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RatQueen Jul 2018
Reminisce on all the early days
Stuck inside of a drunken daze
I went based off of all your fleeting words
Couldn't begin to think it all would hurt

Back of the head
Look over shoulder
All that you've said
I go over and over
I want to believe that you're honest and true
But you held my head under water, the coldest of blue

I'm angry I'm mad I release it in tears
Nowhere near the pain I've felt all these years
I inflict on myself some sort of grounding
Body or heart I'm used to the pounding

Back of the head
Look over shoulder
All that you've said
I go over and over
I want to believe that you're honest and true
But you held my head under water
The coldest of blue

Hypnotize me with the lies
I'll listen to it all despite
Pain distracts from desire to die
Who lives through this more? You or I?

Maybe I'll take control of all you do
My fake *** puppet
Serve my desires
in the end for you

Back of the head
Look over shoulder
All that you've said
I go over and over
I want to believe that you're honest and true
But you held my head under water
The coldest of blue

It took a lie for you to show me devotion
My own ****** up version of a love potion
Treat me good so you feel secure
Accept others admiration based on a fear

Back of the head
Look over shoulder
All that you've said
I go over and over
I want to believe that you're honest and true
But you held my head under water
The coldest of blue

My makeup is running and I'm feeling so broken
Its all a ******* joke
The words you have spoken
I empty my soul all the well
For a person so ******* full of themselves

I suffer and shudder
Bury all of it under
I cant begin to imagine
Somebody other
Than you
So drown me in the blue
I'll take it for you
For the sake of something new

Back of the head
Look over shoulder
All that you've said
I go over and over
I want to believe that you're honest and true
But you held my head under water
The coldest of blue

Is it for me or is it for you?
Is it for me or is it for you?
Is it for me or is it for you?

Prove it
If only
To feel good from what you do
Songwriting
Cynthia  Jun 2017
Thief
Cynthia Jun 2017
Unexpectedly, like a thief in the night
Depression will come
Anxiety
Anger
Despair will introduce itself
threaten existence,
testing
Faith,
Assaulting the most precious possessions
Leaving behind bitterness
footprints  
in the coldest nights

But none define whose you are

Don’t fight alone.....
howard brace Oct 2012
Stood rigidly to attention either side of the hearth, the two bronze fire-dogs had been struggling to maintain that British stiff upper lipidness, which up until earlier that evening had best befitted their station in life... indeed, for the last half hour at least had become brothers in arms to the dying embers filtering through the bars of the cast-iron grate, passing from the present here and now, having lost every thermal attribute necessary to sustain any further vestige of life... to the shortly forthcoming and being at oneness with the Universe... only to fall foul of the overflowing ash-pan below.  This premature cashing in of the coal fire's chips could only be attributed to the recent and prolonged thrashing from the Baronial poker... and a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the family retainer, whom it appeared, required spurring along in a like manner... and while unseen mechanisms were heard to be engaging, then resonating deep within the Hall... that unless summoned... and quickly, the housekeeper had little intention of making an appearance of her own choosing and re-stoke the Study fire while the BBC Home Service were airing 'Your 100 Best Tunes' on the wireless, leaving the heavily tarnished pendulum to continue measuring the hour.

     An indistinct mutter and snap of a closing door latch sounded in the immediate distance as the unhurried shuffle of domestic footsteps... not too dissimilar from those of Jacob Marley's spectral visitation to Scrooge... echoed ever closer along the ancient, oak panelled hallway without.  Their sudden cessation, allowing the housekeeper ingress to  the book lined Study, was by way of sporadic groans from unoiled hinges, door furniture that voiced the same overwhelming lack of attention as that of the fire-grate set in the wall opposite and presumably, from the same overwhelming lack of domestic servitude.
                                        
     "Had his Lordship rang...?" the Housekeeper wailed dolefully, giving her employer what might casually pass for a courteous bob... and in lieu no doubt, of Marley's rattling chains, padlocks and dusty ledgers... "and would there be anything further his Lordship required..." before she took her leave for the evening.  The notion of a sticky mint humbug warming the cockles of his ancient, aristocratic heart gave her pause for thought as she rummaged through her pinafore pockets, then thought better of it, after all, confectionary didn't grow on trees...  In bobbing a second time she noticed the malnourished, yet strangely twinkling coal-scuttle lounging over by the hearth, whose insubstantial contents had taken on an ethereal quality earlier that evening and had now transferred its undivided attention to the recently summoned Housekeeper, who was quite prepared to offer up a candle in supplication come next Evensong were she mistaken, but the coal-scuttle's twinkle bore every intimation of giving what appeared to be a very suggestive 'come-on' in return... and had been doing so since she first entered the room... 'and did she have any plans of her own that particular evening', the coal-scuttle twinkled suavely, 'perchance a leisurely stroll down by the old coal cellar steps...'  Now perhaps it was the lateness of the hour which had caused the Housekeeper's confusion that evening, or perhaps an over stretched imagination, brought on through domestic inactivity, but it wouldn't take a great deal to hazard that a lingering fondness for Gin and tonic played no small part towards her next curtsey, which she did, albeit unwittingly, in the unerring direction of the winking coal-scuttle.

     With the household keys as her badge-of-office, jangling defiantly from the chain around her waist, the housekeeper began inching back the same way she came, back towards the study door and freedom... and back into the welcoming arms of her 1/4 lb. bag of peppermint humbugs and the pint of best London Gin she'd had to relinquish prior to 'Songs of Praise...' and which was now to be found... should you happen to be an inquisitive fly on a particular piece of floral wallpaper... half-cut, locked arm in arm with the bottle of Indian tonic water and in the final, intoxicating throws of William Blake's, 'Jerusalem...' hic.

     "Ha-arrumph..." the elderly gentleman cleared his throat... "ah Gabby" he said, lowering his book and placing it face down upon the occasional table set beside him.  The flatulent groan of tired leather upholstery made itself heard above the steady monotony of the mantle-piece clock as he stood and chaffed his hands in the direction of the bereft fire, "Oh! I'm sorry your Lordship, then there was something...?" as she maintained her steady but relentless backwards retreat unabated, the double-barrelled bunch of keys taking up a strong rear-guard action and away from the well disposed coal scuttle... "and was his Lordship quite certain that he required the fire stoking at such a late hour..." she dared, "perhaps a nice warming glass of port and brandy instead" gesturing towards the salver, long since tarnished by the half hearted attentions of a proprietary metal polish... "and would he care for..." then thought better of offering to plump the chair cushions herself, having discovered Mort, the household mouser in the final stages of claiming them as his own, deftly rearranging the Victorian Plush with far more than any noble airs or graces.

     "Poor Mrs Alabaster, you will recall Sir, I'm sure..." a pained expression crossed the Housekeepers face as she collided with a corner of the Georgian writing bureau and bringing her to an abrupt halt... "her late Ladyships lady" she continued, indiscreetly rubbing her derriere, "whose services your Lordship dispensed with at the onset of last Winter, shortly after the funeral, God rest her late Ladyship... when you made her redundant... and how she's been unable to find a new situation ever since on account of her lumbago flaring up again, seeing as how it's been the coldest January in living memory", which in all likelihood meant since records began... "and SHE didn't have any coal either... or a roof over her head for all anyone cared... begging yer' pardon, yer' Lordship", letting her tongue slip as she attempted yet one more curtsey... "and it's wicked-cruel outside this time of year Sir, you wouldn't turn a dog out in it..." and how ordering the coal used to be Mrs Alabaster's responsibility...

     "Oh no, Sir", as she unsuccessfully stifled a hiccup...she would be only too delighted to rouse the Cook, especially after that dodgy piece of scrag-end they'd all had to suffer during Epiphany, but it was only last week that the Doctor had confined Cookie to bed with the croup... "as I'm sure your Lordship will recall..." as she attempted a double curtsey for effect, the despondent coal-scuttle now all but forgotten, "that below-stairs had been dining on pottage since a week Friday gone... and it tends to get a little moribund after almost a fortnight your Honour... and that Mrs Cotswold's rheumatism was still showing no signs of improvement either by the looks of things... and was having to visit the Chiropodist every fortnight for her bunions scraping... and how she's been advised to keep taking the embrocation as required".

     As a young woman, any disposition her grandmother may have had towards sobriety or moral virtue had quickly been prevailed upon by the former Master's son taking intimacy to the next level with the saucy Parlour Maid's good nature.   Shortly thereafter, having been obliged to marry the first available Gardener that came along, she was often heard to say "a bun in the oven's worth two in the bush" for it was with stories 'of such goings-on'  that made it abundantly clear to the Housekeeper, that it was far more than old age creeping up... and that if she didn't keep her wits wrapped tightly about her, as she threw a sideways glance at the winking philanderer... then who would.

     As for the Gardener, "well... he couldn't possibly manage the cellar steps at this late hour, yer' Lordship, wot' with the weather being the way it is right now Sir, seasonal... and him with his broken caliper... and bronchitis playing him up at every turn, even though his own ailing missus swore by a freshly grown rhubarb poultice first thing each morning", but oddly enough, "how it always seemed to work better if the young barmaid down in the village rubbed it on, especially around opening time..." even his brother, Mr Potts Senior, ever since their Dad passed away... "God rest his eternal soul", as she whirled, twice in as many seconds, a mystical finger in the air... had said how surprised he'd been to discover that it could be used as a ground mulch for seed-cucumbers... it was truly amazing how The Good Lord provided for the righteous... and even as she spoke, was working in mysterious ways, His Wonders to Behold... "Praised-Be-The-Lord".

     And how the entire household, with the possible exception of Mrs Alabaster, her late Ladyships lady, who doggedly refused to be evicted from her 'Grace n' Favour cottage...' the one with pretty red roses growing around the door, that despite a string of eviction notices from the apoplectic Estate manager... had noticed what a fine upstanding Gentleman his Lordship had steadfastly remained since her late Ladyships sudden demise... "God-rest-her-immortal-soul..." and may she allow herself to say, "how refreshing it was to have such a progressively minded and discerning employer such as his Lordship at the helm, one filled with patient understanding and commitment towards the entire household..." much like herself...

     Fearing an uncontrollable attack of the ague, which invariably took the form of a selfless and unstinting dereliction to duty and always flared up at the slightest suggestion of having to roll her sleeves up and do something... which incidentally, was the first mutual attraction by common consent to which her parents, some forty years earlier had discovered they both held in tandem... and "would his Lordship take exception..." feigning a sudden relapse as she gestured towards the nearest chair, were she to take the weight off her feet... she plonked herself solidly upon the Chippendale before his Lordship could decline... "perhaps a recuperative drop of brandy" she volunteered, "just for medicinal purposes", she swept her feet onto the footstool, then crossed them with a flourish that would have caused Cyrano de Bergerac to hang up his sword... "the good stuff, if his Lordship would be so kind, in the lead-crystal decanter... over in the corner by the potted plant", she caught sight of the adjacent cigarette box, also tarnished... "just to keep body and soul together, may it please 'Him upon High'..." and just long enough to brave the coal cellar steps and refill the amorous scuttle... "if only it were a little less chilly", she gave an affected cough... on account of her diphtheria acting up again, she felt sure that his Lordship understood...  Moving over to one of the book lined alcoves, the elderly Gentleman lifted several tomes from the shelves... 'My Life in Anthracite', an illustrated compendium' "to begin with, I think... followed by... hmm!" 'The History of Fossil-Fuels, a comprehensive study in twelve breath taking volumes' "and we'll take it from there" as he threw the first on the barely smouldering embers...

                                                      ­     ...   ...   ...**

a work in progress.                                                        ­                                                         1859
Bunhead17  Nov 2013
Control
Bunhead17 Nov 2013
[Intro: Big Sean]
I look up
Yeah and I take my time, *****
I'mma take my time, whoa
Power moves only, *****

[Verse 1: Big Sean]
Boy I'm 'bout my business on business, I drink liquor on liquor
I had women on women, yeah that's bunk bed *******
I've done lived more than an eighty year old man still kickin'
Cause they live for some moments, and I live for a livin'
But this for the girls who barely let me get to first base
On some ground ball ****
Cause now I run my city on some town hall ****
They prayin' on my *******' downfall *****, like a drought, but
You gon' get this rain like it's May weather
G.O.O.D. Music, Ye weather
Champagne just tastes better
They told me I never boy, never say never
Swear flow special like an infant's first steps
I got paid then reversed debts
Then I finally found a girl that reverse stress
So now I'm talkin' to the reaper to reverse death
Yep, so I can kick it with my granddad, take him for a ride
Show him I made somethin' out myself and not just tried
Show him the house I bought the fam, let him tour inside
No matter how far ahead I get, I always feel behind
In my mind, but **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I said **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I grew up to Em, B.I.G. and Pac *****, and got ruined
So until I got the same crib B.I.G. had in that Juicy vid
*****, I can't *******' stop movin'
Go against me, you won't stop losin'
From the city where every month is May-Day at home, spray your dome
****** get sprayed up like AK was cologne for a paycheck or loan
Yeah I know that **** ain't fair
They say Detroit ain't got a chance, we ain't even got a mayor
You write your name with a Sharpie, I write mine in stone
I knew the world was for the taking and wouldn't take long
We on, tryna be better than everybody that's better than everybody
Rep Detroit, everybody, Detroit versus everybody
I'm so ******' first class, I could spit up on every pilot
The city's my Metropolis, feel it, it's metabolic
And I'm over ****** sayin' they're the hottest ******
Then run to the hottest ****** just to stay hot
I'm one of the hottest because I flame drop
Drop fire, and not because I'm name dropping, Hall of Fame droppin'
And I ain't takin' **** from nobody unless they're OG's
Cause that ain't the way of a OG
So I G-O collect more G's, every dollar
Never changed though, I'm just the new version of old me
Forever hot headed but never got cold feet
Got up in the game won't look back at my old seats
Clique so deep we take up the whole street
I need a ***** so bad that she take up my whole week, Sean Don

[Bridge: Kendrick Lamar]
Miscellaneous minds are never explainin' their minds
Devilish grin for my alias aliens to respond
Peddlin' sin, thinkin' maybe when you get old you realize
I'm not gonna fold or demise
(I don't smoke crack, ******* I sell it!)
*****, everything I rap is a quarter piece to your melon
So if you have a relapse, just relax and pop in my disc
Don't you pop me no ******* pill, I'mma a pop you and give you this

[Verse 2: Kendrick Lamar]
Tell Flex to drop a bomb on this ****
So many bombs, ring the alarm like Vietnam on this ****
So many bombs, make Farrakhan think that Saddam in this *****
One at a time, I line them up
And bomb on they mom while she watching the kids
I'm in a destruction mode if the gold exists
I'm important like the Pope, I'm a Muslim on pork
I'm Makaveli's offspring, I'm the king of New York
King of the Coast, one hand, I juggle them both
The juggernaut's all in your jugular, you take me for jokes
Live in the basement, church pews and funeral faces
Cartier bracelets for my women friends, I'm in Vegas
Who the **** y'all thought it's supposed to be?
If Phil Jackson came back, still no coachin' me
I'm uncoachable, I'm unsociable, **** y'all clubs
**** y'all pictures, your Instagram can gobble these nuts
Gobble **** up til you hiccup, my big homie Kurupt
This the same flow that put the rap game on a crutch (West x6)
I've seen ****** transform like villain Decepticons
Mollies'll prolly turn these ****** to ******* Lindsay Lohan
A bunch of rich *** white girls looking for parties
Playing with Barbies, wreck the Porsche before you give them the car key
Judgment to the monarchy, blessings to Paul McCartney
You called me a black Beatle, I'm either that or a Marley
(I don't smoke crack, *******, I sell it)
I'm dressed in all black, this is not for the fan of Elvis
I'm aiming straight for your pelvis, you can't stomach me
You plan on stumpin' me? ***** I’ve been jumped before you put a gun on me
***** I put one on yours, I'm Sean Connery
James Bonding with none of you ******, climbing 100 mil in front of me
And I'm gonna get it even if you're in the way
And if you're in it, better run for Pete's sake
I heard the barbershops be in great debates all the time
Bout who's the best MC? Kendrick, Jigga and Nas
Eminem, Andre 3000, the rest of y'all
New ****** just new ******, don't get involved
And I ain't rocking no more designer ****
White T’s and Nike Cortez, this red Corvettes anonymous
I'm usually homeboys with the same ****** I'm rhymin' with
But this is hip-hop and them ****** should know what time it is
And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale
Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake
Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller
I got love for you all but I'm tryna ****** you ******
Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you ******
They don't wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you ******
What is competition? I'm trying to raise the bar high
Who tryna jump and get it? You're better off trying to skydive
Out the exit window of 5 G5’s with 5 grand
With your granddad as the pilot he drunk as **** trying land
With the hand full of arthritis and popping prosthetic leg
Bumpin Pac in the cockpit so the **** that pops in his head
Is an option of violence, someone heard the stewardess said
That your parachute is a latex ****** hooked to a dread
West Coast

[Verse 3: Jay Electronica]
You could check my name on the books
I Earth, Wind, and Fire’d the verse, then rained on the hook
The legend of Dorothy Flowers proclaimed from the roof
The tale of a magnificent king who came from the nooks
Of the wild magnolia, mother of many soldiers
We live by every single word she ever told us
Watch over your shoulders
And keep a tin of beans for when the weather turns the coldest
The Lord is our shepherd, so our cup runneth over
Put your trust in the Lord but tether your Chevy Nova
I’m spittin' this **** for closure
And God is my witness, so you could get it from Hova
To all you magicians that’s fidgeting with the cobra
I’m silent as a rock, ‘cause I came from a rock
That’s why I came with the rock, then signed my name on the Roc
Draw a line around some Earth, then put my name on the plot
Cause I endured a lot of pain for everything that I got
The eyelashes like umbrellas when it rains from the heart
And the tissue is like an angel kissin you in the dark
You go from blind sight to hindsight, passion of the Christ
Right, to baskin' in the limelight, it take time to get your mind right
Jay Electricity, PBS mysteries
In a lofty place, tangling with Satan over history
You can’t say **** to me - Alhamdulillah
It’s strictly by faith that we made it this far
This is the lyrics to "Control" by Kendrick Lamar ft. Big Sean ft. Jay Electronica, ****. No I.D ...
I so mad that he dissed half of my favorite rappers and how is it that he dissed Big Sean and Jay Electronica and they're rapping in this song....I don't understand. But i kinda like this song.
Great morning
In a fogy  day
Coldest winds
Pass by


Verdant hills
Green scenery
Shine best
In swirling clouds.
All I want for Christmas
is some food to eat.
Oh what a treat
to have some meat.

All I want for Christmas
is clean water to drink,
stuff that doesn't stink,
that would be cool I think.

All I want for Christmas
is the bombs to stop,
no more to drop.
That would be the top.

All I want for Christmas
is for our food to grow,
the plants we sow
now that would be a show.

All I want for Christmas
is to be free to learn.
Not to be a germ
because I want to learn.

All I want for Christmas
is some medication.
and some dedication
from the United Nation.

All I want for Christmas
is to grow up strong.
Am I so wrong
wanting to belong.

All I want for Christmas
is some equal rights
and somewhere to sleep
through the coldest nights.

All I want for Christmas
is to earn a crust.
With employers
that we can really trust.

All I want for Christmas
is a chance at life
for a man and wife
not to live in strife.

All I want for Christmas
is oh so far away
and on this day
this is what I pray.
12th Nov 2014
Nigel Morgan Nov 2012
There’s a film by John Schlesinger called the Go-Between in which the main character, a boy on the cusp of adolescence staying with a school friend on his family’s Norfolk estate, discovers how passion and *** become intertwined with love and desire. As an elderly man he revisits the location of this discovery and the woman, who we learn changed his emotional world forever. At the start of the film we see him on a day of grey cloud and wild wind walking towards the estate cottage where this woman now lives. He glimpses her face at a window – and the film flashes back fifty years to a summer before the First War.
 
It’s a little like that for me. Only, I’m sitting at a desk early on a spring morning about to step back nearly forty years.*
 
It was a two-hour trip from Boston to Booth Bay. We’d flown from New York on the shuttle and met Larry’s dad at St Vincent’s. We waited in his office as he put away the week with his secretary. He’d been in theatre all afternoon. He kept up a two-sided conversation.
 
‘You boys have a good week? Did you get to hear Barenboim at the Tully? I heard him as 14-year old play in Paris. He played the Tempest -  Mary, let’s fit Mrs K in for Tuesday at 5.0 - I was learning that very Beethoven sonata right then. I couldn’t believe it - that one so young could sound –there’s that myocardial infarction to review early Wednesday. I want Jim and Susan there please -  and look so  . . . old, not just mature, but old. And now – Gloria and I went to his last Carnegie – he just looks so **** young.’
 
Down in the basement garage Larry took his dad’s keys and we roared out on to Storow drive heading for the Massachusetts Turnpike. I slept. Too many early mornings copying my teacher’s latest – a concerto for two pianos – all those notes to be placed under the fingers. There was even a third piano in the orchestra. Larry and his Dad talked incessantly. I woke as Dr Benson said ‘The sea at last’. And there we were, the sea a glazed blue shimmering in the July distance. It might be lobster on the beach tonight, Gloria’s clam chowder, the coldest apple juice I’d ever tasted (never tasted apple juice until I came to Maine), settling down to a pile of art books in my bedroom, listening to the bell buoy rocking too and fro in the bay, the beach just below the house, a house over 150 years old, very old they said, in the family all that time.
 
It was a house full that weekend,  4th of July weekend and there would be fireworks over Booth Bay and lots of what Gloria called necessary visiting. I was in love with Gloria from the moment she shook my hand after that first concert when my little cummings setting got a mention in the NYT. It was called forever is now and God knows where it is – scored for tenor and small ensemble (there was certainly a vibraphone and a double bass – I was in love from afar with a bassist at J.). Oh, this being in love at seventeen. It was so difficult not to be. No English reserve here. People talked to you, were interested in you and what you thought, had heard, had read. You only had to say you’d been looking at a book of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings and you’d be whisked off to some uptown gallery to see his early watercolours. And on the way you’d hear a life story or some intimate details of friend’s affair, or a great slice of family history. Lots of eye contact. Just keep the talk going. But Gloria, well, we would meet in the hallway and she’d grasp my hand and say – ‘You know, Larry says that you work too hard. I want you to do nothing this weekend except get some sun and swim. We can go to Johnson’s for tennis you know. I haven’t forgotten you beat me last time we played!’ I suppose she was mid-thirties, a shirt, shorts and sandals woman, not Larry’s mother but Dr Benson’s third. This was all very new to me.
 
Tim was Larry’s elder brother, an intern at Felix-Med in NYC. He had a new girl with him that weekend. Anne-Marie was tall, bespectacled, and supposed to be ferociously clever. Gloria said ‘She models herself on Susan Sontag’. I remember asking who Sontag was and was told she was a feminist writer into politics. I wondered if Anne-Marie was a feminist into politics. She certainly did not dress like anyone else I’d seen as part of the Benson circle. It was July yet she wore a long-sleeved shift buttoned up to the collar and a long linen skirt down to her ankles. She was pretty but shapeless, a long straight person with long straight hair, a clip on one side she fiddled with endlessly, purposefully sometimes. She ignored me but for an introductory ‘Good evening’, when everyone else said ‘Hi’.
 
The next day it was hot. I was about the house very early. The apple juice in the refrigerator came into its own at 6.0 am. The bay was in mist. It was so still the bell buoy stirred only occasionally. I sat on the step with this icy glass of fragrant apple watching the pearls of condensation form and dissolve. I walked the shore, discovering years later that Rachel Carson had walked these paths, combed these beaches. I remember being shocked then at the concern about the environment surfacing in the late sixties. This was a huge country: so much space. The Maine woods – when I first drove up to Quebec – seemed to go on forever.
 
It was later in the day, after tennis, after trying to lie on the beach, I sought my room and took out my latest score, or what little of it there currently was. It was a piano piece, a still piece, the kind of piece I haven’t written in years, but possibly should. Now it’s all movement and complication. Then, I used to write exactly what I heard, and I’d heard Feldman’s ‘still pieces’ in his Greenwich loft with the white Rauschenbergs on the wall. I had admired his writing desk and thought one day I’ll have a desk like that in an apartment like this with very large empty paintings on the wall. But, I went elsewhere . . .
 
I lay on the bed and listened to the buoy out in the bay. I thought of a book of my childhood, We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome. There’s a drawing of a Beach End Buoy in that book, and as the buoy I was listening to was too far out to see (sea?) I imagined it as the one Ransome drew from Lowestoft harbour. I dozed I suppose, to be woken suddenly by voices in the room next door. It was Tim and Anne-Marie. I had thought the house empty but for me. They were in Tim’s room next door. There was movement, whispering, almost speech, more movement.
 
I was curious suddenly. Anne-Marie was an enigma. Tim was a nice guy. Quiet, dedicated (Larry had said), worked hard, read a lot, came to Larry’s concerts, played the cello when he could, Bach was always on his record player. He and Anne-Marie seemed so close, just a wooden wall away. I stood by this wall to listen.
 
‘Why are we whispering’, said Anne-Marie firmly, ‘For goodness sake no one’s here. Look, you’re a doctor, you know what to do surely.’
 
‘Not yet.’
 
‘But people call you Doctor, I’ve heard them.’
 
‘Oh sure. But I’m not, I’m just a lousy intern.’
 
‘A lousy intern who doesn’t want to make love to me.’
 
Then, there was rustling, some heavy movement and Tim saying ‘Oh Anne, you mustn’t. You don’t need to do this.’
 
‘Yes I do. You’re hard and I’m wet between my legs. I want you all over me and inside me.  I wanted you last night so badly I lay on my bed quite naked and masturbated hoping you come to me. But you didn’t. I looked in on you and you were just fast asleep.’
 
‘You forget I did a 22-hour call on Thursday’.
 
“And the rest. Don’t you want me? Maybe your brother or that nice English boy next door?’
 
‘Is he next door? ‘
 
‘If he is, I don’t care. He looks at me you know. He can’t work me out. I’ve been ignoring him. But maybe I shouldn’t. He’s got beautiful eyes and lovely hands’.
 
There was almost silence for what seemed a long time. I could hear my own breathing and became very aware of my own body. I was shaking and suddenly cold. I could hear more breathing next door. There was a shaft of intense white sunlight burning across my bed. I imagined Anne-Marie sitting cross-legged on the floor next door, her hand cupping her right breast fingers touching the ******, waiting. There was a rustle of movement. And the door next door slammed.
 
Thirty seconds later Tim was striding across the garden and on to the beach and into the sea . . .
 
There was probably a naked young woman sitting on the floor next door I thought. Reading perhaps. I stayed quite still imagining she would get up, open her door and peek into my room. So I moved away from the wall and sat on the bed trying hard to look like a composer working on a score. And she did . . . but she had clothes on, though not her glasses or her hair clip, and she wore a bright smile – lovely teeth I recall.
 
‘Good afternoon’, she said. ‘You heard all that I suppose.’
 
I smiled my nicest English smile and said nothing.
 
‘Tell me about your girlfriend in England.’
 
She sat on the bed, cross-legged. I was suddenly overcome by her scent, something complex and earthy.
 
‘My girlfriend in England is called Anne’.
 
‘Really! Is she pretty? ‘
 
I didn’t answer, but looked at my hands, and her feet, her uncovered calves and knees. I could see the shape of her slight ******* beneath her shirt, now partly unbuttoned. I felt very uncomfortable.
 
‘Tell me. Have you been with this Anne in England?’
 
‘No.’ I said, ‘I ‘d like to, but she’s very shy.’
 
‘OK. I’m an Anne who’s not shy.’
 
‘I’ve yet to meet a shy American.’
 
‘They exist. I could find you a nice shy girl you could get to know.’
 
‘I’d quite like to know you, but you’re a good bit older than me.’
 
‘Oh that doesn’t matter. You’re quite a mature guy I think. I’d go out with you.’
 
‘Oh I doubt that.’
 
‘Would you go out with me?’
 
‘You’re interesting.  Gloria says you’re a bit like Susan Sontag. Yes, I would.’
 
‘Wow! did she really? Ok then, that’s a deal. You better read some Simone de Beauvoir pretty quick,’  and she bounced off the bed.
 
After supper  - lobster on the beach - Gloria cornered me and said. ‘I gather you heard all this afternoon.’
 
I remembered mumbling a ‘yes’.
 
‘It’s OK,’ she said, ‘Anne-Marie told me all. Girls do this you know – talk about what goes on in other people’s bedrooms. What could you do? I would have done the same. Tim’s not ready for an Anne-Marie just yet, and I’m not sure you are either. Not my business of course, but gentle advice from one who’s been there. ‘
 
‘Been where?’
 
‘Been with someone older and supposedly wiser. And remembering that wondering-what-to-do-about-those-feelings-around-*** and all that. There’s a right time and you’ll know it when it comes. ‘
 
She kissed me very lightly on my right ear, then got up and walked across the beach back to the house.
LLillis Nov 2019
The coldest night air
Seems no different than the
Space around the stars.
The mercury is dropping faster then we expected. It’s not quite polar vortex weather yet but the dry air and static warns of its approach.
NTR  Oct 2017
Winter is cold?
NTR Oct 2017
The winter this year will be the coldest one by far
I can see it in the coldness of my heart
Got bills to pay but my car wouldn't start
Had to heat my house with gas siphoned from my neighbours car

The winter this year will be the coldest one by far
I can feel its cold in my bones
the way they creak like old folks' homes
some days it feels like I'm trying to move through coal tar

The winter this year will be the coldest one by far
I can see the cold in my old friends' gazes
Whispers behind my back, the usual phrases
"Still playing guitar?"
"Still want to be a star?"
"Doubt you'll ever go far."

The winter this year will be the coldest one by far
I feel the cold coming out of my veins
my nerves so frozen I can't feel the pain
I only numbly hope that it doesn't leave a scar

The winter this year was the coldest by far
I was starting to think it might be my last
But somehow before i knew it winter had passed
Looking back I wonder if it was really so hard
Winter ended in August. Wrote a SAD poem for it.
Whater is cold?
Chris Saitta Oct 2021
Light has shone, light as death,
Sunset is gathered in fishing nets,
Like a twine of leafy stems.
~The coldest sea is the blood
Of the murdered and aggrieved~
Scaly Autumn of lost fires and dragon plumes,
Lanterns in the fog, graverobbers of the moon,
Light has shone, suckles at the tomb.

— The End —