David Belbin on B S Johnson and Barry Cole.
Can Flarf ever be taken seriously?
Ken Edwards of Reality Street on Carol Ann Duffy's Politics.
Bookdealer Types.
Extreme Reading.
Anchor in the Shadows: Transtromer.
The 'Terrible Twin' of Martin Amis.
Gessen on Orwell: always tell the truth.
Private Barthes: he really is a dead author.
Disturbances of Peace - Chinese poetry.
Darkness Visible - how novelists were writing of Britain before Thatcher.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Remake: a Short Story by Mark Robinson
The man allowed the author to breathe it in, leaving the blank cheque where it was on the desk between them; “Whatever figure you want.”
It was a tempting offer; Lee could visualise the numbers and his name on the pay to lines, it was already signed by the publishing house.
“Can I think about it?” Palms sweaty like an armoured car security guard with a spiralling mortgage and empty bank account, looking at the cash bag and thinking about running.
The man opposite pulled a grimace; it reminded Lee of a car salesman or mechanic being asked how much it was all going to cost him. “Afraid, all the thinking time you got has almost gone.”
He could do this, but could he live with himself afterwards? Looking down at the cheque, that tiny slip of pulp in the centre of the glossy mahogany desk; he had sold out before, he could do it again. With things the way they were, Lee didn’t really have a choice but to take the offer to re-write a classic: The Classic.
“Movie studios do it all the time.” He had said, even before the cheque was placed out in the open on the desk between them. “They look at their back catalogue and think, what can we remake this year?”
What little experience Lee had of working in Hollywood, he knew that remakes had become a staple of studios stuck for something new. And, if it wasn’t remakes, it was sequels or prequels, the post-modern equivalent. Here, though, a sequel already been done and a prequel, well, that was out of the question.
“But, you’re talking about a book.” It was difficult to get his head around; nobody re-wrote a classic book, not in the same way movie studios remade a classic film. Plenty of people had been inspired by a classic, and the resulting text had been categorised as a homage to the original but, to Lee’s recollection, no one had flagrantly re-written a best-seller before. At least, not this best seller.
“Think of what we’re commissioning you to do as a modern retelling, like a cover version, eh?” Fluffy eyebrows riding the ridges above his eyes like two deft puppets on invisible string. Lee felt like he should have strings attached to himself to be sitting here listening to this request.
“With all due respect, Lawrence, you can’t really compare this to a boy band cover; even a Beatles cover.” In his mind he was frustrated, only because he didn’t have a valid reason to say no; though, had plenty with which to accept. “Do you even own the rights?”
Leaning forward, the man’s bulbous nose almost shadowing the blank cheque; “That’s the beauty of it: the original texts pre-date copyright law, only the translations are protected.” A smile that exhibited his stained dentures. “What you’ll be doing for us is a further translation.” Rolling back his eyes with that slight twitch he had before reeling himself back across the desk into his usual reclining position.
Lee had to smile at that; “A translation of a translation.”
“Exactly!” Index finger in the air like the magicians and wizards and warlocks he wrote about exclaimed, index fingers replaced by a wand or sword or whatever, depending on the time in which the story was set.
“We’ve thought long and hard about this, Lee; long and hard, and we think that what you’re doing is just the direction we want to take this project in.” There was nothing like massaging a writer’s ego to make him sign on the dotted line. Great swollen hands out in the air, Lee could feel his ‘I have a dream’ speech garner strength. “With your talents, Lee, the best selling book of all time retold through your distinctive voice will take sales through the stratosphere. The original story of good versus evil; of original sin, our fall from grace and subsequent redemption through His deity on earth, Lee, this book will be just the beginning.”
The author felt suddenly ill; and, it wasn’t just the enormity of the task at hand. What about the public’s reaction to it and to him? He would, in all likelihood, become rich beyond his most wildest dreams but, he could, quite possibly, lose his soul and his life. What they wanted him to do was worse that what Mel Gibson and Salmon Rushtie had done combined; what Lawrence wanted him to do was re-write the word of God for the Playstation Generation.
“Could I have a glass of water, please, Lawrence?” Hand up to his mouth, swallowing back the surge of flood waters wading up from his gall bladder.
Lawrence reached forward in an instant to buzz his assistant, even though a half-filled jug sat not five feet away from them.
Stephanie strolled inside the office like an out-of-work catwalk model, sweeping up the jug, a glass and a placemat in her stride without pausing or spilling a drop. Lee necked the tumbler before she could put the jug down next to him and kindly refilled it before leaving the room.
Blank cheque still in place, next to the empty glass tumbler, collecting the slight spray of condensation that bubbled up from the base of the jug. In a far-off voice, Lawrence asked him if he was feeling okay.
“It’s just a little overwhelming, that’s all.” In truth he had gone as far as he could go with wizards and warlocks, the sudden spell of writers block had left him in a state of literary impotence; he could no longer perform. Meanwhile the money and advances he had made over the last five years were starting to recede, his life of excess and extravagance had seen to that, so had his wife and their three young children.
“This is my gift to you, Lee.” Quiet words, like those of a doctor who had a cure to the terminal disease he had just diagnosed. “Over two-thousand years worth of words from which to source something fresh and original; paraphrase if you must, cut things out; alter the narrative, switch the perspective, stagger the time-line: all we ask is that you retain the moral, the soul of the story.”
Lawrence was right; he could do this, this was just what he needed to get himself back on track, pull himself out of the lull he had fallen into. There was a rich wealth of players, of stories, of words from which he could fashion a story; as he thought about it, a steady calming feeling enveloped his body, he felt those long-lost juices flowing already. For the first time in months, Lee actually felt excited about writing something; gone was the anxiety and self-doubt blockers that had implanted themselves inside his own mind. He could overcome this, it was nowhere else but inside his own head.
Lee reached forward for the cheque.
“That’s my boy, Lee; that’s my boy!” Tapping his huge hands atop the giant desk like a kid perched on a high chair.
“Any figure?” Aiming his gaze upwards toward the big man.
“Your thirteen pieces of silver.” A steady stare that broke up after a moment or two. “Just kidding!” Those aged laughter lines breaking out across his weathered face like a stop-motion cadaver decaying into the earth.
Taking the pen that was swept across the desk toward him, the author reached up and etched in what he thought his life was worth, before slamming down the ball point.
Lawrence snatched both objects up, replacing the pen in his top pocket and revealing the cheque through a pair of glasses he had found from within his jacket pocket. With a turndown of his lips; “Quite modest, Lee; the board will be very happy with that. More than happy.”
In a dirge, he thought he might have left out a zero, then remembered that he had also written out the figure to make absolutely certain what he expected in his account.
“Half now, half on completion?” Pocketing the cheque once he had scored and folded it in two.
“I’m happy with that.” And he was.
“I’ll have accounts draft the paperwork and process the transfer before the end of the month.” Getting ready to stand. “If you want to swing by next Thursday, I’ll have the contract ready for you to sign.”
Lee was up out of his seat, tearing to get back to his office and start the outline of his bible. Coming around the desk to shake his hand, Lawrence had his Friday-afternoon-at-the-bar smile on show. “Glad to finally have you on board, Lee; it’s been a devil of a project to get going, let me tell you.”
“I bet it has.” Withdrawing his clammy palm from Lawrence and following his extended arm toward to the door.
“Any ideas you have in the meantime, if you could bring them along with you to the next meeting; I’d like to keep informed of developments.”
“Of course, Lawrence; I’ve got a couple of ideas already.”
Clapping the back of his shoulders; “That’s great, Lee; very reassuring indeed.” As he saw him into the outer office, right up to the lift doors as they opened, as if right on cue. “Have a safe journey home.” Then the author was shuttered behind the sliding doors that had divided to let him through.
Briskly treading back toward his throne, he stopped by Stephanie’s desk to ask when the next author was due in.
“About twenty minutes.” She replied, not breaking eye contact with her monitor.
“Fantastic; send him right in when he arrives, and add another one to the list.”
Mark Robinson, erstwhile poet and editor, has appeared in Birmingham’s Raw Edge Magazine, Manchester’s Transmission and online at Hackwriters.com, txtlit.co.uk and shortstory.us.com (short story Library).
Forthcoming attractions are inclusions in: Never Hit by Lightning, an anthology edited by Tucker Lieberman & Andrew Tivey; and an upcoming issue of Delivered Magazine (late 2009).
It was a tempting offer; Lee could visualise the numbers and his name on the pay to lines, it was already signed by the publishing house.
“Can I think about it?” Palms sweaty like an armoured car security guard with a spiralling mortgage and empty bank account, looking at the cash bag and thinking about running.
The man opposite pulled a grimace; it reminded Lee of a car salesman or mechanic being asked how much it was all going to cost him. “Afraid, all the thinking time you got has almost gone.”
He could do this, but could he live with himself afterwards? Looking down at the cheque, that tiny slip of pulp in the centre of the glossy mahogany desk; he had sold out before, he could do it again. With things the way they were, Lee didn’t really have a choice but to take the offer to re-write a classic: The Classic.
“Movie studios do it all the time.” He had said, even before the cheque was placed out in the open on the desk between them. “They look at their back catalogue and think, what can we remake this year?”
What little experience Lee had of working in Hollywood, he knew that remakes had become a staple of studios stuck for something new. And, if it wasn’t remakes, it was sequels or prequels, the post-modern equivalent. Here, though, a sequel already been done and a prequel, well, that was out of the question.
“But, you’re talking about a book.” It was difficult to get his head around; nobody re-wrote a classic book, not in the same way movie studios remade a classic film. Plenty of people had been inspired by a classic, and the resulting text had been categorised as a homage to the original but, to Lee’s recollection, no one had flagrantly re-written a best-seller before. At least, not this best seller.
“Think of what we’re commissioning you to do as a modern retelling, like a cover version, eh?” Fluffy eyebrows riding the ridges above his eyes like two deft puppets on invisible string. Lee felt like he should have strings attached to himself to be sitting here listening to this request.
“With all due respect, Lawrence, you can’t really compare this to a boy band cover; even a Beatles cover.” In his mind he was frustrated, only because he didn’t have a valid reason to say no; though, had plenty with which to accept. “Do you even own the rights?”
Leaning forward, the man’s bulbous nose almost shadowing the blank cheque; “That’s the beauty of it: the original texts pre-date copyright law, only the translations are protected.” A smile that exhibited his stained dentures. “What you’ll be doing for us is a further translation.” Rolling back his eyes with that slight twitch he had before reeling himself back across the desk into his usual reclining position.
Lee had to smile at that; “A translation of a translation.”
“Exactly!” Index finger in the air like the magicians and wizards and warlocks he wrote about exclaimed, index fingers replaced by a wand or sword or whatever, depending on the time in which the story was set.
“We’ve thought long and hard about this, Lee; long and hard, and we think that what you’re doing is just the direction we want to take this project in.” There was nothing like massaging a writer’s ego to make him sign on the dotted line. Great swollen hands out in the air, Lee could feel his ‘I have a dream’ speech garner strength. “With your talents, Lee, the best selling book of all time retold through your distinctive voice will take sales through the stratosphere. The original story of good versus evil; of original sin, our fall from grace and subsequent redemption through His deity on earth, Lee, this book will be just the beginning.”
The author felt suddenly ill; and, it wasn’t just the enormity of the task at hand. What about the public’s reaction to it and to him? He would, in all likelihood, become rich beyond his most wildest dreams but, he could, quite possibly, lose his soul and his life. What they wanted him to do was worse that what Mel Gibson and Salmon Rushtie had done combined; what Lawrence wanted him to do was re-write the word of God for the Playstation Generation.
“Could I have a glass of water, please, Lawrence?” Hand up to his mouth, swallowing back the surge of flood waters wading up from his gall bladder.
Lawrence reached forward in an instant to buzz his assistant, even though a half-filled jug sat not five feet away from them.
Stephanie strolled inside the office like an out-of-work catwalk model, sweeping up the jug, a glass and a placemat in her stride without pausing or spilling a drop. Lee necked the tumbler before she could put the jug down next to him and kindly refilled it before leaving the room.
Blank cheque still in place, next to the empty glass tumbler, collecting the slight spray of condensation that bubbled up from the base of the jug. In a far-off voice, Lawrence asked him if he was feeling okay.
“It’s just a little overwhelming, that’s all.” In truth he had gone as far as he could go with wizards and warlocks, the sudden spell of writers block had left him in a state of literary impotence; he could no longer perform. Meanwhile the money and advances he had made over the last five years were starting to recede, his life of excess and extravagance had seen to that, so had his wife and their three young children.
“This is my gift to you, Lee.” Quiet words, like those of a doctor who had a cure to the terminal disease he had just diagnosed. “Over two-thousand years worth of words from which to source something fresh and original; paraphrase if you must, cut things out; alter the narrative, switch the perspective, stagger the time-line: all we ask is that you retain the moral, the soul of the story.”
Lawrence was right; he could do this, this was just what he needed to get himself back on track, pull himself out of the lull he had fallen into. There was a rich wealth of players, of stories, of words from which he could fashion a story; as he thought about it, a steady calming feeling enveloped his body, he felt those long-lost juices flowing already. For the first time in months, Lee actually felt excited about writing something; gone was the anxiety and self-doubt blockers that had implanted themselves inside his own mind. He could overcome this, it was nowhere else but inside his own head.
Lee reached forward for the cheque.
“That’s my boy, Lee; that’s my boy!” Tapping his huge hands atop the giant desk like a kid perched on a high chair.
“Any figure?” Aiming his gaze upwards toward the big man.
“Your thirteen pieces of silver.” A steady stare that broke up after a moment or two. “Just kidding!” Those aged laughter lines breaking out across his weathered face like a stop-motion cadaver decaying into the earth.
Taking the pen that was swept across the desk toward him, the author reached up and etched in what he thought his life was worth, before slamming down the ball point.
Lawrence snatched both objects up, replacing the pen in his top pocket and revealing the cheque through a pair of glasses he had found from within his jacket pocket. With a turndown of his lips; “Quite modest, Lee; the board will be very happy with that. More than happy.”
In a dirge, he thought he might have left out a zero, then remembered that he had also written out the figure to make absolutely certain what he expected in his account.
“Half now, half on completion?” Pocketing the cheque once he had scored and folded it in two.
“I’m happy with that.” And he was.
“I’ll have accounts draft the paperwork and process the transfer before the end of the month.” Getting ready to stand. “If you want to swing by next Thursday, I’ll have the contract ready for you to sign.”
Lee was up out of his seat, tearing to get back to his office and start the outline of his bible. Coming around the desk to shake his hand, Lawrence had his Friday-afternoon-at-the-bar smile on show. “Glad to finally have you on board, Lee; it’s been a devil of a project to get going, let me tell you.”
“I bet it has.” Withdrawing his clammy palm from Lawrence and following his extended arm toward to the door.
“Any ideas you have in the meantime, if you could bring them along with you to the next meeting; I’d like to keep informed of developments.”
“Of course, Lawrence; I’ve got a couple of ideas already.”
Clapping the back of his shoulders; “That’s great, Lee; very reassuring indeed.” As he saw him into the outer office, right up to the lift doors as they opened, as if right on cue. “Have a safe journey home.” Then the author was shuttered behind the sliding doors that had divided to let him through.
Briskly treading back toward his throne, he stopped by Stephanie’s desk to ask when the next author was due in.
“About twenty minutes.” She replied, not breaking eye contact with her monitor.
“Fantastic; send him right in when he arrives, and add another one to the list.”
Mark Robinson, erstwhile poet and editor, has appeared in Birmingham’s Raw Edge Magazine, Manchester’s Transmission and online at Hackwriters.com, txtlit.co.uk and shortstory.us.com (short story Library).
Forthcoming attractions are inclusions in: Never Hit by Lightning, an anthology edited by Tucker Lieberman & Andrew Tivey; and an upcoming issue of Delivered Magazine (late 2009).
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
The Brush - Flash Fiction by Wayne Dean-Richards
It was late November and the sky was full of snow and the shops were already full of Christmas stuff but she stood out so I followed her into a steamy cafe.
She sat alone at a table near the window and drank a cappuccino. I ordered the same so I'd be in step with her, sitting two tables away, close enough so I could see she wasn't wearing a wedding ring but not so close, I hoped, that it'd be obvious I was watching her.
Ten minutes passed. I wished I had on my good shirt instead of an old sweater, frayed at the cuffs. When she finished her cappuccino I followed her out of the cafe and along the high street to an office block at the top of the town.
The front doors swallowed her up. If I'd looked like I worked there, if I'd looked like I worked anywhere, I'd have gone in after her.
I crossed the road to the bus station. When she came out I was going to speak to her. I wouldn't try and smooth talk her because I've never been any good at it, and since the operation I slur. My best bet, I decided, was to come clean: to tell her I'd seen her and had followed her and hoped she believed in love at first sight and felt it for me - because I felt it for her.
In the end I got so so worked up I almost missed her. She was crossing the road, going away from me before I made my legs move. When I got close enough to call out to her she stopped and turned. I said: "I know this'll sound mad, but bear with me a minute, please, because it's really important - "
*
I hear banging. The old man in the next room beats on the wall with the handle of a brush. I must've been shouting again. I didn't mean to. Why do rented rooms have such thin walls? Through the window I see a grizzled fox nuzzling an overturned dustbin, the scars of his life in his watchful eyes, whilst behind me the banging continues.
"Alright!" I call, and when the banging stops I close my eyes and wonder how many years it's been since I saw her...
Wayne Dean-Richards lives in the West Midlands. His writing output includes poetry, short stories, novels and scripts. His most recent novel is Breakpoints. His website is: www.waynedeanrichards.com
She sat alone at a table near the window and drank a cappuccino. I ordered the same so I'd be in step with her, sitting two tables away, close enough so I could see she wasn't wearing a wedding ring but not so close, I hoped, that it'd be obvious I was watching her.
Ten minutes passed. I wished I had on my good shirt instead of an old sweater, frayed at the cuffs. When she finished her cappuccino I followed her out of the cafe and along the high street to an office block at the top of the town.
The front doors swallowed her up. If I'd looked like I worked there, if I'd looked like I worked anywhere, I'd have gone in after her.
I crossed the road to the bus station. When she came out I was going to speak to her. I wouldn't try and smooth talk her because I've never been any good at it, and since the operation I slur. My best bet, I decided, was to come clean: to tell her I'd seen her and had followed her and hoped she believed in love at first sight and felt it for me - because I felt it for her.
In the end I got so so worked up I almost missed her. She was crossing the road, going away from me before I made my legs move. When I got close enough to call out to her she stopped and turned. I said: "I know this'll sound mad, but bear with me a minute, please, because it's really important - "
*
I hear banging. The old man in the next room beats on the wall with the handle of a brush. I must've been shouting again. I didn't mean to. Why do rented rooms have such thin walls? Through the window I see a grizzled fox nuzzling an overturned dustbin, the scars of his life in his watchful eyes, whilst behind me the banging continues.
"Alright!" I call, and when the banging stops I close my eyes and wonder how many years it's been since I saw her...
Wayne Dean-Richards lives in the West Midlands. His writing output includes poetry, short stories, novels and scripts. His most recent novel is Breakpoints. His website is: www.waynedeanrichards.com
Saturday, 16 May 2009
A Lovely Sense of Closure - Poems by Andrew Taylor
A LOVELY SENSE OF CLOSURE AND THE FREEDOM TO REIN YOU IN
back from the edge, where the waterfall's spray coats
your skin. Oh to be in Wales in the Autumn! When the sky
threatens to crack and take you with it, remember the candles
lit in your honour, bottom left. I always choose left over right
an odd trait from 1980s Liverpool, turning left at the bottom
of the stairs at the Everyman Bistro into the melee of familiar
Friday faces, The Blue Nile oozing from the Third Room.
After rain freshness. Trackside fences littered with amber,
reflections cast off polished rails, diesel pools a rainbow.
This Autumn age! Comfort of dark nights and neon. The
city draws in river mist, halos round street lights
AMARI
How I love the smell of Autumn in the morning.
Wind throws spent leaves in a merry dance,
power cables whistle in time. As the storm
gathers in, a train pulses by on a grey horizon.
A heater clicks in Room 111 of the Days Inn,
Bristol West. Workplace shelf cleared, neutrality
brushed aside. Make a mark! capture the image,
the M5 at its rush-hour best.
Light streaks luminous outside lane. Air-condition
cold swirls through service station view. Nature
and human interaction, hard shoulder borders
ripple with nocturnal creatures.
October mist descends like a shroud, brings evening
on board. Journey through carved country, picturing
the view of cows from bridges, that cross to shelter
and dream of daybreak.
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool based poet and co-editor of erbacce and erbacce-press. His latest collection comes from Sunnyoutside Press, Buffalo. Check out Andrew's website.
back from the edge, where the waterfall's spray coats
your skin. Oh to be in Wales in the Autumn! When the sky
threatens to crack and take you with it, remember the candles
lit in your honour, bottom left. I always choose left over right
an odd trait from 1980s Liverpool, turning left at the bottom
of the stairs at the Everyman Bistro into the melee of familiar
Friday faces, The Blue Nile oozing from the Third Room.
After rain freshness. Trackside fences littered with amber,
reflections cast off polished rails, diesel pools a rainbow.
This Autumn age! Comfort of dark nights and neon. The
city draws in river mist, halos round street lights
AMARI
How I love the smell of Autumn in the morning.
Wind throws spent leaves in a merry dance,
power cables whistle in time. As the storm
gathers in, a train pulses by on a grey horizon.
A heater clicks in Room 111 of the Days Inn,
Bristol West. Workplace shelf cleared, neutrality
brushed aside. Make a mark! capture the image,
the M5 at its rush-hour best.
Light streaks luminous outside lane. Air-condition
cold swirls through service station view. Nature
and human interaction, hard shoulder borders
ripple with nocturnal creatures.
October mist descends like a shroud, brings evening
on board. Journey through carved country, picturing
the view of cows from bridges, that cross to shelter
and dream of daybreak.
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool based poet and co-editor of erbacce and erbacce-press. His latest collection comes from Sunnyoutside Press, Buffalo. Check out Andrew's website.
Friday, 3 April 2009
Gower Road and Fall: Poems by Cliff Yates
GOWER ROAD
He dreams all day of a crowded party,
strangers dancing round his room
with the sink in the corner
and American
novels on the mantelpiece.
All he has to do is lie there
every possible future
at that moment before him.
Rain streams down an inside wall
loosening the plaster.
We gather downstairs in the sitting room
with the landlord’s piano
then it’s Saturday Night, the gateway
to Sunday Morning
by Velvet Underground and Nico
the one with the banana on the cover.
FALL
The tablets work but send him to sleep
though when he can make it, the eight inch reflector
is manoeuvrable, so that’s a blessing,
what with the dodgy hip and that hill of a garden
and bearing in mind that time observing Mars
when he stepped back off the low stone wall
at three in the morning and lay sprawled
on the rockery and January frost
calling softly for help while the guinea-pigs
trembled in the corner of their hutch
or after the Beer Festival, when he opened
the door pulling into Southampton, stepped off
the train before it stopped, fell and rolled on his back
after insisting that all the commemorative
glasses go in his rucksack because
he’s the mature student, he’s the sensible one.
Cliff Yates is the author of Henry's Clock (winner of the Aldeburgh first collection prize and the Poetry Business book & pamphlet competition). A new collection, Frank Freeman's Dancing School, is forthcoming from Salt. Cliff's website - www.cliffyates.co.uk
He dreams all day of a crowded party,
strangers dancing round his room
with the sink in the corner
and American
novels on the mantelpiece.
All he has to do is lie there
every possible future
at that moment before him.
Rain streams down an inside wall
loosening the plaster.
We gather downstairs in the sitting room
with the landlord’s piano
then it’s Saturday Night, the gateway
to Sunday Morning
by Velvet Underground and Nico
the one with the banana on the cover.
FALL
The tablets work but send him to sleep
though when he can make it, the eight inch reflector
is manoeuvrable, so that’s a blessing,
what with the dodgy hip and that hill of a garden
and bearing in mind that time observing Mars
when he stepped back off the low stone wall
at three in the morning and lay sprawled
on the rockery and January frost
calling softly for help while the guinea-pigs
trembled in the corner of their hutch
or after the Beer Festival, when he opened
the door pulling into Southampton, stepped off
the train before it stopped, fell and rolled on his back
after insisting that all the commemorative
glasses go in his rucksack because
he’s the mature student, he’s the sensible one.
Cliff Yates is the author of Henry's Clock (winner of the Aldeburgh first collection prize and the Poetry Business book & pamphlet competition). A new collection, Frank Freeman's Dancing School, is forthcoming from Salt. Cliff's website - www.cliffyates.co.uk
Saturday, 6 December 2008
Vamp Of The Shire - Two Poems by Colin James
IN CAVENDISH THERE ARE HERMANS AND BEULAHS
Some bastard stole my car.
See the shoreline groan.
Hear the blue sky get involved.
Solitude is never planned,
not like remorse or regret.
Age steals from youth
pockets full of the stuff
effectively overflowing
into less is more.
Muscles have a hankering too.
As thief, I abandon this vehicle
before it's too late.
He who hesitates is human.
VAMP OF THE SHIRE
It's a mistake
to make demands
of the person in power.
Wait in the pile
while she demurs.
Policies of politeness
stick to the walls
like wallpaper.
I'm puckering.
Kudos to the cartwheels
of conjecture.
Colin James works in Energy Conservation and is a member of The Brothers Of The Endemic.
Some bastard stole my car.
See the shoreline groan.
Hear the blue sky get involved.
Solitude is never planned,
not like remorse or regret.
Age steals from youth
pockets full of the stuff
effectively overflowing
into less is more.
Muscles have a hankering too.
As thief, I abandon this vehicle
before it's too late.
He who hesitates is human.
VAMP OF THE SHIRE
It's a mistake
to make demands
of the person in power.
Wait in the pile
while she demurs.
Policies of politeness
stick to the walls
like wallpaper.
I'm puckering.
Kudos to the cartwheels
of conjecture.
Colin James works in Energy Conservation and is a member of The Brothers Of The Endemic.
Friday, 5 December 2008
The Mirror - Short Story by Roz Goddard
Let me tell you, I have never in five years witnessed a noble act - unless you count reading.
Today, the forecast was for snow, that can mean any number of things – a stranded salesmen en route to Dundee booking in, perhaps lovers desperate to meet for their stolen afternoon despite the weather - I hoped for the latter. Salesmen are invariably dull - tossing cheap cufflinks onto the bedside table, using the remote control to search for Porn. These men have no taste. Hotel Porn is abysmal; I don’t know how they rise to it.
Anyway, no T.V. this afternoon for our pair. In they came light-footed - she’d had a gin or two - maybe a beer for him. No setting down of suitcases, no checking the hospitality tray (only married couples and conference delegates do this); they were almost dancing.
They didn’t know each other well, there was no finesse in their touching, certainly no familiarity, their movements were actorly as if they had seen this sort of thing on T.V. - yes, as if off-stage they were being directed to look passionate. I’ve seen it all - the haste, the muttered endearments, the application of effort, as if there was a glass trophy at the end of the month for toil. The wall lights glowed honey over them, they could be forgiven for thinking they were safe.
He had history, looked as if he had, defensive around the small eyes but handsome with it, looking as though he was, at the core of himself, rather ignoble. She was beautifully turned out, an indigo velvet dress with sheer stockings, high on the excitement of it – conker-glossy hair and radiant skin, as if she had seen the future and it was full of light.
They were right at the beginning of things, he had alcohol (that groaning cliché), it speaks of the Vauxhall Vectra, two wheels up on the pavement, while he grabbed a bottle of corner shop champagne. It’s regarded as a drink without negative connotations, unless it is used to disparage someone in an argument about class, though in this situation it suggests celebration, side-stepping the mundane. It is impossible to think about the colourlessness of aged parents, the smell of hospitals, the weekly shop - when you are drinking champagne. They had the whole afternoon stretching in front of them, glasses in hand, buttons undone. Though I am puzzled as to why they chose January to begin their affair, did any affair begun in January ever flourish? The month of midnight mornings and garden rot. Whether they like it or not they are carrying these faces of winter into the muted hotel warmth and the malaise is difficult to shake.
But it’s not the beginnings that interest me, they are often warm, full of hope, (despite the climate) it’s in the endings where the real story lies.
The problem this afternoon for our pair was one of geography. It would have been impossible in that over-heated office of theirs, with all the talk of work and deadlines and projections for them to get to know each other. They would have supposed things and the truth is, physical attraction makes you stupid, I’m not immune myself. One can overlook things.
The sex, and you must be wondering or you wouldn’t be human, was to an unbiased on-looker, rather unsatisfactory. I had detected in him a desire for sensuous pleasures, without any hint of sensitivity, he was like a great grass roller powering over the turf with not a thought for the daisies. She was gamely giving it her all, but I think, slightly bemused by his rather selfish focus. He was away unselfconsciously exploring the far-reaches of pleasure. She couldn’t catch him.
What do I mean by geography? They were to each other, somewhere unreachable, this was clear in the post-sex chat when they were bathing - he had taken the trouble to bring a sliver of Imperial Leather for his sensitive skin, a small intimacy she was moved by, this pulling back of the curtain on his hidden life, she was delighted it as if it were a precursor to deeper revelations, as if it signalled a shift onto the hinterland of a proper relationship. I could have told her it didn’t. He just had sensitive skin.
Champagne, despite all its bubbles and reputation, was no help to them. The post-sex chasm soon opened up, I detected as they lay in the cooling water a re-assessment, a cursory romp through books, film, music, all the normal distractions they enjoyed, revealed some interesting differences - instead of knowing each other more, they were to each other a bigger puzzle. There was a realisation in her greater silences that she was listening, appalled, to someone she didn’t have much in common with.
Although I didn’t have her down as the bragging type, she rattled off half a dozen literary titles she’d read in recent months. There was some anger in her revelation, I thought hold on love, it’s not a competition. He splashed about a bit and lost his soap.
It turned out he wasn’t a big reader; he’d read ‘Fever Pitch’ by Nick Hornby. Jesus, I thought, if only she’d given him a questionnaire to fill out before sleeping with him. His favourite book apparently, and I could tell by his tone, he’d gone misty eyed, was a children’s book called, The Velveteen Rabbit, he said his mother used to read it to him. I wondered though if this wasn’t a rather clever ploy on his part, what was it revealing? That he had a sensitive side, that he loved his mother and that he was deeply sentimental – some women like that.
There were silences, slightly awkward. He said, ‘You’re beautiful’, I imagine she smiled, but didn’t respond. Then the bombshell from her, ‘Do you love your wife?’
I realised immediately that despite her greater sensitivity and knowingness, she was with the champagne drunk, in the now cold water, hopelessly out of her depth. It was hard for her to accept that here, in this out-of-town hotel; on a dual carriageway she had been involved in nothing more than a bout of unsatisfactory sex. He refused to answer her question and rose from the water. He came out into the main room with a towel wrapped around his waist and conjured a wall with a barrage of sound from the T.V.
She stayed in the bathroom for a while; I heard the dull sweep of the towel over the mirror, water draining away. She feigned indifference when she emerged and started to get dressed too. I was reminded of two people in a family changing area at the local swimming pool, self-consciously pulling on underwear, careful not to catch anyone’s eye, backs hunched, curling in on themselves. I found it poignant that they both had a couple of inches of wet hair, where they had lain together in the bath, that intimacy now utterly evaporated.
He moved to the window, over three hours of snow had fallen and obliterated the parked cars. The dual carriageway was at a standstill, I saw in that micro expression both disappointment and regret - and a rising panic.
He began to dress quickly and after the briefest kiss to her cheek, and a mumbled something about seeing her at work, was gone, into the hushed corridor. I imagined him emerging onto the car park, mobile at his ear, looking up at the sky, his face catching the large, slippery flakes, pleading with the gods for the snow to stop falling, so he could get home.
She remained in the room sitting dumbly on the edge of the bed, the weather report forecast more snow coming from the West. For the first time she looked directly at me, and I, without sentiment, reflected the grey swimming of her eyes, her silent mirthless mouth, the rise and fall of her chest, hands cradling air. Here was a different woman, the woman who entered the room all those hours ago was not disappeared exactly, rather she had arrived in the future, and it was snowing.
Roz Goddard has published three collections of poetry; her most recent, How to Dismantle a Hotel Room, was published in 2006 in association with the Birmingham Book Festival. She is a former poet laureate of Birmingham and is currently working on a collection of short stories. Roz's website.
Today, the forecast was for snow, that can mean any number of things – a stranded salesmen en route to Dundee booking in, perhaps lovers desperate to meet for their stolen afternoon despite the weather - I hoped for the latter. Salesmen are invariably dull - tossing cheap cufflinks onto the bedside table, using the remote control to search for Porn. These men have no taste. Hotel Porn is abysmal; I don’t know how they rise to it.
Anyway, no T.V. this afternoon for our pair. In they came light-footed - she’d had a gin or two - maybe a beer for him. No setting down of suitcases, no checking the hospitality tray (only married couples and conference delegates do this); they were almost dancing.
They didn’t know each other well, there was no finesse in their touching, certainly no familiarity, their movements were actorly as if they had seen this sort of thing on T.V. - yes, as if off-stage they were being directed to look passionate. I’ve seen it all - the haste, the muttered endearments, the application of effort, as if there was a glass trophy at the end of the month for toil. The wall lights glowed honey over them, they could be forgiven for thinking they were safe.
He had history, looked as if he had, defensive around the small eyes but handsome with it, looking as though he was, at the core of himself, rather ignoble. She was beautifully turned out, an indigo velvet dress with sheer stockings, high on the excitement of it – conker-glossy hair and radiant skin, as if she had seen the future and it was full of light.
They were right at the beginning of things, he had alcohol (that groaning cliché), it speaks of the Vauxhall Vectra, two wheels up on the pavement, while he grabbed a bottle of corner shop champagne. It’s regarded as a drink without negative connotations, unless it is used to disparage someone in an argument about class, though in this situation it suggests celebration, side-stepping the mundane. It is impossible to think about the colourlessness of aged parents, the smell of hospitals, the weekly shop - when you are drinking champagne. They had the whole afternoon stretching in front of them, glasses in hand, buttons undone. Though I am puzzled as to why they chose January to begin their affair, did any affair begun in January ever flourish? The month of midnight mornings and garden rot. Whether they like it or not they are carrying these faces of winter into the muted hotel warmth and the malaise is difficult to shake.
But it’s not the beginnings that interest me, they are often warm, full of hope, (despite the climate) it’s in the endings where the real story lies.
The problem this afternoon for our pair was one of geography. It would have been impossible in that over-heated office of theirs, with all the talk of work and deadlines and projections for them to get to know each other. They would have supposed things and the truth is, physical attraction makes you stupid, I’m not immune myself. One can overlook things.
The sex, and you must be wondering or you wouldn’t be human, was to an unbiased on-looker, rather unsatisfactory. I had detected in him a desire for sensuous pleasures, without any hint of sensitivity, he was like a great grass roller powering over the turf with not a thought for the daisies. She was gamely giving it her all, but I think, slightly bemused by his rather selfish focus. He was away unselfconsciously exploring the far-reaches of pleasure. She couldn’t catch him.
What do I mean by geography? They were to each other, somewhere unreachable, this was clear in the post-sex chat when they were bathing - he had taken the trouble to bring a sliver of Imperial Leather for his sensitive skin, a small intimacy she was moved by, this pulling back of the curtain on his hidden life, she was delighted it as if it were a precursor to deeper revelations, as if it signalled a shift onto the hinterland of a proper relationship. I could have told her it didn’t. He just had sensitive skin.
Champagne, despite all its bubbles and reputation, was no help to them. The post-sex chasm soon opened up, I detected as they lay in the cooling water a re-assessment, a cursory romp through books, film, music, all the normal distractions they enjoyed, revealed some interesting differences - instead of knowing each other more, they were to each other a bigger puzzle. There was a realisation in her greater silences that she was listening, appalled, to someone she didn’t have much in common with.
Although I didn’t have her down as the bragging type, she rattled off half a dozen literary titles she’d read in recent months. There was some anger in her revelation, I thought hold on love, it’s not a competition. He splashed about a bit and lost his soap.
It turned out he wasn’t a big reader; he’d read ‘Fever Pitch’ by Nick Hornby. Jesus, I thought, if only she’d given him a questionnaire to fill out before sleeping with him. His favourite book apparently, and I could tell by his tone, he’d gone misty eyed, was a children’s book called, The Velveteen Rabbit, he said his mother used to read it to him. I wondered though if this wasn’t a rather clever ploy on his part, what was it revealing? That he had a sensitive side, that he loved his mother and that he was deeply sentimental – some women like that.
There were silences, slightly awkward. He said, ‘You’re beautiful’, I imagine she smiled, but didn’t respond. Then the bombshell from her, ‘Do you love your wife?’
I realised immediately that despite her greater sensitivity and knowingness, she was with the champagne drunk, in the now cold water, hopelessly out of her depth. It was hard for her to accept that here, in this out-of-town hotel; on a dual carriageway she had been involved in nothing more than a bout of unsatisfactory sex. He refused to answer her question and rose from the water. He came out into the main room with a towel wrapped around his waist and conjured a wall with a barrage of sound from the T.V.
She stayed in the bathroom for a while; I heard the dull sweep of the towel over the mirror, water draining away. She feigned indifference when she emerged and started to get dressed too. I was reminded of two people in a family changing area at the local swimming pool, self-consciously pulling on underwear, careful not to catch anyone’s eye, backs hunched, curling in on themselves. I found it poignant that they both had a couple of inches of wet hair, where they had lain together in the bath, that intimacy now utterly evaporated.
He moved to the window, over three hours of snow had fallen and obliterated the parked cars. The dual carriageway was at a standstill, I saw in that micro expression both disappointment and regret - and a rising panic.
He began to dress quickly and after the briefest kiss to her cheek, and a mumbled something about seeing her at work, was gone, into the hushed corridor. I imagined him emerging onto the car park, mobile at his ear, looking up at the sky, his face catching the large, slippery flakes, pleading with the gods for the snow to stop falling, so he could get home.
She remained in the room sitting dumbly on the edge of the bed, the weather report forecast more snow coming from the West. For the first time she looked directly at me, and I, without sentiment, reflected the grey swimming of her eyes, her silent mirthless mouth, the rise and fall of her chest, hands cradling air. Here was a different woman, the woman who entered the room all those hours ago was not disappeared exactly, rather she had arrived in the future, and it was snowing.
Roz Goddard has published three collections of poetry; her most recent, How to Dismantle a Hotel Room, was published in 2006 in association with the Birmingham Book Festival. She is a former poet laureate of Birmingham and is currently working on a collection of short stories. Roz's website.
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