Writing

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” T S Eliot

They were bare. And I remember the crunch of their dead below them.

I recall the song that sounded through the air as they shook at its lyrics. A dismal tone, an acrid message.

But it’s only a memory.

For now they aren’t bare; and their dead are awakened.

Many different songs play from many different musicians. A sweet tune, a playful rhythm.

But I’ll never know it.

I am bare. And I cannot hear the harmony of the living above me.

Being vulnerable in situations is a weakness, but being vulnerable when using words is an art.

His eyes; untamed with inspiration. His smile wide and thrilling

His features adroitly painted, my innocence they’re killing.

His mannerisms and refined charm fracture my perfections

The astuteness concealed within his face mirrors my own reflection.

The elation that flows like the river’s thoughts inebriates each vein

In a moment’s flicker; insanity’s lost, no desire to return again.

Can all this subsist from just one glance? My wandering mind cries, “Joy!”

As his salient eyes infiltrate my soul, and my heart they begin to destroy.

The tide settled, the trees tranquil

The air calm with a strong sense of thrill;

The texture of freedom, a taste of the sand

The smell of peace across the deserted land.

Three lonely boats on a bed of blue thought

One satisfied sailor on the edge of a port;

Three witty gulls; shrieking and playing

One empty bar, the door gently swaying.

A whispering zephyr, a murmuring wave

A desolate rock pool, an ominous cave;

A hidden cove sheltered by fossils and creatures

A conceited mount, woven with features. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines in media res as “into the midst of affairs, into the middle of a narrative.” I have taken this idea from a short piece written below this and adapted it into a 507 word story for my creative portfolio for university.

A Derelict Nirvana.

Until they find themselves in a lost hope, in which they called their paradise. It is riddled with the memories of yesterday and the parasites of today. As they squirm, as they fight against the Achernotic gloom, as their dreams are quelled by the darker side of the shade. Its breath against their necks. Its heat against their shoulders. Its fingers through their hair.

Around them. Behind them. Inside them.

The indefatigable fountains of sapphire metamorphose into inexhaustible basins of charcoal. Their Garden of Eden turns to ash as the soil rots and the flowers weep in fear of the anathema. As do they. As does everything.

They run. Heavy breaths. Tree by tree, foot by foot, second by second. Until they stop, hide, out of sight. They’re playing the waiting game – listening for the everything, listening for the nothing. The leaves around them ominously cavort against the solitary wind’s wail. They’re in shock, in awe, in wonder. How can Nature feel so alive when coexisting with the rotting of her melancholic beauty?

A shiver up their spines. The flowers around them wither and the wind breathes its icy lament against their flushed cheeks. He’s watching them, he’s all around them, he’s everywhere. Yet, he’s nowhere. The sun thaws behind the detached hills, tarnished in bleeding crimson sky, stained with a devoid charcoal fabric – an artist’s empty palette. The sheen of decaying stars blinds the earth and the smirk of the moon mockingly commiserates the destruction of their utopia.

They immerse themselves in each other’s company. For whom else do they have? What else do they have? There is no one. Their world is decomposing around them into the noiseless cry of oblivion. But it consumes them, swallows them, devours them. Their minds sluggishly lapse into somatic states; feeding on the blissful memories of yesterday for trivial torrents of dormant elation. But their clouded memories are remote, distant, untouchable. It seems irrational to gloat in the lustre of the mind, to subsist in such a façade. The ecstasy of forever is gone and the gloom of eternity has replaced it.

Their world turned to dust by the dusk. And now for them.

Their hands, fastened together, descend to their sides. The colour from their faces drained and replaced with the insipid blemish of the miserable shadow. Inert, motionless, drearily tranquil. Their limbs lock, their eyes bolt, their voices stop. Not a murmer, not a whisper. Complete nothingness. And they perish, like everything around them, suppressed deep into the ground. Entirely destroyed by Nature and her presence.

Emptiness. Quiet. Nobody. But she still lingers, a never ending entity. The enduring suffocation of the splendour, the continuous smothering of the joy, the unceasing asphyxiation of the grandeur. The humid soil becomes gasping dirt at its touch while the once pleasant air chokes under its constricting grasp. As a pervasive unit she smiles at the horror, to her a magnificent creation, to her a magnum opus.

For what was yesterday their rhapsody is now her rapture.

The lost hope in which they call their paradise is riddled with the parasites of yesterday. As they squirm, as they fight against the Achernotic gloom, as their dreams are quelled by the darker side of the shade. Its breath against their necks. Its touch against their shoulders.

Around them. Behind them. Inside them.

The indefatigable fountains of sapphire metamorphose into inexhaustible basins of charcoal. Their Garden of Eden turns to ash as the soil rots and the flowers weep in fear of the anathema. As do they. As does everything.

My expository piece. I’ve decided to illustrate time through the metonym of a watch. (Metonymy: When a smaller idea represents a much bigger concept. Shown through object, character and/or place.)

It must have been early Spring because I recall the frozen air and the bitter chill biting at my fingertips as I complacently smoked my cigarette. I found myself walking tardily along the icy grass, immersing myself in the surroundings as I went. The scantily clad trees were sulking toward the floor, in mourning of the grounded leaves. The ones that had been and gone. Lived and died. Crisp, new leaves were slowly materialising from the branches ranging in shades of green; from hunter to phthalo. From jade to chartreuse.

 I glanced at my watch, my appointment was at 9:00 am. The time on my watch was 8:25 am. My time on my watch. The depletedness of the streets was disrupted by the presence of an elderly gentleman. His facial expression was as bleak and lifeless as his wardrobe; an off-beige suit to match his fawn tie and sandy russet shoes. His limp hair reflected his humdrum personality that shone across through his ridiculously lucid aura of “ordinary”. He checked his watch before crossing the zebra crossing, hastening his pace at the sight of the time on his watch. His time on his watch.

The streets still remained moderately isolated at that time of morning. It was a Saturday after all. Everyone had been doing different things with their time. Their time. Some were working; others were watching television, cleaning or reading; some were simply still in bed. I had reached the zebra crossing by now and could faintly smell the precedent scent of the gentleman’s cologne clinging to the frosty air.

Having crossed the road and turned the corner, I had arrived at the hospital. I remember the immensity of the building; the dilapidated stone foreshadowed the patients inside; sickly and aged. The glass entrance, however, was clear and healthy looking; a hospitable facade. As I entered the building my shoes squeaked along the conventional glossy hospital floor and I followed the directions to the waiting room.

The waiting room was packed. The woman at the information desk gave me an inquisitive ogle and so I slowly approached the counter. I recall her dishevelled hair and aloof expression as she told me I would have to wait for my appointment, “just as all the other people were”. There were scarcely any free seats, but I found one in-between a bulky, elderly man and a timid, mousy looking woman. I checked my watch: 8:50 am. Not long now. The bulky man next to me leisurely lifted his arm and removed his sleeve to check his watch. He put his arm back down, tutted and sighed, suggesting he had a long time to wait.

I remember thinking how odd it was that there was no clock in the waiting room. How everyone had to check their time on their watches. Then they would either pack their bag up ready for their name to be called or they would exhale noisily, tap their legs in monotony and squirm about in tedium. My name was called, my watch hit 9:00 am, it was my time.

The clock struck fourteen and she took to the wind like a bird.

As elegant as a bird. As agile as a bird. As free as a bird.

The night sky glistened with life around her and fallen stars pleasantly hindered her path. Toward the welcoming smile of the moon, she swam through the darkness. The breeze; cooling to the skin but warming to the heart consumed every atom of her casing as she cascaded upward, weightlessly. Reaching out among the bedding of glittered satin she elapsed. Her mind as devoid, yet fulfilled, as the world around her.