Wednesday 30 April 2014

Divine

Viewed through the eye of the telescope I remember the creature whose wings made me. The Lady of Peace Blessed Above, the angel of harmony. To the sound of birdsong I was born, in a time of great joy and celebration. Fashioned and forged I appeared from the melting pot into my mothers' arms. Slowly buds emerged from my shoulder blades forming wings in the likeness of my mothers. Soon, I too, was able to reveal the wonder of flight.
On a luckless day curiosity overcame me. I snatched the telescope when no-one was looking. Dots of world rushed towards me, closer and more fascinating than I could have imagined. Forbidden from entering the crust of the earth I yearned for it with the simplicity of unknowing desire.
One day I saw my mother send the birds down the telescope, on her divine command. Hidden I waited until they returned cooing harmony and health.
Driven mad by my green desire I followed their path down the telescope to the land below. The divine right of kings did not equal my enjoyment of earthly pleasures. Time concertina-ed and I forgot everything.
At first my mother cried for my loss. When she realised she could not retrieve me she raged war through the skies and lands. An unending battle with no winner. In desperation she appealed to the Holy Trinity of Everlasting Worship as a supplicant with folded hands. 'No and no again! You must live with your creation,' they replied. Distraught her tears overflowed threatening to drown the earth below. Waterlogged my wings grew heavy and land bound. A flash of lightening sundered them. A wing fell from me and was forged into a necklace. A consolation prize for my mother. I hide my other wing, my lost half, from the world and wander aimlessly. I am stuck, half made eternally searching.
I am grown tired of earth's offerings. I roam, I wander, agitated. It is no longer divine, darling.

The copyright of this post belongs to Moira Cormack

Tuesday 29 April 2014

Three Pieces

PERFUMED DREAMS
Some things are timeless – the ebb and flow of the tide, the thunderous crash of wave upon rock. In a lost era the beach would have been deserted. Now it’s littered with bank holiday crowds – legions of basted torsos in the sun, lying sunnyside up on the sand. Dead to the world, endless rows of tanned corpses, waiting for their post-mortem. Picnic baskets full of sandy sandwiches, sausages, apples, even the occasional rhubarb crumble.
I need to escape the crowds to my special place, my mind palace. Call me callous, tell me I’m sad and lonely, too retro, too vintage. But I would swap your sunkissed dreams for the perfume of wet roses in the twilight every time – no excuses needed.

SURREAL PICNIC
So many picnic hampers, so many surprises. I open the first lid and find a bible, lavender-scented, smelling of summer gardens. Wrapped in lace from an old crinoline dress; too large for even the most capacious of handbags.
A flower-pot lurks under the lid of the next – shall I plant peaches or lavender? In time we could let dewdrops sparkle, sweet and inviting.
I never knew I needed a lathe – but here one is, fruity and fetid, tucked in another hamper beside a dizzying and intense hammer, sweet and hedonistic like pear-drops in a paper bag. A rickshaw driver hurtles by, struggling with the sand and, with an unlikely smile, adds a beautiful brush. I’d rather have had peas and saffron and white wine, but will have to settle for cornflakes and coffee. (I’ve never been to Beattie’s cafĂ©, but I’m told you have to have a tattoo to work there. Would they accept the smoky perfume of my coin, I wonder?)
I could claim my space on the sand with an incense-soaked bedspread or tapestry – colourfully comfortable. I shall lie down and expire – ready for my post-mortem.


BARTER
Barely visible, glimpsed in a mirror, ‘Can you spin the cobweb into silk?’ she asked.
The oak tree bowed his head. ‘No, but I can make you a banqueting table. Will you pay me in diamonds?’
‘I will give you a companion,’ she said. ‘What predator would you like as a pet?’
‘My branches are already full of raptors, my roots house a den of foxes. I have no need of more.’
She swirled her white petticoat, caressing the pink ribbon trim with hands found deep underground.
‘I will give you this – it’s Edwardian and hand-embroidered. My uncle stole it from a market.’
‘How long was he in prison?’ enquired the oak.
‘I lied. I found it at the bottom of a bag: it’s smooth and reflective, made from plastic - it will last forever.’
The oak tree considered the proffered exchange.
‘It’s a fair trade. I will take your petticoat and carve you a table. We could eat together – an embroidered tablecloth on an oaken surface.’

The copyright of these three pieces belongs to Clare Elstow

Monday 28 April 2014

Sense


“Living by preference, not by principle,” that’s what my Uncle Bertie always used to say. He was a great man of a special vintage who brought music to the low pipes of lonely people.
He would disregard excuses for not really living life to the full in an almost callous way.
“You weren’t born with the good sense God gave you!” He’d boom, “So what if you’re unlikely to win the lottery or drive an Aston Martin – grow some rhubarb and have it with a bit of pickled sausage, try new things and invent a magnificent life!”
He’d drag you out of your palace of misery to watch seals leaping over the rocks by the beach. And when you’d filled your day with fun and excitement, you’d be lying in the dunes within the long tufts of grass listening to the waves lapping up against the shore. He’d verbally post mortem the day’s events and you would realise that he was right…it was better to live by preference than by principle.
Here I am in my palace of misery. Lately my only friend being a bottle of whiskey; its fetid and fruity stench biting the air from the warm patio. My paint brushes lie redundant as though unused since the 70s when once they smelt of smoky perfumed paints.
There is a crash at the door and in storms Uncle Bertie brandishing his swimming trunks decorated with flowers and freshly laundered as the scent of lavender wafts to my dormant nostrils mixed with the aroma of his coffee flavoured pipe. It reminded me of filling the machine with shiny coffee beans at my old place of work. 
“Darling! Get dressed – we’re going out!” he announced. I refuse initially but he insists, bumbling me into the shower where I’m squirted with a necklace of fragrant soap smelling of a heady summer garden.
We go to the beach where Bertie buys me a huge balloon that immediately pops and is filled with delicious pear drops in paper packets. A smile slowly spreads across my face. Next he threads a chain of cardamoms together to make me a necklace from the local spice market. It reminds me of the unlikely smile of a rickshaw driver from my travels in Mumbai.
We head home content and happy. My palace of misery is no longer and instead is a cottage of happiness. The lead flashing in the roof encourages mossy green tufts of a forgotten fragrance of bliss.

The copyright of this post belongs to Komal Patel

Tuesday 22 April 2014

The Flower

Piece using words suggested by other members of the Writer’s Group, on the theme of visibility and invisibility and using the quote:
‘It is not the invisible that is the true mystery of this world, but the visible.’ - Oscar Wilde.
Words: blood, illuminating, funereal, damasked, shimmer, acorn, crusade, love, peony.

The Flower.

It was invisible to all but her. To everyone else, brought out by the first real sunshine of the year, it was just a playground. Monkey bars, swings, a zip-wire. Kids. Bored, gossiping mums.
One or two dads, awkwardly focused on their phones.
But to Becky, this was a place bathed in memory, saturated with hope and shadowed with devastation, longing fulfilled and denied. His presence or his absence.
The bench on which she now sat painfully perched had been witness to their many, many conversations, year after year, paying scant attention to their children as they played and squabbled, sweltering in the sun’s afternoon shimmer or shivering as the sky clouded over. It kept their secret. Year after year, in love with him - and, sometimes she thought, he with her - he another woman’s husband, she another man’s wife. Until the love that pulsed between them spilled over into words.
Last Friday.
“I love you, Richard.” She had said, head down, ashamed of her declaration. “I know I shouldn’t.
I mustn’t. But I do.”
He said nothing, just nodded. Right on cue, his daughter rushed up with a cut knee, blood oozing through her tights, sobbing:
“Carry me home, Daddy!”
And then he was gone. Again.
She had sat cursing her own stupidity and his daughter’s ill-timed propensity to injure herself. She could hear the little girl’s howls even now, growing fainter as they disappeared up the path towards home. They sounded to her like her own inner screams.
Clearly, life was on a crusade against her.
And then there was nothing for it but to call to her daughter that it was time to go home themselves. Home. Another of life’s four-letter-words. But this one tore into her heart as no obscenity ever could. It was the place where she didn’t belong, anymore.
Over the weekend, with no chance of seeing Richard, she was left to the freefall of her thoughts. Her husband and daughter ignored her as usual, happy in each other’s company. Her foolish words tormented her, followed her around from waking to sleeping. They turned the sunny days of the weekend into bright darkness. She longed for and dreaded Monday.
After school she took her usual place on the bench, trying not to look out for him. She must act as normal - whatever that was. Should she apologise? Try and take it back? Or just run away now, before he appeared?
But he didn’t. She sat on the purgatorial bench until everyone else had gone and her daughter was complaining that she was cold and wanted to go home.
On Tuesday it was raining so hard that she just bolted with her daughter back to the car. Wednesday was the same. Becky cursed the temperamental british weather, the gathering loneliness, the powerlessness of being a wife and mother; the terminal boredom of obligation and unending tasks and sodding daytime television. She cursed Tesco, queues of traffic on the school run, the conversations about drying washing and missing school uniforms she was forced to have with other terminally bored mums, in Richard’s absence. Most of all, she cursed her own stupidity. Why had she said the most dangerous words in the universe? With slow horror, she realized that those words had lost her his precious friendship.
Now it was Thursday. She had spent the morning cleaning, fighting the undertow of despair and the desire to down the bottle of bleach she was holding. But only after she had used it to clean the loo; chores first, suicide second.
This was the kind of self-deprecating half-joke she would have made to Richard and he would have laughed, understanding how she really felt. And then he would have told her something illuminating about the scientific properties of bleach. Except that she couldn’t tell him, now. The sun had come out again by school kick-out time so now, here she was, back in the memory-drenched playground and wishing she was dead. Or disappeared. Or someone completely different, with a less cringey life. Her daughter was jumping up and down triumphantly on the top of the climbing frame, waving. She waved back automatically, shielding her eyes against the sun. The shadow of a bird in low flight passed over her; she looked up, hearing its funereal cry. She shivered.
Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the glow of the damasked light.
“Mummy, mummy!”
Her daughter. She moaned softly to herself and slowly opened her eyes. Standing in front of her, his untidy, sandy hair glinting in the sun, was Richard. He was smiling at her. She looked up into his soft, acorn eyes and found kindness. Relief flooded every cell, rising in her throat, bringing tears to her eyes.
He sat down beside her. She breathed in his warm, familiar smell.
“You know I love you too, don’t you.” He said quietly, staring at his hands. Her breath caught in her throat. A flush of warmth ran through her body, trembling to her fingertips.
“You love me?” She said, with astonishing calmness.
“For years.” He turned to her on the bench, reaching for her hand, his eyes filled with a strange light. Tenderness... and something else - fear? “But I have to be honest with you.” He said. His fingers tightened on hers. “I will never leave my wife. Never. You could only ever be my…” He looked down, his skin flushing. “My mistress.”
“Yes, I know. But I -”
“No. I don’t think you do know.” He looked back up, meeting her gaze. “Never seeing me at weekends. Snatched half hours to meet up, me always having to leave to go home to my wife. We’d never have holidays together. Or Christmas. Lying all the time. Could you deal with that, Becky?”
She didn’t reply.
“Because that’s all I could offer you.” He smiled at her sadly, his thumb stroking against the
pulse of her wrist. “And I respect you too much for that. I love you too much.” It was the words she had so longed to hear. Those dangerous words.
“Funny.” She said bitterly. “I thought hearing you say you love me would mean the beginning of something, not the end.”
His mouth twisted in pain. “It’s not that I’m not tempted. Believe me, I am. Sitting here with you now…” He looked away again, staring across at the playing, screaming children. She heard him breathing deeply. “But I’m just a symptom, Becky. It isn’t me you need. No - listen. What you need is to find your place again with your husband and your daughter.”
“They don’t want me. I don’t belong there.”
Richard sighed, pressing her hand firmly. “I know you feel shut out of your own home. I know how unhappy you’ve been. But it is your home and you do belong there.”
She swallowed. “So, what are you saying, Richard? No more playground meetings?”
He said nothing for a while. But slowly, he withdrew his hand. “I think that’s best.”
“God, Richard, no! Can’t we just -”
“Like I said. I love you too much.”
He leaned towards her, so close that she heard the catch of his breath. His lips were soft and moist against her cheek. “Find your real life, Becky.” He whispered. Then he got up and walked away.
Becky stared after him, stunned. No. Come back…
The invisible was all around her, cloying, suffocating memory. Echoes of laughter. The light of love, reaching her through the years like the glow of a long dead star.
She put her head in her hands and began to sob.
“What’s the matter, Mummy?” A tiny, soft hand grasping her hand. “Mummy?” But Becky couldn’t look up.
“I’ve got something for you, Mummy.” Her daughter started to tug at her sleeve. “Please look,
Mummy.”
She took a deep breath, taking hold of herself. “O.K, darling.”
The little girl was holding out a flower, red as a fresh spill of blood, red as her pounding heart. “I picked it for you.”
Find your real life, Becky.
And in the end, it seemed, the true mystery of the world was in the visible, not the invisible. In a flower, not an imaginary love affair.
“It’s a peony.” Becky smiled. “Thank you, darling.” Her arms encircled her daughter, drawing her close. “Let’s go home.”

The copyright of this post belongs to Alison Stickings

Pilgrimage

My mixed up pilgrimage turned the blueberries orange. I should have known it would. I could never keep track of anything. Orangeberries! A new unique fruit dressed in the rarest gold. I let one squash up against the roof of my mouth so the orange flavour seeped across my tongue. This would spill the circle of the year. Had it been sent by the witch of war and chaos, I wondered. At this thought I spat out the berry curiosity ended. She was a like a conjurer creating a culinary remnant of another age. But I would not be another broken hearted sage. The stars would lean down to kiss me. I would catch her and those pearly teeth would be locked in a sealed letter. It was challenging but escape always was. The end is nigh, but is it ever really the end while the cockroach lives.

The copyright of this post belongs to Moira Cormack

Wednesday 16 April 2014

Bucephalus

Bucephalus sits in his room. It is as wide as it is tall which makes it about adequate. He snorts and stomps his hoofs. Alexander enters, beturbaned and mad. 'My horse, my great horse,' he coos. Cracking his fingers time stops. He winds the music box and joy to the world plinks out. 'Where there is great love there are always miracles,' he whispers into the horses neck. There has been no other love for him other than the waft and weight of Bucephalus. Love is a miracle like a male with the ability to be pregnant. When the music stops time starts. Alexander leaves the stable and is greeted by a great stabbing.
Bucephalus sits in his room.

The copyright of this post belongs to Moira Cormack

Thursday 10 April 2014

The Flower




It was invisible to all but her. To everyone else, brought out by the first real sunshine of the year, it was just a playground. Monkey bars, swings, a zip-wire. Kids. Bored, gossiping mums. One or two dads, awkwardly focused on their phones.
But to Becky, this was a place bathed in memory, saturated with hope and shadowed with devastation, longing fulfilled and denied. His presence or his absence.
The bench on which she now sat painfully perched had been witness to their many, many conversations, year after year, paying scant attention to their children as they played and squabbled, sweltering in the sun’s afternoon shimmer or shivering as the sky clouded over. It kept their secret. Year after year, in love with him - and, sometimes she thought, he with her - he another woman’s husband, she another man’s wife. Until the love that pulsed between them spilled over into words.
Last Friday.
“I love you, Richard.” She had said, head down, ashamed of her declaration. “I know I shouldn’t. I mustn’t. But I do.”
He said nothing, just nodded. Right on cue, his daughter rushed up with a cut knee, blood oozing through her tights, sobbing:
“Carry me home, Daddy!”
And then he was gone. Again.
She had sat cursing her own stupidity and his daughter’s ill-timed propensity to injure herself. She could hear the little girl’s howls even now, growing fainter as they disappeared up the path towards home. They sounded to her like her own inner screams.
Clearly, life was on a crusade against her.
And then there was nothing for it but to call to her daughter that it was time to go home themselves. Home. Another of life’s four-letter-words. But this one tore into her heart as no obscenity ever could. It was the place where she didn’t belong, anymore.
Over the weekend, with no chance of seeing Richard, she was left to the freefall of her thoughts. Her husband and daughter ignored her as usual, happy in each other’s company. Her foolish words tormented her, followed her around from waking to sleeping. They turned the sunny days of the weekend into bright darkness. She longed for and dreaded Monday.
After school she took her usual place on the bench, trying not to look out for him. She must act as normal - whatever that was. Should she apologise? Try and take it back? Or just run away now, before he appeared?
But he didn’t. She sat on the purgatorial bench until everyone else had gone and her daughter was complaining that she was cold and wanted to go home.
On Tuesday it was raining so hard that she just bolted with her daughter back to the car. Wednesday was the same. Becky cursed the temperamental british weather, the gathering loneliness, the powerlessness of being a wife and mother; the terminal boredom of obligation and unending tasks and sodding daytime television. She cursed Tesco, queues of traffic on the school run, the conversations about drying washing and missing school uniforms she was forced to have with other terminally bored mums, in Richard’s absence. Most of all, she cursed her own stupidity. Why had she said the most dangerous words in the universe? With slow horror, she realized that those words had lost her his precious friendship.
Now it was Thursday. She had spent the morning cleaning, fighting the undertow of despair and the desire to down the bottle of bleach she was holding. But only after she had used it to clean the loo; chores first, suicide second.
This was the kind of self-deprecating half-joke she would have made to Richard and he would have laughed, understanding how she really felt. And then he would have told her something illuminating about the scientific properties of bleach. Except that she couldn’t tell him, now.
The sun had come out again by school kick-out time so now, here she was, back in the memory-drenched playground and wishing she was dead. Or disappeared. Or someone completely different, with a less cringey life. Her daughter was jumping up and down triumphantly on the top of the climbing frame, waving. She waved back automatically, shielding her eyes against the sun. The shadow of a bird in low flight passed over her; she looked up, hearing its funereal cry. She shivered.
Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the glow of the damasked light.
“Mummy, mummy!”
Her daughter. She moaned softly to herself and slowly opened her eyes. Standing in front of her, his untidy, sandy hair glinting in the sun, was Richard. He was smiling at her. She looked up into his soft, acorn eyes and found kindness. Relief flooded every cell, rising in her throat, bringing tears to her eyes.
He sat down beside her. She breathed in his warm, familiar smell.
“You know I love you too, don’t you.” He said quietly, staring at his hands. Her breath caught in her throat. A flush of warmth ran through her body, trembling to her fingertips.
“You love me?” She said, with astonishing calmness.
“For years.” He turned to her on the bench, reaching for her hand, his eyes filled with a strange light. Tenderness... and something else - fear? “But I have to be honest with you.” He said. His fingers tightened on hers. “I will never leave my wife. Never. You could only ever be my…” He looked down, his skin flushing. “My mistress.”
“Yes, I know. But I -”
“No. I don’t think you do know.” He looked back up, meeting her gaze. “Never seeing me at weekends. Snatched half hours to meet up, me always having to leave to go home to my wife. We’d never have holidays together. Or Christmas. Lying all the time. Could you deal with that, Becky?”
She didn’t reply.
“Because that’s all I could offer you.” He smiled at her sadly, his thumb stroking against the pulse of her wrist. “And I respect you too much for that. I love you too much.”
It was the words she had so longed to hear. Those dangerous words.
“Funny.” She said bitterly. “I thought hearing you say you love me would mean the beginning of something, not the end.”
His mouth twisted in pain. “It’s not that I’m not tempted. Believe me, I am. Sitting here with you now…” He looked away again, staring across at the playing, screaming children. She heard him breathing deeply. “But I’m just a symptom, Becky. It isn’t me you need. No - listen. What you need is to find your place again with your husband and your daughter.”
“They don’t want me. I don’t belong there.”
Richard sighed, pressing her hand firmly. “I know you feel shut out of your own home. I know how unhappy you’ve been. But it is your home and you do belong there.”
She swallowed. “So, what are you saying, Richard? No more playground meetings?”
He said nothing for a while. But slowly, he withdrew his hand. “I think that’s best.”
“God, Richard, no! Can’t we just -”
“Like I said. I love you too much.”
He leaned towards her, so close that she heard the catch of his breath. His lips were soft and moist against her cheek. “Find your real life, Becky.” He whispered. Then he got up and walked away.
Becky stared after him, stunned. No. Come back…
The invisible was all around her, cloying, suffocating memory. Echos of laughter. The light of love, reaching her through the years like the glow of a long dead star.  
She put her head in her hands and began to sob.
“What’s the matter, Mummy?” A tiny, soft hand grasping her hand. “Mummy?”
But Becky couldn’t look up.
“I’ve got something for you, Mummy.” Her daughter started to tug at her sleeve. “Please look, Mummy.”
She took a deep breath, taking hold of herself. “O.K, darling.”
The little girl was holding out a flower, red as a fresh spill of blood, red as her pounding heart.
“I picked it for you.”
Find your real life, Becky.
And in the end, it seemed, the true mystery of the world was in the visible, not the invisible. In a flower, not an imaginary love affair.
“It’s a peony.” Becky smiled. “Thank you, darling.” Her arms encircled her daughter, drawing her close. “Let’s go home.”

The copyright of this post belongs to Alison Stickings


Monday 7 April 2014

The Temple Plot - Fragment 6



Merytaset, former God's Wife of Amun at Thebes, and the orphaned Princess Isidoria are thrown into slavery in the city once known as Babylon.


We were capsized from one captivity into another. Like someone trapped on a burning barque who can not swim, I contemplated which fate would be worse. As if I, as if we had a choice. Being held and transported this far by Ragnorkah and his men had become something that felt both an oubliette and a sanctuary. Incredible, but behind the broken walls of this city he'd brought us to, the sights were sufficient to condense hopes and fears until all emotion became a silent scream. Enough to bring on madness.

That first day in this city, that first hour, I ran through all the mantras and invocations to the Gods and Goddesses in my head, as if I were rushing through the corridors in the library of Alexandria, reading title after title of the books and manuscripts. Desperately trying to find the words, the right words, frantically trying to prepare myself and the girl for the pain that would follow.

For I knew. I knew when Ragnorkah made us dismount. Knew for certain when he tied the girl's hands together and then to a rope he placed around my waist and then my tied hands to another rope he tied to the saddle of his horse. I knew he meant to parade us through the city. And that that meant we were heading for only one place. His men did not crow. One smiled at me with pity in his eyes. Out of my sight, I heard one chuckle. Likely, the rest were silent because they were so tired. They thought only of rest, food, wine and whatever else would revive them. I wondered when Isidoria and I would eat again. She was behind me, about four feet of rope between us. For the first time in days she was not reachable. I could not hold her in my arms and was terrified that she might fall and be dragged in the dirt and dust as we processed. Just as Ragnorkah remounted I turned my head. Her look of despair cut me deeper than any blade could. Tears ran down her sand blown face. She opened her mouth to speak but emotion stumbled over her words

'Pri..Mam...what..' She choked on her terror.

'Little one, hush,' I spoke calmly, wishing the Goddess to give me strength, 'Remember Osiris loves you, you are his daughter! Aren't you?'

Isidoria nodded with little conviction.

'And so, will you do something for me?' (another cautious nod) 'will you as we walk now, say this to yourself. Osiris watches over me, Osiris loves me, Osiris watches over me, Osiris loves me. Will you do that for me little one, as we walk?' I said all this quickly. I had to hurry. Ragnorkah's men had also got back on their horses and I felt him tap his with his heels. 'Promise me,' I called over my shoulder to the princess, and just heard her weak 'yes, I promise' in reply before I had to concentrate on my own footsteps and make sure I did not fall.

***

'Room for one more, and for the little one,' said the man behind the long bench. A bench that had been placed on a raised wooden construction. The latter was like a very shallow stage. His ugly face snarled with pleasure at us as he adjusted a dirty tangerine headscarf that refused to stay put in the breeze. Upon the bench, a bird of prey, iridescence trapped in a cage, squawked agreement and clawed at the bars. Room for one more, room for one more. The man laughed. He sat in a pose that betrayed a belief in his own royalty, that he was one born to laud it over his subjects. A terrible inverse for they were a group of frightened women shackled together behind and to the side of the stage, cowering on the ground with little room to stretch or breath.

I felt change come upon us like a sandstorm. Ragnorkah untied the leading rope from my hands, whispering in my ear as he did 'I am sorry adoratrice but this is much better than the original purpose of my commission.' Original purpose? So he had spared our lives then. I looked up at
him. His face was impassive. No sorrow, but no arrogance either. I searched for room in my heart to remember it with pity, with respect. Isis bade that I forgive him. I just nodded.

His transaction with the slave trader was swift. Two lives for a pile of silver coins which he swept from the bench into a leather pouch. Then, he was on his horse and he and his men were gone, melting into the chaos and noise of the city. A strange empty parting that I could not dwell on. Though I could not put them around her, I beckoned Isidoria to my side with my tied hands and then moved her in front of me, throwing my arms over her shoulders in an act of protection. She had done so well not to fall. I raised my chin and beheld our new gaoler. His countenance did not improve on further scrutiny. He scoffed at my futile defiance. Licked his lips in a sickening manner.

The girl began to cry. Silently.



Copyright Gabrielle Goldsmith 2014

Friday 4 April 2014

The Seven Foot Man



He may be a convicted murderer, but on death row he is far from unique, and so the seven foot man whittles his wood and weaves his tapestry.
His little figurines of Goldilocks and Heisenberg though, are unique. A pear shaped girl emerges from a block of old pear wood, and smells miraculously of pear drops.
How does he do that?
Like a maverick in a card game, the man from Cincinatti smiles the geneticist’s smile. He can perform miracles. He is a man with new shoes and no knickers. The prison doors hold no fears, nothing is closed in the openness of his hands.
He spreads his palms downwards and remembers the fall down the deep hole that was his undoing, the revenge that was his, an act of youthful aggression.
Atonement shapes under the spread of his fingers, but the swell of completion irks him.
He begins again.
The long march of the seven foot man.

The copyright of this post belongs to Valerie Anne Rule

Wednesday 2 April 2014

The Temple Plot Fragment 5



The night before we passed in serenity. Gods know how. The night before I held the princess close and felt courage in her bones, the pristine surface of her skin. I listened in the darkest hour for the wind to whisper that our liberation would be soon. I experienced the bravery of hope.

The night before ended with the screech of batwings, echoing in my mind. A rough hand shook my shoulder, waking me from longing, waking me from any safety. Still befuddled by sleep I looked beyond the shadow of my captor to the entrance of the cave that had been our shelter. Behind and between the men crouched at the opening, the kaleidoscopic landscape stretched out. Alien to the princess and I, and where we were being forced to go. She still slumbered. I touched her with a low 'be brave my dear' and she stirred, giving a little moan...

...I am Merytaset, high priestess, God's wife of Amun at Thebes, and I am impotent. Useless. My heka has failed me. The reign of the Queen to which I owe my life is over. Incredulity, doubt and ignorance of the signs until it was too late meant that I failed to save the Pharaoh from the assassins' blades. That was many suns ago and I wonder at the fate of Alexandria.

Have they chosen peace under a new oppressor or risen up against those who murdered Cleopatra? I push at the carnage of memory, the image of her lifeless body, cut in many places, the wings of life torn from her breast. I recall searching for the orphan child who now lies in my arms. Our crazy, my crazy notion of flight which ended with our apprehension by Ragnorakh and his men.

...why are we still alive? And what do they mean to do with us now? Do they recognise the child as Cleopatra's daughter or has my flimsy attempt at disguise held? I must quell all these questions and take each day, each minute as it passes. I must bury grief, ignore the absence that burns like hunger in my Ba, and look to the child. Her safety, her redemption is all that matters.

'Happiness can be a choice,' my mother oft said. I will find that choice even here, Isis willing, I told myself, getting to my feet, and lifting Isidora to hers.

***

Though the princess had slept, I saw the shadows of the night under her eyes. It is an abiding memory, that look of implication in her limpid blue pools. A gaze that would reduce to rubble any subterfuge. It is that which perseveres when I try to crystallize my mix of feelings on that morning. The morning of the day when innocence died in her proud, aristocratic face. All my priestly eloquence, all adoratrice artifice could not hold back time. There are things that men make and do, that break us.

Ra was well into his passage, a satellite of love forgotten crossing the sky when the men tethered us to the horse. We began the journey down the mountain to what I was now convinced was our final destination. A city whose walls reflected marmalade, radiant in the sun. In other times it would have been, no doubt, an invitation, the lantern of a friend welcoming one home.

But our home, the princess's and mine, was far away, two deserts and more. A fresh wind came came up at our backs, and I was thankful for my resolve was failing. Thankful, for I wanted to be at this city, wanted our fate to be minted upon our brows. So, Isis willing, I could face it.

There was a forest that graced the foot and the lower slopes of the mountain, trees thick in places. Ragnorakh and his men scythed with ease through it. I had my wish. Soon, we emerged from scrub to a short trail that led to a brindly assortment of buildings, half constructed and half demolished walls. The edge of this unknown but obviously ancient city was also home to various travelling peoples camped outside.

As we slowed and passed them, they came out of their homes, curious at the latest visitors. Behind the settlements, all higgle piggle, and a myriad of coloured fabric roofs, a grove of cedar wood trees wafted their scent in the breeze. From a tent nearby, a lament was being plucked on an instrument my ears could not place. But its melody captured my heart with dread. The princess, sensing my distress, squirmed on the saddle in front of me and I gripped her ever tighter.

Looking ahead, I saw a large hole in the city wall. Tall, ebony men with weapons were guarding it. Our means of entry I presumed. It too had been repaired in a makeshift way. The remains of a huge statue that had, some time past, marked the city entrance, were scattered in front of the men. A familiar and strange sight. The broken forearm was at least thirty feet long. It was wedged in the ground, the fingers of its hand all perished except one that pointed to an unforgiving sky. The enormous head of a Goddess lay on her side nearby. Empty eyes stared straight at me. I knew then that faith had fled this city. The wind of a sudden gusted, bringing fear to my bones.

***

Copyright Gabrielle Goldsmith 2014

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Relics

Just like the seasons as they are reversed
Our love runs backwards and gathers in the hearse.
The chapel, the steeple, elusive and sad
The cortege, procession, tear-torn and mad.

Come March we had winter for December’s spring
In August monsoons to drown our wedding rings.
October days grew long, money running out
Stymied by fortune, we spat to slake a drought.

By bearers of palls, impostor I stand
Hefting a load I cannot wait to land.
In rumination, in wonder, in mystery, in awe
I turn my gaze from you to the flowers on the floor.

Like the seasons running backward
I moved against the tide,
I said that I would be there
Little knowing that I lied.

The copyright of this post belongs to Ben Hargreaves