Why Bezeal went to the city

On a moonlit beach shadows of clouds played on the rocks.  Shaman-Ca watched as the horse Bezeal trotted the rock in rhythm with the sea and air.

"I will dance 'til my spirit bleeds.  Worlds spin fast and you stamp your feet."  She called across the cove.

"Your body moves to an ancient beat."  Replied the white horse in joy of the age of the crones' spirit.

Shaman-Ca wondered where Bezeal had been.  The scratches and dirt on his body smelled strange to her.

Bezeal was tired, for he had galloped to release the smells and his energy was sapped.

"I am tired.  I needed to run I have been to the City and could do no more than trot for three days.  No room."  Bezeal explained.

The old goblin woman shouted from her ledge,

"Release the pressure as well as the smells, yes Bezeal?"

Bezeal shook.  The sweat flicked into the moonlit sky and became stars.  It hit rock and crystallized becoming one with the rock.  Where the beads dropped in the water a new creature swam.

Shaman-ca came to Bezeal when he was still, she spoke softly to him.

"With my bird-bone rattle and my goat skin drum.  With my cold river eye, and my hot fire tongue.  Did you see me when you were running wild?  Will you bring me to your madness child?'

Bezeal related his story to the unnamed star, the ragged queen.

"I followed a brother who was taken by machine to the city."

Bezeal had no reason, many brothers had gone before, owned grounded brothers always left in machines and Bezeal had never followed before.  This brothers' love, desire to be free was known to Bezeal and he felt he would be freed and had gone to rejoice with him...

"When I found him I spoke to his spirit.  The fire and the fury and the fear were wed and he crooned and swayed at the misty edge."

Shaman-ca felt Bezel’s 'brothers' fear and fury blow through her untamed womb leaving a jagged seam.

"There's much to be learnt through a crazy eye." 

Said Shaman-Ca and she began to massage Bezeal.  Her strength, her knowledge, her love brought ease to him.  And he slept.  And he dreamt.

Shaman-Ca watched the moon.

Bezeal rocked like a nest in a shifting marsh.  He opened his thoughts and let them wander, and Shaman-Ca thought of her knowledge of the place where Bezeal had been, and of the trees of the place thought of forests of trees.  The birds thought of their other brothers who were gone, they thought of the distant brothers who had disappeared and had no children.  For the history of a place belongs to all.

Shaman-Ca offered this knowledge to Bezeal.  His thoughts were open and welcoming.

Bezeal awoke and thanked Shaman-Ca for the massage.

"Joy can be found.  Anywhere."

He said.

"My home is the claw of a tangled path"

Replied Shaman-Ca.

"I know nothing is as it seems."

Said Bezeal and he left the cove and Shaman-Ca thanked the moon for her help in showing Bezeal her knowledge.  Then she slept.

Oh dear....

If you've got to move on, move on quickly, don't look back

don't look over your shoulder and give yourself a heart attack

What's gone is gone, what's done is done there's no point in crying

it's over, finished, done with, there's no point in lying

the tears' are crocodile's, the feeling's dead

don't be embarrassed, don't go red.

Intimacy isn't never ending, love is just a laugh

wash the past away in a soothing mellow bath

the beauty wasn't real the soul was never touched

mind mingling?  Bollocks, just a few good fucks

don't wade through the memories, you mustn't let it linger

If you want to come again then use your middle finger

does your heart beat quickly?  Does your heart beat slow?

If you ever loved it didn’t fucking show

please don't say forever while I can hear your words

it was just a dirty joke I possibly misheard

I believed you when you lied I listened to your shit

now on your burning body I wouldn't even spit

I trusted, went bare back and now I’ve got V.D.

You gave him part of you now I have him in me.

I should have used you for a ride not believed you had a heart

now I feel pain because I know we have to part

but that doesn't really matter 'cos I knew it was a game

and you must never feel guilty 'cos I did the fucking same!

Love, Lies and Promises

Lying next to each other, gently rising from a sleep encased in the air of the night before.   

Salty arid atmosphere, comfortable in the sweat and stains of the sheets.   

Happy for the touch of dirty, sexual skin.  Glad to feel the pressure before we open our eyes to the empty room.   

Emptiness filling our guts, our insides.  Inside our heads, our stomachs, our rib cage.  Both of us empty of explanations, empty of positivity, all of it drained by the passion and lust of the night before.

The warmth of the night lingering, lying in the cold light of day.   

In seconds, memory slowly plays back to us the promises of the night.  Each kiss a promise, tens maybe hundreds of broken kisses we've exchanged in the air of the room, floating aimlessly around, needing somewhere to rest.  But a breeze blows in and they scurry out of the room through cracks in the floorboards, under the door or back through the window.

"Morning."

Cold-hearted reality drifts in on an early morning day dream.  

Lust was the lie, love was the promise.

loneliness is not neccessarily sad

A feeling, a knowledge, a sensation pulsing round your body, a knowing, burning idea formed into a crystal truth, the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, love and hate.

Suddenly you'll feel it and accept it or deny it. 

Trust your instinct but in the next instant instinctively change your mind. The games you play when you are alone with silence, a world full of possibilities, chances, changes, mistakes, lucky breaks, decisions, resolutions, a time to form plans, create paths on which to travel, remember incidents the way you saw them, turn them back through your memory and know.

Dream a little, realistically, ridiculously, dream of pleasure, planes, places, journeys of joy, touches of beauty, gifts you'd give, presents you'd receive, of no value, just better memories. Peace in your time.

Knowing man can live together, knowing this is true while you sit alone, desperate for it to be true.   

No reason to run, nor hide, the colour of your skin, the clothes you wear, it doesn't matter, together with belief and positivity it can work.

But reality dawns on you, as if the sun had risen suddenly, so quickly from night and dreams to midday and a city full of sinners like you are bathed in the light.

The struggle continues.  Do you allow the dreams to fade into memory and the nightmare reality cover your eyes, or sleep through hoping both to be a dream or be hit by a knowledge that hope is truth and love is strong and you are completely mad.

Loneliness is not necessarily sad, but rarely constructive.

The Journey

I am trying to rhyme the passage of time and tell you the journey of Ms Mcinerny, how after a while and a trip down the aisle she became Mrs Chamberlain.

I'll begin as I do, in the beginning, when boys turn to girls and men turn to women, strange desires well up inside and they are not scared of the word bride!

Don't be surprised, don't be afraid, this was a time before you were made, when gentlemen didn't mean bog and being a lady wasn't such a hard slog, manners were better, people polite, children were good and always much quieter.

Joseph and Nora, yes those were their names didn't know squat about video games.

When she was little she played 'hoop and stick' and when he was little he thought cricket was quick.

Are you getting the idea, understanding the score or should I continue and compare us some more?

These two didn't hook up by chance, they met every week at their local dance, they talked very little but danced quite a lot and I am sure, at times, it got pretty hot.  I mean in the summer and under the lights, not in his pants or in her tights, this was the time of courting and wooing not like now with all the frying and toing. 

When passion was something that just had to wait, and kisses exchanged at her garden gate.

Joseph was gentle and Joseph was kind, Nora was patient, she didn't mind, Nora would laugh at the jokes Joseph told and ever so slightly Joseph grew bold.  Nora would blush with her hand to her breast and Joseph would imagine the rest.

Soon came a time when they would meet in the day, for tea at her parents I would probably say.  A quiet affair when fathers decide whether their girls become brides.

Would he let Joseph take Nora away? He was after all the one with the say, it isn't like now in Britain today where all fathers do, is pay. If they can be found and if they have thousands of pounds, then their involvement is clear; "don't drink the whisky stick to the beer!"

Well father approved and shook Joseph's hand, then our couple saved and they planned and as soon as you like the big day arrived and Joseph wondered how he'd survived the evenings he'd spent with his betrothed so very close but still fully clothed.

Nora felt it as well but by her demeanour you couldn't tell.

Her mother, who loved her, had said that it hurt so Nora had good reason to keep being curt, but Joseph was gentle and Joseph was kind and when Nora looked in his eyes she would find, love and affection, a sense of protection, a warmth from within, she knew what they had wasn't a sin, so she held Joseph close with a big Cheshire grin.

The church was full; the priest at his altar, Joseph prayed that he didn't falter. A quiet came down as the organ begun, the doors opened wide and let in the sun, Joseph turned to look at his bride and Joseph's face filled up with pride as father and daughter walked down the aisle. 'Smiling' Joe Chamberlain started to smile and that's what it's like inside my head the day my grandparents wed.

commute? It just doesn't compute

I'm so lucky I don't commute,

What you guys do just doesn't compute.

You guys get up at sparrow’s fart,

for some train driver to break your heart.

For a whole month’s journey you've already paid,

only to find the journey's cancelled or delayed,

and if the train arrives on time

it's overcrowded and full of grime.

You share your carriage with some who stink,

but the ones who I would hate, I think,

are those that sit in aisle seats

and tut about having to move their feet,

who won't move over when they're asked

but just swivel their fat arse.

They don't try to make life easy,

in fact they make me queasy.

They make me want to punch and fight

which isn't normal and isn't right

before the day is even light.

There's only one mode of travel worse

and that is riding in a hearse.

Another piece of floaty soaring mind pinballt

Tumbling down through the clouds only made me realise how high I had been.  Above and beyond, further then I’d ever been, touching sky, stars and the sun and now, as I rolled and fell towards the darkness, I couldn't picture firm ground and so I continued to drop.

Each twist and turn emptied my stomach, a void around me and a void inside me and me watching the fall from above and below,......Below!

I tried to fill my soaring body with the feelings from the below me, the terra me, the constant me.  The above me flickered once, twice then disappeared.  I took control of my fall and began to float beneath the clouds but still above the earth and still descending.  This gentle descent was giving me time but I didn't know what for, I couldn't work out whether I was supposed to look back at the high me or decide to land.

I looked back or up, as it were, to the clouds but couldn't find a gap, couldn't find a way through to the blue infinite.  A sudden twist then the tumbling began again, over and over, flicking frightening turns I had to pretend they weren't happening so I could find the stable me and float again.

The decision was easy then and I concentrated hard on the earth me, but as soon as I locked in the rate of speed at which I fell increased to such a frightening pace that I broke off the connection and stared up past the clouds and so I remained floating gently too scared to believe in anything.

FEET FEELING

Enclosed in cotton, then encased in tight leather, my feet begged for forgiveness and air, so I stopped walking in the midday sun and looked around for somewhere to sit.  Unfortunately for my feet the only bench I could see was at the top of the hill.

They wept when the message was sent down from my sweaty brain but they did as they were told once they realised my purpose was to get there and stop.

When I reached the bench and turned to place my tired arse on the wooden slats I could hear my toes screaming, "Release us, let us out!  Stop squashing us!"

So I stood still for a couple of seconds to teach them some manners and rocked gently from heel to toe.

As I looked out across the park, the sounds of children directed my gaze downhill to the left and there I saw....no don't tell.  I blocked out what I saw and denied my brain the freedom it usually had to pass thoughts around, took a deep breath and began to walk back down the hill.

"No!  You promised!"  Said the outside of my left foot.  The toe that isn't quite the littlest rubbed harder against my shoe and began to blister in annoyance.  I gritted my teeth and stepped out with my mind closed to the orders my unhappy feet called out to me.

They were trying to halt my progress in any way they could, they cramped up inside the arch, they looked for lumpy ground to unbalance me, used all the salt so my calves became tight and jerky, but on I strode, my purpose and destination a secret.

As the sound of children grew ever closer I had to trick my feet into believing I had friends in a playground, but occasionally the joy of what was happening made me quicken my pace, so I let it happen. I let the joy control me and began to run, which they hated and nearly tripped me up.

I climbed the 3 foot fence and as I placed my foot on the other side I slipped my hand down my leg and rolled my sock down and with one action pulled off my damp shoe and wet sock.  Before the air could really let my foot breathe I had the right sock and shoe off and was rolling up my trousers.

Just before I looked up I stopped, closed my eyes and opened them while I gazed into the blue sky.

More memory and guesses than truth and terrain led me to the edge of where I wanted to be.

Confused, my feet spread across the earth and grass and allowed the sudden, natural environment to envelope them and before they had adjusted to that I waded into the paddling pool.

"You bastard, you beautiful, beautiful bastard!"  They both screeched in delight.