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Where does a story start? Where does a story end? Such questions — friend, are only to be answered by the one who weaves all stories, who unweaves them as we dream and if I told you I’m this weaver, would you ask me who wove me? |
The Where and the When
Dear reader, we meet
in a time and a place,
but the Where and the When of these—
nary a trace,
for location, by convention
is described by the eye;
but tonight, being gifted
a Stygian sky,
we’re barred access to heaven —
its sources of light;
and without heaven’s halo,
where its gift of sight?
We turn from the sky
searching closer to home for
enlightenment but
again we find none:
no candles to illumine this book and its verses
no bonfires huddled by folks spitting curses
no sentinel streetlights abuzz with their humming
Let us give up the search
for no help is forthcoming.
What then? —
Our focus must shift
from the Where to the When —
And though ever sensate
of the passing of time
we’ve no point of reference
to anchor time’s line,
to anchor our hearts
to their time-bound beating
Is there no Where or When
to our very first meeting?
But soft, in this passage
details will emerge
with the widening of pupils
outlines once submerged - breach the surface
the night’s face,
(revealed of late)
consists of a palette
of charcoal
and slate
and there rising up from the murk of the sky: a tower
whose purpose is
hid from our eyes
But, our ears go a-searching
while we are sight occupied
for clues and they find these
sheltering inside:
hark!
the soft
tick
tock
of clockwork’s workings
Location: Clock-tower
Begs the question: the hour?
tick
But your face like the clock’s
being blind to all hands
must await the hour’s sounding
let
time
pour
her
sands
tock
Oh reader, while waiting
something I should mention:
I know what this night holds -
fear not, my intentions
tick
are hopefully noble (enough) and can quell
your fear
when I say the approaching death knell
tock
is not yours
not quite
well
at least
not tonight
tick
tock
tick
tock
tick
Weaver,
(if that’s your true name)
as reader, I say, “Hush!”
there’s no need to sound the hour yet
I really see no rush
Leave, for now, that last tick
hanging in the air
the tock will sound out when I want
Yes, I’ll unite the pair!
This world is mine:
this bed
these covers
this lamp
this book
and (failing parental intervention)
time
I’ll close my eyes and —
resting my ear against that tower
hear
not just its time
but that time being mine
in which it’s nested
and if I listen long enough
tock
reaching its arc’s summit
a pendulum freezes
then thaws in a flash
and a weight’s free to plummet
“Free at last!”, hear it cry
“Free am I from life’s drudges!”
But the escapement arrests it
the weight barely budges
just comes to a sudden and shuddering halt
the only freedom it owns is
the freedom of thought, but
within that last tock
the choreography of
gears, cams, and cogs,
changed its path in the clock
from the timekeeping chain
come mechanical stirrings
the meshing of movements
spawn clickings and whirrings
another weight waiting in anticipation
is unleashed like its sister to leap from its station
“Free at last”, hear it cry
“Free am I from life’s toil”
tick
but it too is arrested
chain-bound and loyal, but
its energies
turned into shivers and stammers
take a well-traveled path,
at the end: a bronze hammer
which, raising a toast
to the triumph of time,
approaches its apex
and
forgets to chime
the world holds its breath
click
but
click
fails
click
to exhale.
On Absence
A wheel for want of oil
voices complaints through its squeaks
A mute will conjure dreams in which
to power, truth it speaks
A widower sets a second setting
pours out tea and serves it cake
A child absent love will find it
in the hidden worlds they make
and this town,
knee-deep in sleep’s sand-drifts,
absent the hour of three?
Gram Wakes
and,
wondering why he woke,
waits,
listens,
hears the unhearable
Ms Kasz
conducts her unfinished
symphony, a dream
in which notes burst free
from time’s meter till
she drops the baton
and wakes to silence:
the uninked staff paper
of a night whose key
she cannot read,
and with a resting note upon her lips
sinks back to sleep
Gram’s Dad
wakes to tinnitus’ taunts
and the glow of a clock
four hours till work
it silently mocks
to see
the dashboard clock change from
2 5 9 to 3
and stares
at the backs of two heads
as fixed and immobile as headlights
and that’s how it’s been now,
for how many hours?
this journey to nowhere,
to Spit-in-the-Sea,
which is somewhere of course, but
— of course —
it’s nowhere that she wants to be
and to avoid the thinking of it
drifts back
into a second sleep
If a smattering of souls
and striking clock,
dear Weaver, are your threads,
then what is it you’re weaving here,
and really, should I care?
Reader, be patient,
Reader be true,
to reward your suffering
I’ll offer you:
The fate of three
will soon be four’s.
In the meantime,
I suggest: explore!
and return to horizontal
your hyper-extended neck
that we may trace this world’s horizons
paint its lines in
give it depth.
Those of you reading this under the sheets
being barefoot are able to sense with your feet
smooth-worn stones
bleeding the heat
from a day long gone.
But your feet, are they sure
these stones are found in
your immediate surroundings?
Well, absent a torch (or a walking stick)
The safest solution’s simple: Quick!
Take my hand.
Your tremulous digits reveal those doubts,
that linger within you - also linger without
But once more: MY INTENTION’S ARE GOOD!
Need I drag you through this neighbourhood?
The night’s showpiece draws ever near
and you being manacled by fear
have senses strung like piano strings
giving birth, giving body, to intangible things.
Raising your pace as we traverse
(you’d still be outpaced by a hearse);
what hovers at the edge of sight
growing in menace as in height:
Mad-hatted brigands wielding sticks?
A coven of witches astride broomsticks?
Fear not, the palette of the night
now enriched with anthracite—
shades in more details, and hesitant walker
the truth’s revealed: all’s bricks and mortar,
a sediment compact in this night’s water.
Reassured, you exhale relief, then
FREEZE
at the sharply hissed and sinister sound
rushing in at you from all around,
and then you give a nervous laugh,
for it was only your rebounding gasp,
which too’s returned, and though it’s you,
its shrill mutations chill you through.
Ah-ha! You move less tentatively
But still too slow,
it’s ten past three and
what I want to show is fast approaching
No more delays.
No more slow-coaching!
Whether you believe it,
or consider it mere myth
that that legendary sense: the sixth, exists
it’s a fact upon which
your
goose-bumped
prickling-haired
back
sensing as it does
the presence of another
(a what
or a
who?)
insists
With each step
the deeper darkness collects
and gathers like a wave
bears down upon the tightening harness
of fear that’s settled on your frame
it constricts movements, frees the brain
to entertain all mad suggestions,
and nag at you with troubling questions:
What, or who, will I meet?
And what, or who, do they eat?
A slavernous wolf’s muzzle
peeling back in a grin
to let you in?
Baba Yaga lying in waiting
your ears trying to unhear
her salivating?
And afterwards, my midnight sleeper,
will carrion crows peck at
your peepers?
You continue
cobble-wobblingly,
until
Your fingertips, trawling the air
establish contact,
and your hairs
stand up on end;
there’s been a pricking of your thumb:
has something wicked your way come?
This tension though’s quickly released
no carnivore at you unleashed;
a muzzle does indeed await,
but this one doesn’t salivate,
your outstretched hand being pleased no end
to trace the shape of man’s best friend,
who’ll never get to gnaw your bones,
the poor beast being carved from stone.
You crab-walk left, your hand detects
another dog: posture erect
You pause, you ponder, retrace a step
and from your arsenal, select
a sense you hitherto neglected:
that of olfaction, your nose directed
at the zone between the canine pair
where the flow of ozone-scented air
invites egress: an invitation you accept—
unknown to you,
the invite was +one: who’s two!?
peeling from the shadows at your back
another shadow, shadows you
breaches sleep’s surface
bobs on it
submerges
rolls over
emerges
slips under?
submerges?
turns over and under
and dreams—
of a leviathan
rising up from between
the Sphinxian heads of her parents;
which seems
to have swallowed
a lorry and car
Your ears (privy to info)
that your nose did not receive;
insist the whiff of salt-air did deceive
for your scuff scuff scuffing’s become
SCUFF SCUFF SCUFFING
the channel’s no channel
but a tunnel that funnels you where?
Pressing on you push on up against
a passage wall which
in complaint
starts to push back
and the natural thought
you entertain: Return from whence you came!
Is quickly dismissed,
for somethings made your heart a fist
your spine’s divined
the soundless stepping
of a who-knows-what-or-who
drawing closer to, who?
You, that’s who!
Speeding up
arms spread akimbo
fingertips grazing smooth warm stone
your shadow struggles onwards
tracing a curve of bone
What’s this wrapping soft-warm round
your ankles?
MEOW!
Reaching down,
you briefly brush
the soft black
(white, gray, cream, cinnamon, chocolate, orange, lilac-blush..?)
fur of a cat:
the incurious kind?
for it’s gone in a flash, but you —
presuming it’s a local and knows the local ins and outs
pursue the furry purrer
(by the very virtue of that sound)
and edge on towards a
widening expanse of midnight blue
infused with 3.17’s hue,
a gentle salted breeze
ruffles your hair
its susurrations promise freedom
and if not freedom
then at least
the sense of it
As the walls slip from your fingertips
and you find their’s nothing for holding
your mind seeks out the shape of this night
discovers a flower unfolding:
All sounds, now unrestrained, sing: Heed!
The air, no longer still or stifling, demands: Breathe!
meanwhile the sky freed from its gaol
has flown to greet the sea
and rests upon that formless mass;
they whisper to each other listlessly.
But this rapture’s overshadowed
by the sudden appearance of an eye
that at unknowable distance
blinks on, burns red and blood
hangs fixed and floating,
against the tarnished velvet
sea and sky.
That red eye calls
that red eye blinks
(or, does it wink?
the difference
is bigger than you think)
a
MEOW!
grounds your senses,
Where from that sound?
You stick out a toe and poke
left, right, down,
DOWN! and
topple into the night
your flight—
arrested by
(after a consultation with elbows, ankles and knees)
the stone steps on which you uncomfortably lie
Before we continue
our joint world-surveying,
May I be honest with you?
It will need more brains
than you’re displaying.
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
mind
the
gap
OW!
down
down
down
down
down
down
mind
the
cat
Miaow!
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
kiss
the
ground
Looking up, you discover
the night has been muted:
the sky recaptured
the sea’s a shell’s whisper;
your eyes tired from fighting the night
see—
monoliths,
cliffs?
whatever they are
they frame that bleeding eye.
|
burnt crumbs, butter, vanilla, yeast |
Well — by the flexing of your knees, I’m inclined to believe, that in pursuit of the light and this night’s end, we’re forced, once more, to descend; but being flanked on either side by black slabs that block out this one-watt sky, our guide must be the bloody smears the blazing eye occasionally - sends streaking up both sides, so we, the humble pilgrims blind - in stops. in starts. are forced - to pick, to poke, to stumble an approach, which means (if I am not mistaken) that where we tread has been forsaken by the street-maker for quite some time (or, was there no reason to their rhyme?) and the time it will take to prod a way: to the foot of the hill; the break of the day, is |
apple, cabbage, citrus, rocket, sprouts |
|
ink, tobacco, sugar, glue |
leather, paper, linen, wood |
|
|
dust, must, mildew, rust |
rust, dust, mildew, must |
|
|
lavender, rose, |
green tea, grains, |
|
|
cinnamon, sandalwood, cloves, |
your pillow suggests better spent getting some rest. And that murmuring pasture of sea and sky, calm- kissing your brow with its whispers and sighs - causes your curtains to fall and duvet to entomb, in protest you palm-press your lids till stars bloom - then wane - and retreat; you’re no longer alone in this street - for two foot from your feet lit with wan lunar glow stands the Sandman who’s come here to send you below: shut-eyed, he yawns and inhales, and, once having filled up his sails: starts to croon, singing swoon-some so sweet and so low, that your only response is: follow you proffer your passport, he stamps it and smiles whispers - ‘welcome to sleep, my exile’ - decays to an hourglass pile poised at sleep’s border, venturing your last step you forget, the treachery of the street-maker too late, a misstep… |
herbs, earth, |
|
bone, copper, sawdust, grease, turf |
And this pot-holed night and gradient steep, prove too hard a taskmaster for ankles and feet, that having no time to question the street, stamp a foot into nothing - a nothing that shrieks |
brine, silt, bleach, and surf |
What’s this!?
Have Hell’s gates been breached?
An ear-piercing screowl that’s an echo of madness
is followed by pale flints flailing at the night’s canvas
(superficially damaging your best pajamas)
Screech collapses to
HISS —
and, what’s this!?
From across this ill-made street arise
ill-made sounds to herald your demise?
clattering chain
unearthly panting
scrabbling claws
suppressed snarling
each intensified in the shrinking distance
swallowed up by a black mass
padding closer each instance,
freeze-framed in pulses of red light
at 8 meters remove,
I mean seven,
six,
five
are canines to rip out a chunk from this night
and snaking and scraping behind this - a chain
showing no sign of having to strain —
lucky for you, the jagged path taken
has forced you down one side of the chasm
and out of the reach of that pulsing blood light
but in the dark does a dog need its sight?
I think not! The lumberer sniffs at the night!
You skirt left in pursuit of more dark.
The beast without pause re-calibrates its path
(betrayed by your hammering heart?)
four
three
two
and the thing that you scrunched (yes, you guessed: it’s that cat)
scales your trunk, parrot-perches, hisses back
one
the beast hunkers, then tenses
and with the next flash
leaps at your face
snakk-kk, snakk-kk, snakk-kk
the links strain
the chain pings
the dog strains
the chain sings
and some drool on your cheek does attest
that this hound tried to give you its best…
With the lightness of a sparrow finding flight
The cat from your shoulder alights
Scales a vertical,
gathers in height
and the incisored mass
redoubles its efforts
from its haunches relaunches
with a most fearsome force
but again - by constraint
suffers an altering course
CRACK!
flipped like a turtle onto its back
WHACK!
Legs paw the air searching for help
YELP!
Rights itself with a twist of the spine
edges towards you with intention malign
Meanwhile, the cat’s dark-adept eyes,
scan the surroundings,
see off in the skies,
something more pressing,
and without an adieu to you
or the dog,
begins a journey -
the covering of distance
much greater than traveled till now
to be retold in this travelogue.
LUCE: THREE
Rudely awoke by a jolt, Luce
sees they’ve arrived at the port
and wait to embark,
a ferry whose light barely fends off the dark
Groggy, queasy, she asks:
Can a window be lowered?
and — after some seconds
have passed, her
father pushes a button:
down slides the glass
and smoke, sensing freedom,
queries the night
gets slapped aside
by an in-rush of
octanes and brine.
A dog-end’s evicted
the glass ascends
and Luce, now nauseous,
knows:
youth’s idyll must come to an end.
Initially, According to Legends
Our friend the
enigmatic cat: emperor crepuscular! a
flighted, darting, furry dagger: propelled by feline musculature
ground evading, gliding eastwards over peaks and troughs of slate: our
ancient fiefdom, aft-wards, falling, sloshing down the hill in waves of
broken gutters, buckling gables: which the cat leaves in its wake to
crown a chimney (airing grievances):
deftly balances: double-takes, before:
and our minds doubt
what the eyes report
a cat
teleports
displaces
Quick!
rewind the mind’s eye,
play its tape back,
play it slow,
behold AntiMcGravity the Cat’s
catapulting, heedless of
the chasmic drop below;
This cat’s endowed
with guts enough to
tightly string a bow!
Four paws eight feet
form one swift arc:
its claws unsheath
against the dark, this
flight comes to a controlled stop
the cat connects with…
…the opposing chimney pot and
poises for the splitting of a second to
acknowledge our applause
(such crowning achievements are bread and butter
for the one who wears the paws)
Our feline spills like smoke
onto the silvering slates below,
dislodging a loose fragment which -
skitters, skips and throws itself into
the night onto a graveyard of flagstones
its death throes too faint for us to hear
the fragment dies alone.
Or maybe not - for its rooftop descent
was as the brushing of a drum,
causing the attic-space’s dweller
to awaken to its thrum
rumbling of thunder
belly tremor
low-tuned bass
awaking with a gasp, Ms Kasz — through instinct —
focuses on the place where, were it not for plasterboard
and tiles, she’d meet a wise and whiskered face; each,
sensing the presence of the other, holds a breath
or holds a paw; but with the resting of the seconds,
the tension slowly thaws, and a paw is gently lowered,
Ms Kasz's eyelids follow suit — only reaching half-mast
before the cat-creeping resumes; her pricking ears hear
cat’s pads as they spinal-tap the ridge,
and in vain will try to track them
(the cats about to go off-grid)
Effortlessly counter-balanced, elegantly cool, aloof; our world-
encompassing cat escapes contemplation - by dancing off the roof, is
diverted briefly, diving between: an air-vent, a dish dappled with rust;
changing a corroded antennas orientation: the angle of a satellite adjusts;
bounding ground-wards, blithely gliding: pausing to fixate on the source, of
a far-off avian fanfare; the cat duly alters course; now
going eastwards (gliding eavesward)
dashing, furtive, daring, fleet, reaching the rooftop’s
edge, coolly elopes, climbs down into the street
and without resting flees the scene
a perfect mix of speed and grace
that the night redacts
all evidence of
dissolving every trace;
also witness to
this vanishing act
head resting on a pane
whose diopter corrects for her
absent specs, is Ms Kasz,
her eyes are trained
upon the cat,
who’s now a smudge against the grain
of this slowly failing night-time
returns to the companionship
of her threadbare counterpane
but her lips! they faintly tremble
imagining a kiss? No -
a tune has half-formed on them
for her, another kind of bliss.
Buried in the cat’s past, by it long forgotten,
are you standing tall in a vertical coffin —
the envy of no-one, it’s true —
for you’re snugly tucked up with a maniac mutt
who could rag-doll the stuffing from you.
All attempts to circumnavigate the hound,
being met with either lunge or growl,
cause you to slump back in your niche and,
when the crimson flashes allow — observe the beast:
its head cocked to one side;
one ear a floppy question-mark,
and as the seconds pass,
the realisation dawns:
you may have misread what its muzzle meant;
the expression’s not menace but puzzlement!
Had its ire been aimed at the cat? Hoping it’s that
you extend a hand — only to quickly retract it when it —
oh— gives it a lick. You pat back!
Further forays are met the same way, till the beast shuffles
forwards and slumps to the ground. And you—
overcoming your fear, reach out,
gently scratch behind its ear;
And it makes a most agreeable sound.
After some minutes of petting have passed
the question that you must pose: May I pass?
Is ventured by taking a step down the hill
The dog leaps to all fours, growling fiercer until,
you retreat
to your coffin
and await the night’s softening.
The dog starts whining…
Clank, clank
roll on