Mother/Baby

Detach the baby from your front,

translate it into a subjective being

by pushing Baby instead of carrying Baby.

Except now Baby has multiple uses,

Mother can place shopping beneath Baby,

wind hairbands round Baby’s handle,

lean on Baby while mounting a displeasing incline.

And, a new feature, Mother can rock Baby single-handedly,

while pumping smoke into Mother’s virginal lungs,

Mother may even rest the apparatus of said act

upon Baby.

Baby won’t mind.

Why They Run

Nobody truly knows why they run.

You’d have to study their lose-limbed ways

religiously, and for many days

before you recognised the rhythm

in the squealing, sticky-fingered hive

that is the playground, alive.

I was a child myself, you see, and

even I do not know why we ran.

Tree tag, net tag and British Bulldog,

building nests, constructing home bases

even the elusive kiss chases.

But if asked, I could never recount

how such antics came about,

or the names, or the faces

of those who, in their graces,

did charge us with our daily races.

We ran, never grew hot or tired,

never panted or ached in the chest,

our streamlined figures,

our unrestrained cries

– the sexless body so easily flies.

“I have a star!” cries the boy,

scrutinising the contents

of his companion’s pink palm

 “what do you have to protekt?”

Oh just our heart and our health,

and our countries and our wealth,

for all our faith and our dreams

would give so easily at the seams

if we were to run.

Short Story: Grandpa Arthur

I stumble down the stairs, still dazed and wiping sleep from my eyes, I can hear the booming tones of Grandpa in the kitchen and sigh, another Sunday morning, another epic tale from Grandpa Arthur.  As I sit down besides my younger brother Grandpa coughs unsubtly and raises an eyebrow at me across the table.

“So glad you could join us this fine morning, Charles!”  And then those oh too familiar words, “you nearly missed the best bit.”  My brother is in fits of excitement, clapping his fists together so violently that he’s rocking the feet of his highchair, little Freddie loves the ‘best bit’ and is always overjoyed to hear of its approach, week after week.  “Fredrick, do you want to hear the rest of the story?”  Grandpa coos at my brother, who shrieks in delight.  “Right!  So, by this point I’m in quite a fix, all of my barons fighting over something as silly as their place at a table!  And no one knows what to do, they’re shouting at and screaming, tossing wine in the air, throwing chicken legs and slabs of beef at each other, demanding that they sit at the head, at the seat of the highest esteem, you see?” Freddie clearly doesn’t see but at the mention of throwing things he has bubbled saliva at the mouth, Grandpa glances at me and I dutifully wipe Freddie’s mouth with his bib.  “And so-”

“Look” I say, standing, “if this is gonna be a long one I demand some breakfast.”  Grandpa sighs and waves a hand at me to be excused before turning to my brother and continuing.

“And so, I’m lost as to what to do, my barons are in an uproar about the seating arrangements and I cannot think of any way of bringing peace to our meetings.”  I get a bowl from the cupboard and begrudgingly pour in a helping of ‘frosted flakes’, surely a man who supposedly defended Britain from the Saxons can afford branded cereal? 

“But then I come up a brilliant idea, a way of securing an equal place for each of my barons, so that no one can argue about being lower than any other...do you know what I did Fredrick?”  Grandpa lifts a pointed finger and traces a circle in the air before Freddie’s fascinated eyes, he has, after so much time, learnt to respond to Grandpa by mimicking the circle with his own stubby, clumsy, little index finger.  “That’s right!  I designed a round table, so that everyone could be equal to every other.  And then the Round Table went down in history, you can still see it in Wace’s Roman de Brut.”

“I think dad has that aftershave.”  I say, sloshing milk into my bowl, returning to the table, Grandpa eyes me “You know, Charles, this breakfast table is round too, that means we’re all equal, none of us superior to any other.”

“Except for the King in his high chair there,” I nod to Freddie, who is still smiling at Grandpa in unquestioning awe.  I often wonder if Grandpa’s tales every impressed me that much, it was probably conducive to the ‘tension’ of the story to have the short-term memory of a toddler.  

Short Story: Peter & Francis

Were it any previous year, Peter and Francis would both have been awake by now, peering across at each other in expectant glee from below the covers.  They would have been listening intently for their mother’s footsteps on the wooden stair, third from the top, the one that made a surreptitious creak, pre-empting her arrival.  She would raise the latch and open the door with a smile on her round face, then in a flurry of shrieks and tossed-aside duvets the boys would leap from their beds, fully dressed, socks, shoes and gloves already fitted in preparation for the Falcon-girl’s party.  This annual prank never failed to amuse them, and their mother would always respond with a yelp and an expression of shock and awe. 

Yet this year was to be different, this was the year that they had democratically agreed upon as the time of their official transition into adulthood.  Two years ago they had had a covert meeting, hidden amongst the lolling tongues of the willow tree in the back garden; and the twins had made a pledge.

“We’re nine now,” Peter had said to his twin, “we’ll be adults soon; we need to act like it.”  At this, Francis had stopped fiddling with his buttons and thrown his eyes up at his other half.

“I thought the same thing last Tuesday.”

“I know you did.”

            “I knew we shouldn’t have bought those cocoa pops, you were right, we should eat Musli.”

“Yes.  But I think we should stop jumping out at Mom on Falcon-day too, not yet but soon yeah Frank?”  Francis looked mortified, but agreed, and swore upon a secret handshake that, in two years time, they would treat the fifth of January like any other day, presenting their confirmed adulthood to their proud parents, who would no doubt congratulate them on their maturity.

“Mom is probably getting too old too, Peter, she might have a heart attack like that old lady down the street.”

“Yes,” concluded Peter, “she is getting too old now.”

So, this morning was a morning like no other before, Peter had woken himself furtively with an alarm beneath his sheets, just to check that Francis had not forgotten their deal.  But Francis had moved in the night, he was asleep on his back and breathing in near silence.  The two of them had always slept in the same position, be it on their side, back or front, it was a unvoiced contract they made each night, Peter usually got to choose, he would slide onto his left, with a glance to Francis, who would quickly emulate his pose in his own bed. 

The creak of the stair.  Peter resisted the urge to imitate sleep, and instead he sat up, ready to greet his mother at the door.  She peered into the room with an expectant grin, an element of their act Peter had never seen, and one that disturbed him, and so he met her with a smile that was slightly wonky.

“Oh!” She cried, “Good morning Peter,” he relished her surprise and immediately stepped from his bed, still in pyjamas, “ok, so…is Francis not up?”

“He’ll wake up soon, can I have a bowl of Musli please?”

His bemused mother turned without responding and Peter followed her through the doorway.  As he left he turned to see Francis begin to rouse from sleep, heaving the duvet across his chest.  The blanket shifted up from the bottom of the bed, and Peter caught a glimpse of black rubber soles, and leather, and neatly tied laces.     

Short Story: Morning

10:00am and the air was black.  The corners of the dressers were highlighted in red, Mary’s alarm clock, the newly acquired one Sarah and her new husband bought her for her eighty-first birthday.  They demanded the introduction of technology into our house, said we needed to wake up before midday, I retorted that we had no need to be up, save a heated summer’s day where the milk may curdle on the doorstep.  And Mary needs rest so often these days.  But we agreed to set the alarm, no earlier than 10:00am, and simply to please Sarah.  The offensively bright figures shone on the box beside Mary’s head, flashing, as it shrieked in short bursts.  And still she did not wake.  Oh Mary. 

It was the only light source in the room.

No hints of navy blue pervaded through the dark, it was merely black, and thicker than even the night should be, for the street-lights had flicked off on their timer, the amber light, that usually I scorn for invading my privacy, had finally let me be, and I thought I might miss them all too suddenly.

I felt the familiar dryness in my throat, the dust from that damn bed cover had gotten into my throat again, I hate the thing, coated in absurd floral patterns and peacocks.  When Mary had bought it, back in the sixties, it had been her most prized possession, she hung it up on the wall in their little semi-detached and would sneak glances at it over dinner.  But nowadays these colours were two a penny, nothing new, nothing exciting, you could hardly buy a stamp without noticing the gaudy intensity of the blue behind our Queen’s head. 

I coughed painfully into my fist, feeling dust dislodge, somehow the beeping beside Mary’s head did not stir her but my muffled splutters did, and she made a noise like a squeaking mouse.

‘Oh! Fred, is everything okay?’

I glanced again at the alarm clock, which had finally given up on rousing its owner, and now sat in silence.  10:03am and the world is still black.

‘Yes dear,’ I heave myself across the bed and place a hand across hers, on top of the covers, ‘everything’s just fine.’

[more] Elvie

There is no sound in Upper Slaughter tonight.  I’ve already had the nightmares; I’m over that stage now.  Having been so cajoled by such an evocative title, my ears spent the first few weeks fervently heeding to the sounds of this town, and subsequently manipulating the mundane into an orchestra of elaborate horror.  A town built on the blackened dirt of an abandoned abattoir, etc.  My blood-fuelled ear-drums would pick up on the sound of a particularly eager wind whistling through leaves and interpret it as the sound of squealing pigs, the echo of far off traffic became the sound of desperately grunting cattle, a sliding door in the night became the drop of a guillotine. 

I have heard all of these things, and now that my mind has satiated its masochistic whims I hear the something which is worse, the utter desolation that hangs in the silence of a town asleep.  The inhabitants of this place seem to extinguish at sunset, as if they never saw the advent of the gas light, after dark they do not even titter with life, let alone roar with it as the houses in London did. 

And so now I sit on the floor by the window, and await sound, breathing so slowly that the hairs on my upper lip may well fear me dead in their stillness.  I can’t yet tell if I like this silence, maybe it should reflect upon me, penetrate me and instil an inner peace.  But as far as I can tell it merely makes way for all the sounds oneself makes, in the silence one can hear everything, every brush of skin on skin, every slip of hair across a brow, I imagine hearing the sliding of eyeball against lid –grating like sand caught between skin and tight cloth.  In silence the body pants and grunts and gurgles, in silence sweat and the hot thick scent of skin seem obscene. 

Here, you cannot modestly close your eyes and slip away into the background of humans, engines and movement; here you are a splash of magenta on an otherwise clean sheet.

I wish to be a cat, black and lithe, sprinting across roads and through bushes, scaling trees and walls, mounting roofs and revelling in the obscuring soot of their chimneys.  I would race through scores of humans, navigating their ankles as a stealthy wind would pass through a forest.  A fluid being, insubstantial, with flat paws of such lenient substance that any surface brushed by my escape would not register the touch – I would leave not a single mark, and I could flutter through the masses in peace.

I sit on a floor which is not my floor, by a window which is not my window; the only thing in this room which I can claim my own is the carbon dioxide, and that is of no use to me.

From the 'novel' (The Red Horse)

The trees are becoming silhouettes; they edge the road greedily, all but engulfing it.  Richard sees this darkness and is suddenly aware of how long he has been off the motorway, how long it has been since he saw a light that wasn’t his own high beams, which only just manage to cut through the thick black of the – b-roads? more like D-roads, Richard had thought when he first turned onto what resembled a dirt path.  These roads are unmarked but for the white-topped greenery that floats like fog on the sides of the road, it hems the trees like lace, and Richard knows its shape and that it’s commonly called Cow Parsley.  But he does not know why he knows this, neither does he know the feel of the stuff, that it smells faintly of urine and that it clings to one’s skin when manhandled.  Somehow it seems important to him that he find out.  Tom should know.  Thomas Taylor,Richard’s longest serving friend, yet the thought of him is cumbersome in Richard’s mind.  Tom should know, but whether he will or not is a different issue, one of a dozen issues that have sat stubbornly in Richard’s head.  They have been there so long that they are now stagnant, yet still glutted and pricking at his consciousness so tactlessly that his three hour journey from London to the Taylor’s new residence in the Cotswolds has been distinctly full of headaches.  In fact, Richard has spent most of the journey pushing his hand across his crumpled forehead, for a while he thought of it as a screwed up piece of paper that needed smoothing, but this notion put in his head an image of Tom’s literary ‘awakening’ as a writer, sitting before a typewriter and surrounded by empty wine glasses and paper balls.  Richard knows that this is inaccurate; Tom probably used a laptop and was sustained by tea while we wrote his best-seller, but the idea of Tom having procured the myth of the struggling artist only deepened the creases. 

And so by this point Richard has been repeatedly brushing back his forehead and caressing his temples with the overwhelming vision of his head a thin layer of tin foil, making his attempts at smoothing it futile.  He is an irredeemably creased man. 

But soon this concept brings about another image, one of Samantha Taylor placing leftovers in tin foil and zip-locks, Samantha, Tom’s beautiful caramel-haired hippy.  She had grown so hard over her last years in London; her heart was too good for it all.   

Suddenly the headlights hit a wall of green and Richard is swept abruptly out of his thoughts by a sharp bend in the road, he swears under his breath and the tyres squeal a little, for a moment he is afraid of having left a mark. 

At this point Richard’s destination is still a completely blank canvas.  His imagination plays upon a vision of it, though it is built on very little; the grand sum of his familiarity with the countryside was fed to him as a child through Kevin McCloud and Kirsty and Phil.  Ever since the immigrants had been transported en masse in to the city, the notion of Escape to the Country had taken on such a different meaning that they had changed the title to Love the Countryside before eventually panning it.  The country had altered its perception of itself, which meant that someone as young as Elvie Taylor had never have been versed in the ways of the countryside, it must be as alien to her as she is to it.  This thought has worried Richard before, but he promptly shakes it from his mind.  

Tired scraps of the programmes have remained in his mind and since the moment Tom announced the success of his book and their move, Richard has been persistently trying to construct an image of the new place.  A ‘luxury’ home in the countryside, he contemplates once again, he tries to imagine a modest house that the family would fit nicely in, red brick – no, that yellow stone they have up here, it was in that episode with the woman who had seven spaniels that kept licking Kirsty’s knees – stone fireplaces and oak staircases.  Samantha had once spoken of wanting a house like that.  

Richard is tired of this blind curiosity, he comes to a junction where a sign reads UPPER SLAUGHTER ½ MILE, and once again pushes back his forehead, with the vision of ripping tin foil appearing momentarily before his eyes.

An extract of Elvie's narration from 'The Red Horse' for Novel Writing -

Isn’t it funny though – they think they’re the main character, more fool them, they think everyone’s watching each muscle they tense, each deep breath, every brush of their hair, every well-placed foot as they walk past on their own individual exploits.  Joke’s on them, I’m the one they should be watching.  But they don’t know that, they couldn’t give a damn if I choose an Americano or a mocha – so maybe the joke’s on me.

No.  No, the joke’s on them.

What joke anyway?  None of this is even mildly amusing, I’m only here to escape that shiny fucking house, and I just walked into the first immodest café I could find.  This place fitted the bill; I wanted to see the kind of people we’re supposed to be now, the Cotswolds family.  And I’m the daughter that goes for coffees in places like this.  Maybe I’m supposed to take boys here.  Maybe boys are supposed to take me here.  Maybe men.  These places with timber beams, dark and aged, looking gloriously authentic.  Old shit like that takes the prices up, easy.  People like the old stuff, the ancient, others like the new and the young – either way they’ll pay a fuckload won’t they.

That’s why people come here, that’s why Tom wanted to move here, I’m sure the brochures raved about the timber fucking beams.  Beams, leather chairs and mugs filled with froth.

I’ve just paid one pound extra for air to be blown into milk.  But the Taylor’s can now, that’s what money really allows you, father, the choice, nay the obligation, to have Bubbles.  Bubbles, that’s all, a child’s game, a child’s entertainment.  Still, keeps the adults amused when combined with caffeine though don’t it.  People will pay for bubbles, they can let out a good-humoured grumble but mostly they just slip that little card into the machine.  And poke away four numbers that deliver them to their livelihood.  Slip it in.  So easy, in-between the legs of greed.  Greedy legs.  Give them a little jolly, deposit your sample, then withdraw, swig it down and leave.  Bubbles, shit what would we do without them?  We need those Bubbles, imagine this world – a world so big and full of people – what would happen if we took away all their Bubbles, no more cappuccinos, no more macchiatos, no more fucking babyccino for lil’ Billy, hardly able to stand but still appreciating those lovely Bubbles. 

There’d be an uprising.

Fuck, what those poor bastards in London wouldn’t pay for some bubbles right now.  Just some oxygen, some clean air, all those bombs, all that smoke that fills up the nostrils, seeps into their tents outside number ten.  And they shuffle deeper into their sleeping bags but they still can’t escape it, maybe they keep their air in there, maybe they put them on head first and try to escape the smoke.    

Special reserves of Bubbles could be kept for those living beside the Squat-holes, for when the bombings start up again.  The Albert’s bound to be hit soon.  The London grandees couldn’t stand to see their favourite Saturday hot spot made into a localized ghetto, I reckon even Lord and Lady Smutwerth would be prepared to sling a homemade bomb over their shoulder and take one for the socialite team.  The Miggs could have some Bubble reserves too of course, the ones that survived – but it couldn’t be as fresh, if the Miggs got some of our Cotswold air the native city people would riot, probably bomb the Albert just to make a point.  The Miggs could have some regular bubbles of Sheffield air, some shit like that. 

That’s not what I’m think about though is it.  No I’m thinking about going back to the Taylor residence, our house – their house. 

This coffee’s shit anyway.

Discovered in the far depths of a notepad: April 2011

In the intricacy of badly laid plans,

in the imbalance of desperation,

in the sourness of deceit,

in the simple-mindedness of sensation,

i lie,

in favour of all the above.

Politics of Subjectivity and Identity - Assignment One

In an exploration of self-identity I have created a visual piece using a close of my own eye overlaid with text taken from my journals over the last two years.  The choice of the eye is fairly self-explanatory, the notion of the eye being the ‘door to the soul’ is an inescapable reality – like many clichés – however, beyond that the choice was rather more personal in that throughout my life my eyes have been remarked upon as my most notable feature.

In using text from my journal I am reflecting the human need to record life, be it through journals, photography, anecdotes, etc, this condition is frequently noted by theorists: “we all make use of stories every day and our lives are shaped by stories…stories to confirm a sense of who we are”[1], in this way, humans are constantly employing narrative as a method of understanding oneself. 

The form of the journal is particularly interesting from a psychological point of view, in search of a substantial self-identity I personally am aware that I use the journal as a point of reference for understanding my current situation.  Essentially the journal is a scaled down version of the perceived necessity for historical education, ‘those who forget the past are likely to repeat it’[2] is a saying which Oliver James notes in his book on child psychology, he suggests that it is important to remember one’s past in order to avoid future transgressions, and this may well be the psychology behind the journal, along, of course, with an indulgent penchant for nostalgia. 

Furthermore, it is interesting to consider the way in which the idea of the journal can evolve, the meticulous recording of oneself, the element of preciousness of one’s chronicled words, the secrecy of ‘the diary’ we have seen emphasized by the Gothic genre over the centuries – all of these elements point towards a personification of the object itself.  There is, over time, an inevitability that a journal becomes a character in itself, not in the dramatic sense but merely because of the boundaries of such a medium, one cannot record every detail, and so in allowing some actions and emotions to be omitted, the writer forms a depiction that does not quite mirror themselves but effectively creates a separate character, perhaps even a caricature, of themselves. 

With this in mind one cannot help but consider the relationship between journal-keeper and journal-‘character’, which is, in my case at least, one of intense scrutiny, such as that of an author over their characters, in the words of the writer Elizabeth Bowen, the writer is a cruel judge who views their characters in a “relentless daylight in which nothing is hid”[3], and perhaps this is the self-deprecating appeal of the journal.

---

[1] Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royale, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory 4th edn. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009) p.52

[2] Oliver James, The F*** You Up (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2003)  p. 5

[3] Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royale, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory 4th edn. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009)

Felix.

Wet food.

Dry food.

Cat refuses to eat the dry food.

So I’m eating oats – no milk, no water.

And Felix is chewing on my eight-pound rib eye,

with peppercorn sauce. 

[Untitled]

My left temporal lobe is throbbing out your name,

a ticking Morse code of your letters.

What momentary insanity in safety,

I saw a ladder above my head,

I saw a trapdoor under my feet.

But I cut the rope

and I lost the key.

And when all is chill and ache and waiting

my pleasure reflex needs reminding,

needs tantalizing with something moist,

like flesh or at least flesh tones,

like skin or at least skinned knees.

Oh that taste –

                     A toast!

Stand and raise your glasses children,

raise a glass to raising a glass,

to delight and to indulgence,

and to all the shades of purple.

To the soft wet licking

of overrated lips.

Amid the sweet sensation of

scabbed elbows, a bruise on your thigh,

on your hip bones lie the lusting

rub of those overexcited

passions which never got fulfilled.

And you.

      Oh you, oh fool oh lion oh how the times have changed.

Not a month ago your head was lying in my lap

and I was lapping love from your pores.  

This Be the Verse (of the Blameless)

I feel you holding me

– not down or in

but together.

You keep this form in equipoise.

I feel the belt around my waist,

keeping this blood flowing smoothly,

and keeping these organs in check.

You embrace, and you build.

You drew the blueprints to this body,

you shaped each curve, line and crease,

you gave flesh and soul to the cause,

and grafted upon calcium.

You own the rights to this vessel,

you have the planning permission.

I hear that tired falter of time

in your voice

and wish I could show you a mirror

that reflected from within my eyes.

I shall witness myself grow grey

before I ever see it in your soul.

You are life – you are the spark,

you are the origin,

you are nourishment

and in that – you are eternal.

Fiendish -

'As Elizabeth Bowen once remarked, the novelist is a kind of fiend: the novelist exposes his (or her) characters to a "relentless daylight in which nothing is hid.  No human being other than a fiend would treat his (or her) fellow humans, in daily life, in so ruthless, uncompromising a manner." [Bowen: 1970]'