The Nightingale and the Rose-A Book for Lesley

 

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Things Up High

Lost Tomorrow

Sometime one day I lost my tomorrow. I bet Frank £200 that I could run up the stairs to level eight faster than he could get there in the lift. Turned out the lift was functioning uncharacteristically fast that day and Frank beat me there.
‘£200 please? He said.
In hindsight the bet was a thoroughly ridiculous idea. It was Frank who had initiated it. ‘But I don’t have £200 Frank. The rent’s due this week and it’s my mum’s birthday. I just can’t pay that.’
‘Well time is money,’ said Frank, ‘you’ll have to pay me with your time.’
‘How much of it do you want?’
‘Your tomorrow.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes’
‘Well can’t I give you my yesterday, it was really good me, Gareth and Sue had a picnic in the park then fed the leftovers to the ducks.’
‘No, I don’t want your yesterday. That’s been used already. I want your fresh, untouched tomorrow.’
Frank is good at arguing his point, he has very persuasive eyes and he clasps his hands together when he is talking with the sincerity of a priest in prayer.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I suppose you can have my tomorrow, but don’t waste it.’
‘Excellent!’ said Frank. And that is how I lost my tomorrow. At the time I didn’t realise that there are always tomorrows. Every day has one and every day becomes one. We never specified which tomorrow I would lose to Frank so since then I have been in a perpetual today. I’m poised somewhere unsettling in time where nothing progresses, nothing changes, everything is now. I am now. Concepts are growing hazy, words like “seconds,” “minutes,” “hours” rest on my tongue like foreign words; merely sounds with the meaning behind them fading. Soon there will be nothing.

started out as funny story but by the time i got to the last wee bit things became a tad bleak…i can’t really think of a way to give it a happy ending…so i will just leave it with its grim gloomy end

Merry-go Down

This is a merry-go round
If it is why don't we go round
We go round and up and down
Why don't I feel it
It goes too fast
If we go in circles how will we meet our destination
Our destination will meet us.
Going in circles makes me sick
You weren't aware we moved in circles until now.
I didn't feel sick until now.
Imagine we move in squares.
Better.
Better.

Three men and a Tramp

On Friday afternoon a tramp was seen lying in a drunken stupor on Sauchiehall Street. His head rolled from side to side as his drooling mouth mumbled nonsense. His wretched, bundled state drew the attention of three passing, very wealthy businessmen.

“Someone’s started early” remarked one of them with a snigger, “fancy having a bit of fun with this one boys?”

The three of them exchanged knowing glances and without further words moved to assist the tramp to his feet. Supported on either side they walked the tramp down the street and round the corner to where their car was waiting. The tramp was slide into the back seat, with his mouth still babbling and eyes rolling. They got in and the car sped off out of the city.

On arriving at one of the men’s manor houses, the housekeepers were ordered to wash and strip the tramp, to dress him in the finest crimson silk pyjamas and take him to rest in the master bedroom. There the tramp was left to sleep.

On waking several hours later, the tramp could not believe what he saw, four broad gold bedposts surrounded him and over his head were draped curtains of the richest blue, purple and scarlet. His hands were clean, his face shaven and his rags had turned to fine silk. He drew back the curtain from round the bed and saw a bedroom like he’d never set eyes on before and he wondered if this was heaven.

The door burst open and in came a stocky housekeeper “Good sir, your feast is ready.” With that she led the tramp down a large spiral staircase to sit at the top of a large dining table. Seated around it were about a dozen men, none of whom the tramp had seen before but all of them applauded and raised their glasses when he entered. Food was brought before him and never seemed to run out. His glass was filled to the brim with the finest wine. He ate and drank, ate and drank, ate and drank then drank till he couldn’t eat anymore. Eventually the tramp became drunker than he’d been before. The businessman then ordered his housekeepers to restore the tramp to his rags, “strip him of my fine clothes and dress him again in his tatters. Return him to the roadside whence we found him. Restore him to a tinker and forever let him remain.” The housekeepers followed the orders.

The next day sprawled on Sauchiehall Street the tramp awoke. With a monstrous headache he rolled onto his side and thought to himself, “that was one hell of a dream.”

He then vomited the shape of Mexico on the pavement.

Sketches I

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The city was of night but not of sleep

I saw an eyeless face on the lampless
street where the blindmen tread
with purposeless less feet                                The City was of Night
The City was of Dark

I watched the pilgrims trudge round
the faithless route snatching with mechanic hands
at the seedless fruit                                          The City was of Night
The City was of Dark
I saw a preacher raise an empty
cup mourn a deceased messiah
till the sea rose up                                            The City was of Night
But not of Sleep

“Dark, Dark, Dark Brother!” Rejoice brother.
Sing brother. Freedom brother, grope for it,
flounder, reach out in the dark for it.                  The City was of Night
The City was of Dark
O melencolia that you would move!
Rouse your repundant wings, blink your lifeless eyes
Patron Saint of lethargy,
apathy
dreadful embodiment of your faithless
city.
move.

“Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed, / Can Life still live? / By what doth it proceed?” (James Thomson ‘The City of Dreadful Night)