deadsand #1
OK so the last few posts were poems and there’s little more nerve-wracking than putting poetry online. Straight narrative fine, it can be measured and picked apart and you learn from feedback, take it on board, in some cases it even adds to your grasp of language and allows you to move forward.
But poems are a little different. They live in close proximity to the heart and soul, expose a little cosmic rawness, no matter how coded and oblique the poem may be.
I took part in nanowrimo last year and completed a book. I am in the process of editing it but thought how wonderful to start putting it online and letting anyone to comment. So here it is - Deadsand:
LANDED
and my fat feet spread through the puddle, reflecting the lightning above, my toes bulging and bursting then I was on the other side, into the shop. The bell rang as I entered, tinkle tinkle, the door was jammed with notes saying buy my dog, polish my elbow, rent my room. There was a customer in the aisle, holding a can and a packet and eyeballing both - pop or crisp, crisp or pop. I winkled at him, clumped to the counter and stared into her eyes. They were old with creases around, watery grey eyes, leaking at the edges and full of memory. She failed to blink and then she won. I smiled and asked for barley. As she climbed the ladder and pulled down the pot I observed her tweed, her cotton and tights. She poured barley into a bag, rolled it and asked for the money. I poked the toy gun at her, she trembled and her eyes leaked moresome. Left with stolen barley, I hummed some difficult jazz and skipped back into the lightning.
If you want to cast a spell on me my name is Johnson.
The bus was crowded and smoked, a proper charabang. Upstairs the mirror was dirty, opening a crushed portal to delapidation. An old woman so far bent she was a human c, clutched a shopping list in her claw. I could see she needed bleach and some potatoes, the rest was hid. She had a wobbly trolley with tartan trim. In front of her, a big man with failing wisps snoozed, hoping his dream had more hue that his real. Across, a couple deep under love twittered and cooed, their skin all one thing, passing in and out of each other and immune to the trundling bus world. I snapped to when a branch smacked the roof and we turned a corner into the
HIGH
street had its own spell and we had had an agreement for years, sewn deep into the greasy seams of the universe. I got off the bus, stole something red and smelly, and got chased down by a fat gingerbread man. Then I slipped on something slimy and fell at the feet of a lovely young woman who saved me. Then I blacked out and the universe lost one of its scales. This would go on until all the scales were gone and the universe was stripped bare. Then I imagined I would die.
I stood up as the bus wobbled into the stop, watching people get up and wobble with it, all exuding a nervous sheen. I stumbled down the stairs as more people swarmed into the bus as other people tried to swarm off. They tutted and batted against each other, flicking their newspapers and umbrellas until the bus driver grunted. His grunt was deep, feral, steamed up from a groggy netherworld and designed to scare. The battering crowd loosened and dispersed, I flipped my way through the gaps and walked up the street, eyes open for red, nose open for smell.
There were a lot of
OMEN PEOPLE
on the street - the kind that bug about in heavy raincoats and smudged spectacles, clutching bibles and clumsy pamphlets, thinking every day was the day of doom and trying to drown out the heavy bell tone in their heads. I saw three of them weaving across the pavement muttering to one another and confirming armageddon. I flashed a white smile at the vanguard, who had a stream of badges falling down his jacket, and nearly made him walk into traffic. Then I was in the stationery shop, the smell of brown paper and ink wrinkling my nose. The shop went up in tiers - string and paper, then postcards and paint, and finally, on high, glitter and sparkle. The woman behind the counter had spectacular spectacles gripping her nose like a glass lobster. Her face was tight and pinched also, and her eyes were shrewd mean raisins.
