Pale Morning

She stands
On the parapet
Of the bridge
Staring down
At the sparkling blue
Of the water below

Her body slices
Through the stillness
Of the pale morning
At one with the air
Shimmering
And translucent

She descends,
Greeting the dawn
She is ethereal
She is a ghost
Who slips through the cracks
In your consciousness

She bids you farewell
She no longer needs you
She exists now
Only in dreams
And in fragments
Of memory

And in the stories
You whisper to your children
On long, dark winter nights

The Confessional

The Confessional

She enters the confessional
‘Oh Father I have sinned’
The world beyond has dimmed
A separate dimension exists
In the oak-panelled box
A land where everything is forgiven
Sins obliterated, guilt banished

She tells the priest
Barely discernible, beyond the grille
An insubstantial shadow
Yet still comforting
‘Father it has been so long,
Half a life time
Since my last confession’

This lapsed Catholic has returned
To be wrapped in a cloak
Of warm patriarchy
To be clasped in the hand of God
The fat controller of the universe
Enveloped in the trinity
And rocked to sleep

She is fearful now. For it is time
To leave. She does not want to live
In the world beyond the confessional
She could stay in this dark place forever
A perpetual religious apprentice
With the priest beyond the grille, acting
As her direct line to God

‘Oh no, my dear,’ the priest replies
‘That is not our purpose. Our aim
Is to arm you with faith and courage
And then unleash you onto the world
And they and back and watch
And applaud and cheer
As they make a martyr of you.’

 

Inferno

Dreams

 

Original

Place Holder

There He Goes Again

There he goes again
That mad, megalomaniacal monarch
Severing heads and hanging heathens
With on look we could condemn ourselves
One word out of place is treason
And often he executes without reason

He sits on his throne
A sumptuous fest spread out before him
He watches as the executioner does his work
He slurps and slavers as he anticipates
Future killings and bestial blood lettings
While all around him subjects shudder

‘Your Majesty, it was not me’.
They cry. But it is rather like addressing
The indifferent sky. With a gloved hand
He waves them away. He had never had
So much fun. Power makes him high
Power makes him fly…

And his reign has only just begun

Magical Thinking

Warning: Brevity Ahead:

When I was told of my father’s death I thought I heard a thread snap. The longer you live the more losses we sustain and we develop coping mechanisms to deal with this.  For reasons I find difficult to explain I use magical thinking. So when I viewed my father’s body I found myself thinking  ‘If he is not here, then he must be somewhere else.’  I still cling to that belief.

It was a belief that sustained me throughout the aftermath of my father’s passing.  I did not cry.  I prided myself on my stoicism.  I read aloud during the funeral service and although I was pale and trembling my voice was unwavering.  I received undeserved compliments for this.

But, according to some, I was wrong to react in this way.  I was too cold, too calm.  Later I was told that I had never really grieved properly because I didn’t dissolve into tears every five minutes.  I did not respond because my interlocutor was well meaning. But, deep down, I resented it.  People grieve according to their character. Histrionics aren’t my thing.  And just because I am not an emotional exhibitionist, it doesn’t mean I am not being shredded to pieces inside.

My Late Father

I missed the anniversary of my father’s death. He passed away in July 2013.

I had been sitting here for years waiting for someone to rescue me. A knight in shining armour perhaps. Or maybe a member of anonymous. For two years I waited on this island nation otherwise know as my sofa, surrounded by a sea of red carpet. But nobody came.

And then they told me that my father was dying. He had terminal cancer. But to my eternal shame even this failed to break the spell. I remained unable to tear myself away from the excuse for a life I had created for myself.

(And let me emphasise this: I did this to myself. What I did is widely know as ‘narcissistic withdrawal.)

I only visited my family three times a year and left the burden of caring for my father to my immediate family. They shouldered a heavy responsibility. I have no excuse for letting them do this without me. They spent a large part of their lives on the cancer ward of the general hospital, negotiating with consultants and making my father as comfortable as possible while I sat isolated on my sofa, paralysed by anxiety which sometimes spilled over into sheer terror, rocking backwards and forwards, playing ‘This Too Shall Pass’ on a continuous loop.

My father fought his cancer valiantly to his last breath. But in July 1913 I received the phone call I had been expecting. My father only had ‘He’ll be gone by the morning,; my aunt told me. ‘Come home if you can.

I whispered back, ‘I don’t think I can.’ And then a voice in my head said ‘You must. You will never forgive yourself if you don’t.’

So, in the end I did manage to tear myself away from my tiny  four-walled country. I caught a train for the first time in a decade. I arrived at my father’s bedside at the last minute. The heart was still beating, the motor still running. I kissed him on the forehead and he responded by whispering my name.

They said that he had been waiting for me but the blanket skeptic in me rejects this notion.

A few hours after we returned home from the hospital my aunt kocked on the door of my childhood bedroom to tell me that he had died. ‘He’s gone, Louise’. And her choice of words somehow comforted me. For if he had gone then there was a possibilty that he might come back.

In situations like these magical thinking seems like the only option.

Portraits: Winter/Summer

http://bellarie.deviantart.com/art/Carved-Out-of-Stone-112635144