Spiral Staircase

It was a light house
so light it was supported
solely by a rubber staircase
a rubber spiral staircase
that held aloft
the living room
kitchen and lounge
in a stack,
jaggeredly arranged
and bouncing gently.
the motion sickness
was hard to get used to
but
it was brilliant
in an earthquake.

Clipboard 2

did you ever
catch a finger
in the clip
at the top
of your
clip board
and the
blood
ran down
your neat rows
and columns
staining
away
your
tin pot
beaurocracy.

Clipboard

waterproof trousers, tick,
green tomato ketchup, tick,
tuscan olive braces, tick,
german frilly knickers, tick,
aged bakelite knobs, tick,
sandwich crust remover, tick
adjustable egg stand, tick
hat froster, tick

all ready then? yep
let's go

Pigeon-toed

You'll need a lot of pigeons

Pigeons are easy
Doves are more um, selective
I scatter grain
but this time I only net Sea gulls

You netted them?
No I mean figuratively

A pigeon arrives
I marvel at the breast
metallic purples and blues
then another

I never did get enough
dental floss

I won't be taken

I won’t be taken. I won’t fall prey once more, for now it is my time, and I will shine and burn and with head held high leave intact, no, greater, broader, stronger, deeper than before, and I will make it my own.
It is my time. This turning point belongs to me and I will make it.

And if I really deeply, shiningly in my heart believed this, then it would at once be easy, be something little, a small bump in the road of life. But no, I don’t so this is the hero’s journey for me. This is a big one.

In front of me is a telephone. It is cheap and plastic, and dirty. It has great power over me. It and the damnable people that use the thing, that sit at the other end and judge and cajole and fail to listen to me.

Powerfully I take the receiver in hand. There’s the doleful sound of the dial-tone. I pause, of course, for enough time to boil a kettle. I don’t boil a kettle, I just try to summon the guts to take the next step.

A “you’ve got it wrong noise now”, and that woman, I nickname the wire says “Please hang up and try again. Please hang up and try again. ”, over and over until she abandons me with silence.
The line is dead, save for the whisper of white noise, sea sounds, that remain after she has left. I can imagine anything in that noise. I listen harder and it seems to grow and envelop me. The noise surrounds and comforts me.

You see, where by now I could be off into some great story or deep in a meaningful conversation, I’m pulling up the cool blanket of white noise and settling into failure, of not taking the step, and of befriending the noise of the wire instead and pretending it is sort of art. Bollocks to that.

Receiver replaced, I try again. The number. Ah, here it is, and for a moment I repel the distractions of the computer, the kettle downstairs, that slightly strange noise I can hear at the edge of my hearing and start to dial. Wow, only five attempts and I’ve got the number into the phone. I congratulate myself, basking in the glory of my power and plain forget that the phone at the other end is actually ringing. I’m so awesome that I want to tell somebody.

“Hello?” says the other end. It says it in a way that is quizzical, potentially critical and I’m shaken out of in-my-head world domination into gut-churning fear, a few milliseconds of complete failure; who am I calling and why? What do I want. Willpower and furrowing brow brings is back. I consult the menu in front me and go on tentatively:

“Can I order some food to takeaway?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Can I order some food to takeaway?”
“Must be a wrong number.”
Click.

Eating Cake by the Cake Eating Committee

From a 10 minute exercise describing how to eat a piece of cake. While eating a piece of cake. At Not For the Faint Hearted 4.

Eating cake
by the Cake Eating Committee

Oh and there is the first taste of icing.

“Oh” said Eyes, “That was unexpected because I really didn’t see any icing there.”

“Oh eyes, you really do think you know it all don’t you. This is not about you. Close yourselves, eyes, let’s get to the taste.”

“Errm”, said a nasally voice “, can I have a good smell of this?”

“Biscuity. not cakey at all. I’m not even sure this is a cake. I’m definitely getting biscuit here. But you know I don’t think I’ve ever smelt a cake before. Cooking in the oven with the delicious odour wafting, but not exactly deeply sniffing a piece of cake. “

“Stop waffling, smell. Taste’s turn.”

“Point of order! To get to the taste, it’s going to pass the lips, and that about touch, texture. So, I want to have a say before taste waffles on about thing and that.”

“Oh okay. Lips, touch, what are you getting”

“Firm but crumbly edges. a bit dry in places. not a lot of lip action here. Clean but crumbly. Now, teeth, what do you make of it.”

“A little bite and it breaks, I can’t chew on this. No molar action either. all front teeth. Pleasant enough. Very suitable for wolfing down. Is there any more?”

They all looked over to taste. Taste took her time and then began to speak ecstatically, rapidly.

“Oh my, there’s sugar, definite cakeiness. This is no biscuit. It crumbles, it goes past-y, I roll around with particles of cake each one sweet and bready, bringing the saliva and I’m getting lemon and sugar and wheat and what is that flavour, it sure works for me. Ah, c’mon you lot, let’s get more of this…”

The party

From a 3 minute writing exercise at Not for the Faint Hearted 4 while looking at this picture:

the floor was sticky
but no more than usual
the broken bottles littered
the walls scrawled on
in expensive lipstick, mind you

a carousel of memories
both vague and embarassing
flickered through their minds
and stilted conversations confirmed
half forgotten details as they
started to clean up

but then the questions rose;
who was the host of this party;
and how had it come loose and
found itself roaming the streets
of brighton without a collar or
a tag or even a party microchip?

(image from flickr by AndyWilson)

Small. Glasses.

Small. Glasses.

Like a sports commentator. He looked like a sports commentator. He felt like a sports commentator.

To commentate, to speak continouously, rapidly without stopping to fill up the airwaves with words, whatever they were. To be so close to parody but to step back into the human form. To be so with the words, to have them arrive and be spoken before thought almost. Like channelling the noisy neighbour. Oh fuck now I’m thinking like I’m a character in literarcy fiction. Fuck that. His knew his own voice like it sounded on the radio, unnatually loud, unnaturally compressed and punchy. Excellent in a bar telling a story. A raconteur with asbergers, uncannily rounding out every sentence with artifical knowingness.

In dreams he wasn’t all words, he wasn’t all sound. He dreamt in silent, vivid, color films. Images of summer. Pebbles on the beach the waves washing gently, the musky summer smells, the quality of sunlight. Of foood, the bitterness of raddiccio washed with a fine vinegar and fragrant oil. In dreams he inhabited all these senses, quietly observing saying nothing. He grasped for this richness, trying to capture and keep these senses alive, to nurture them like

And then, every time, just when the quality of his senses began to overwhelm, he would wake suddenly, sullenly, automatically mumbling about the Romanian weightlifter, the quality of the clean and jerk and It was gold for Romania.

He turned on the radio.

---

This from a writing exercise taking ten words and using them to create a character:

Clean and jerk
Asbergers
Musk
Radio
Glasses
Radiccio
Summer
Pebble
Sample
Excrement

Resident (Music)

How much is it? Cheaper to download online. Why would I bother. You tell me. I can’t really imagine why I’d buy this.

Listen.

No, really listen.

Sounds like indie guitar whining to me. Can’t really take that seriously. Why would I want this?

Because I’m telling you, it ïs gud. Really good. It will take you places.

Sounds like bollocks. Tell me something interesting about this so called music. I can’t fin anything in here to hold on to.

Hold onto me.

A pause. Looking at the cover of the CD, slightly screatched case, somehow hidden or secret, some depth is revealed, the music opens the whilne diminishes, falling out of time for a moment.

Broken. By discography, a long tale of who what and when about this artist. I don’t care, can’t listen, all lost.

I just want that moment back please. When the cover and the sound came together and I felt held.

I buy. I take home. I listen and look and search for that moment. Again and Again.

--

This from a writing exercise by Libby Davy where we took a random receipt and wrote about it. My receipt was for a CD purchased from Resident in Brighton.

He made her feel like a bigamist

‘It will curl. It will curl. Mr Jeremy trust me it will curl.”

And it did.

With her curling iron in hand, all seemed possible. And all is possible, especially in a beauty salon. She thought she was bad. She though she was a bigmaist, she thought she would got to HELL for sure, but life had a habit of surprising her, distracting her, taking her away from all of that.

And then Jezza walked in the door. Hair a mess from this french monsoon that was wrecking the summer. He was plotting his next move in some ridiculous car race cum diplomatic incident in rural france. On the phone with out stopping. Jeering. Going on - motor mouthing - about himself and the Jaaaag.

It was yesterday. She fell in love with the big oaf almost instantly. It was certain then that she’d give him everything. All he had to do was say “Jaaaag” in the affected upper class off hand way one more time and she’d melt.

Keep on curling girl. Keep on curling. The old boy’s mashed up hair sure took some work. IT’s HOT in here.

And for every curl, she felt a deeper bond with this silly englishman. Curl once, curl twice, curl again and again.

But then. It came to it. She said no.

He made her feel like a bigamist.

---
This raw bit of quick writing comes from a writing exercise at Just Write at WestWerks where I got the following things to work with:

Who: Jeremy Clarkson
What: Ploting his next move
Why: Because she thought she was a bigamist
Where: In a beauty salon
When: Yesterday
How: With a curling iron