There were two green frogs, flat against the rotting wood of our bathroom wall. One with legs outstretched, the other with his folded underneath. Their bodies looked cold, damp and so small, quickly breathing, their slimy skins rising and falling in time to an inaudible beat.
Then there was a brown spider, long legged, big-fanged and furry. Its bulbous body rested on the wood, seeming deflated, depleted, unmoving. It was missing a leg.
The frogs disappeared. The spider went missing. No small damp bodies. No fur covered legs. The walls remained bare. It felt so wrong without them.
….
Friday, October 30, 2009
Deceiving lines
Sometimes there really isn’t anything to write.
The lines on the page become heavier with every second that they remain empty, lines that wait for the solid round point of my pen to glide over them, touching, crossing and dotting them, but never erasing them.
They are the lines that came before the pen. They insinuate that they will support the words that are written, that they might welcome and comfort them, give them shelter even.
But these lines are liars. They provide no inspiration. They contribute no content. They stare at me accusingly, creating obligation and arguing that there is a necessity that exists based merely on their existence.
Sometimes there really isn’t anything to write.
.…
The lines on the page become heavier with every second that they remain empty, lines that wait for the solid round point of my pen to glide over them, touching, crossing and dotting them, but never erasing them.
They are the lines that came before the pen. They insinuate that they will support the words that are written, that they might welcome and comfort them, give them shelter even.
But these lines are liars. They provide no inspiration. They contribute no content. They stare at me accusingly, creating obligation and arguing that there is a necessity that exists based merely on their existence.
Sometimes there really isn’t anything to write.
.…
Purple orchid
Grey sky heavy with cloud
The day looks cold but is not
Heavy air
Trapping stale heat
A purple orchid twists
Moving this way and that
Turned
By an invisible wind
....
The day looks cold but is not
Heavy air
Trapping stale heat
A purple orchid twists
Moving this way and that
Turned
By an invisible wind
....
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
A nice walk home
I was walking home when I saw a broken bottle on the road. It was lying in the gutter, a beer bottle of brownish gold glass. The neck of it was broken off. I couldn’t see the missing part lying anywhere nearby. Whoever broke the bottle must have taken it with them. All that remained of its mouth was jagged sections of glass. Someone wrapped their lips around that mouth once, swallowing what was probably cold beer, maybe at the end of a hard day, maybe while walking home just like me.
I stopped for a few seconds and looked at it. I thought about picking it up and using it to slit my throat. Not really, but, what would it be like if I did? I had a cartoon-like image of what it might look like. I wondered whether someone smashed it on purpose after drinking it empty and walked away with the neck of it in their hands. Perhaps that person used it to slit someone else’s throat. You never know these days.
A short while later I saw a dead animal on the side of the road. I stopped and looked at that for a while too. I couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was, all that remained of its body was mangled black fur with splotches of red and innards that had hardened and started to turn brown.
I’ve always loved road-kill. I used to take pictures of it, back in the days when I used to carry my camera with me all the time on the off chance that I would come across something I wanted to immortalise on film.
Although, film doesn’t really exist anymore in this digital age, but you know, it’s the thought that counts. And anyway, you can’t immortalise something that is already dead.
…..
I stopped for a few seconds and looked at it. I thought about picking it up and using it to slit my throat. Not really, but, what would it be like if I did? I had a cartoon-like image of what it might look like. I wondered whether someone smashed it on purpose after drinking it empty and walked away with the neck of it in their hands. Perhaps that person used it to slit someone else’s throat. You never know these days.
A short while later I saw a dead animal on the side of the road. I stopped and looked at that for a while too. I couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was, all that remained of its body was mangled black fur with splotches of red and innards that had hardened and started to turn brown.
I’ve always loved road-kill. I used to take pictures of it, back in the days when I used to carry my camera with me all the time on the off chance that I would come across something I wanted to immortalise on film.
Although, film doesn’t really exist anymore in this digital age, but you know, it’s the thought that counts. And anyway, you can’t immortalise something that is already dead.
…..
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tread carefully
The plumes of smoke
Were not a hoax
Curling up towards the black sky
There was fire here not so long ago
And so much heat
If you listen carefully
The sounds still reach you
Crackling and splintering
Breaking and splitting
Pieces of wood glowing red then white from the heat
Crumbling and turning to ash
Everything turns black then red then white then grey
There are coals here that can burn tender feet
...
Were not a hoax
Curling up towards the black sky
There was fire here not so long ago
And so much heat
If you listen carefully
The sounds still reach you
Crackling and splintering
Breaking and splitting
Pieces of wood glowing red then white from the heat
Crumbling and turning to ash
Everything turns black then red then white then grey
There are coals here that can burn tender feet
...
Grubby fingers
My fingernails are dirty. Really dirty. If I’m honest about it, they’ve been dirty for over a month. I tap them on the table. They aren’t exactly short either and make a hard clacking sound on the cheap and nasty plastic tabletop. Who am I kidding? These nails of mine are nastier than the table could ever be. What is it that I keep touching to make them so dirty for so long? The frequency and consistency of the dirt amazes me, I might add.
After a good cleaning, an under-the-nail-bed scraping and thorough scrubbing with soap – either before or after a shower, although the results appear to be better when this process is followed by a shower – a superior level of cleanliness is achieved. I think so anyway.
And then, without fail, two hours later (again, if I’m forced to tell the truth, I can recreate the pre-scrubbing muck in a swift 20 minutes) they are filthy all over again. The familiar dark coloured scum reappears, gathering predominantly towards the centre of the nail at first, but when left unchecked and unmonitored quickly and rampantly spreading across the entire surface. Yes I watch it, study it even.
Various shades of “dirty” are achieved. Who knew that “dirty” had so many different faces; a chameleon of sorts indeed. Sometimes it hints of gardening activities, gleaming a dark earthy brown. Other times, my nails whisper that I’ve been digging for treasure in an ashtray and show a dusty shade of grey. Finally, a disturbingly bright green suggests that I like to cut the grass using nothing but my bare hands on a rainy day. On the most interesting days a combination of all three is layered carefully, almost like a rainbow.
Whether the dirt is a cause for concern has not been determined by me yet. Sometimes I worry people might be staring, but I convince myself they couldn’t possibly be close enough to see what’s going on beneath my nails. The nature of the dirt and its origin remains uncertain, so I’m not going to make a decision on the level of threat. For now I’ll continue showering, cleaning and scrubbing, and I know for a fact that it will be met with unyielding stubbornness by this dirt that resides so lovingly under my nails.
...
After a good cleaning, an under-the-nail-bed scraping and thorough scrubbing with soap – either before or after a shower, although the results appear to be better when this process is followed by a shower – a superior level of cleanliness is achieved. I think so anyway.
And then, without fail, two hours later (again, if I’m forced to tell the truth, I can recreate the pre-scrubbing muck in a swift 20 minutes) they are filthy all over again. The familiar dark coloured scum reappears, gathering predominantly towards the centre of the nail at first, but when left unchecked and unmonitored quickly and rampantly spreading across the entire surface. Yes I watch it, study it even.
Various shades of “dirty” are achieved. Who knew that “dirty” had so many different faces; a chameleon of sorts indeed. Sometimes it hints of gardening activities, gleaming a dark earthy brown. Other times, my nails whisper that I’ve been digging for treasure in an ashtray and show a dusty shade of grey. Finally, a disturbingly bright green suggests that I like to cut the grass using nothing but my bare hands on a rainy day. On the most interesting days a combination of all three is layered carefully, almost like a rainbow.
Whether the dirt is a cause for concern has not been determined by me yet. Sometimes I worry people might be staring, but I convince myself they couldn’t possibly be close enough to see what’s going on beneath my nails. The nature of the dirt and its origin remains uncertain, so I’m not going to make a decision on the level of threat. For now I’ll continue showering, cleaning and scrubbing, and I know for a fact that it will be met with unyielding stubbornness by this dirt that resides so lovingly under my nails.
...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Dark wood
I make my way upstairs, one step at a time. The staircase is built of wood, it’s wide and unlit. Each step makes a section of wood somewhere creak. It’s not creepy, just odd. Every little sound is a word uttered by the stairs, just for me. A light bulb hangs at the landing, casting a small yellow circle of light just beneath it but throwing everything else in shadow.
From the landing, there is a massive hallway that I walk down to get to my room. Mine is the last on the left, one of four, and it looks out onto the street. The hallway too is made entirely of wood. The doors to the rooms are shut by a small iron hook through which a padlock is looped.
The wood here, like on the stairs, is very dark brown. It has grooves and holes and shiny areas that have been worn away by repeated contact over time. The place must be hundreds of years old and yet the wood is so solid that it feels like it isn’t just holding the building together but it’s holding me together too. I feel a sudden certainty that if someone were to cut the walls, I would bleed, just a little.
The noises from the floor below me, where I had just eaten my dinner, are fading. I can still hear the people talking, laughing and eating, glasses chinking and cutlery scraping plates. There is music too, softly, from the television that plays in the corner. But with each step I take the wood steals the sounds away, absorbing them, slowly inhaling them from the air around me and hiding them in the walls and floor.
The growing silence gathers weight. A feeling of hollow emptiness resonates behind my ribs, little by little. As my feet pad across the wooden floor to my room a round space opens up right in the centre of my chest and every step opens it a little more. I imagine a tiny man inside my ribcage, a dirty-faced miner deep within the earth, working away with his pick and shovel, expanding the empty space around him bit by bit.
I insert the key into the padlock on my door, and it makes the smoothest sound, each section of the key fitting perfectly with the insides of the lock. I turn the key, click.
All the windows in my room are open and the thin curtains are flapping, letting the air in. The night is hot, the air is thick and I’m sweating just from this short walk to my room. I sit down on the edge of my bed and listen to the noises that come into the room, floating in the windows on the breeze and hovering around me like ghosts.
Despite these noises coming up from the street below, I am silent and empty. The miner continues to work away, happily oblivious and absorbed in his work. The sounds fade away and I’m left with nothing. And yet, this nothingness has sound, it's like a rushing vacuum in my ears, in my head.
I know the sound well. It only takes a second or two. Like spotting an old lover on the street, for a split second unsure if you know the face in front of you, then realising there's no doubt; not only do you know the face, you know it almost as well as you know your own. I know this sound, this silence. It is the sound of loneliness.
...
From the landing, there is a massive hallway that I walk down to get to my room. Mine is the last on the left, one of four, and it looks out onto the street. The hallway too is made entirely of wood. The doors to the rooms are shut by a small iron hook through which a padlock is looped.
The wood here, like on the stairs, is very dark brown. It has grooves and holes and shiny areas that have been worn away by repeated contact over time. The place must be hundreds of years old and yet the wood is so solid that it feels like it isn’t just holding the building together but it’s holding me together too. I feel a sudden certainty that if someone were to cut the walls, I would bleed, just a little.
The noises from the floor below me, where I had just eaten my dinner, are fading. I can still hear the people talking, laughing and eating, glasses chinking and cutlery scraping plates. There is music too, softly, from the television that plays in the corner. But with each step I take the wood steals the sounds away, absorbing them, slowly inhaling them from the air around me and hiding them in the walls and floor.
The growing silence gathers weight. A feeling of hollow emptiness resonates behind my ribs, little by little. As my feet pad across the wooden floor to my room a round space opens up right in the centre of my chest and every step opens it a little more. I imagine a tiny man inside my ribcage, a dirty-faced miner deep within the earth, working away with his pick and shovel, expanding the empty space around him bit by bit.
I insert the key into the padlock on my door, and it makes the smoothest sound, each section of the key fitting perfectly with the insides of the lock. I turn the key, click.
All the windows in my room are open and the thin curtains are flapping, letting the air in. The night is hot, the air is thick and I’m sweating just from this short walk to my room. I sit down on the edge of my bed and listen to the noises that come into the room, floating in the windows on the breeze and hovering around me like ghosts.
Despite these noises coming up from the street below, I am silent and empty. The miner continues to work away, happily oblivious and absorbed in his work. The sounds fade away and I’m left with nothing. And yet, this nothingness has sound, it's like a rushing vacuum in my ears, in my head.
I know the sound well. It only takes a second or two. Like spotting an old lover on the street, for a split second unsure if you know the face in front of you, then realising there's no doubt; not only do you know the face, you know it almost as well as you know your own. I know this sound, this silence. It is the sound of loneliness.
...
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Small pieces
Drops of water
Pieces of rain
Collide with the glass
Trickle down
More drops fall
Join one another
A small stream is born
More drops fall
Splat on the window
Each time
I find a new memory
Each drop
Hurts me more than the last
Memories trickle through my mind
Joining one another
Forming a small stream
Trickling down
Pieces of rain
Collide with the glass
Trickle down
More drops fall
Join one another
A small stream is born
More drops fall
Splat on the window
Each time
I find a new memory
Each drop
Hurts me more than the last
Memories trickle through my mind
Joining one another
Forming a small stream
Trickling down
Friday, October 16, 2009
Like spoiled milk
It’s so typical you know. Almost pathetically predictable. Feeling scared of being judged, ridiculed or disliked. The likelihood that I am at best mediocre, dull or without ability. I really want to say talent, but I don’t dare, for fear that someone might actually think that I think that I have any. I really wish I did. Have talent. For anything.
I digress.
Funny that I wrote “that I am at best mediocre”, when what I plan to post in this blog is my writing. And yet. I refer to it as thought it is me. Maybe it is. It could be one of the pieces of asphalt that form the road, stuck together bit by bit, on which I find myself.
Word on the street is that I’m trying to take a new approach to my life. One where I don’t care about the opinions and judgements of others, where I stop doing things because other people think I should, or that make up the ‘smart’ path to take in this occasional joke we call life, and instead live for myself. What a wanker. I may as well start spouting about how we can all change the world, if we only change ourselves first.
Anyway.
There is another, in my opinion more overwhelming, reason that has held me back from starting this blog; there is something incredibly conceited and self obsessed in blogging. As though I honestly think that the shit that spews forth from my mind and onto the page is worth anyone’s time or would hold anyone’s interest.
I would like to believe that my writing would flow onto the page with the smoothness of a hot knife cutting through butter, but in reality I think it would be more like spoiled milk escaping from a carton, rotten stinking clumps plopping out one by one, each more grotesque than the last, forcing their way from captivity into the open for all to see.
The stench of my attempted writing would permeate the air and anyone exposed would wrinkle their nose in distaste, wishing that the milk carton had never been opened but discarded and left to fester alone.
But the last twelve months have taught me something. It’s a lesson I’m still learning and one I sometimes forget. Life is so short and most of the time so pointless. There are so few things I truly care about, and I don’t mean family or friends, those are obvious; I mean things I can do with my time that are utterly for me. One of these things is writing. I love it with all that I am, it is part of me.
I may not have any talent, my writing may be like a bad dancer at the disco that has all the wrong moves and dances to a beat that no one else can hear, embarrassing himself while the cool kids avoid eye contact and laugh. But you know what? Fuck it. Life is fleeting so I’m going to head out onto the dance floor and wiggle around a bit and see what happens. There might be laughter, I may end up in tears, but it’s all part of the ride.
…
I digress.
Funny that I wrote “that I am at best mediocre”, when what I plan to post in this blog is my writing. And yet. I refer to it as thought it is me. Maybe it is. It could be one of the pieces of asphalt that form the road, stuck together bit by bit, on which I find myself.
Word on the street is that I’m trying to take a new approach to my life. One where I don’t care about the opinions and judgements of others, where I stop doing things because other people think I should, or that make up the ‘smart’ path to take in this occasional joke we call life, and instead live for myself. What a wanker. I may as well start spouting about how we can all change the world, if we only change ourselves first.
Anyway.
There is another, in my opinion more overwhelming, reason that has held me back from starting this blog; there is something incredibly conceited and self obsessed in blogging. As though I honestly think that the shit that spews forth from my mind and onto the page is worth anyone’s time or would hold anyone’s interest.
I would like to believe that my writing would flow onto the page with the smoothness of a hot knife cutting through butter, but in reality I think it would be more like spoiled milk escaping from a carton, rotten stinking clumps plopping out one by one, each more grotesque than the last, forcing their way from captivity into the open for all to see.
The stench of my attempted writing would permeate the air and anyone exposed would wrinkle their nose in distaste, wishing that the milk carton had never been opened but discarded and left to fester alone.
But the last twelve months have taught me something. It’s a lesson I’m still learning and one I sometimes forget. Life is so short and most of the time so pointless. There are so few things I truly care about, and I don’t mean family or friends, those are obvious; I mean things I can do with my time that are utterly for me. One of these things is writing. I love it with all that I am, it is part of me.
I may not have any talent, my writing may be like a bad dancer at the disco that has all the wrong moves and dances to a beat that no one else can hear, embarrassing himself while the cool kids avoid eye contact and laugh. But you know what? Fuck it. Life is fleeting so I’m going to head out onto the dance floor and wiggle around a bit and see what happens. There might be laughter, I may end up in tears, but it’s all part of the ride.
…
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