow, she has seen the worst
of me corn fed on balconies spitting fury; now
corrupt earth and country are sweeter;
coffee is real again;
the old walk for buses not run from snipers;
and nightingales no longer myth -
Dogs bark at clouds and magpies -
The eon smell of wisteria in the head -
I know my blood and yours and we can dance together
Listening to the afternoon’s glorious passing -
We are in thrall to sheaths and scythes -
The cities are open -
Dormice return to scatter wood in the eaves of farmhouses and eat lime -
It is bright where the Tiber narrows
And a million feet correct the day, alter the turn of the earth -
Swimmers aim delicately back to the monochrome;
Brylcreem faces smiling beneath jubilant bells -
As this occurs it cracks the shell-shocked, they repeat chants and prayers:
repose, repair, repeat: I am the living mark
of man made better by memory;
delicacy is my widow, she has seen the worst
of me corn fed on balconies spitting fury; now
corrupt earth and country are sweeter;
coffee is real again;
the old walk for buses not run from snipers;
and nightingales no longer myth -
Monday, April 24, 2006
ECHO 23/4/06 + 24/4/06 - Italy
Questions of identity can be answered here - the ‘who’ of mixed blood; the ‘where’ of home - the ensuing restlessness when living another life elsewhere - questions of memory, ephemera - the shadows are alive -
It was Cerrubini who set us on this path. Cerrubini the dealer in religious icons in Cortona whom you rarely see as he usually leaves the running of his little shop-cum-gallery to his wife. However, in our case it was different. He chose to meet us in person and gave us the name and address of a contact in Rome. Don G. a priest who runs a large bookshop on the Via dei Corridori close to St. Peters. He is the man we need to speak to about the sale of the two religious paintings.
So we take the A1 route there passing the high, undulating hill like the head of a man reclining. Where the partisans used to hide out in WW2.
Rome - teeming with tourists and Italians taking the week off to celebrate Liberation Day. Trams sighing under the weight, creaking on the hot blistered rails. Refuse trucks out clearing away the last traces of garbage for the week, still working hard at 11p.m. Calls and hydraulic shunts in the night. Local restaurants full of families, queues of young ‘ragazzi’ and the older tourists watching and smiling and eating. A man of 6’7” walks into one and everyone looks up in unison.
Sleeping under the gaze of Kafka (a huge poster drawn in pen and ink) - until the morning when the swifts come wheeling in, whistling joyously and diving at speed into their tiny nest hole in the wall of an apartment opposite - aiming perfectly, rising slightly to slow wind-speed, then in. There amid the tight slatted shutters, the chrome pipes, the architectural plasterwork now faded to sandy yellow by the sun. They cry and whiz across that small slant of sky between balconies.
Taxi Napoli 22 takes us over the Tiber, past Castel Sant’ Angelo to approach St. Peters; then round to the right in the shadow of a medieval wall, where we stop, the entrance innocuous.
The Libreria is full of religious books and esoterica; Catholic reference works and histories; ‘The Lords of the Church’, ‘The Fathers of the Church’; theology; bibles in a thousand languages; books on transmigration and transmutation; psychology and associated aspects of faith; religious art; voodoo; Islam; Zoroastrianism - and there at the top of a short flight of stairs, we knock on the mottled glass door of Don G. who answers with a smile and a wave of his hand. He is dressed in a black roll-neck cardigan that has seen better days and a pale pink shirt somewhere beneath - he laughs, he talks, he considers, his hands equally alive with the conversation and his bright blue eyes moving gently back and forth - he sets out the plan, relating it to both of us in equal measure - the possibilities of interest from various religious schools here in the Vatican, the gentlemen who will come and look at the images in person before considering their decision and offers. Behind Don G there is a poster, a copy of an Orthodox image of Christ with a huge Byzantine tome under his arm - in the beginning was the word; then next to this, oddly, a dark shamanic image of a Leopard in a jungle scene with the word ‘Brazil’ beneath it in orange letters; the beast is reclining but stares out of the picture at the dash of white hair on Don G’s head. Familiar. Then Don G nods his assent to the task at hand and begins to write on two blank file cards notification of his undertaking to give to us, because as he says: “Paper sings in matters like these.” He hands them over. Small, crimson bordered receipts. He retrieves them when we have nodded our agreement and places them in a small vellum envelope which he seals and hands back.
He rises and brushes a hand over the two packaged paintings. “Maybe you have brought me Brigitte Bardot?” We laugh. He guides us down the stairs to the door holding our arms and tells us to go out and love Rome.
Questions of identity can be answered here - the ‘who’ of mixed blood; the ‘where’ of home - the ensuing restlessness when living another life elsewhere - questions of memory, ephemera - the shadows are alive -
It was Cerrubini who set us on this path. Cerrubini the dealer in religious icons in Cortona whom you rarely see as he usually leaves the running of his little shop-cum-gallery to his wife. However, in our case it was different. He chose to meet us in person and gave us the name and address of a contact in Rome. Don G. a priest who runs a large bookshop on the Via dei Corridori close to St. Peters. He is the man we need to speak to about the sale of the two religious paintings.
So we take the A1 route there passing the high, undulating hill like the head of a man reclining. Where the partisans used to hide out in WW2.
Rome - teeming with tourists and Italians taking the week off to celebrate Liberation Day. Trams sighing under the weight, creaking on the hot blistered rails. Refuse trucks out clearing away the last traces of garbage for the week, still working hard at 11p.m. Calls and hydraulic shunts in the night. Local restaurants full of families, queues of young ‘ragazzi’ and the older tourists watching and smiling and eating. A man of 6’7” walks into one and everyone looks up in unison.
Sleeping under the gaze of Kafka (a huge poster drawn in pen and ink) - until the morning when the swifts come wheeling in, whistling joyously and diving at speed into their tiny nest hole in the wall of an apartment opposite - aiming perfectly, rising slightly to slow wind-speed, then in. There amid the tight slatted shutters, the chrome pipes, the architectural plasterwork now faded to sandy yellow by the sun. They cry and whiz across that small slant of sky between balconies.
Taxi Napoli 22 takes us over the Tiber, past Castel Sant’ Angelo to approach St. Peters; then round to the right in the shadow of a medieval wall, where we stop, the entrance innocuous.
The Libreria is full of religious books and esoterica; Catholic reference works and histories; ‘The Lords of the Church’, ‘The Fathers of the Church’; theology; bibles in a thousand languages; books on transmigration and transmutation; psychology and associated aspects of faith; religious art; voodoo; Islam; Zoroastrianism - and there at the top of a short flight of stairs, we knock on the mottled glass door of Don G. who answers with a smile and a wave of his hand. He is dressed in a black roll-neck cardigan that has seen better days and a pale pink shirt somewhere beneath - he laughs, he talks, he considers, his hands equally alive with the conversation and his bright blue eyes moving gently back and forth - he sets out the plan, relating it to both of us in equal measure - the possibilities of interest from various religious schools here in the Vatican, the gentlemen who will come and look at the images in person before considering their decision and offers. Behind Don G there is a poster, a copy of an Orthodox image of Christ with a huge Byzantine tome under his arm - in the beginning was the word; then next to this, oddly, a dark shamanic image of a Leopard in a jungle scene with the word ‘Brazil’ beneath it in orange letters; the beast is reclining but stares out of the picture at the dash of white hair on Don G’s head. Familiar. Then Don G nods his assent to the task at hand and begins to write on two blank file cards notification of his undertaking to give to us, because as he says: “Paper sings in matters like these.” He hands them over. Small, crimson bordered receipts. He retrieves them when we have nodded our agreement and places them in a small vellum envelope which he seals and hands back.
He rises and brushes a hand over the two packaged paintings. “Maybe you have brought me Brigitte Bardot?” We laugh. He guides us down the stairs to the door holding our arms and tells us to go out and love Rome.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
DARKNESS VISIBLE
La Pineta - an innocuous Italian village that maintains a bar café, a bank and a Eurospar supermarket - there is little character or history to the place; much of it having been built in the last 25 years or so. It exists as a commercial enterprise; a frontier.
Two fascist rednecks drive in to the car park in front of the supermarket - muddy black 4x4 Turbo Wagon pick-up style, with roll-bars and chrome bumpers. The air sucks into itself. People watch wary, hang back in the shade - a moment from a Spaghetti western? Europe’s bad guys have arrived. Wraparound shades, baseball caps, lumberjack shirts and long Viking style beards - in this case both a similar shade of red. Brothers maybe? One sports a lightning strike tattoo on his forearm. Its an important symbol - these are hard line occult fascists. Followers of Wotan. They remind me of members of the self-proclaimed U.S. Militias that have sprung up over the past fifteen years or so; those whose history can be traced back to the KKK. These people are riddled with ingrained hatred; conspiracy theorists par excellence; religious fanatics and medievalists; outsiders walking the sword’s edge - and there is no other possible world view. Theirs is the blood of hatred and the joy of fear. They quest for a purity modelled on ancient Aryan myths of the warrior and the pure-bred. They have taken Italy’s fascist history and turned the heat up - mixed it with a millenarian ethos. They eat, drink and sleep it.
I watch them as they get out of their wagon and they both stare straight back at me. I can’t see the eyes through the shades but their whole bearing is enough for me to look away a little scared. Volatility in the air. I realise later that no one looks their way at all; apart from the checkout girl who has to act as friendly as possible for fear something might kick off. They buy copious amounts of bottled water - three crates of it; six packets of dried pasta; some household cleaning products - bleach mostly; and a quarto of computer paper.
Whispers in the supermarket: they live up in the hills; they have small gatherings once in a while, usually around the time of the full moon. People have reported hearing recordings of Mussolini piped out through a stereo system in the trees. Chanting and the slaughter of animals over stone altars. A makeshift practice range and gunshots. Pagan orgies. None of this has been proven but the whispers are strong. After all who is going to follow them to find out? Unless you had plans to join - in which case they probably would know about it already.
Once they leave, paying out of a thick bundle of notes, everything seems to wind down again. Normality returns. The air is no longer quite so charged and there is a collective sigh of relief. The girl at the checkout smiles, then shakes her head - she has survived. The sun is out; it’s a beautiful evening. The bogeymen have gone.
La Pineta - an innocuous Italian village that maintains a bar café, a bank and a Eurospar supermarket - there is little character or history to the place; much of it having been built in the last 25 years or so. It exists as a commercial enterprise; a frontier.
Two fascist rednecks drive in to the car park in front of the supermarket - muddy black 4x4 Turbo Wagon pick-up style, with roll-bars and chrome bumpers. The air sucks into itself. People watch wary, hang back in the shade - a moment from a Spaghetti western? Europe’s bad guys have arrived. Wraparound shades, baseball caps, lumberjack shirts and long Viking style beards - in this case both a similar shade of red. Brothers maybe? One sports a lightning strike tattoo on his forearm. Its an important symbol - these are hard line occult fascists. Followers of Wotan. They remind me of members of the self-proclaimed U.S. Militias that have sprung up over the past fifteen years or so; those whose history can be traced back to the KKK. These people are riddled with ingrained hatred; conspiracy theorists par excellence; religious fanatics and medievalists; outsiders walking the sword’s edge - and there is no other possible world view. Theirs is the blood of hatred and the joy of fear. They quest for a purity modelled on ancient Aryan myths of the warrior and the pure-bred. They have taken Italy’s fascist history and turned the heat up - mixed it with a millenarian ethos. They eat, drink and sleep it.
I watch them as they get out of their wagon and they both stare straight back at me. I can’t see the eyes through the shades but their whole bearing is enough for me to look away a little scared. Volatility in the air. I realise later that no one looks their way at all; apart from the checkout girl who has to act as friendly as possible for fear something might kick off. They buy copious amounts of bottled water - three crates of it; six packets of dried pasta; some household cleaning products - bleach mostly; and a quarto of computer paper.
Whispers in the supermarket: they live up in the hills; they have small gatherings once in a while, usually around the time of the full moon. People have reported hearing recordings of Mussolini piped out through a stereo system in the trees. Chanting and the slaughter of animals over stone altars. A makeshift practice range and gunshots. Pagan orgies. None of this has been proven but the whispers are strong. After all who is going to follow them to find out? Unless you had plans to join - in which case they probably would know about it already.
Once they leave, paying out of a thick bundle of notes, everything seems to wind down again. Normality returns. The air is no longer quite so charged and there is a collective sigh of relief. The girl at the checkout smiles, then shakes her head - she has survived. The sun is out; it’s a beautiful evening. The bogeymen have gone.
ECHO 22/4/06 - Italy
Watching a pair of Hoopoe in the garden - beautifully svelt creatures with long, gentle necks (remind me of deer if that’s possible in a bird); a crest and upper body of peachy ochre, black and white striped flanks, and a long down-turned bill for probing into the ground for food. They dance in the shadows. Then I plant myself in the shade of a tree at the eastern-most corner of the small vineyard and I wait and watch the dense foliage beyond for the Nightingale. He’s in there, learning new sounds - the more they sing the more phrases and variations they learn, they become better singers from one day to the next. Suddenly something takes flight - larger than a sparrow, more direct in its wing beats and with a pale breast and slightly russet back - it could be a Nightingale. But it moves so fast that I don’t get a chance to raise the binoculars before it is back in the tree line lower down the slopes and gone. I wait, puzzling over that brief glimpse. The song has ceased so it is possible that it was the bird. Heart beats. The afternoon heat; the chatter of sparrows; a buzzard soars on a thermal over the valley at Le Coste. Then the song from a different direction and very close. I move gently and as quietly as possible. Something takes wing again, something similar to before and very fast - a glimpse of a bird. He must have superpowers of perception, super-senses to taunt me and know that he would be gone without giving himself away for long. Secret. All too magical.
Watching a pair of Hoopoe in the garden - beautifully svelt creatures with long, gentle necks (remind me of deer if that’s possible in a bird); a crest and upper body of peachy ochre, black and white striped flanks, and a long down-turned bill for probing into the ground for food. They dance in the shadows. Then I plant myself in the shade of a tree at the eastern-most corner of the small vineyard and I wait and watch the dense foliage beyond for the Nightingale. He’s in there, learning new sounds - the more they sing the more phrases and variations they learn, they become better singers from one day to the next. Suddenly something takes flight - larger than a sparrow, more direct in its wing beats and with a pale breast and slightly russet back - it could be a Nightingale. But it moves so fast that I don’t get a chance to raise the binoculars before it is back in the tree line lower down the slopes and gone. I wait, puzzling over that brief glimpse. The song has ceased so it is possible that it was the bird. Heart beats. The afternoon heat; the chatter of sparrows; a buzzard soars on a thermal over the valley at Le Coste. Then the song from a different direction and very close. I move gently and as quietly as possible. Something takes wing again, something similar to before and very fast - a glimpse of a bird. He must have superpowers of perception, super-senses to taunt me and know that he would be gone without giving himself away for long. Secret. All too magical.
Friday, April 21, 2006
ECHO 21/4/06 - Italy
Smell of fresh cut grass - Mario the gardener is out back strimming the undergrowth around the vines. I am up early. My father and I were supposed to head for Rome today but he is not well; one of his recurrent ailments has left him bed bound for the day. So I idle. I paint a few walls and manage other odd jobs. Then I hunt for the nightingale with a pair of binoculars I find hidden away in the corner of the porcellaia - for a while he is very close; the presence of his song, its direction, gives away a location but trying to find him in the trees is not easy. Plus he sweeps away and starts singing somewhere else without revealing any clue to his flight, throwing me off track completely.
Every creature here is mating, or trying to. Hysteria in the wisteria. Snails contort on the gravel paths and on table tops, entwined in slimy embraces in which they appear to dissolve into each other; mayfly and big black flying beetles gaily dance through the air in tandem, joined together at either end; and butterflies skim across the lawn in fast fluttering sexy dogfights - a Siskin comes close and chatters away in the low branches of an apple tree, singing for a mate, undisturbed by my presence -
Mario sweats his way through the morning in between the depleted vines at the foot of the garden. He is dark-skinned, a leathery face and forearms like bullwhips; a joker too. He calls the new pope ‘Papa-Razzi’. He comes up and lights a Marlboro Red. Then disappears for an hour or so. I am amazed to discover he has gone off for a session of chemotherapy. He is suffering from prostate cancer. You would not know to look at him when he returns. He gets out and starts up the strimmer again and wades through the long grass at the foot of the tree line, removing it swiftly.
A hoopoe calls, the stuttered boom that announces its own name -
Smell of fresh cut grass - Mario the gardener is out back strimming the undergrowth around the vines. I am up early. My father and I were supposed to head for Rome today but he is not well; one of his recurrent ailments has left him bed bound for the day. So I idle. I paint a few walls and manage other odd jobs. Then I hunt for the nightingale with a pair of binoculars I find hidden away in the corner of the porcellaia - for a while he is very close; the presence of his song, its direction, gives away a location but trying to find him in the trees is not easy. Plus he sweeps away and starts singing somewhere else without revealing any clue to his flight, throwing me off track completely.
Every creature here is mating, or trying to. Hysteria in the wisteria. Snails contort on the gravel paths and on table tops, entwined in slimy embraces in which they appear to dissolve into each other; mayfly and big black flying beetles gaily dance through the air in tandem, joined together at either end; and butterflies skim across the lawn in fast fluttering sexy dogfights - a Siskin comes close and chatters away in the low branches of an apple tree, singing for a mate, undisturbed by my presence -
Mario sweats his way through the morning in between the depleted vines at the foot of the garden. He is dark-skinned, a leathery face and forearms like bullwhips; a joker too. He calls the new pope ‘Papa-Razzi’. He comes up and lights a Marlboro Red. Then disappears for an hour or so. I am amazed to discover he has gone off for a session of chemotherapy. He is suffering from prostate cancer. You would not know to look at him when he returns. He gets out and starts up the strimmer again and wades through the long grass at the foot of the tree line, removing it swiftly.
A hoopoe calls, the stuttered boom that announces its own name -
Thursday, April 20, 2006
ECHO 20/4/06 - Italy
Dawn chorus like none I have ever heard before - in there the ‘gale of course like the tester against which all else must prove; a cuckoo some ways off; blackbirds; hundreds of sparrows, starlings and finches; and an odd almost donkey-like grunt that may be a bustard or similar - I make it my quest to catch a glimpse of the nightingale while I am here - one of the hardest birds to spot despite the amount of noise it makes! -
Digging the earth, trying to uproot an oleander to transplant elsewhere in the garden - they are poisonous so we try not to breath too deeply around it, pulling the thick stems as we shovel the root ball up - the damn thing doesn’t want to move and it takes three of us to finally get it out; sweating and starting to burn in the morning sun - feels good to be getting dirty here, with the clay soil stuck to boots and fingers - grit and creosote - ants and their queens tumbling and scurrying out from hidden chambers in the earth and the wood we move, so many of them its like watching a fluid, like oil or black blood -
When sleep comes I am sun-kissed and mildly blistered - yet nothing aches except that part of me that longs for Pol (sweet scent and laughter) - I lie with the window wide open - the night is alive here with frogs and toads mewling in the ditches; the choral, meandering nightingale - heavy lidded, sleep come -
Dawn chorus like none I have ever heard before - in there the ‘gale of course like the tester against which all else must prove; a cuckoo some ways off; blackbirds; hundreds of sparrows, starlings and finches; and an odd almost donkey-like grunt that may be a bustard or similar - I make it my quest to catch a glimpse of the nightingale while I am here - one of the hardest birds to spot despite the amount of noise it makes! -
Digging the earth, trying to uproot an oleander to transplant elsewhere in the garden - they are poisonous so we try not to breath too deeply around it, pulling the thick stems as we shovel the root ball up - the damn thing doesn’t want to move and it takes three of us to finally get it out; sweating and starting to burn in the morning sun - feels good to be getting dirty here, with the clay soil stuck to boots and fingers - grit and creosote - ants and their queens tumbling and scurrying out from hidden chambers in the earth and the wood we move, so many of them its like watching a fluid, like oil or black blood -
When sleep comes I am sun-kissed and mildly blistered - yet nothing aches except that part of me that longs for Pol (sweet scent and laughter) - I lie with the window wide open - the night is alive here with frogs and toads mewling in the ditches; the choral, meandering nightingale - heavy lidded, sleep come -
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
ECHO 19/4/06 - To Rome
5.45am - men are drinking hard in the departure lounge - already on the second pint with chasers - gathered in a scrum around the free-standing Bar Est - a slough of bad air - one is red in the face and grins his way over to the observation window, glass in hand to look at the sunrise break through a low line of cloud - a plate smashes and sounds throughout the mezzanine - an announcement: ‘Welcome to Luton Airport. Please keep your belongings with you at all times’ etc. - the red faced man crumbles and melts against the vast pane
Cold dawn out on the tarmac, breath steaming, tired cheeks twitch - the faces of seven Romans leaving English soil; beautiful faces, still sun-kissed, earthy, deep-lined - but these are not wealthy Romans, these are probably farmers or factory workers, their clothes are slightly outdated and worn: jumpers and jerseys that are still in one piece but have seen better days - the flash of a wind-on camera as the daughter uses up the remainder of her film on images of the plane’s interior - in this story maybe it is the first time this Roman family has been abroad, come away for Easter week, the excitement of seeing alien things, the ever-present absorption that travel offers - only the grandfather, wearily looking around the cabin, eyeing the ordered throng as they take their seats, settle children, stow their hand luggage is keen to be back home, surrounded by familiarity, routine safe; his thick and still muddied fingers hold on to a comic book which he turns to and opens studious and earnest - he remains reading for the entire flight - until we descend over the Eternal City itself; the familiar sights are beautifully clear this morning; at altitude I can map all the tourist sights and my own favourite haunts: the Pantheon, Trastevere - I follow my lead to Castel Sant Angelo, back over the water toward the Forum - a mad, dark jigsaw puzzle of red ochre shapes from up here - then a child cries out joyfully ‘colosseo!’ and the entire plane looks to it’s right, out over shoulders through the portholes toward the pitted shape of bloody Imperial greatness
Rome -
Mini dramas at the airport, mini comedies - a young and pretty Italian woman parades through baggage reclaim in her high heeled boots, she may be a model - a late middle-aged man turns at the sound of her heels on the tiles as she struts past looking for her flight bag on the carousel, his eyes linger of course - his sour-faced wife standing next to him also turns a moment later to see what he is looking at, and he looks away instantly sheepish - nothing is spoken but everything is said in the look of a dragon bearing down on a lamb
Termini rail station - There is a subtle change since I was last here 7 months ago - the stricken underclass of Rome are present like never before - fat women bound in sorry faded rags recline on the floor and in corners, dribbling, cursing, holding out the upturned palm; mad Turkish men with thick black hair jabber at crazy speed at the roadside entrances, talking to no-one and everyone at the same time
Sexual politics on the rails -
A young couple, late teens, she a student, he a wide-boy from Tibertina, stand at the trackside on Platform 4 from where the train north to Florence will depart - the boy launches himself at her and holds her face in his hands, kissing furiously her tightly pursed lips; she consents but with her head tilted back as if part of her is trying to get away - she likes him but he mauls her too much - “such is the way of it with boys this age” she tells herself, she’ll be pleased when he is on the train - but she’ll ask herself the same question as she walks home: why does she always say yes when he calls and asks her to meet up?; then she’ll say to herself “next time I must refuse him”, yet she never does - the boy flicks a cigarette butt away with his forefinger, it leaps between the rail and the wheel housing then falls smouldering on to sleepers; he gives her one last holding embrace and waves a cheeky goodbye - she turns without waving, but despite all she smiles to herself
The ageing, fat ex-rock singer with his gothic, diamond encrusted cross around his neck; short-sleeved shirt, aviator sunglasses - calls his mistress on his little flip top mobile phone from the carriage whilst waiting for his wife to join him - he dials the number not stored in the machines memory - he talks quietly to the mistress, laughs gently - his is a voice like cracked wood, deep, gritty - he tells the woman he loves her, misses her, but what can he do? His wife wanted to come away together for Easter, do some shopping, eat out - he couldn’t say no or she’d get suspicious - he agrees with something his mistress says, then tells her he’ll be over to visit tomorrow - he has one eye on the doors, knowing he’s pushing his luck; so he says his goodbyes and flips the phone shut and off - a few minutes later his wife arrives: late 40s, chic shades, mini-skirt, white net tights, calf-length leather boots - there is no hello as she sits next to him, silent disinterest shared
The train departs exactly 13.14 - it is heaving with folk on their way home for siestas
The train gets noisy at Tiburtina, a small group of young ‘ragazzi’ singing and playing knocky on the windows to attract the attention of girls and acquaintances passing on the platform - the young Romeo I saw earlier gets off and descends the underpass smoking another cigarette
Rome to Chiusi -
From the window I see whores (20 at least) along a main arterial road close by Ristorante Romulus (neon yellow sign, empty car park) in the high, white heat of the day. The rush of cars and lorry traffic. People heading home for lunch too this way. The whores are on the lookout to cadge business from the overspill coming out of the nearby factories (technology execs; shop stewards; young boys with their first wage packets). Some of the women stand alone, spaced at least 200 yards apart; others in loose groups of three or four - one always at the roadside the rest sitting back in the shade and sharing a bottle of water, waiting their turn - they all wear dresses cut away at the belly, showing cleavage, figure hugging, some wear hot-pants and miniature vests - most are in their late teens/early twenties, one or two are over thirty, showing signs of middle age yet flaunting easily alongside the rest
A large white cow nuzzles a dead brown calf lying on its side in a meadow - the cow raises its head to the rest of the herd who begin to walk slowly toward her
The Italian word for thunderbolt: fulmine -
The crazy old lady who cannot go anywhere without her portable radio; listening to Italian dramas in the afternoon at full volume on the train - at first everyone around her is annoyed by the noise though no-one has the nerve to ask her to turn it down, after all she’s old, maybe she’s deaf - but as the journey extends and the motion lulls the carriage into dozing they realise the benefits of the story - she knew she was right all along
Chiusi to Caioncola -
A (Red?) Kite wheeling low over the trackside verge - a Buzzard hounded by Hooded Crows; White Egrets collected in a draining dyke and in the marshy meadow by the station - spring here is a thrust of life: of sudden intense heat in the day cooling rapidly in the late afternoon, thunderstorms growling but never quite unleashed; wood smoke and bonfires clearing away the winter rot; wisteria on the pergola full of bees and those large black droning beetles, and a chain of fat ants works its way up one of the wooden posts and into the blooms; and a Nightingale singing a welcome like none other. He continues on and off throughout the afternoon, moving his roost. I finally go to bed close on midnight - long day, brain numb, right ear blocked still by the pressure of the plane’s earlier descent so I hear my interior. About 2am I awake and the Nightingale is still singing, alone, earning well his name -
5.45am - men are drinking hard in the departure lounge - already on the second pint with chasers - gathered in a scrum around the free-standing Bar Est - a slough of bad air - one is red in the face and grins his way over to the observation window, glass in hand to look at the sunrise break through a low line of cloud - a plate smashes and sounds throughout the mezzanine - an announcement: ‘Welcome to Luton Airport. Please keep your belongings with you at all times’ etc. - the red faced man crumbles and melts against the vast pane
Cold dawn out on the tarmac, breath steaming, tired cheeks twitch - the faces of seven Romans leaving English soil; beautiful faces, still sun-kissed, earthy, deep-lined - but these are not wealthy Romans, these are probably farmers or factory workers, their clothes are slightly outdated and worn: jumpers and jerseys that are still in one piece but have seen better days - the flash of a wind-on camera as the daughter uses up the remainder of her film on images of the plane’s interior - in this story maybe it is the first time this Roman family has been abroad, come away for Easter week, the excitement of seeing alien things, the ever-present absorption that travel offers - only the grandfather, wearily looking around the cabin, eyeing the ordered throng as they take their seats, settle children, stow their hand luggage is keen to be back home, surrounded by familiarity, routine safe; his thick and still muddied fingers hold on to a comic book which he turns to and opens studious and earnest - he remains reading for the entire flight - until we descend over the Eternal City itself; the familiar sights are beautifully clear this morning; at altitude I can map all the tourist sights and my own favourite haunts: the Pantheon, Trastevere - I follow my lead to Castel Sant Angelo, back over the water toward the Forum - a mad, dark jigsaw puzzle of red ochre shapes from up here - then a child cries out joyfully ‘colosseo!’ and the entire plane looks to it’s right, out over shoulders through the portholes toward the pitted shape of bloody Imperial greatness
Rome -
Mini dramas at the airport, mini comedies - a young and pretty Italian woman parades through baggage reclaim in her high heeled boots, she may be a model - a late middle-aged man turns at the sound of her heels on the tiles as she struts past looking for her flight bag on the carousel, his eyes linger of course - his sour-faced wife standing next to him also turns a moment later to see what he is looking at, and he looks away instantly sheepish - nothing is spoken but everything is said in the look of a dragon bearing down on a lamb
Termini rail station - There is a subtle change since I was last here 7 months ago - the stricken underclass of Rome are present like never before - fat women bound in sorry faded rags recline on the floor and in corners, dribbling, cursing, holding out the upturned palm; mad Turkish men with thick black hair jabber at crazy speed at the roadside entrances, talking to no-one and everyone at the same time
Sexual politics on the rails -
A young couple, late teens, she a student, he a wide-boy from Tibertina, stand at the trackside on Platform 4 from where the train north to Florence will depart - the boy launches himself at her and holds her face in his hands, kissing furiously her tightly pursed lips; she consents but with her head tilted back as if part of her is trying to get away - she likes him but he mauls her too much - “such is the way of it with boys this age” she tells herself, she’ll be pleased when he is on the train - but she’ll ask herself the same question as she walks home: why does she always say yes when he calls and asks her to meet up?; then she’ll say to herself “next time I must refuse him”, yet she never does - the boy flicks a cigarette butt away with his forefinger, it leaps between the rail and the wheel housing then falls smouldering on to sleepers; he gives her one last holding embrace and waves a cheeky goodbye - she turns without waving, but despite all she smiles to herself
The ageing, fat ex-rock singer with his gothic, diamond encrusted cross around his neck; short-sleeved shirt, aviator sunglasses - calls his mistress on his little flip top mobile phone from the carriage whilst waiting for his wife to join him - he dials the number not stored in the machines memory - he talks quietly to the mistress, laughs gently - his is a voice like cracked wood, deep, gritty - he tells the woman he loves her, misses her, but what can he do? His wife wanted to come away together for Easter, do some shopping, eat out - he couldn’t say no or she’d get suspicious - he agrees with something his mistress says, then tells her he’ll be over to visit tomorrow - he has one eye on the doors, knowing he’s pushing his luck; so he says his goodbyes and flips the phone shut and off - a few minutes later his wife arrives: late 40s, chic shades, mini-skirt, white net tights, calf-length leather boots - there is no hello as she sits next to him, silent disinterest shared
The train departs exactly 13.14 - it is heaving with folk on their way home for siestas
The train gets noisy at Tiburtina, a small group of young ‘ragazzi’ singing and playing knocky on the windows to attract the attention of girls and acquaintances passing on the platform - the young Romeo I saw earlier gets off and descends the underpass smoking another cigarette
Rome to Chiusi -
From the window I see whores (20 at least) along a main arterial road close by Ristorante Romulus (neon yellow sign, empty car park) in the high, white heat of the day. The rush of cars and lorry traffic. People heading home for lunch too this way. The whores are on the lookout to cadge business from the overspill coming out of the nearby factories (technology execs; shop stewards; young boys with their first wage packets). Some of the women stand alone, spaced at least 200 yards apart; others in loose groups of three or four - one always at the roadside the rest sitting back in the shade and sharing a bottle of water, waiting their turn - they all wear dresses cut away at the belly, showing cleavage, figure hugging, some wear hot-pants and miniature vests - most are in their late teens/early twenties, one or two are over thirty, showing signs of middle age yet flaunting easily alongside the rest
A large white cow nuzzles a dead brown calf lying on its side in a meadow - the cow raises its head to the rest of the herd who begin to walk slowly toward her
The Italian word for thunderbolt: fulmine -
The crazy old lady who cannot go anywhere without her portable radio; listening to Italian dramas in the afternoon at full volume on the train - at first everyone around her is annoyed by the noise though no-one has the nerve to ask her to turn it down, after all she’s old, maybe she’s deaf - but as the journey extends and the motion lulls the carriage into dozing they realise the benefits of the story - she knew she was right all along
Chiusi to Caioncola -
A (Red?) Kite wheeling low over the trackside verge - a Buzzard hounded by Hooded Crows; White Egrets collected in a draining dyke and in the marshy meadow by the station - spring here is a thrust of life: of sudden intense heat in the day cooling rapidly in the late afternoon, thunderstorms growling but never quite unleashed; wood smoke and bonfires clearing away the winter rot; wisteria on the pergola full of bees and those large black droning beetles, and a chain of fat ants works its way up one of the wooden posts and into the blooms; and a Nightingale singing a welcome like none other. He continues on and off throughout the afternoon, moving his roost. I finally go to bed close on midnight - long day, brain numb, right ear blocked still by the pressure of the plane’s earlier descent so I hear my interior. About 2am I awake and the Nightingale is still singing, alone, earning well his name -
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
ECHO 18\4\06
Nature abhors a vacuum - principle numero uno
Discovering that Christopher Marlowe is/was(?) buried in the church that I am currently caretaking the vicarage of - St. Nicholas Church, Deptford - the thrill of discovery - that psychogeographic twitch; the tangibility of history - on a fine spring afternoon: I look through the graves and tombs but cannot find his own anywhere - that seems apt; his resting place a mystery - there, the patient gardener bent to the earth, her greying hair belying a youthful generosity and amiable face; a wide smile when I ask about the poet’s burial place - there is only a marble plaque stating in a deep bloody red typeface that he was buried ‘nearby’, his actual grave long vanished, if ever if it was even marked (I suspect not, his homosexuality and the fact that he was a spy for Sir Thomas Walsingham and thereby QE1, would probably dictate that his was an anonymous burial) - his mother and father were poor inhabitants of Canterbury and probably learnt of his death some time after the event - I wonder who may have been present at his burial? If anyone at all. The woman seems pleased to discuss such things, pleased to have a moments distraction and to be able to stand upright and ease the ache in her lower spine - she has been weeding and tilling enthusiastically for a couple of hours (her devotion) amid the almost wordless tombs and stones so old they have been weathered to bone themselves - carefully considered planting has given this churchyard a balance of the wild and the mannered, it is quite beautiful today, burgeoning in April -
I spy a walnut shell, well one half, evidently split open for the prize within then discarded by a squirrel or enterprising bird - perfect half exposed to the day, upright toward the sun, partially hidden at the base of a Hawthorn bush - pale against the soil, the locking interlaced fibres within that held the kernel clear to see; a heart shaped opening, a gestation, a warm orifice (Kit’s emblem of love?) -
The gardener warns me not to believe too much in the books and the myths - “no one will ever know” - a fleeting thought as I look at her: perhaps she is closer to Marlowe than any academic or novelist has ever been? After all she tills the soil, maybe she has actually tilled and touched the soil where his body once lay, maybe some part (art?) of him has suffused and she is his (unknowing?) protector, guardian - I detect a subtext: ‘leave well alone’ -
Familiars: a white cat slouches beyond the wall; a blackbird stands still, immobile it would seem, almost challenging
Nature abhors a vacuum - principle numero uno
Discovering that Christopher Marlowe is/was(?) buried in the church that I am currently caretaking the vicarage of - St. Nicholas Church, Deptford - the thrill of discovery - that psychogeographic twitch; the tangibility of history - on a fine spring afternoon: I look through the graves and tombs but cannot find his own anywhere - that seems apt; his resting place a mystery - there, the patient gardener bent to the earth, her greying hair belying a youthful generosity and amiable face; a wide smile when I ask about the poet’s burial place - there is only a marble plaque stating in a deep bloody red typeface that he was buried ‘nearby’, his actual grave long vanished, if ever if it was even marked (I suspect not, his homosexuality and the fact that he was a spy for Sir Thomas Walsingham and thereby QE1, would probably dictate that his was an anonymous burial) - his mother and father were poor inhabitants of Canterbury and probably learnt of his death some time after the event - I wonder who may have been present at his burial? If anyone at all. The woman seems pleased to discuss such things, pleased to have a moments distraction and to be able to stand upright and ease the ache in her lower spine - she has been weeding and tilling enthusiastically for a couple of hours (her devotion) amid the almost wordless tombs and stones so old they have been weathered to bone themselves - carefully considered planting has given this churchyard a balance of the wild and the mannered, it is quite beautiful today, burgeoning in April -
I spy a walnut shell, well one half, evidently split open for the prize within then discarded by a squirrel or enterprising bird - perfect half exposed to the day, upright toward the sun, partially hidden at the base of a Hawthorn bush - pale against the soil, the locking interlaced fibres within that held the kernel clear to see; a heart shaped opening, a gestation, a warm orifice (Kit’s emblem of love?) -
The gardener warns me not to believe too much in the books and the myths - “no one will ever know” - a fleeting thought as I look at her: perhaps she is closer to Marlowe than any academic or novelist has ever been? After all she tills the soil, maybe she has actually tilled and touched the soil where his body once lay, maybe some part (art?) of him has suffused and she is his (unknowing?) protector, guardian - I detect a subtext: ‘leave well alone’ -
Familiars: a white cat slouches beyond the wall; a blackbird stands still, immobile it would seem, almost challenging
Saturday, April 15, 2006
ECHO 15/4/06 - London
The house is quiet. It shows signs of recent neglect - food scraps in the kitchen sink, mail unsorted in piles in the hallway. The couple I share it with have just split up but are still living under the same roof; different rooms, different beds.
A bunch of pale pink roses in a vase on the kitchen windowsill. They are a new addition, replacing the ailing bunch of early spring blooms we left behind a week ago. I wonder which of the two bought them and arranged them. Either would provide a very different motive for them being here. If she bought them it may well have been to cheer herself up by having something of beauty around, some feminine symbol to provide strength, visual power. If it was he then perhaps they were a last ditch attempt at reconciliation (too late) or simply to say sorry.
She has chosen a room downstairs to sleep in for the moment. He it seems has not slept in what was their bedroom, preferring instead his smoking den. It is tough to enter a dead love bedroom, there is something of a morgue about it - full of memories and ghostly images and smells of such intimacy the soul can’t really bear the pain. Easier for him to remain where he can smoke and watch DVDs and have the heating on without too much sense of shared time or history. But I know from experience that he is only storing up trouble for the future.
The house is quiet. It shows signs of recent neglect - food scraps in the kitchen sink, mail unsorted in piles in the hallway. The couple I share it with have just split up but are still living under the same roof; different rooms, different beds.
A bunch of pale pink roses in a vase on the kitchen windowsill. They are a new addition, replacing the ailing bunch of early spring blooms we left behind a week ago. I wonder which of the two bought them and arranged them. Either would provide a very different motive for them being here. If she bought them it may well have been to cheer herself up by having something of beauty around, some feminine symbol to provide strength, visual power. If it was he then perhaps they were a last ditch attempt at reconciliation (too late) or simply to say sorry.
She has chosen a room downstairs to sleep in for the moment. He it seems has not slept in what was their bedroom, preferring instead his smoking den. It is tough to enter a dead love bedroom, there is something of a morgue about it - full of memories and ghostly images and smells of such intimacy the soul can’t really bear the pain. Easier for him to remain where he can smoke and watch DVDs and have the heating on without too much sense of shared time or history. But I know from experience that he is only storing up trouble for the future.
Friday, April 14, 2006
ECHO 14/4/06 - Keswick to London
The expression ‘globe trotter’ in my mind when I wake - pleasing that it is there - A question then: Why does the future need to be planned? After all, here the hills beg one to be without a plan; to exist full of spontaneous drives and to then meander - it’s hard not to seek that out up here - it is the defining spirit of place -
The mingled smells of breakfast; the market snapped by bleak weather -
First however the day disintegrates before the force of reprimand - logically it should be page one of a novel, but sadly it is hard reality for a while, boneshakingly real - thankfully it passes -
Then watching Ospreys over Bassenthwaite Lake - tantalising glimpses of the male bird in a high fir close to the nest; excitement palpable among the birders (young and old) -
countless rivers and tributaries and upland streams running down into, then along, the valley floors - blissful to follow them with the eye from a distance; the sun descending here, the shadows lengthening over the fells - for me it will be difficult to be away from them (and from Pol) for the next two weeks (one train window here will become one train window in Italy) - though the verdancy and landscape will be similar - the pale wood smoke interchangeable -
the sea shatters this - the sun refracting off the surface of an estuary, some bright body of water, Lancaster close by -
D.H. Lawrence and Schubert on Warrington Bank Quay station platform April 2006 - the industrial light; the stroking of hair between a young couple sat for hours in the waiting room; the sordid chromium chimneys; a huge billboard on a gutted warehouse: ‘In Debt? We can write it off.’ Beyond, troops of kids waiting by the go-karting area watch an empty track; a slag heap, marshland - the edges, wastelands, borders; the sun descending beyond the power station; the pointless millennium bridge arching over the city (money well spent?). D.H. and Schubert walk arm in arm into this and ready themselves for the onslaught - they meet a man with the face of the lead actor from Vittorio de Sica’s film The Bicycle Thieves; he is attempting to smile through the back of his head - three Asian boys are watching Al-Jazeera broadcasts they have downloaded onto a laptop - laughing and playing at being subversives - snippets of the insurgency in Iraq, quotes and clips of Osama re-edited to a backing track of hard hip-hop beats - D.H. and Schubert make no judgement (how could they?), they just report and take note of what they see - a middle-aged man calls out ‘Gouranga’ from a bridge over the ring road - D.H. speaks: ‘oh happy land so strong diverted; oh sweet spring will you take us up once more unto the lark or will you play us all for fools?’
The expression ‘globe trotter’ in my mind when I wake - pleasing that it is there - A question then: Why does the future need to be planned? After all, here the hills beg one to be without a plan; to exist full of spontaneous drives and to then meander - it’s hard not to seek that out up here - it is the defining spirit of place -
The mingled smells of breakfast; the market snapped by bleak weather -
First however the day disintegrates before the force of reprimand - logically it should be page one of a novel, but sadly it is hard reality for a while, boneshakingly real - thankfully it passes -
Then watching Ospreys over Bassenthwaite Lake - tantalising glimpses of the male bird in a high fir close to the nest; excitement palpable among the birders (young and old) -
countless rivers and tributaries and upland streams running down into, then along, the valley floors - blissful to follow them with the eye from a distance; the sun descending here, the shadows lengthening over the fells - for me it will be difficult to be away from them (and from Pol) for the next two weeks (one train window here will become one train window in Italy) - though the verdancy and landscape will be similar - the pale wood smoke interchangeable -
the sea shatters this - the sun refracting off the surface of an estuary, some bright body of water, Lancaster close by -
D.H. Lawrence and Schubert on Warrington Bank Quay station platform April 2006 - the industrial light; the stroking of hair between a young couple sat for hours in the waiting room; the sordid chromium chimneys; a huge billboard on a gutted warehouse: ‘In Debt? We can write it off.’ Beyond, troops of kids waiting by the go-karting area watch an empty track; a slag heap, marshland - the edges, wastelands, borders; the sun descending beyond the power station; the pointless millennium bridge arching over the city (money well spent?). D.H. and Schubert walk arm in arm into this and ready themselves for the onslaught - they meet a man with the face of the lead actor from Vittorio de Sica’s film The Bicycle Thieves; he is attempting to smile through the back of his head - three Asian boys are watching Al-Jazeera broadcasts they have downloaded onto a laptop - laughing and playing at being subversives - snippets of the insurgency in Iraq, quotes and clips of Osama re-edited to a backing track of hard hip-hop beats - D.H. and Schubert make no judgement (how could they?), they just report and take note of what they see - a middle-aged man calls out ‘Gouranga’ from a bridge over the ring road - D.H. speaks: ‘oh happy land so strong diverted; oh sweet spring will you take us up once more unto the lark or will you play us all for fools?’
Thursday, April 13, 2006
ECHO 13/4/06 - Keswick
Sundown at Castlerigg - the earth around the stones had been turned to slurry and mud pits by the countless tourists visiting throughout the day after the earlier rain - something disgusting about the way the place had been treated - the marks of an invasion, an army that has come and moved to its next target; the thoughtless, inexorable movement of feet marching in order over the landscape leaving wasted earth behind -
And the constant reminder in the air that I am not far wrong, as the Jaguars and other jet fighters come along the valley in their mock bombing runs frying the air, thrusting two supersonic fingers up at all beneath, delineating shock and awe in a moment and then whoop! - gone. It is a frightening episode; a memory stain of blood and battered cities; here over a monument to the beginnings of civilization we witness the machines that have ruined another a few thousand miles away -
and some locals complain about the impact of wind farms!! Babylon’s burning -
The night’s events thereafter, were slow -
marked first by a strange turn in front of the TV. We were watching a programme in which a man was thoroughly beaten by a neighbour on his own doorstep and left with a bloody, smashed nose, a cut and bleeding forehead, and terribly swollen and bruised eyes. He had fallen there against the jamb and his wife came to aid him. I let out a sudden, shocked sigh and began to sob. A flow of tears without warning. Pol held me close in an instant - she knew straight away why it had happened because I’d told her the story of my own beating on a street in Brixton. I carried on crying, then just as suddenly stopped and laughed and apologized. The effect of that night four years ago, combined with the reality of the imagery in the TV programme had made it all as apparent as yesterday. The sense of vulnerability; the absolute shock of a random act of violence; the fear that arrives and resides beneath the skin for months, years. And of course you get over it, but it seems never in totality - how little we know -
the gathering in The George was tame: nervous actors together after their first week of rehearsals, vying for space in conversation, looking for little chances to perform even here in front of the fire until such time as they were drunk enough to relax and become themselves -
there is talk of tiny feet and shoes to match-
of costume fittings being the best yet -
of long relationships being over -
of Etruscan artefacts with large phalluses being drawn over and again, for archaeological purposes of course -
of Beckett and Pinter and clowns -
in the final event it could only be the lake and the full moon together that would have any lasting meaning - the thick clouds passing gripped by the pale light, the stars revealed, the dark hulks of trees and the high hills across the lake - nothing to be afraid of out here; even the lambs lie down before this darkness, the tempestuous, bitter wind and the charging weather - I am out looking for a ‘moment’ as is my want; eyes peeled always for the unnoticed, the magical commonplace - “awkward to lose things you know.”
And the sight of Keswick’s late night whore tottering alone through the streets in her finest: spangled dress under a simple coat held close in one hand against the wind and clutching a bottle of wine there too, long earrings and a ‘50s style bouffant (indeed that would be about the time she was born) - she talks into her mobile phone, Cumbrian accented, still furtive in case she is overheard but she is, as she clatters inelegantly on her high-heels: “You better still be up. I’ve got what it is you want; so you better had be. I’m on my way. Five minutes.”
Arm in arm, me and Pol watch her go, secretive, clandestine.
Sundown at Castlerigg - the earth around the stones had been turned to slurry and mud pits by the countless tourists visiting throughout the day after the earlier rain - something disgusting about the way the place had been treated - the marks of an invasion, an army that has come and moved to its next target; the thoughtless, inexorable movement of feet marching in order over the landscape leaving wasted earth behind -
And the constant reminder in the air that I am not far wrong, as the Jaguars and other jet fighters come along the valley in their mock bombing runs frying the air, thrusting two supersonic fingers up at all beneath, delineating shock and awe in a moment and then whoop! - gone. It is a frightening episode; a memory stain of blood and battered cities; here over a monument to the beginnings of civilization we witness the machines that have ruined another a few thousand miles away -
and some locals complain about the impact of wind farms!! Babylon’s burning -
The night’s events thereafter, were slow -
marked first by a strange turn in front of the TV. We were watching a programme in which a man was thoroughly beaten by a neighbour on his own doorstep and left with a bloody, smashed nose, a cut and bleeding forehead, and terribly swollen and bruised eyes. He had fallen there against the jamb and his wife came to aid him. I let out a sudden, shocked sigh and began to sob. A flow of tears without warning. Pol held me close in an instant - she knew straight away why it had happened because I’d told her the story of my own beating on a street in Brixton. I carried on crying, then just as suddenly stopped and laughed and apologized. The effect of that night four years ago, combined with the reality of the imagery in the TV programme had made it all as apparent as yesterday. The sense of vulnerability; the absolute shock of a random act of violence; the fear that arrives and resides beneath the skin for months, years. And of course you get over it, but it seems never in totality - how little we know -
the gathering in The George was tame: nervous actors together after their first week of rehearsals, vying for space in conversation, looking for little chances to perform even here in front of the fire until such time as they were drunk enough to relax and become themselves -
there is talk of tiny feet and shoes to match-
of costume fittings being the best yet -
of long relationships being over -
of Etruscan artefacts with large phalluses being drawn over and again, for archaeological purposes of course -
of Beckett and Pinter and clowns -
in the final event it could only be the lake and the full moon together that would have any lasting meaning - the thick clouds passing gripped by the pale light, the stars revealed, the dark hulks of trees and the high hills across the lake - nothing to be afraid of out here; even the lambs lie down before this darkness, the tempestuous, bitter wind and the charging weather - I am out looking for a ‘moment’ as is my want; eyes peeled always for the unnoticed, the magical commonplace - “awkward to lose things you know.”
And the sight of Keswick’s late night whore tottering alone through the streets in her finest: spangled dress under a simple coat held close in one hand against the wind and clutching a bottle of wine there too, long earrings and a ‘50s style bouffant (indeed that would be about the time she was born) - she talks into her mobile phone, Cumbrian accented, still furtive in case she is overheard but she is, as she clatters inelegantly on her high-heels: “You better still be up. I’ve got what it is you want; so you better had be. I’m on my way. Five minutes.”
Arm in arm, me and Pol watch her go, secretive, clandestine.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
ECHO 12/4/06
The Asian landlord is listening to Springsteen extra loud in the flat upstairs -
The toilet is the place to think, to find inspration; don't laugh, it's full of books so it would be -
"A ladies voice, I don't mind what" -
Some mystery of greatness -
Certain aspects are best kept hidden for a while -
Shedding books read around the country (even the world): an urban fantasy in Cumbria; a hard-bitten crime novel in Umbria; a dissection of a poet in Deptford, London -
Ospreys on the next lake -
Floorboards flying in the wind -
Jackdaws flocking and gathering in the trees -
Caffeine headaches -
The Asian landlord is listening to Springsteen extra loud in the flat upstairs -
The toilet is the place to think, to find inspration; don't laugh, it's full of books so it would be -
"A ladies voice, I don't mind what" -
Some mystery of greatness -
Certain aspects are best kept hidden for a while -
Shedding books read around the country (even the world): an urban fantasy in Cumbria; a hard-bitten crime novel in Umbria; a dissection of a poet in Deptford, London -
Ospreys on the next lake -
Floorboards flying in the wind -
Jackdaws flocking and gathering in the trees -
Caffeine headaches -
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
ECHO 11/4/06
Up through the pale trees to Castlerigg along by the River Greta tumbling fast from the downpour and thaw of yesterday - Neolithic stone circle there among the dry stone walls, the backpackers and scouts sit in their day-glo blue and red; fat ladies carry cameras that baffle them, snap-snap - the clouds chase shadows over the harlequin landscape -
To be away from people; to be nowhere in the rain with its gentle sound on the woodland and its effect on the stream nearby; no more than a swan and a robin or two for company. To me, this is happiness. Freedom in each moment. Peace. With only my notebook, my camera, and my walking boots. Treading the green undergrowth, the twilight calls, that final activity of the day as it edges toward night. Across the lake the hill rumble, almost a yawn. These are what I find communicate to me more than the jabber of people with their subtle motivations and agendas. Some might call me forever lonely or antisocial. But out by the lake there is no possibility of loneliness - my senses are full, settled. I have all I need. The liquid majesty and eternal patience at the water’s edge. The careful consideration of what is before me: the low reeds, the solid granite giants, the muddy bank and the old stone jetty leading the eye, the gentle lap of the tide on shale -
Up through the pale trees to Castlerigg along by the River Greta tumbling fast from the downpour and thaw of yesterday - Neolithic stone circle there among the dry stone walls, the backpackers and scouts sit in their day-glo blue and red; fat ladies carry cameras that baffle them, snap-snap - the clouds chase shadows over the harlequin landscape -
To be away from people; to be nowhere in the rain with its gentle sound on the woodland and its effect on the stream nearby; no more than a swan and a robin or two for company. To me, this is happiness. Freedom in each moment. Peace. With only my notebook, my camera, and my walking boots. Treading the green undergrowth, the twilight calls, that final activity of the day as it edges toward night. Across the lake the hill rumble, almost a yawn. These are what I find communicate to me more than the jabber of people with their subtle motivations and agendas. Some might call me forever lonely or antisocial. But out by the lake there is no possibility of loneliness - my senses are full, settled. I have all I need. The liquid majesty and eternal patience at the water’s edge. The careful consideration of what is before me: the low reeds, the solid granite giants, the muddy bank and the old stone jetty leading the eye, the gentle lap of the tide on shale -
Monday, April 10, 2006
Feast Day Morning
Luca is playing his guitar. His fingers on each string move without resistance; pulled toward the earth’s core. The slender neck falls, crosses low before the scarred fields heavy with harvest. The duet played alone echoes yearning, intimacy. The first chord is the hollow wooden self – the rest are bronze tears. Yesterday, a teacher from the other side of the island danced to a tune from his guitar; charged her mouth with chosen properties of his, with lessons of the invisible.
A mile away, dark cattle saunter the towpath – from this distance they are like the black notes, the semibreves, there on the staves in front of Luca.
Women in the street below squeeze lemons on the pavement; it seems to him that they perfume the sun. Children wave red banners, proclaiming the town is theirs. Horsemeat is cooking and balls of stuffed rice are arranged in rows of glazed ceramic pots.
Luca beats his chest, plays out the coda.
The dry riverbed withholds the secret. The teasing, languorous nakedness. Later he’ll cross Giuletta Bridge there, in steps timed three/four toward the final bar. The mass of his heart will refill with the knowledge of feast day, but his body will be elsewhere. The Mayor will be annoyed; the women will gather together and like a tribe of prophets will gossip and curse.
The children will no doubt be baffled, but will carry on waving in the wind.
Luca is playing his guitar. His fingers on each string move without resistance; pulled toward the earth’s core. The slender neck falls, crosses low before the scarred fields heavy with harvest. The duet played alone echoes yearning, intimacy. The first chord is the hollow wooden self – the rest are bronze tears. Yesterday, a teacher from the other side of the island danced to a tune from his guitar; charged her mouth with chosen properties of his, with lessons of the invisible.
A mile away, dark cattle saunter the towpath – from this distance they are like the black notes, the semibreves, there on the staves in front of Luca.
Women in the street below squeeze lemons on the pavement; it seems to him that they perfume the sun. Children wave red banners, proclaiming the town is theirs. Horsemeat is cooking and balls of stuffed rice are arranged in rows of glazed ceramic pots.
Luca beats his chest, plays out the coda.
The dry riverbed withholds the secret. The teasing, languorous nakedness. Later he’ll cross Giuletta Bridge there, in steps timed three/four toward the final bar. The mass of his heart will refill with the knowledge of feast day, but his body will be elsewhere. The Mayor will be annoyed; the women will gather together and like a tribe of prophets will gossip and curse.
The children will no doubt be baffled, but will carry on waving in the wind.
ECHO 10/6/06 - Keswick
Jackdaw jackanapes on the rooftops - call and call; the ominous gloom of the previous evening over Derwentwater - a patchy swipe of memory for the birds yet a fixture for us still this morning - makes the grade - after all we survived the blizzards over the high ground on our way; the dense air and the lack of visibility - on through the snowy peaks of St. John’s Beck and Blencathra; both clear, almost etched from cloud, miraculously found - aye, jackdaws dancing, nodding on the old co-operative society building roof, gold slate in the rising sun held chiefly in the knotty palm of the Saddleback, that open gawp between peaks; there unsullied light - the beating busy heart is so far away now; here we are in the rarefied, instinctive brow of the land - changing continually; the soulful brow, burnt umber, charcoal grey where the old men in the hills part their dark eyes and watch - the sweet smell of hay, strong - Hawkrigg with its covering of down and stray sheep’s wool caught on the Hawthorn bushes - and Rydal, small lake within, yet somehow the most beautiful - two magic islands, yearning -
Jackdaw jackanapes on the rooftops - call and call; the ominous gloom of the previous evening over Derwentwater - a patchy swipe of memory for the birds yet a fixture for us still this morning - makes the grade - after all we survived the blizzards over the high ground on our way; the dense air and the lack of visibility - on through the snowy peaks of St. John’s Beck and Blencathra; both clear, almost etched from cloud, miraculously found - aye, jackdaws dancing, nodding on the old co-operative society building roof, gold slate in the rising sun held chiefly in the knotty palm of the Saddleback, that open gawp between peaks; there unsullied light - the beating busy heart is so far away now; here we are in the rarefied, instinctive brow of the land - changing continually; the soulful brow, burnt umber, charcoal grey where the old men in the hills part their dark eyes and watch - the sweet smell of hay, strong - Hawkrigg with its covering of down and stray sheep’s wool caught on the Hawthorn bushes - and Rydal, small lake within, yet somehow the most beautiful - two magic islands, yearning -
Friday, April 07, 2006
ECHO 7/4/06
And so we make a move once more – this time north – as Pol takes a new job.
Before we go however A ensures his masculine territorialism is known to me and he has a go at me once again about his toilet seat fixation as I surface from sleep and come downstairs for my morning coffee. It’s the only thing he says to me. Not even a good morning in response to mine. I defend myself honourably, maintaining (and it is true) that it isn’t me. Funny thing is when I go into the small downstairs toilet outside his smoking den and which I have not used for a couple of days at least, the seat is up. So when I with all good intention return to let him know this fact he is hurrying out the front door and gone. In that moment he reminds me of a weasel. Suspect this is how it’s going to be when I get back next week and start living here without Pol around to keep me sweet.
Survival can be a strange game sometimes. Creative and entertaining. Irritating too.
And so we make a move once more – this time north – as Pol takes a new job.
Before we go however A ensures his masculine territorialism is known to me and he has a go at me once again about his toilet seat fixation as I surface from sleep and come downstairs for my morning coffee. It’s the only thing he says to me. Not even a good morning in response to mine. I defend myself honourably, maintaining (and it is true) that it isn’t me. Funny thing is when I go into the small downstairs toilet outside his smoking den and which I have not used for a couple of days at least, the seat is up. So when I with all good intention return to let him know this fact he is hurrying out the front door and gone. In that moment he reminds me of a weasel. Suspect this is how it’s going to be when I get back next week and start living here without Pol around to keep me sweet.
Survival can be a strange game sometimes. Creative and entertaining. Irritating too.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The River MediumLow tide on the Thames. Hammond is under
Blackfriars Bridge again. His boots heavy, wet; overalls stinking in sympathy with the exposed riverbed. He sweeps a metal detector over the mud. When it bleeps he drops to his haunches and picks up whatever object gave off the signal. He keeps his gaze keen for anything else that the detector may miss – plastic, wood etc.
The voice of the object is key to Hammond. It dictates whether or not he throws it back or keeps it. Some are loud; others only have the power to whisper left. Items he keeps he puts in the canvas satchel at his side.
When the tide returns, he climbs the access ladder and heads home; a ten-minute walk to Ravenscar House on the council estate behind Waterloo. Once there he removes his boots and overalls, makes a cup of strong coffee, and empties the items he has found onto the kitchen table.
He takes each one in turn, separating it from the others, giving it focus there on the pale blue Formica. And Hammond listens.
A brown plastic comb, some teeth missing:
My full name, the one I suppose will be on my grave, is Andreas Perovic. But I call myself Pepo. I like the sound of it. It is happy! Like one of the Marx Brothers. Well it sounds that way if I speak. I haven’t spoken for thirty-two years and I don’t let the doctors know I can. As far as they are concerned I am mute. I talk to myself, sure. I always have, but only in private. Of course I used to talk to my Mother and my Sister when we lived closer. I suppose I talked to my Father when he was alive, but I don’t remember, I was too young. Now it is only for me. And sometimes I call myself Andreas, sometimes Pepo. I am happy. It is a small joke I play.
The voice inside is the best. No? There is so much noise in this city anyway, who needs to talk. Even night is not really night, it is just day with the light off. When I first came here it scared me. The sirens, the people shouting at night - so many people shouting at night in this city it is madness. It used to wake me up. Sweating. Like an air raid! You jump every second and your body cannot relax. Bang! Bang! I could not sleep well for a long time. Ten years. It is true. I’m used to it now. I use earplugs. Heh!
My favourite sound is wrapping paper unwrapping toys. Please forgive me for wanting to talk toys. I have a passion. Toy cars mostly. When I was growing up in Poland I made toy cars from wood with a knife. The wheels did not go round, not like your models today, but still I would race them across the table. I remember one I was very proud of. I painted it bright red and made the windows with a picture of a driver inside. Clever. I was pushing it over the table and letting it slide away from me very fast. But I pushed so much and it went away over the top and out of the kitchen window straight for the black spire of the church opposite our apartment. Oh, I ran to the window with my mouth open like a fish. I was shaking and starting to cry. I looked down and the car was in three pieces. Broken along the grain. There was a tank in the corner of the square and four soldiers were stood on it with their rifles pointed at the broken car. They thought it was a gun going off, or a bomb.
Silence.
Hammond takes up another object.
A plastic action figure, a comic book heroine, in moulded cape and mask:
What are you lookin’ at? Yeah? Don’t you know who I am? Well same to you, you fat wanker. You should mind your own business. Burn you too if I had half the chance.
Now light! Stupid matches! Yes! Look at that take.
Right across ‘Dave’.
Right across ‘love’.
Right across ‘I'm sorry for what I done.’
Burnin’ the letter backwards from the end. That’s beautiful.
See, scientists froze me alive for a hundred and fifty years in a tank of genetic gloop. Then during an attack by the evil Da’dak-Kar army my cryo-chamber was damaged and my sleeping body fell into a regeneration tank. I lay there for hours and when I woke I had powers beyond any mortal being: the strength of a lioness, second sight, radioactive kisses. Lost in a world full of enemies that wanted me dead, I looked for a place to hide out and
call my home and ended up in this metropolis! I planned my revenge. Created my alter ego, working in a print shop in Hoxton watching the trendies get drunk every evening, showing off their spray-tans and cowboy boots and the big mouth boys boasting crap. Stupid super-girl that I am only falls in love with one of them. More evil than the Da’dak-Kar. Tosser. But I got tricks up my sleeve.Virgil wants more but it does not come.
A magnifying glass chipped and scratched:
Man, ye can’ tak teh me dat way. Y’unnerstan’? I am disciple o’ di sun god, good boy sun gaad all di way. An’ I strike badman down in retribushan’. Dis ‘ere di eyes of God. He cum hand fi me. Di glass eye of God. Hold it to di sun and di sun cum burn flesh o’ sinnerman, flesh o’ di unclean. Ya hear? I try fi burn mi eyes out sittin’ on dis ‘ere fence in middle a dis road, becos me wan’ show you that I an’ I am no sinnerman, that I an’ I is a true bredren in your pollushan. No fi burn. Mi eyes hold no fear a’ man o’ beast, seen? Only di true love a’ God in I man o’ righteousness.
Hammond finds a tear in his eye.
A piece of reflective yellow material:
I was working as a photographer’s assistant. We went to Westbourne Grove to take portraits of this bloke Raymond Markham and his son. Massive house. Had its own garden that backed on to a private park you could only use if you were a resident of the street.
The light was good that day so the portraits turned out well. We took them at the top of the first flight of stairs where they had this big arched window. Raymond stood there with his arm round his boy. They had so much perfection about them. Very blonde and very wealthy. It was like there was a white light round them both. It was almost religious, like one of the pictures in the Watchtower magazine. You know those illustrations of people grinning insanely because they believe they have God.
They had so much space in that house; it was as big as a church. I couldn’t see what they could do with it all. Four floors above ground and Raymond showed us the gym in the basement. The 'bunker' he called it: sauna, jacuzzi, all the equipment, the weight machines, mirrors on one wall. It hadn’t been there when he bought the place, he’d excavated under the garden to build it. But it was all still brand new. None of it had been touched. I could see that. Raymond didn’t mention that. I asked how long ago he’d built it and he said about 3 months ago. It pissed me off.
So I went back three nights later and watched the house from across the street for a while. The lights were on in the second floor but downstairs it was dark. I wanted to break into the gym and smash it all up but I stole their dustbin instead. I wanted to prove that Raymond couldn’t protect everything they had; that their perfection could be broken. I was laughing at the time. Pathetic.
It didn’t make any difference. I passed by a few weeks later on the way to another job with Bobby the photographer and they had three dustbins all chained together. It made me want to cry. But Bobby told me not to be so dumb. He told me the wife had walked out two years before. The gym had actually been built when she left.
It had never occurred to me to ask where she was.
A black rubber grip from a pushbike, perished at the edges:
Called herself Catriona, Cat for short. I don’t know if it was her real name. Probably not. I didn’t know what I was lettin’ myself in for when I paid. "Come here", she whispered. And she turned me round and you won’t believe it, blindfolded me straight off and kissed my forehead. It was sticky where her lips had been. “I'm putting honey on," she said. Then she applied some of it to my lips. She drew up behind me. "Take my hand," she said. I had to find it; she didn’t offer it to me. She wanted me to know my senses were - what’s the word? - debilitated. Then she span me round. I felt dizzy and sick. God it was an awful feeling with the blindfold on. I tried to speak but I couldn’t. She’d actually stuck my lips together with something and it wasn’t honey. I thought it might be superglue or some clamp of some kind. She tugged me along, slowly at first. I gave myself over to her. There was no other option. She started describing things. At first I think okay, but pretty soon I realise it’s all a bit odd. She was making it up. Which of course I know now was the point of the whole experience. It went something like this:
"Worn cobblestones. Gas lamps. Dark alleyways down which you hear an organ grinder. A pickpocket throwing up in the gutter. There are two tarts walking towards you looking for a scrape. One has blonde ringlets and wears her bodice partially undone, her tits are beautiful and she knows it. The other is an old whore, face thick with rouge, but a lovely smile. She still knows how to turn a trick better than the young pretties. There's many a footpad would rather have her to please his old chap than any of the youngsters. But these two aren’t for you."
Then I heard a new voice in front of us. "A suck on yer stick darlin'.”
Cat still had me by the hand and she brushed my groin. Bloody hell that made me jump I can tell you. Then we stopped. She let go of my hand and I heard her walk away. I was frightened. I almost tripped over some stones or something. I had no idea where we were. I could hear boats chugging somewhere to my left so I knew we’d got closer to the river, but then trains were pa
ssing overhead so I don’t know. I heard someone say: “Come to Annie.” I knew there was definitely another girl now. I didn’t know what they were up to or what they had planned for me. That was the thrill. What I’d paid for. It felt like I was going to be eaten or something. I tried to reply but Cat told me not to break the seal on my lips. "You've got to be unable to speak or Annie will get afraid and leave. She’s fragile. Treat her kindly and she’ll blow your mind."Part of a road sign marked ‘Urban Clearway’:
I should have made those decisions. But I was afraid. Biding my time, hiding from confrontation and responsibility. I could lead myself to believe I was committed, but in reality, up until that evening, I was afraid to look myself over. I took on false hopes and pretended I was someone else. Sitting in sterile theme-pubs, drinking pint after pint of Guinness with whisky chasers; watching snow fall in April on Farringdon Road. Commuters dressed in spring clothes surprised and getting wet, looking to the sky, incredulous, trying to blame something for the inconvenience. Surprisingly I felt jealous of them. I tried to justify my position with memories of promises I’d made myself, and others. Particularly those I claimed I loved. But the promises didn’t wash in hindsight. That didn‘t click until it was too late.
I was considering these things when a woman made her way over to me. Spiked hair, thin oriental face with the most beautiful almond eyes. She claimed to know me but I had no recollection of her at all. She offered me a drink and out of curiosity I accepted. When she came back I asked her where she thought we’d met before.
"In Japan. I'm the sister of the fisherman you stayed with."
"Fisherman?"
"A whaler. Chasing Ebisu gods."
"Oh, yes." I lied. All I remembered of Japan was the interminable work in Tokyo - a million diaries checked, counterchecked, and replaced with other lives; commuting on the overcrowded metro, so tired, falling flat on my face on the sofa when I got home at night; chasing a young Japanese woman through the streets after she mistakenly took my mobile and left me with hers. She put up a hell of a fight when I knocked on her door and asked for my machine back. I wondered if she had some organised crime connection. But it was a genuine mistake.
"And my Uncle owned the whaling factory."
“Why are you so sure it was me?”
“How could I forget you?”
“Sorry you must have me mistaken for someone else.” At that point I realised she might be a crazy in need of some part of me, an internal organ to sell or some such. So I smiled politely and looked out the window hoping she would go away. But she carried on.
“We shared a fortune cookie on your birthday, in the little office at half past midnight and you swore the smell of whale intestine was almost as sweet as lavender. Welsh lavender you said. I called you Proper Charlie.”
A silver cufflink:
My pitch for the opening scenes? Okay. A hit man marches down a long, cavernous corridor in an office complex in the city of London. My little homage to Point Blank. Empty office suites to his left; sunlight through the blinds. To his right, huge tinted windows look out over a central quadrant with a mock Zen-garden, a bench, some wiry foliage, and an ash can piled with cigarette butts.
Music: something pacey, full of suspense, leading to an elegiac passage, almost serene.
He approaches a set of steps to his left and descends.
POV: He is in a short, low corridor. At the far end the sun spills in, glaring off the tiles. He squints.
Two sets of doors, one on either side of the corridor, open half way along and beyond them a sign with the words 'WARNING THIS AREA ALARMED' in red letters. A wall clock ticks loudly.
The hit man stops to pull his silenced handgun from his jacket. He edges over to the door on the right - the ladies lavatory. He leans over to one side listening to the trickle of cisterns beyond. After a moment he turns back to the other door opposite and walks directly into the Gents.
Cut to: A long row of mirrors over the washbasins, he catches his reflection then steps further round to the cubicles to his right. Only one of the doors is closed. He walks directly to it and kicks it open. The occupant stares up at him, trousers round his ankles, a look of shock on his face. The hit man shoots him once in the forehead and without looking spins round to the hand-basins and washes his hands, squeezing the soap from the dispenser.
We see the first tracts of blood crawling out stark against the white tiling.
Our man exits the way he came in.
He sings a line from Sloop John B: "This is the worst trip I've ever been on".
On his way out of the main doors he picks up a leaflet about available office space. Outside, a throng of people stand in the city street staring back at the building, many with shades on, others shielding their eyes. They are watching a solar eclipse, the first in decades, reflected in the mirrored glass that covers the building. It is about to go full corona.
A rusty orthodontic brace with its plastic palate still in place:
The only way I get company is to walk. In that way the people passing me on the street feel like company, even though no words pass between us (save those with the occasional beggar or lost tourist). Proximity is enough to remind me what it is like to be close to other human beings; with the added luxury that I don't have to involve myself in any sort of relationship. I can simply observe. That is enough. It is liberating. I can be anyone out there, anonymous but at the same time somebody. And if someone looks at me well they can infer whatever they like about me and that is fine because of course it is never the truth. And that means that I am no longer really myself. I become a whole list of people through other people’s eyes. That feels somehow important. I am fulfilling a function. I feel good about these unknown 'selves'. I begin to know them. Some better than others. They are private fictions and as such are filled with possibilities. This excites and arouses me. My only reservation is that, due to the itinerant nature of their creation, the majority are lacking in depth.
It is 1.38am.
Hammond is tired; his head drops forward onto his chest and snaps straight up again. The objects stop talking. He collects them together, writes the date and location on a sticky label and attaches it to one
end of an empty shoebox identical to all the others he uses to store his collection. He lines it with tissue paper and puts each object in one at a time. When it is full he takes it to his spare room. 288 boxes in there. Two years of collecting, two years of listening. Lifting up the other three boxes dated ‘September’ he places the new one in order on the pile. 289.It is a humid night; his clothes are sticking to him. Hammond washes and, standing with his towel wrapped round his waist, opens the kitchen window.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
ECHO 4/4/06
Dutch Church, Austin Friars - a tiny arcane artery in the city close by Liverpool Street; one of those places where time travel is possible – believe me – you’ll know if you’ve been – there The Hatchet Man was taking a chance to find some peace - he prayed in the main house then went to the gents lavatory in preparation for his next appointment: a job interview, third floor Campaign House – he went into one of the stone cubicles and shut the heavy wooden door – a silence – he pissed freely – then realized someone else, two people in fact, had entered and were talking without knowledge of his presence – Dutch accents of course, interspersed with English – one deep, the other fast and nervous – The Hatchet Man imagined thick spectacles and he would have been right – he remained as quiet as possible, his fingertips touching the door and his eyes scanning the patterned concrete – elements of flint or some such –
the men were discussing the removal of a member of an Episcopal council – they were trying to get the person voted off at forthcoming elections and were planning to use incriminating evidence to advance this aim –
the well of souls – do not touch –
Dutch Church, Austin Friars - a tiny arcane artery in the city close by Liverpool Street; one of those places where time travel is possible – believe me – you’ll know if you’ve been – there The Hatchet Man was taking a chance to find some peace - he prayed in the main house then went to the gents lavatory in preparation for his next appointment: a job interview, third floor Campaign House – he went into one of the stone cubicles and shut the heavy wooden door – a silence – he pissed freely – then realized someone else, two people in fact, had entered and were talking without knowledge of his presence – Dutch accents of course, interspersed with English – one deep, the other fast and nervous – The Hatchet Man imagined thick spectacles and he would have been right – he remained as quiet as possible, his fingertips touching the door and his eyes scanning the patterned concrete – elements of flint or some such –
the men were discussing the removal of a member of an Episcopal council – they were trying to get the person voted off at forthcoming elections and were planning to use incriminating evidence to advance this aim –
the well of souls – do not touch –
Monday, April 03, 2006
she rose from her seat on the underground and left a small rectangular label on the floor – it was charcoal grey with a bright yellow section upon which was an infinitesimal amount of tiny writing – it was her soul given form – lost property did not know what to do with it – the soul ticket shouted, cried, laughed, sang, and whispered incessantly when they placed it on the shelf amid the other lost articles (a set of propelling pencils; a small blue rucksack; a German translation of the Da Vinci Code; a set of instructions on how to reach Mudchute) – the workers hoped the label would be claimed soon – that a graying body would realize it’s soul was missing and would, like a homing pigeon, seek its inner self out and come and ring the bell -
Saturday, April 01, 2006
ECHO 1/4/06
across the Thames the view opens – here, standing on a bridge across the Ravensbourne tributary, the sun is out; a bright, early Spring day – yet over on the north side a dark front is speeding in, storm clouds threatening – but rising, amid it all, a cluster of white birds (possibly pigeons, racing not feral; or else gulls behaving oddly in the charged ions) twists and turns collectively, disappearing behind a riverside development to appear again and repeat the action on the other side. They are so brightly lit, caught in the remaining shafts of sunlight that they appear almost illuminated from within, visually amplified, set off by the grim darkness beyond –
hearing the speeches – the face of Maggie marked on the docklands forever – a young boy growing up in her shadow and all his friendly landmarks disappearing as the yuppies rush in to buy – each foundation marked, the teeth of the giant skull, the lindworm moving beneath; it’s harsh medieval breath, stale and full of contempt – puckering up to history, giving birth to the dynasties to come in her name (Tony) – lapping the tide with lazarite tongues over and again – strike, strike! – quoting, rewriting, re-quoting: ‘the battle between the extremists and the rest’ 1984 – 2006 - for 22 years – hunting the enemy within, always afraid that someone else might know more then they do, debunk their myths, their salutations, their rituals -
across the Thames the view opens – here, standing on a bridge across the Ravensbourne tributary, the sun is out; a bright, early Spring day – yet over on the north side a dark front is speeding in, storm clouds threatening – but rising, amid it all, a cluster of white birds (possibly pigeons, racing not feral; or else gulls behaving oddly in the charged ions) twists and turns collectively, disappearing behind a riverside development to appear again and repeat the action on the other side. They are so brightly lit, caught in the remaining shafts of sunlight that they appear almost illuminated from within, visually amplified, set off by the grim darkness beyond –
hearing the speeches – the face of Maggie marked on the docklands forever – a young boy growing up in her shadow and all his friendly landmarks disappearing as the yuppies rush in to buy – each foundation marked, the teeth of the giant skull, the lindworm moving beneath; it’s harsh medieval breath, stale and full of contempt – puckering up to history, giving birth to the dynasties to come in her name (Tony) – lapping the tide with lazarite tongues over and again – strike, strike! – quoting, rewriting, re-quoting: ‘the battle between the extremists and the rest’ 1984 – 2006 - for 22 years – hunting the enemy within, always afraid that someone else might know more then they do, debunk their myths, their salutations, their rituals -
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