Prose

Soliloquy

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Soliloquy

I have murdered memory; I have watched the moment die. These hands have wavered far too long above the blank expectancy of pages; worlds of words were born and ended in my immobile fingertips, starved of the sanguine nourishment of inks.

I have murdered memory, the many curves and hollows of your face, the crimson compression of your lips have been worn by my mind’s fervent eye, blurred into the cold expression of an angel enduring centuries assaulted by the rain. Could I have caught the look of unspent longing, pulse hammer pain, in the perfection of a poem? Could I have preserved the passion wild, wanton and evident against the wrath of time?

I have watched the moment die; observed the pinnacle of crisis, pen poised and paused. Pregnant with hope, anticipation. A declarative drop waiting to be spilled foolscap and fulsome. I tapped the nib back on the well and watched the moment die.

I have murdered memory and all my weary impotence will not restore the icon I would stitch into my shroud, or the flowing script of murmurings, the recollection of a touch.

Am I cowardly or cruel for I have watched the moment die? The reams of everything I left unwritten cupped in these hands that clasped, caressed, and claimed you. Boldly, careless of consequence. But when thirst tore rabid at your throat, eating promises and protestations, I stood by with water, and I watched the moment die.

I have murdered memory, forgetting the glorious fragrance of your black rain sodden hair, sunlight reflected and refracted in your tears, the enveloping warm welcome: softness everywhere.

Traitor to desire, betrayer of my pen, breaker of vows, I have watched the moment die as surely as the hands that hovered, waiting above a wounded heart, trembling and incapable to staunch the stuttered flow.

So go. Go roaring and ungentle, plaintiff in the wide halls of our judgement, crack the weathered stone that stills your tongue, and come bind my hands, still black with blood, swollen with weight of all I’ve left unspoken. I make no last defence. I have murdered memory; I have watched the moment die.

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Tradesmen’s Crossing

Tradesmen’s Crossing

If you are but an eye aligning scales, and I a weight like coin, then who in truth is God? Should I be awed to know you so capable at trade? A deal done for eternity, and salvation so cheaply purchased.

The sun has burned my shoulders. Photon flail. I found you where the salt of dripping blood and sweat crept beneath the peeling skin.  My wounds. I welcomed them, easy as standing still, unflinching. You offered something other than the grave, and I gave. But the moment of clarity came when my raw flesh cried. A bargain of burn for burn.

Salt proves you capable of humour; a poison to complete each meal.

Your codicil of curses, taunts and ridicule has left me clothed in garbage, waste and humility. I will leave a trail of stench throughout your garden, beneath the laden boughs and grassy banks, but tears and tresses have washed my broken feet. You need not fear, I will not flinch when laughter chimes in harmonies from hanging harps, nor cry when tremens tips my cups across the sward. I do not begrudge the statements of fidelity, the false trails of timidity, the kiss. I forgive them and I forgive you, and the kiss.

This is the moment of transference, for what is done cannot be undone. Long before you raised me up, excruciate, the pit was dug, and light was just a faint reminder of the sun. But as the sweat of toil, the blood of blisters beaded and intertwined my shovel stopped. How was I to know the imperative of bracing walls? they trembled with the threat of falling in. At last you let me learn the art of climbing, fall by aching fall, until back braced on filth I reached upwards and out. Why did you not warn me that the light burns hot as fire?

Is salvation mercy or just a means of keeping busy?

You salved the cuts and placed the pitiless crown upon my head. Fatted calves poured their throat libations: alizarin, carmethene. I was succoured and symbol. Then you hoisted me aloft, hands nailed to heartswood. Everything comes down to price, and I was always too proud to haggle.

You are no God, and I am not your son. You are a merchant, and we have made a trade. Burning, wounds and salt on one side of the scales. I will foul the sweet air of your sanctuary, but tread lightly on the turf.

END

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On the Foreshore

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On the Foreshore – A Romance

 

Boulder: So tarnished am I, and unlike the head of pin, I had not thought my scabrous skin would feel the feel of feet so thin and pale. Or that a dancing tap could beat a counterpoint to the constant slap and wipe of waves. And yet, here worn by a hundred hundred years am I, the stage for your long residence. Platform and prayer mat for worship. Angel, let slip the secret now, why do you not flap your wings that barely cast a shadow? Leap from cloud to heaven, vault the stars and seek a theatre where one such as you could earn applause, and honours from the stellar notaries?

 

Angel: La. You say such things my weathered rock, touchstone of my thoughts; and no grand angel I. For sure I have the wings and grace, but lowly in the order of the Lord am I, and you, boulder, should be bolder still. For you have bent the waves to match your will, they break and soak, but you, stage of my exultation do not move. Yes, yes, hells fire yes, I am the object of some others lust. The winds and every errant breeze would take me, fleeting, flitting for the joy of my soft limbs, but you stone are the anchor, tether that will hold me when the jealous gusts rise up in all their fury, rouse their sister in the Sea to hold me. You, profound and silicate secure me from the tempest of my suitors and their spite.

 

Boulder: Minnows paddle furious, within my steeping hollows, and the crabs crawl over me unlicensed, intimate. Each day the sea suborns the sand to wear my deadened skin, and I can feel my granite growing thin. And yet, blind I can sense your steps, the whisper of your dancing. My weight, immensity anchored into bedrock is uplifted to the kissing breath of starlight when your footsteps fall on me. I, clod, hardened by the pressured furnace, drink from the cup of nebulae when you hurl yourself in dance.

 

Angel: Then dance we both, dear stone, son of the earth herself. Dance we, for your stillness is the gorgeous certainty, and my movement draws you closer to the Lord. Dance we both until the stinging sea has scrubbed you to a pebble, bled on by my blisters, and the clutching hands of winds have torn my wings from me. Then with my dying breath I will swallow you entire, and scorn the lascivious breezy hands and say, “Fie! Feel my ire, for I live in my love, and he lives on in me.”

 

End

 

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