Tuesday 26 September 2017

Flash in the heart

A mad looking man on a bicycle pushing a trolley cart shouts, ‘It’s actually Happy Hour all the time!’ at some students who are looking at their shoes. I pass by them on the tight pavement, looking at that man’s harrowed eyes beneath that GoPro strapped to his forehead, blinking.

My heart is pounding inside my cavity and I wonder what if it all blurs in to one and happens in a split second? 
One thought escapes my confines and flutters in to the big world, never to be regained exactly, but thought again, by me and anyone else who thinks. Sometimes my brain clicks off. Then whirrs back ON at high-speed I shock myself.

I learnt today that there are hidden words at the ends of sentences. The easiest ones are those with ellipses, like, ‘Last night was fun…’ (so let’s not get emotionally involved)
Or there are agreements made between those who should truly know what it means when they say, ‘Let’s make it happen!’ (not yet or ever, so, see you in about a year)
The classic one is, ‘Are you alright?’
‘I’m fine.’

Strange the road looks wet when it hasn’t been raining. May be a spillage. The scaffolding looks like ship’s sails. The decking wet with salt water splashes, the ground uneven and being on the sea, is bent at all levels underfoot. The loud bassoon of a fog horn cuts through the pedestrians and we’re back in the city, after dark, before any of the bells toll.





Thursday 14 September 2017

Electricity hums

Everything emits electricity these days. My gaze bounces off of screen, to wall, to phone and strobes always. My eyes are tired but they still work, thankfully. Drumming out a little tune with my fingers, a faint thrumming in the cockles of my heart like the heart-race flapping of a minor bird, caught. I see through the fat windows the rain drizzling, terrorising the lunch-breakers; making a run for it or sheltering under the Sainsbury’s. Tomorrow I will be off on holidays but today I am stuck, here in this undrenched room, in stifling heat with no evacuation coming soon although we wouldn’t want one, we’re lucky really to be sat here in this non-plussed silence looking down below at the soggy shoppers. Sandwiches shoved under arms. Free magazines turning to pulp. 

As I leave I see a rainbow, beautiful and beheaded by a galaxial axe. The seven coloured stumps shine without pointing me the way, but I appreciate it anyway, whilst an adolescent rat scuttles along the railings following my footsteps until I stop. Shoots up a drainpipe thinking I could pounce, not realising I have places to be, other than in bed with that rat. Drops of water fall and it makes such a difference to not be inside, to feel cold, or to feel even a little bit, alive.