A Sorrowful Tree

Dark veiled and coated 

The red eyed sing their hymns

Like wind between the stones

While the towering crows dance like butterflies

Gentle goodbyes are said

Beneath the sodden earth

Tremors of sadness slice the heart 

And words of hope are whispered

Here her memory begins

Amongst the broken petals

The stones and the crows

Where tear drop rivers glisten

And a sorrowful tree grows

The Great and Terrible ...

In that moment the special type of lunacy grips us. The type that abandons morality and reason and pours red wine on white carpets or climbs through broken windows and knocks down doors.

Senseless heart beating love, crushing lips together and setting the flesh aflame, like broadly beasts in the hard wet jungle rain.

Tearing cloth, there it is the nakedness we seek. The bold lies fall away and light descends into the darkest of folds.

“I like you like this. Now let me take you apart and put you together in my dreams and never see another soul.” 

And that is what love is, true madness, a great and terrible insanity that will begin and end us all.    

The Island

In my sleep I see a place, a mountainous island of great beauty. With bright blue seas and yellow sands that stretch for miles. Here I live on the side of a hill overlooking a thickly forested valley.

By day I travel on the only train to a job that brings me joy, where the boss hands out chocolate sundaes and we discuss poetry, art and literature and how to make this place great.

In the evening all my friends (yes all of you) gather on the balcony to watch the sunset while drinking Champagne or warm spiced cider in colder times.

In the valley below fires are lit and music rises, so we set off to find the savage joy of forgotten times, pushing through the clinging vegetation to reach the clearing. Here we dance under the starry moonlight like flickering flames.

And in a dark corner two souls meet and see each other for the first time, eyes locked they kiss like limpets and we all share the joy of their green Love.   

I wake disoriented and alone, momentarily snatching at the utopia lost but happy to have been apart of something so ethereal. 

What Love will do

As the sun falls on broken ground with my great love, hand in hand, touched by this inordinate beauty, I whisper all the things I would do for her. I promise her my very soul and every part of my being.

She turns to me and pledges all the same and more. And as the colours turn to dark in a deep moment of contemplation she unearths a terrible and beautiful truth “Love will make slaves of us all.”

Nightly Creatures

Shouting is the only way we hear each other over the distance that has come between us. The argument ends in the same way; her arms crossed, tears in eyes and me slamming the door on my way to Saintly Stan’s Bar n’ Grill.

Glass to my lips like a kiss once known, I drink. Half a bottle in he cuts me off, the bastard; I pay the tab and amble away. The streets are a wet night of passion; huddled figures dance, as the rain soaks their bones, from one end to the next.

I make for the comforting shelter of an all-night liquor store. The clerk barely acknowledges my existence but hands over a bottle of cheap vodka.

I stumble out, booze in hand, into some bad tempered youths, one takes exception and pulls a crooked blade on me, grinning I tell him where to stick it. His friends hold him back; I ready the bottle like a club, nothing would be more pleasing than beating this anal stain out of my misery. 

Why did she ever have to meet such a creature as I?

Disappointingly, they clear off. I find a lonely bus bench and begin the serious business of drinking. Halfway through a skirt too short for this weather starts asking me questions I have no answers too. She hands me a bag of white powder and I wave her off, but not before she takes my whole wallet as payment.

I do the coke. It all but fucks me up in a whizzing tantrum that batters the inside of my head. Finally it overwhelms me, I throw up, mostly on the pavement. It all goes black.

When I come to it’s on the cold vinyl of my kitchen floor.  My vision clears, she’s lying motionless in a pool of her own blood, brains and skull. The hangover numbs the shock and dulls my reaction.

Still if I ever loved her I would be holding her and screaming in agony, instead I dial 999 and fall heavily into my favourite chair and wait. Why did she ever have to meet such a creature as I?

Tales of the Night Bus

He finds his feet in the darkness, banging the clock radio to shut its relentless greetings. Shower, clothes, teeth, hair, breakfast toast and egg, 0420. The streets are clear except for dimming traffic lights and occasional trees, pigeons rule the road.

The bus stop flickers yellow and the game begins, N55 against the clock, the clock wins by 15. Doors swing open to the dead eyed driver, fare paid, up the perilous stairs to the top deck. 6 riders await, a pair of too beautiful twins catch the eye, he smiles, one does, the other rolls her eyes.

“Come with me to where the night bus ends”

Sits near the back, rests the cold glass against his face and watches the London pass by. Finally flicks through the easy pages of a soft novella, dark tails of death and despair conquered by an unlikely hero with a smoking pistol and a hot piece of ass.

At Shoreditch a pimp and his pale woman stumble between the benches. The strung out lines of a bad junkie lingers on their faces. She’s been places tonight, far out places and he scraped her off the floor more than once tonight and they’ll do it again like the money never happened.

Suddenly there she is, some soft, broken girl turned woman, dressed in black with hair to match that drapes her face and shoulders, sharing his bench. Her Madeline eyes lock his and her red lips open “Come with me to where the night bus ends”.

He sees himself with her hands in his and meets her face with one soft kiss, days of toil in warm climates and sweet wet nights under tropical stars promise. Browned skin in everlasting summer, the years would go, but there would always be happiness to be found in the same place.

The dream shuts violently as the bus jerks him from the sleep he had so easily slipped, and it is lost, she is lost, the night bus has taken her. The stop comes and he wrestles with the idea of not getting off, never getting off until he finds her again and makes things right again. But the night is done.             

   

Great British Bake Off: 10 things that will definitely happen, maybe.

The Great British bake off is once again here to give the oppressed masses something to talk about that isn't how terrible the summer has been thus far. 12 unremarkable souls will battle each other with flour, eggs and deadly whisk  for supremacy of the oven.

And the British public will not be denied  this glorious, gladiatorial spectacle; songs of victories and valiant defeats will be sung at watering holes the country over for generations or at least until the show’s nauseating 12 week run is over.

So if you've never seen an episode or like me don't intend to ever again, here are 10 things that will definitely probably happen during the course of the season:

1)  More pastry related puns than you could shake cinnamon stick at.

2)  The contestants will complain about a surprise heat wave in the middle of summer which is not that much of a surprise it being, you know, summer.

3)  A tiny incident, blown completely out of proportion by the twitterati demanding satisfaction, will over shadow all and any important current events. Last year the “freezer debacle” came close to bringing down civilisation as we know it, this year my money is on “mild racism.” 

4)  Some dribbling off-wit will undoubtedly start a petition to bring back a favourite after they've been kicked off the show for their part in the above mentioned incident (mild racism).  

5)  A contestant will be brought to tears.

6)  Mel will reference her love of eating cake at which point Sue will punch her in the face repeatedly until she passes out, pause for a standing ovation arms raised in , then stamp on her head for good measure.

7)  Mary Berry will have to be reminded it’s Tuesday, she’s on the telly and the marques is not the nursing home her relatives have abandoned her to. Is that ageist? (Tina has mild to severe ageism in the Da Costa household  betting pools.)

8)  The words, “That’s a good bake,” will be uttered.

9)  Paul Hollywood will finally tell Mary Berry of his feelings for her and in a teary eyed “Lady in Red” moment fall to one knee and beg for her hand in marriage.

10) The BBC will introduce 'Game of Thrones' style trials by combat to resolve draws and test the contestants metal.