Trilogy for X

And love hung still as crystal over the bed
And filled the corners of the enormous room;
the boom of dawn that left her sleeping, showing
The flowers mirrored in the mahogany table.

O my love, if only I were able
To protect this hour of quiet after passion,
Not ration happiness but keep this door for ever
Closed on the world, its own world closed within it.

But dawn's waves trouble with the bubbling minute,
the names of books come clear upon their shelves,
the reason delves for duty and you will wake
With a start and go on living on your own.

The first train passes and the windows groan,
Voices will hector and your voice become
A drum in tune with theirs, which all last night
Like sap that fingered through a hungry tree
Asserted our one night's identity.

Louis Macneice

Why marry?

The Walking Cure

It's a boon being bipedal; it wouldn't be much fun having to hop everywhere, and I imagine being three legged would (although efficient in an ungainly way) produce much derision from the fag smokers outside pubs.

The walking cure's the thing. Speech and walking are similar in their cadences. Many's the happy drunken hour I've spent stomping the streets to Hamlet's Greatest Hits or Yeats coming over all grandiloquent. Some people call it pub crawling, but I see a more elevating aspect to this pursuit of the kebab shop.

If I hadn't hiked so far and sat on so many park benches contemplating beds of geraniums while staring at the moon the world would be a poorer place.

This is one of my favourites:

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

W.H. Auden

Try it next time you've been on the piss and crave carbohydrate sustenance. It might get you arrested or punched, but it might just get you the girl.

The Holy Stump

Everything is coming over all Father Ted. I believe that Craggy Island was home to several Holy Relics, although whether this included the crazy golf course on which Ted and Dougal liked to play in the pouring rain is debatable.

I've got nothing against Roman Catholics, but sometimes they fall prey to a strain of deluded credulity that is far from healthy. I'm sure there's money to made out of it. I'm thinking of announcing that I have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary in my Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and an image of Christ on a burnt piece of toast. The admission fees to view these Holy artefacts should be sufficient to keep me in beer and pork scratchings for life.

I mean, come on.

Other Voices, Other Rooms

Why Brownlee Left

Why Brownlee left, and where he went,
Is a mystery even now.
For if a man should have been content
It was him; two acres of barley,
One of potatoes, four bullocks,
A milker, a slated farmhouse.
He was last seen going out to plough
On a March morning, bright and early.

By noon Brownlee was famous;
They had found all abandoned, with
The last rig unbroken, his pair of black
Horses, like man and wife,
Shifting their weight from foot to
Foot, and gazing into the future.

Paul Muldooon.

I'm sure that most people have thought of walking out on things at one time or another. A malignant surf of red bills on the doormat or an abusive and unhappy relationship can make even the most seemingly stable individual contemplate walking.

In some ways it can seem an attractive option; the prospect of reinventing ones personality and starting afresh having cut all ties and commitments preferable to a real and present turmoil. Of course it's an illusion. You can't reinvent yourself, and in abandoning the nexus of relationships that make you who you are you become void.

There are thousands of missing people in this country, their families left in anguish by the unexplained disappearance of a loved one. I'm sure the people who disappear don't intend their absence to be permanent, it just becomes impossible for them to reconnect.

I walked out once. The agony of a failed relationship had pushed me to the verge of suicide, the palette of my colours reduced to grey and black. One afternoon I walked to the Clifton Suspension bridge in Bristol intending to jump, but chickened out as I gazed down at the river below me. Instead I went to the pub and drank six pints of beer, and then visited the off licence where I purchased a bottle of whisky. The next day I packed my bags and got the bus to Heathrow. I flew never to return

I left some very dear friends but it was necessary for me to do so to excise that period of my life from memory. Nineteen years have passed and the agony has evaporated, or so I thought.

I reconnected with those friends from so long ago, and the well of memory began to gush. I don't regret doing it, and I will never lose touch with those dear people again, but I have discovered that a deeply repressed emotion can emerge with as much vigour as it had in the distant past.

Thankfully I am a stronger man today, and can deal with this resurrected pain. Sometimes things in the past have to be confronted. There can be no true closure otherwise.

Only connect.

Days

I am melancholic by disposition, although I prefer to repress that aspect of my personality because there is a fine line between wistful contemplation and an unhealthy obsession with an unsatisfactory past that leads inexorably to depression. It can also develop into an unhealthy mawkishness that is laughable.

Maybe its a Celtic* thing; the sense that there is an underlying sadness to things, that the bright timbre of a voice or a swirl of laughing faces is a chimera. Old photographs, abandoned ways of being, the evaporation of faith, certainties debunked: they're all there, concealed behind the Ikea sofa.

The dying fall, a limp and pills, a scatter of cigarette butts. The wind blows the wrong way across the salient, the antimacassars are yellowing, there is dust in the china cabinet.

See what I mean? Melancholia sucks big time.

I'm off for a pint.

* not the football team.

Bubble Wrap

Dear

Thanks for a most wonderful holiday in "Stronsay" a week ago. The weather smiled and we had a fantastic time.
I wonder if you found our boy Rory's toy tiger "Kitty" in the single room? He has done a disappearing act and Rory is asking for him. Would be grateful if you could let us know.

Very best regards

Jane

Dear Jane

I have a shed full of cuddly toys, colostomy bags, crutches, hiking boots, mobile phones, laptop chargers, odd socks, and digital cameras. Sometimes I like to sit in the shed and look at them. They're mine you see; I've worked for them and I like to commune with them and luxuriate in their freeness.

I will happily return "Kitty" to you if appropriate legal documentation proving ownership is afforded within the next 7 days. Failing this I am afraid that that this furry creature (presumed stuffed feline) shall be stored next to the watch that the previous guest left under the sofa.

And no, they won't be getting that back either.

Very best regards

Garfer

Ageing Disgracefully

Gasping for some nicotine sustenance today I was exasperated to find myself behind a queue of wobbling crumblies at the supermarket tobacco counter. Each of the Crimean War veterans spent at least five minutes fumbling in their purses and wallets as they shuffled their way towards the cancer emporium.

Were they queuing for a half ounce of Ogden's Nut Gone Flake or a packet of el cheapo obscure brand fags? No they were not; they were queuing for Lottery tickets and scratch cards.

Tenners were lobbed across the counter with gay abandon by the Ernies and Hildas, no doubt in expectation of huge payouts to fund their hip replacements and mobility scooters. I don't for one moment imagine that they were gambling in order to shower their children and grandchildren with new cars and trust funds. Oh no, they just want to deposit lucre in their Post Office accounts and gloat.

To think that grafters like myself are toiling to pay these peoples pensions. It's enough to make even the most fair minded individual advocate euthanasia.

Harumph.