On

Bathed in gold, that is the sun on the horizon,
Peeping over the bowl of ocean towards home.
There is a gentle breeze stirring, stirring, invisible fingers
Trying at the curtains,
To the chorus of birds outside.

Side by side, two lovers lie, their breathing in unison,
The rise and fall of a night's passion,
Each second eternal bliss.

No need, these lovers be, to greet the prying sun.
Their eyes are for each other, no others; no one can
Understand their private need.

Time, once enemy, fleet of foot, can at last unwind
Its treacherous machinations,
And Distance, unruly bane, can cast down
Its dividing walls.

Yes, though these lovers sleep now, in the gold
Of morning,
They shall, with two hearts as one beating,
Take their place where they belong, their place
In the sun.

Forever.

Off

Grey clouds,
This day's companion. Unspeaking,
And yet, speaking volumes.
Through the veil of red tinged vision,
Piercing the shadows of new depression.
Share a cigarette with your shadow, joined
At the feet.
Fresh baptism from cool drizzle in a windless
Alcove under hanging trees, bent with the weight
Of their own troubles: no mentors here.
Just these thoughts, turned clods in the furrows
Of the mind. Ploughed and ploughed some more.
Turn, turn and turn, watching the exposed worms
Hide from the blinding light.

The brief spark of pain, hot ember on a clumsy
Finger. Once more,
Enslaved by reality, victim to gravity
And the knowledge of time plunging relentlessly forward.
The choice: cling to the ride, or elect to allow oneself to fall
Off.

Behind the Wall

There is no peace behind closed eyes
Tonight, I dream of walled cities surrounded
By hungry enemies with bright curved knives
Waiting for that moment of weakness, to strike

The choice, my choice, insofar as there is one to make
Do I hold the walls, the strongest face presented
Or pull back to the fortress, that battered crag, to hide?
So much to consider, and yet, in truth, little time to decide

Beyond, the plains fill with faceless dangers, hurtful strangers,
Above, a sky leaden and heavy with empty promise
There won't be rain, despite the forks of lightning pelting
No cover to hide behind

Trapped, then, I... against a rising tide, in this dream world
I have created, with rules to bend
To stay and fight, is surely to die, but to retreat is a fate
I wish not to comprehend

It is not courage I lack, nor the will for resources to engage
It is just that I want to choose the fight
Being shoved into the corner is not my desire, to set rage's fire
Of reaction and lash out blind, that is not what I have in mind

And yet, in the end, needs must.
For as surely as I awaken and the city is swept aside,
My enemies don't weaken, indeed they reinforce
And wait again for the next dream, behind closed eyes.

With me and my wall, built pebble on stone.

The Power of Fire - Sampler 4

Foolish girl!

            If but he could say the words aloud, and to her face. But alas, he could not. For starters, he would be but a stranger to her, and words such as those—uttered as they would be with exasperation and reproach—were none a stranger, let alone a boy, should say. Furthermore, she was quite a few yards ahead of him and with the pair of rogues closing rapidly on her. As such, there were more pressing matters to attend beyond chiding her for the silly cat and mouse game she had attempted to play. That could come later, if at all.

            First, he had to deal with Vasek’s hirelings.

            That they were two to his one was enough to give him pause. There was also the matter of weaponry to consider. He was in no doubt that Vasek’s men would be armed, most likely with daggers of the discreet stabbing variety, more for show than actual use. Intimidation would be their game, and nothing was more intimidating than the sight of a naked blade. In most instances, that was all they required, which suited men of Vasek’s ilk just fine. At heart, men such as these were cowards, relying on fear to bring about cooperation. Though should they be pressed, they wouldn’t shirk from drawing a little blood.

            Richard was without a weapon, having left his own dagger, which would be concealed in his boot, at home, not suspecting that he’d be released from the interviews so early and be saddled with time to wander the markets. So, as expediently as he could, he let his eyes scan around the detritus left in heaps at the mouth of the alley. Without fuss, for he had no time for such, he pulled free a sizeable length of four-by-two from a smashed crate, complete with a jagged quartet of nails at the far end. This he tested with a few hearty swipes, finding it somewhat clumsy, but knowing that it would serve its purpose anyways. As an afterthought, he stooped down again and disentangled a mouldy hessian sack, a very basic strategy formulating in his mind.

            While not wholly satisfied with his choices, he nonetheless carried on, pausing only to peer around the corner and down the throat of the alley itself where the girl was backing away from the two brutes. They advanced slowly, unaware that they themselves had been tailed and in error, thinking that they had time to spare to make something of a spectacle of proceedings. To this end, the man on the left had his arms folded across his chest; as such, he presented no immediate danger to the girl. His companion, though, was a different matter altogether. In his hand was a short dagger, which he flashed before him like a child’s play thing, turning the blade so that its keen edge caught the meagre sunlight angling in over the craggy and claustrophobic shoulders of the buildings that formed this tight alleyway. Whether he intended to use the dagger or not was immaterial. Just having it ready at hand was threat enough.

            And so, knowing the disposition of his foes, and rudely armed, Richard Seth drew a deep breath, counted slowly to five, and rounded the corner.

            He moved swiftly, knowing that time was precious and the window for surprise was apt to slam shut sooner rather than later. To this end, stealth was out of the question. Besides, the heels of his boots scraped and clattered loudly over the cobbles in his haste, so any attempt to be sneaky was doomed to failure from the onset. It didn’t matter though. The bandits were so engrossed with baiting their prey that Richard was almost upon them before they realised what was happening.

            With a shout, he lunged forward, his first target the bandit with the knife. Of the two bandits, he reacted first, spinning swiftly, if rather awkwardly, in an attempt to bring his weapon to bear upon the intruder robbing him of his prize. His curse was abruptly cut off when Richard threw the hessian sack into his face, entangling his knife arm—and the knife itself—within the tatters of sodden, putrefied material.

            Richard had no time to ascertain the success of this ploy; the second bandit, wasting no time for curses, dipped a hand inside the folds of his robe, feeling for his own weapon concealed therein. In a matter of seconds, Richard pounced, swinging the four-by-two at the bandit.

            The impact was loud, terrible. Richard heard the crack of cartilage, saw a bloom of crimson burst from the bandit’s shattered nose. And even before the bandit brought his hands up to cover his face, Richard saw the deep and jagged rents along the man’s cheek where the quartet of nails at the end of the makeshift club had scored through the flesh straight to the bone.

            For the briefest moment, he was repulsed, sickened not by the sight of blood, or the way the wounds on the man’s face pulsated and flapped like fish gills, but by his actions. There was nothing even remotely resembling chivalry in this act. This was thuggery, pure and simple.

            Yet, Richard did not stop.

            Could not stop.

            Something clicked inside him, pushing aside the dry as dust lectures about integrity and fighting the fair fight. This was no textbook engagement; there would be no test at the end, no grading, and no second chances. It was brutal, that was certain, but hadn’t Richard seen bloody noses from fights before: those he had inflicted, seen inflicted upon others, or even received himself?

            There were no formalities here, no build up, or the obligatory exchanges of antagonistic (and, for the most part, moronic) jibes, and certainly no spark to set off the actual fighting. Instead, it was cold, calculating, and utterly spontaneous. Something new to Richard, and even if it jarred with some of his beliefs, he nonetheless felt a flutter of excitement.

            This all shot through his mind in an instant, so quickly in fact that it didn’t have time to coalesce into a coherent thought. It was primal, raw, above cognition. Above reason. Thus, he reacted.

            He swept forward again, three quick steps. The four-by-two once more drew an arc through the air, ending with a sickening crack across the back of the bandit’s skull. Almost immediately, the half-rotted timber snapped, the piece with the protruding nails bouncing away from the force of Richard’s swing. The bandit shuddered, blood spraying from his face as his hands fell away. Then he flopped forward, his head striking the cobbles beneath with a dull, meaty thud. His legs twitched once, twice, and then he was still.

            Richard, now with only half of the club in his hand, turned to face the second assailant, who had only just divested himself of the hessian sack. He stared levelly at Richard, schooling his features so as not to give anything away. In turn, Richard returned the stare, hoping his relative naïvety in such a venture wasn’t written on his face for his enemy to see.

            The man facing him looked battle hardened, complete with a jagged scar that burst from the widow’s peak atop his closely cropped head and ran straight down to the bridge of his nose. He held the knife now with more purpose, knowing the true mettle of his opponent. There would be no more tricks, no more showing off. The tables had been turned, and turned quickly, with much embarrassment to the men in question. Would Scarface be seeking to make an honourable withdrawal, or would he now be seeking blood?

            That he chose the latter came as no surprise to Richard. What did, though, was the manner in which he chose to achieve it.

            He lurched forward, his knife poised for a thrust into Richard’s stomach, meaning to end the mêlée in one decisive action. The attack was rushed, uncoordinated. Richard was able to easily side step the clumsy advance, even when his adversary slashed out at the last second with his blade, and brought his own weapon down onto Scarface’s outstretched hand. The hand holding the knife flicked open and the weapon tumbled to the ground. Without a pause, Richard booted it away.

            With no weapon, and a recumbent partner, Scarface did what any thief caught in the act would do. He deftly dodged Richard’s return advance—not before receiving a short, but harmless clip around the ear for his trouble—and dashed like a startled rabbit for the mouth of the alleyway, all thoughts of treasure and sport secondary to the safety of his own skin.

            Richard waited until Scarface had turned the corner before lowering his weapon, counting off five long seconds lest that worthy should have a change of mind and return for another round. Only then did he turn his attention to Scarface’s colleague, still lying face down in a spreading pool of crimson. Satisfied that this man wasn’t likely to cause trouble, he finally looked towards the girl.

            “Are you all right?” he asked.

We are never alone

Cold wind and rain,
Whispered prayers, of an untouched angel
Making patterns on the window pane.
Sit by a candle, watch the shadows playing,
While the music, soft in the background
Spins to the start again and again.

Your head on my shoulder,
Gentle, your hand squeezes my hand,
Thrill in the glory that is our touch.
Makes this one moment last forever,
This night, ours, for the dreaming
Of that which we want so much.

Let it be written,
This page can be our stone:
That while now, we're apart,
We are never alone.

Haunted

It's freezing inside, but is that just my mind?
These words like the sleight of hand
Of some trickster on a side street.
I could be blind, even with eyes open
To not see it is my own feet I fall over.
There's a man outside, beneath the amber light
His face hidden in a pall of dark.
Furiously shaking his head at the voices inside
And biting the cigarette pressed to his lips.

Each finger of wind through the leaves of the trees
A soft sigh, wordless, yet tinged thick with remorse.
Somewhere, a train grinds through the night
A long haul far away, far from my sight
Like the pale moon shrouded in cloud
And the street curtained in fog.

In my dreams
I run through a narrow tunnel, endless
Running... from what?
There is nothing behind me, but there is
And it gets closer.

This world is not real, but is more real
Than that I live in when I am awake
Even when the air is treacle
And each breath is a gasp.

Ah, but... ah!

There will be no rest this night.
Red rimmed, my eyes
In the coming dawn.

Strength of Faith

Once again, I was an interloper at what was the most sacred of human rites. To say I felt uncomfortable was an understatement. Even though my presence was required, albeit informally until the necessary rituals were completed, there was a nagging sense that I was an intruder, an outsider, and that I didn’t belong. This sense was only heightened by the fact that other than the priest in his official capacity, and myself, there were only two others present, and the dour expressions they wore told me that they didn’t really want to be there, either.

            I remained, though. Not only because I was being paid to stand just outside of the periphery of the three gathered at the graveside, but also because something stark and remorseful ate at my bones in response to the lack of mourners in attendance. No one was crying. Not the young woman on one side of the coffin, nor the middle aged man on the other side, and certainly not the priest, whose sonorous voice was the only noise to be heard that warm and lazy spring afternoon.

            The young woman was the deceased’s daughter. She was dressed in customary black: a long and formless dress, sturdy, low-heeled shoes and a flat, broad brimmed hat with a veil that draped mysteriously over her face. Why she went to such a length to disguise herself was anyone’s guess. She was hardly a stranger to either Father Bryan or myself, having met both of us a few times before this afternoon’s service to make arrangements, and there was nothing in her demeanour during those few brief meetings to suggest that she was shy, or indeed, had anything to hide.

            As for the middle-aged man... well, I didn’t know him from the proverbial bar of soap. And judging by the way the young woman kept her distance, it would be safe to assume she didn’t really know him either. For all anyone knew, he could have been a drifter from off the street, who happened to spy the makings of a funeral and decided to blend in with the crowd in order to access the buffet that would no doubt be in store at the wake. Such callousness was not new. Indeed, part of my job was to keep an eye out for such vultures, just in case. However, given the man’s deportment and the fact that his dark grey suit looked too expensive to belong to a casual “funeral crasher,” I gave him the benefit of the doubt. In a crowd of four, I didn’t wish to cause an unnecessary ruckus, and besides, the young woman had been somewhat adamant that the affair would be neat, simple and quick. In other words, a graveside ceremony with a thimbleful of prayers and ritual, and no wake.

            On the surface, the request would seem cold, devoid of any emotion at all. Yet, it was not uncommon.  Modern life, it seemed, robbed people of so much time that they couldn’t even afford an hour or more to mourn for their dead. Only in this case, it wasn’t the commodity of time that dictated the young woman’s needs.

            “Mother was not a Catholic,” she had explained, sounding both adamant and apologetic at the same time. On me, the distinction was lost, though Father Bryan nodded in understanding.

            Hence, here we were this afternoon, a crowd of four, participating in an abridged ceremony. At the foot of the grave, Father Bryan held court. His voice washed over proceedings, utterly calm, totally powerful, inflected with the experience of decades of attending to the souls of mankind. For a man fast approaching seventy, he still stood tall and straight. Sure, he was gaunt of features, and his limbs were spindly, but there was still vitality in that body. Presently, he was at the penultimate stage of the ceremony, the bit that still brought shivers down my body even though I’d seen it countless times now. It was quite a piece of theatre, done with such clinical practice that unless your focus was on the priest’s foot, you’d swear it was magical.

            “...and we commit our sister in faith to the ground,” Father Bryan intoned. No sooner had the word ‘ground’ been spoken, the winches on the frame bearing the coffin burst into life, and the coffin began its descent into the earth. As the coffin disappeared, he continued: “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”

            While this happened, my heart skipped a few beats, as it seemingly always did. Despite the best attentions of the sun beating away at the black suit I wore, a sliver of cold wormed its way down my spine and an involuntary shudder coursed through me. And then, as suddenly as it came, it went, but not without tracing the hairs at the nape of my neck with its cold fingers for a final fleeting moment.

            All that was left was the closing. Father Bryan crossed himself, and then with the litheness of a man many years younger, he stooped to where a small shovel poked out of a token mound of dirt. Seconds later, the first clod struck the top of the coffin, the sound overly loud in the stillness of the grounds. One by one, the rest of the mourners followed suit; approached the grave, gathered a tiny clod of earth on the end of the shovel, and added it to the meagre few that went before it. With that, all was done.

            The graveside ceremony had barely clocked ten minutes.