Light spilling as if through a robust multi-faceted diamond up up from the racetrack reach of Hackney Marshes; the colour of dusky persimmons - & then some in London in a window display -

Umbria: end of season colours raking olives; a place retreating into itself; the cry of a green woodpecker and the smell of pine smoke; persimmon fruit (again!) heavy fallen on theit low bushes, carcasses burst open now to spread seed and feed the sparrows; everywhere you look there are the sombre browns and mute greys of Autumn broken here and there by the eclipsing golden shimmer of some variety of tree that I don't know but writes itself large in the conciousness of the day, everywhere, like beacons brooding in the shade -

In the cemetary - All Souls Day, Day Of The Dead - people have come from far and wide to the solid state of the lined tombs and the dark cypress walls - a Bernard Hermann chord 'Clare de Lune' gently reverberates back and forth between them from the prophetic pathway to the far inclement wall and to where, on the right hand side, a large aviary stands, netted to stop the birds within from ever getting away. A raucous cacophany of diverse song matches the Hermann score: high-pitched squeaks and trills; fleeting, throaty utterances. Yet all the birds remain unseen. They are as ghostly as the lives celebrated within the sacred boundary -

Here we can see Carnevale and Pablo gauging the grief of others against their own; experientially at least. A scarf each to keep their throats warm. Mentally operating on the clues to either one of the deaths they shall both consider over and over again. Aware of the inordinate sanctuary of grief and the literal insanity they are feeling. Sharing that. In similar latitudes though far apart, the biting statement of coming winter and the ironically loquacious colours of it are both a mirror to the living and an essence of those gone: limbo indicators, extraordinary in sunlight, fervidly grim when overcast -

I'm thinking only of that diamond -

Castiglione del Lago, Italy

0.06 am

the night shrugs off what silence it had procured minutes ago;

the street edge shifts; it's noises are relevant ice to sleep:

hollow woody sighs beneath tyres thrown back by tenements;
globules of wax and oil no longer resist their fall and

make their way from flat roof to ear,

roads fizzing, cool, wet;
a delivery boy creaks homeward on a moped the size of a matchbox;

there is nothing awkward about his age;

only sleep can deter his winning streak, placate his tough losses.
meantime, all is as was -

sharp sounds and brief liquid suggestions - faintly macabre;

hanging in the air; as jet: impenetrable, dark

Battersea 20/10/07

The alabster face of Maggie T in Guildhall - heavyweight marble statue of Thatcher presiding over all royalty, in there among the gowned historical portraits, more substance to her memory than all the other, still the ego moves - look at you; the rift made corporeal in stone, the stare of disastrous self-belief - wrap her up in clinging PVC, stick her with safety pins and a million hard questions - someone mentions 'gonzo' and you run in your glass coffin Maggie, don't you? -

and Queen Victoria Beckham is equally deluded by self-illusion - yet she doesn't really exist anymore and in that realisation has also begun to fall apart, a process of discovery -

street urchins at the window watch as it happens -

I wonder if two illusions make a harsh reality?

but (lesson to be learned) the city and the times are brutal - brutal light, brutal alleyways defined by yet more broken glass and idiot subterfuge; haste, ignorance, the grotesque: literally faceless men advertising suits, bizarre (is it meant to be post-mod irony?)

A notion in a book cover, a notion of peace, rises up through the audacity of it all, an exemplar of honesty -

Tailgaters try to make jokes of their actions, but in the end are always and only the worst kind of fools -

Ricochet debutantes and etiquette graduates turn the heads of the accountants amid the frayed activity of Devonshire Square, the streams of stepping, the readily abused time and motion of it all.

The wherewithal of liars.

You walk home in the middle of the night from it all without your shoes, you left them in a bar somewhere near Liverpool Street, drunk to fuck, with the noise of bully boys and serenaders mixed up in you and you keep repeating that the London Dungeon has a hilarious answerphone message, try it and see -

Guildhall, 17th October 2007

EC2

Hanging cats of the city, prevaricators of the weekend, groundhogs, sleazy suited groundhogs whose pink and blue pastel shirts and Gieves & Hawkes manicured presences are everywhere tonight, wavering before the threat of the weekend – Friday is their desolation day and it will be drowned in ale – welcome to the measure dome – the streets are full of talking in riddles and the bottom of the glass will ne’er come too soon, Felix, ready for another – upon which they shall ridicule the radical, standing on the week’s last hilt and seeing how deep the blade of it will go, stockbroker’s metaphorical suicide – the throng heaves a sigh of collective relief, devouring the high standard of Leadenhall and Axe, the banners, the caustic joust of architecture just there – and they are sweating blood money and relishing deep down deviant behaviour that they’ll never be a part of – that’s the way the City echo falls, fat echo, rounded echo, echo of the drunk – there’s one: pig-eyed nausea at Monument, unsure if he’s on the market floor and waving for stock or hailing a cab, swaying in the mystic wind of Axe, listening for a pin to drop, attempting to divine salary and hoping upon hope for his dusty frisson of lust with Rebecca perhaps (if she ever returns the call), she’s a peach (I jest but only just) – the infinity ward, the ever rolling static of the City of L on a Friday evening, the clocks still rolling for time-bombs and the ancient city’s behemoth waking slowly beneath the cobble stones and chrome crossroads – all second-hand rumour and bleeding heart agony is spilling from suit sleeves, the fear/ache of loneliness at the back of the mind whispers, knowledge of irredeemable time passing in routine upon routine, out into the street, following the drainage path of the old Fleet, along gutters and into drains, between cobble stones, rippling at Leadenhall and through Bevis Mount – by the end of the night one figure has staggered all the way to Southwark Bridge and is spasmodically thrusting arms and legs out into the air, his suit amazingly unruffled, head already sore and he’s hoping upon hope that tomorrow is Monday for fear that he may have to wake up to himself if it’s not -

crawling back to guitar licks, some bastard flood soaks me with gutter water, fine time - onlooking details break into laughter - chrome gargoyles and the like

bullishit is always bullshit, even when it's dressed up as a compliment

smell of citrus on a bus like calm before blue shade

West London Fix

Colonel Ivanov is placing his reflection carefully in the river at Albert Bridge. Someone has brought him back and he has no idea who or why. One minute he was sleeping, perhaps dead, in a quiet place near Kiev, the next he was smoking a cigar and bracing himself against London's October rain. Sweet, forlorn Mandy still sings in his memory. Mr. Stephen is painting canvasses, fending off and ignoring the inevitable conclusion of his pecadilloes - arrest, charge, imprisonment. The mews are quieter now than they were twenty years ago.
Funny thing - Ivanov realises he hasn't aged.
Blessed, lucky. Is Uncle Joe watching over him? Everything, they say, is to be continued.
This is Ivanov's chance then to be seduced by the city once again.
The common glow of gold on the Thames. The careening - what's that? - green parakeets in the treetops. They weren't here before, not then, not in the view from the Rolls or the hired Bentley.
And the short, rumbling regeneration of the rails.
To be continued then . . .

We Are All Janis Joplin

C is drinking rum - intravenously
S is crossing the sea of lust - one way ticket
K knows the days are getting shorter but (go figure) the sun is getting brighter
J is over the guitar player but not his plimsoll's - they rock
N has an envelope that contains just a splinter of moondust
D is living noir
P says diamonds and mirrors are the best illusions a freak can buy
G knows hunger is not a state of mind
R is marching - history is the best defence

GISELLE’S HARVEST (for Pol & Tracey B)

The town was mid siesta; all the shutters on the houses were closed to keep the inhabitants cool whilst the sun was strongest, bearing down on rock and roof alike, blistering paint and bleaching bone. Giselle, her radio mumbling in the background, sat on her bed in front of the mirror scrutinizing her hair. As required by her veneration it had grown untouched for two years and was now so long and thick it covered her head and shoulders like a black mane, reaching beyond the base of her spine and hiding her pretty almond features. On a hot day such as this her scalp itched and needled constantly whilst perspiration gathered on her back making her clothes damp and uncomfortable. Worst of all she felt her youth slipping away beneath it and this made her ache inside.

If only the Citrus Blight had never come.

Three years ago it attacked the lemon and orange trees surrounding the town. The fruits shrivelled and blackened, and the groves would drone infernally day after day as swarms of frenzied wasps and flies gorged on the nectar dripping from the ragged pulp. The crop was ruined, and with it the local economy and the small town’s sublime spirit. However, the following spring, as everyone gloomily awaited the return of the Blight, Giselle won the Venus Beauty Pageant in Sabina, the judges awed by her flawless hair. As her townspeople celebrated they told her not to touch a single tress:

‘Let it grow, Giselle,’ they said, almost singing to her, ‘let it grow.’

Soon after, the first fruits appeared in the groves with no return of the Blight and the town enjoyed the best harvest on record. Some said it was a miracle and talked of Giselle’s increasingly abundant locks as their own divine symbol of fertility, even making the sign of the cross before her in the street. As time passed this faith deepened until the town believed the Blight would return if anything were ever to spoil Giselle’s particular beauty – they had to protect it, no matter what. So, to make certain, the townspeople called upon Father Villiers to anoint Giselle ‘Patron Saint of the Groves’ which he did with earnest ceremony, and Giselle had dutifully accepted, not realising the sacrifices she would have to make.

Now, however, nothing would change her mind: it was coming off, all of it.

She closed the shutters in her room and positioned her mirror to catch the sunrays slipping through the slats. Her hands shook with anticipation as she loosened her hair and it unravelled like a rolling shroud. She picked up the steel scissors, heavier than she remembered, and made the first tentative snip; nothing more than the merest strand, but it sat there like a gash in the palm of her hand.

Was that a noise in the hall? She caught her breath and froze, listening intently, terrified that she might be discovered. But nothing moved, only the airless sound of the mid-afternoon heat warping the door jamb. She grasped a tress above her left temple, took a deep breath, and cut it sharply. Her hand came away clutching the severance, like a horse’s tail protruding from her fist. The dramatic change in length shocked her but determination urged her on and she set about the rest, leaving just a little length all over. When she was finished there were cuttings everywhere: on the bed, in her lap, spilling across the floor. Her head felt so light she thought it might slip the bond with her neck and float away. It was a wonderful feeling. She tipped it and turned it this way and that, barely recognising herself in the mirror.

Next she gathered the cuttings into bunches and tied each at one end with cotton; she took her colander, turned it upside down and pushed the bound ends through the holes until she’d made a perfect hairy crown that remained, as she’d hoped, oddly alive.

Evening had turned to dusk and she could hear the cicadas singing.

She put on the straw-coloured frock she rarely wore, took her emergency money from beneath the bed and put it with the crown into her canvas satchel. Then, having switched off her radio and said goodbye to her room, stepped nervously out into the street and headed straight for the groves. She made her way through the scented avenues until she came to the very centre. There, in the shadow of a voluptuous lemon tree, stood an unusual scarecrow. It was the image of her in every way yet bald as an egg. Giselle was scared, but as she approached it the scarecrow appeared to wink at her knowingly, urging her to finish what she’d begun. She took the crown from the bag; the mass of locks trailing to the earth appeared to sit up in response as she put it delicately on the smooth pate of her avatar, and as she did Giselle felt her heart change shape and mass; no longer a leaden thing full of responsibility and duty, but a lithe organ beating now at its own youthful pace.

On her way out of town she passed the café where Fausto the fruit-picker always sat after a day’s work, ready to bless his Patron Saint openly whenever he caught sight of her. He was smoking his Royale cigarettes and sipping rum. Fausto looked up as Giselle approached and her restored heart beat so loudly she thought it would give her away; but he simply doffed his cap as he would to any stranger and politely said:

‘Evenin’, miss.’

‘Evening, sir,’ she replied.

‘Are you a little lost, miss?’ Fausto asked, gesturing at the quiet street.

‘Oh, no,’ Giselle smiled cheekily, ‘bless you, but I know exactly where I’m going.’

12/9/07

PARKLIFE - The view from St Jude’s –

You have, of course, your dog walkers making their way through the lower reaches of the Park – they vary in approach. Some are very brisk and perfunctory with their animales; this is not a leisure activity for them but a chore. If the dog strays from the footpath seeking out smells and interesting places, the owner will conspire against it to immediately rein them back in. No fun, my babe, no fun. Others are embarrassed of their pet (or themselves, unclear which really); slouching in the shadows of the tree line, they’d rather not let anyone know which dog is theirs, and when it is time to retrieve it they slink up close to it at the park gates and quickly, covertly attach the lead and drag the thing away along the street, head down.

By evening there are more joggers than trees.
Parakeets whine and chatter as they sail across the gaps.

The nether corners, close to the vicarage, however, are gateways to another world. Something much darker, lonely, and desperate. These are the junkie hideaways, where the bushes and trees just about give cover from the nearby footpath and the playing areas, tucked in behind the ivy and the tree trunks. Early morning you’ll find them there sucking on pipes, or standing around with a white syringe hanging out of a forearm, a livid and focussed attack. Two groups, different times, but not so long apart. The first group is three jubilant men in baseball caps, open shirts, carrying plastic bags stuffed full of clothes perhaps, other items. Street/squat men, all in their late twenties/thirties, lightly bearded Hispanics. They are borderline. They plump for a space behind the wide bole of a plane tree. Begin their routine, individual and unsightly. Yet they do not seem abashed. Needy, aye. Not abashed or embarrassed; but then I assume they have no choice. One of them half drops his trousers and kecks, semi squats, his arse exposed to the shadows, the green shadows, and he finds a vein near his dick (or maybe in it?) and shoots up there. He cannot move, even though his friends have become insecure and walked away aware that they have only so many minutes grace before someone spots them. The have no idea I can see them from the house. Later, I spot the half-nudist on the main road having just bought himself a can of beer and poking through a litter to pull out a discarded newspaper. For a junkie he is surprisingly portly, though his flesh beneath the wiry beard is yellow/grey, thinning on his cheekbones.

Later, on the opposite side of the house but still down in the cloaked nooks, a couple arrive with a white Staffordshire bull terrier. The woman is in a forlorn white tracksuit top, wears pigtails in her hair, close on 40. The man is tall, wears a pale denim shirt and a kind of knitted waistcoat, intellectual glasses, shaved head and very tanned. He is nervous, she doesn’t give a toss. Even though they can see me in my study, she squats straight down and begins to bake the brown, her arse crack (what is it with these folks, are they actually secret exhibitionists?) given back to me when she turns her back and bends down, is she telling me to ‘kiss my arse’ without needing to voice it? Clouds of blue smoke. The dog sniffing around the works. The man on point, watching, furtive. The Staff has bright pink testicles that hang low and heavy, and swing as it moves and sniffs around head down. Eventually, the woman rises, leaving scarred tin-foil on the ground and she calls to dog ‘Jasper, Jasper’ then wanders off with it while two-bit Charlie is left behind to see to himself with a spike. He taps up a vein and shoots the stuff home.


Brockwell Park, London

BAD CARPETS AND LOLLYPOP STICKS

Loughborough, like a bedraggled and mangy fox, looms up along its arterial roads and then almost disappears out where the university campus starts; end of the world. Alarms are ringing on the high street but there’s nobody around; perhaps they are ringing because they crave attention? Somebody. Anybody?

On the other side of town our destination rises. The smoke sickened Quality Hotel nestles in its own swamp of cohorts: truckers and their beer-bellied assistants, terrorist suspects, artificially inseminated housewives longing for the pool to open up so they can drown their sorrows (except the pool automatically locks at 8pm and no-one can get in – perhaps for that very reason: to keep the suicide numbers down). In fact, they should consider renaming it The Suicide Hotel – tag line: Everything comes with a price –

Then out to brave the long walk to the bedroom: the desolate corridors, the paper thin carpet held together with black gaffer tape and hope, littered with lollipop sticks and Bernard Manning humour behind an arched hand (nudge nudge). You know it’s going to be bad when the room numbers start at 101 and it’s the first room to greet you in the opening passageway. Silence behind the peeling door.

My room is the kind of place you’ve seen in photos where the ‘suicidee’ is spread out on crumpled sheets, the walls cramping in, the bottle of pills to hand, the TV still on and the steady drip of the drains outside the window adding some symbolic detail, whilst unbeknownst to you the viewer the lamp shades are thick with dirt and the bathroom has unidentifiable matter growing on the walls and in the grouting spelling out the name of the recently departed – the tonal beige of the décor (apart from the bauxite carpet and faux parisienne curtains) is enough to drive even the sanest person wild with depression – you can’t even get a signal for a mobile phone adding ever more credence to the impression that this is all a proto-communist nightmare – the heaving breath of relief of the newly departed in the morning must be like a scirocco coming in off the forecourt to the puzzlement of those just entering, staring back over their shoulders like blinded rabbits unaware of the sentence to come, yet wondering what if this is it? The pool table greets them just inside the foyer, as it did me, surrounded by shaven-headed men in t-shirts two sizes too tight, beer bellies peeking out iridescent, crepuscular from beneath them, and lank-haired young gofers intent on the older men’s every words and snatch at the pool balls. The air around them reeks of guff, kebab and lager and some reverse pretension at total ignorance, total stupidity. They remain as noisy as they possibly can; a caterwaul to greet newcomers, buffoons to the bitter end surrounded by mock mahogany and recently upholstered 1970’s furniture – if it wasn’t for the Quiz Night machine and the Link cash dispenser stood like droids in the middle of the room, then the scene would be almost timeless, the 3 day week and the Common Market on the lips of everyone here – though I suspect there’s a few with rellies in Iraq which would give time a jolt to untrained ears.

Jackie the receptionist seems at a loss – taken by surprised (suspicious?) when new guests arrive (maybe its one huge ‘happy’ family in here? A cult of 21^st century lounge lizards and barflies?) – I am booked in under Ms. Belerine which is mildly entertaining, but what is more amusing is the look of shock in the young woman’s eyes when she tries desperately to use her booking computer, she goes to pieces and flaps and faffs with sheaves of registration paper and plastic key cards – it’s a mesmerising ballet of inefficiency - the stumbling dumb checkout girl brought up into the world of the ‘glamorous’ hotelier by her fuck and chuck boss thanks to her flashy tits, stuck here for eternity, wanting and waiting for Mr Right to walk in and claim his reservation on her heart –

The soap is petrified in the bathroom, crumbles to the touch – a long hair (not mine) trails across a tile on the wall of the bathroom like a clue or signpost to some disposable tryst, a fracture in the equilibrium of a taxi driver or corporate middle-manager’s twelve year marriage – the ennui of the rain, don’t forget – the prison quadrangle, the aphid-addled rose-bed, the footie frown and the silent chant of the forgotten locked in their hotel rooms having never tasted quality – welcome to Loughborough, welcome to beyond the back of beyond . . . listen and you’ll hear the screams . . . .

Loughborough 10/7/07

Steel dog sidings, limpet true, alone
The gutters weep second-hand oil as the sun goes quiet
(All noises accommodated beforehand),
This must be Coventry; or anywhere north of Milton Keynes
To a radius of 100 miles – the fetters are off;
The beast emerges now, its head heavy,
Sworn by calumny and rust-radiating features
Of industry’s shit-end, the residue, the unused and the un-useful,
The dry whisper of the firm’s ghost
- what power you had once, laddie, what power once had before –
The shadow is cast well, in the bauxite and clinker
As well cast as the stern body, the knotted rivet ribcage,
The sweet blood of hydraulic presumption

Awaiting orders from the master, one day

One day after laughter, whisky, divorce, boredom
The anticipation is the dog’s fuel, the pining energy in
Sockets and fissures; the greased groove, cog and
(Maybe this is its tin-can name) sprocket; as in:
Fetch Sprocket, Cum-ere Sprocket, Stay Sprocket.
Trains come in to the platform, kids whistle for biscuits or glue
Depending on their appetite; none are willing to give over
A moment for the steel pet, to the risk out by the slag.

- - - - - -

Poppy nearby is sweet red singular
A miracle cornered by patio slabs
Proud over and over, it has the name
Of a remarkable woman upon it
A great grandmother, a grandmother,
A mother, and a wife

- - - - - -

The TB sanatorium, Isle of Wight 1938; small bathing huts and beach chalets given over to the patients, a kind of wilderness ward, with a couple of inches of rain water on the floor and rats running around at night beneath the bed – many died there, women and children among them – she saw many go, watching their spirits fade gazing out to sea, where the air was meant to put them right

What of the sullied indifference to piers -
Rabid young gamblers two pennies at a time on the roulette, thumbs itching -
Bandana bandit carries his two-guns into the future, firing from the hip at the vid-screen all the way whilst talking to himself a running commentary on the death-dealing beauty of it all -
Outside it rains on: silver sheen wooden slats of Queen Victoria's penchant for never getting her feet wet, the fishing rods limp in the Bank Holiday downpour at the end of the pier -
It's always the bright cocoon of the arcade that wins after all, anecdotes and nostalgia resounding in the rust of variety entertainment and the flaky paint -
Spaniards lost in the rain (looking for stolen doubloons?) -
The damp fury of Beachy Head where cars stall and graduates tramp up the hill to the lighthouse with sorry umbrellas and canvas shoes that will rot in the wet -

Eastbourne 27/5/07

Hammersmith, London
Avebury, Wiltshire

He prepares the ticket, tearing it down the middle then folding each half into two inverted ‘V’s, slightly stretched out of shape. With soft precision he places them edge to edge on the small ‘Stop’ button ridge so that they form a sharp ‘M’ there. The vibrations of the bus cause them to separate and so, with the tip of his forefinger, he pushes them back together trying to maintain their shape; a quiet smile to himself when he succeeds. If they fall then he catches them in his open palm waiting there below, almost cursing the driver out loud for unwittingly despoiling his creation. He derives satisfaction from the company of paper. Gradually he is turning into parchment. His skin, his hair fibres; the ink of his life sketched out again and again, over and over, there until the self is almost indecipherable.

Sheffield

The more dangerous the pathways round here, broken glass, shattered metals of infinite variety, the more one must learn that old sufi trick of walking on hot coals just to traverse this goddamned city. For it seems a cult of broken glass, of dangerous litter strewn on the pavements and walkways is becoming prevalent. You’re lucky if you dodge the shitty boys in their small loud groups and cars, beating-wagons they call them, with their peculiar screams and chants trying to scare wolves; their diesel fume breath and arses leaking oil, heavy on the brakes Eugene –

Monday mothballs and Bensons at the bus-stop –

‘You’re kidding me. You’re not really Italians are you?’
‘We’re not kidding. No.’
‘Just look at their surnames Frank.’
‘Sorry, I only bore holes in the ground. Didn’t mean to comment on your backgrounds. Just that you were so convincing that’s all.’

The Dancing Horses

There it is again: that dog barking late at night the only sound you hear – hollow; its cold agony resident at the back door of its possibly deaf or simply ignorant master. With it comes the pauce ring of Sunday night.

A city of broken glass, shattered windows and broken bus stops leaving mounds of the glittering stuff in the path of pedestrians and traffic; great gobs of it now opaque where it rests, like untouchable ice; the result of some sledgehammer team wending their way from the north of the city through to the south and on the way taking out random objects to leave a trail of this. Their last hope at recognition as the wind starts to pick up.

Like i said, the Dancing Horses, bring 'em on:
There is this woman in her late twenties, striving for some sense of normality now – for example, she knows she wants a child – her husband, the epitome of the new urban rock-star (half geek, a dose of rat-arsed punk, and the overdose of a 60s West Coast guitarist), he is having none of it and in public will remind all of this, baulking there to her chagrin. Her trained classical leading edge is drawn to form and the simplicity of a certain pace in things, the correct unfolding, a tempo to life that has purpose, realisation. On the other hand, he is drawn to pubescent narcissism still, the finality of rock and all it’s self-centred excesses; the closer he gets to success, the more he digs in his Cuban heels. Where is their marriage going?

Forgive me the discrepancies, forgive me my ignorance and vanity, but what else am i meant to do with this stuff - gimme an ancient and well-worn T-shirt and let me roll, anyday -

Sheffield

Sheffield - March 07

FOR MY ZIA RITA

When I look at one of the last photos I have of her, the deep lines around the mouth, the mild, sallow complexion, I am always aware that this is, was, an ailing soul. And her hoarse breath rattling in her throat, in attempts to catch it, I hear as, for example, she walked me up the hill toward Ampere’s Tower or clambered inside the statue of Borromeo’s monument. Her long, slow stride so recently supporting her semi-paralysed body. All of which should portray a woman ten or fifteen years older than she was.

Some might say it was the war that took her eventually, and they might be correct. Born into a country of immense poverty and depredation, her child’s lungs succumbing so early to disease that in later life would take one of them away. The war’s effects and residue running a singular course up to now, today, sixty three years hence.

But, returning to that photo, it is her eyes that give away the truth of my wonderful Italian aunt. The temperament of faith, knowledge, wisdom. And her forbearance of suffering with humour and dignity. They are dark, almost black eyes, perhaps a certain jewel, but most fervently alive and aware. Watching, absorbing the circumstance of the family gathering around her in the lakeside restaurant. And I’m certain hiding any pain or discomfort for the benefit of those she loved. Her tales filled with characters that may well have been archetypes of her own soul: the thinker, the priest – good people rewarded with dignity.

The sound of bombs; the alacrity of boiling water on a stove, seething ready for pasta.

I hear her deep voice, and her hand upon my face cherishing my existence, believing in me without saying a word. Laughing, even in our lacking tongue – my faltering Italian, her stubbornly pigeon English. Or perhaps we are up at the ‘orrido’, watching the cascades of water coming down from the mount above as she tells me tales, small legends – born of truth - that even she has never got to the bottom of.

Laughter commonly around a table with a healthy serving of food and her patient, lidded eyes watching with contentment. The methodical measure of a stovetop coffee percolator beginning to bubble through.

Then, here, the snow falls. Uncorrupted when I wake before sunrise, there is a gift in the day. The slip-back light gathering. Something about it that maintains her dignity despite the details of the forthcoming tests and examination of her final corporeality. By the time the snow has gone, melted in a few days, I hope she too will have been put to rest.

7/2/07

Marcel Proust got ill and stayed in bed all day writing – if he lived on the Kelvin Estate in Sheffield would he have done the same? If he did he would have missed the sun going down, spitting fury light on it’s idiot façade – the concrete crannies and featureless glazing almost cowering in the glare – the placement so close to town is a miracle of modern fool’s planning: row upon row of sorry details. And yet something about it is glorious, some sorry beauty in the twilight. A Kelvin? Isn’t that a method of measuring temperature? Hell, high waste.

Cumbria - 2

Cumbria - 1

Last full day in Keswick – memories/nostalgias:
Sand martins nesting in Portinscale – whole family cycle: arrival, mating, hatching, growth and furious feeding, fledging, new flight, the air filled then with over twice the amount of birds that came, then their departure one day just gone, empty nest holes, the air calm and quiet –
Pol on stage in After Miss Julie, letting a different aspect shine through – the quiet, calm performance filled with far more mystery and tantalising charm than she is normally required to muster – her high point, bravura performances in Private Lives and Loot, shining, full of feverish comic energy, unstoppable –
Ospreys fishing and first seen among the onlookers at Dodd over Bassenthwaite Lake, the rapid commentary of shared sighting there and then, tears in my eyes at the beauty of the birds and the shared experience of strangers captivated by nature –
Sitting in the incessant heat this summer gone, under the dense maples at Green Gables, watching the Robins move for worms, listening to the tree-tops, aware of the chameleon face of Cat Bells across the lake altering moment to moment with the rush of light or moving clouds, my body and fingers aching from the shearing of a Yew Tree, paring it back to it’s cleared trunk and then up into the foliage, bringing it back to life –
Goosanders and a dipper so near at hand –
Being woken in the middle of the night by the flood warning and having to rise and move the car and discovering that half of Keswick was awake, battening up doorways, laying sandbags, saying hello to each other in the full knowledge of the potential shared difficulty ahead, and listening out for the tell tale rush of water, through the constant wind, expecting to wake up in a puddle –
Discovering Loweswater, walking it’s banks –
Red Squirrels at Whinfell in the cold, clear winter mornings –
Driving up over Uldale heading straight west into the brightest, descending winter sun, almost blind on a straight road through the wilderness, the entire sweep of the Solway Firth over to my right –
Workington – it’s glory almost anathema to itself –
The constant, beating sigh of rain on the roof –
The tree in Penrith, in the town centre, full of Pied Wagtails flitting here and there, chattering away, hundreds of them coming and going, congregating, like nothing I’ve ever seen them do before -

The desire to win – is it so bad? To have the thrill of potential there, the knowledge that you have achieved something great for a while. And why is it that some are dubious of that? Seem shocked if you profess to that desire?

The howling wind and the rain swirling in night-time vortices along the hard road home, beating wings, thrumming from the major key – all sent to test tired eyes and wary hearts. A more quintessential Cumbrian night you couldn’t have asked for. Leaving the warm hearth behind, well the last dying embers at least, a dark marble fire. Crashing through the aquaplanes, stumbling on headlong, the brief flash of a haunted owl above the road.

One flame. One question. The deliberations of a mind. Nothing resolved. But then perhaps that is how it should be?

- - - - - -

Another nightmare – horrific tale of paranoia and violence in similar circumstances to the one described earlier. Some post- or pre- apocalyptic world, peopled with a pseudo-police force/militia called Nex run by a man looking like Gene Hackman (!?). Nex is closer to the Flying Squad of the ‘70s, more gangster than legal charger and they deal in repression of ‘subversives, immigrants’ etc – the usual rote of motive. Nex are chasing me and two friends – a young tourettes inspired lad with bleached hair and a baseball cap (not Pete from Big Brother surely?) and a woman of similar age with a striking pale face and long, dark hair - through some factory/warehouse location. It is night. We have managed to find a refuge in a familiar part of the factory. The Nex henchmen are trying all the doors to get in but finding they are locked from the inside they rattle and beat them with sticks and boot kicks. A young Asian kid comes up to us, he knows the factory, maybe it was him who let us in, and offers to take the woman’s baby to safety – so she has a baby hidden under her clothes, a silent creature tied into a makeshift papoose, warm and safe. The woman agrees, knowing that it would be for the best if Nex actually find us. She hands her treasure over and the Asian kid – let’s call him Rav - promises to look after her. Nex boss (let’s call him Hackman for now) arrives on the scene, stands outside looking at the facia of the factory, sucking in the details, playing his eyes for clues until he spots movement: a tiny shaft of shadow moving over rhythmically, a hand or, even smaller, a finger playing nervously against a knee. It is Pete’s energy unable to halt, something has to move otherwise he’ll bark out a word. The stress, the agony.

Nex swing into action from a nod by Hackman, pincering the door off it’s hinges quietly – no smash and grab, no giveaway. Nex find Rav first, crawling silently over crates with the baby strapped to his back. Rav frozen in torchlight. Rav getting up to run but his legs taken out by a rugby tackle. Rav lifted up from the ground, legs flailing like a lost insect. He’s only a kid. Thrown outside with the garbage. Hackman stands him up then aims a swift flying kick and the baby crashes out of the papoose onto the cold, hard concrete. It doesn’t take much to know death is instant.

The Nex henchmen find the three of us cowering. We are lined up sobbing.

They have a go at Pete first.

Uldale - Cumbria, Jan 07

Pol in Uldale - Cumbria Jan 07

The sun is barely making it’s way over the fells, still dark below and hard to make out the details of the river curve, the marginal sand-bags left over from the flood warning, the hidden crown of Skiddaw – there are some folk about gently making their way into church, passing time on the wet pavement glistening in the streetlamps like the skin of a mollusc when the lonely figure shuffles across the road, clutching a copy of the Sunday Sport, some eggs and a pint of milk. His complete bald head so pale it shines in a similar manner to the wet ground upon which he walks, temper clean, some washed deity springing forth atop his shoulders. His oversized pyjama trousers flap studious in the wind, sticking to his shins, calcified there by age – armour, shell, you name it, they’re never known to come off; and above, his short sheepskin jacket bulbous from chubby waist up. As he walks he ferrets his eyes all over: the church front, me standing waiting for my early lift to work, the gathering congregation. When he spots them he stops, holds back from getting too close, mouthing and mothering under his breath but still audible, like the odd mewling of a young otter. When he knows he is alone again he moves, hugging the blue shadows, walking beneath trees like a latter day Quasimodo or Uncle Fester. Homeward, to close the door before the world has truly woken.

Eyes in Carlisle that may follow you; eyes of the lads keeping check on difference, sussing you out, sniffing your soul for what? Who knows?
Who is more paranoid – them or me?

The brightness of Caldbeck, sweet Caldbeck and Uldale - high up where the sunlight is raw and the entirety of Solway can be mapped out below; the straight road over, still Roman marked, blisters in its exposed seat here. The joke is with the Crows, high-butting the wind full on. No escape. Whistling.