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As a little boy, the local newsagent shop owner
assumed I was a little girl.
He’d say so in a volume set lower,
as I chose which sweets to buy from the pick ‘n’ mix.
He’d lean forward and say,
“Aw, what a pretty little girl.”
He’d turn away to address
anyone else within earshot,
swapping “Aw” to the end of the sentence,
placing emphasis on the words “what” and “pretty”.
A woman I felt more than fond of,
she didn’t like men.
Not in that way.
At the time, I thought
perhaps her mind might sway,
listening to the things I say,
the crazy things I talk about.
Maybe we’d become
more than friends.
Once,
I bought her a tie she liked as a gift,
hoping her thoughts about me,
these might shift.
Later on,
that same evening,
we rose up inside a tall building
in an elevator (a lift).
Lost in a maze of mirrored corridors,
finally, we picked a door.
Walked through, tentatively
into somebody else’s party!
On the open-plan top floor,
below the black night sky
we window-gazed,
out upon a universe of city lights.
And once comfortably seated,
I told her, I wanted more.
Mum was cat mad when I was a kid.
In the morning, before I left for school,
She’d be in the kitchen, wearing her cat mask.
Often, she’d be making me an egg-based breakfast.
The mouth on the mask, totally fixed.
Had no moving parts in the construction.
This meant her voice always sounded really muffled.
I’d just nod my head and smile whenever she spoke to me.
I came across this fragment online: An interview film featuring two characters living as husband and wife in a small, Paraguayan town. One that includes a large community of ethnic Germans, within its population.
While at no point in the clip is a date mentioned, the fashion, furniture, quality of the picture, sound and the historical references divulged, gives a feel of the late 1950s.
Most of the filming takes place in a spartan-furnished lounge, with the pair shown seated together on a charcoal-grey settee. A bland, greenish landscape painting hangs framed on the wall. To the left and smaller, a pictorial calendar displays August’s arrangement of a white teapot, cup, saucer and a pile of books. A ribbon-tied spray of pink carnations lay across the open pages of the topmost book. The wallpaper, floral and faded, completes the scene.
“Ja, nien.” The woman is wearing a sleeveless white blouson top and a black wrap-around skirt. Her make-up and hair are immaculate. Initially hesitant, she directs her answers to a man positioned off-camera, evidenced by the occasional plume of cigarette smoke drifting across the scene.
Continue reading “In Paraguay”“And so it’s true, lo and behold I was the only one with a camera, the day Jesus was laid in his tomb.” Lottie holds the photo hardware up for the gallery crowd to scrutinise. A retro model, but containing more computerised technology packed into it, than available to the entire global effort for outer space travel, c.1954 – 1986. “So that’s my story and now I am ready to take some questions. You there, with the clown make-up, what would you like to ask?”
The beige-coloured painted walls of the gallery space, specially commissioned for the one-person, one-piece exhibition, has created a relaxed atmosphere. The critics from the press have been polite throughout Lottie’s monologue account, despite the only beverage available being tap water.
Continue reading “The Only One”I don’t trust the helicopter
Flying overhead
Imagine if they crashed
Everyone’d be dead
I don’t trust the mighty military plane
Tha’ eventually they’ll not sky fall
Those scary thunderous engines
Destined one day to stall
When Grandfather started bodybuilding,
a lot of people asked why.
“You never used to before,
so why now do you try?”
“I don’t try, I do. Although,
I see it seems weird to you
an old head on a fit body”
Regardless, Grandfather looked proud.
One day, a painter artist type feminist,
said, “I’d like to paint you, before you die.”
“You had better start straight away.”
The rippling pensioner replied.
Joseph of Arimathea cries out: “Who, has left Our Lord’s mortal vessel slumped on the chair like this?”
Within the tomb, an elderly turbaned man emerges from out of the shadows. Dressed in an embroidered stola, a walking-stick decorated by intergrown knots helps bear the load of sombreness he carries as he shuffles into a space of light.
“I am Nicodemus of Judea,” his voice is hoarse, dry and pitched upwards, “High Priest of Sanhedrin and I swear to Almighty God, that it was not I. Perhaps, instead…” a stubby index finger extends outwards to form an accusatory pointing device, “it was him, over there!”
Continue reading “Caster Wheel Office Chair”. . . into the mirror, not quite speechless.
Voice hushed to a whisper, for his own benefit.
He was alone in the bathroom.
Razor, toothbrush, scissors, a bar of soap, talcum powder,
these and more, occupied familiar positioning.
And yet.
“What … in the name of God, is happening to me?”
Juan had transitioned.
Perhaps he was dreaming – or hallucinating.
This, he told himself.
She is running and gunning on multiplayer
totally destroying the opposition
Excitement levels rise and fall
over a bloodless carnage
Fingers blur
changing between weapons
checking ammunition
calling in air cover and tossing grenades
all at staggering speed
When she smiles
her teeth show
Brinkinfield 