Today. I give up.*

I got up to you,
I climbed
all the stairs of the seven storeys, until
I got there, where
I forsook
the costume and the mask,
the desire and the expectancy.
I left them all neatly folded at the door.
You will find them in the morning when
you will wake up and
you will leave sleepy for the office.
You probably won't put them into consideration.
You'll step over "i miss you",
over "i'd love to",
and you''ll hit the little"why" in its belly while
he slowly pulls your sleeve.
Don't worry,
I am better now.
I forgot about the dimples and the mole.
How does your voice sound?
Your eyes... are they green or brown?
That yellow t-shirt,
that plaid shirt...
I do not even care if
you will see the pile
waiting for you outside the door.
It's not like
you have not seen
my backpack every time
we met...

Today I give up.

Because
I am not made of concrete,
and that's how the breeze that
you carry with you
always
unbalances
me.
Because
I really know how to ride a bike and
I do not need training wheels.
Because
I am not afraid.
Because
I have courage.
And especially,
because
I have nothing to do here.
It's empty and deserted.
It's nothing.

*Today I quit.

Windows into other lives.
Don't climb out;
You'll fall and die.

Is there anything left to do
or has it all been done
already?

Please tell me

I’m lying in the road
I’m walking the ghost
I’m kissing exotic petals
paddling through the jungle.
I am sifting through an interesting
range of small glass objects,
one of which is an owl
and I am now counting car park
Spaces at Morrison’s.
Oh yes I’ve found a new hobby
and I am becoming obsessive.
I am twisted into a sordid dream state
of integrated parking structures, of free
standing multi-storeys in multiplexes,
out of town malls, town centre Galleries
and other associated parking opportunities
[often free of charge with good maneuvering
zones clearly designed-in].

I write all these details down in a small
blue notebook, narrow lined with a
margin, from WH Smith’s.

The Numbers:
Morrison’s 420
Marks and Spencers 350
Metro Centre 1322 [still counting]
The Nag’s Head, Mitcham 26

[Remember thought that this is only an
extract from the journal]

Oh no

I’ve just discovered some
clammy doughnuts,
deep in my overcoat
the sugar congealed,
just how I like it.
Someone is singing
‘show me the way to go home.’
I say show me the way to Broom Street’s
multi-storey car park [NCP]:
State of the art entry and exit facilities
Token meters
In five languages
Please
Please
Please tell me the optimum size
of  European parking spaces and
what extra allowances need to
be made for American manufactured
motor vehicles although I realise
this is less of a critical matter now,
as Americans are going through
a culture shift
towards smaller cars
and standards are merging.

Please.

In the end, I never really climbed-
Them, they gave me panic attacks,
Razors loped my flesh and I ran in
Circles over a reverse nightmare,
Spiral staircase, awful storeys,
They all scooted to 1999.

I want to climb down my 1999, burn
And not be smolder in an ashtray.
I hope to fall asleep, away from
The city, away from my guava trees.
I have my history of walking,
Suddenly lost without postage stamps.

Will you take me to Ferris wheel?
Push me down the spiral staircase,
And sleep next to my 1999? Will you?
Will you take me to Ferris wheel?
Push me down the spiral staircase,
And sleep next to my 1999? Will you?

“Some other day”

PROCESSIONS that lack high stilts have nothing that
catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were
twenty foot high,
And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks
upon higher,
Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence
or a fire.
Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, ake
but poor shows,
Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon This
timber toes,
Because women in the upper storeys demand a face at
the pane,
That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to
chisel and plane.

Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild,
From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child.
All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all.  A barnacle goose
Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the
dawn breaks loose;
I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;
Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.

She stopped to sit softly on a jutting rock near the lake.
In that fine damp mist, she felt the need to take a break.
Then, she pulled back her sleeves of scales having to kneel
To sculpture in a clay like that one used on a potter's wheel.

She kept altering and shaping it into a beautiful male head.
The lines of his face proved that the man was unreal or dead.
Then, she pulled her sleeves back down, and started to walk.  
Her aunt, a witch, approached the sculpture wanting to talk.

Come here, aunt Surah’, said Jezebel. ’What do you think?’
Surah unbuttoned her neck telling her, ‘My dear, I need a drink!’
‘Is this sculpture your deep secret?’ Surah smiled as a feline.
’ He’s the man of my dreams, and his face I will never reline.’
(Jezebel started to sing)
‘I still can hear his very sad low wail,
In a sleeping forest being of no avail,
In searching for his bride he can fail,
His bride is caught in the time's gale.

When a castle he sees in the sun's rays
Keeping two decades of sleeping days,
The beauty sleep leaves him in a daze.
'Come and take your bride', the oak says.’
(Surah became nervous.)
‘My dear, it’s a very strange dream, believe me.’
Said Surah, looking as tired as being after a hard pull.
‘Tell me, sweet child, in this dream can you see
Something about using a drop spindle to spin wool?’

‘No, never! By the way, what means a drop spindle?’
‘You must promise me to keep your mouth shut,
Or the demons in the forest a dead fire may kindle.’
‘I’ll keep the secret, or the tip of my tongue you may cut.’

(Jezebel started to dance singing another song this time.)
Come and dance with me between the daffodils.
I can hear the strong wind coming from the hills,
And never let die inside you your inner child.'
‘Sometimes, this princess wants to be really wild!'

(Surah got close to Jezebel having a book in her hands.)
'This book is a precious treasure’, Surah said.
'It always cries loudly in order twice to bake its meaning,
And we must be strong, when these words we read.
This book explains the whole history of queening.'



(Surah opened the book at the chapter: Spindle)

To begin spinning on a bottom whorl drop spindle,
You must attach a leader by tying a piece of yarn.
The best wool's colors are black, white, or brindle.
Moreover, wool dresses may be difficult to ****.

You must take the yarn over the side of the whorl.

You must loop it around the shaft underneath and back.

Over the side of the whorl, it looks like a hairy natural curl.

By the way, there's a spindle in the tower having a crack.'

(The castle where Jezebel lived)

The castle was in the forest, at a high mountain.

In the approach to the front door, there was a natural fountain.

The castle had a ditch and a bridge allowing people to cross.

It had a first gallery having the marble slabs nice cut across.


The gallery was situated between the great and the little tower.

The towers had thick walls being protected from the wind power.

The south-west side of the castle had a perfect hexagonal shape.

The northeast side had prisons, from where no one could escape.


There were four storeys formed around the hexagon on all sides.

There was an interior courtyard for the people wanting to turn aside.

In the center of this courtyard, there was a well and a natural cave.

In the cave, there was an underground lake, fossils and an old grave.


In the mountain stone, there was a subway leading to the great tower,

Which was a secret place having nothing alive inside it, even no single flower.

Banqueting House was a hall having a colored fireplace of marble,

Where the king and the queen entertained their guests, stories to garble.


The stained glass in the windows could share the sounds of many *****,

And many secret meetings took place behind those enigmatic walls.

At the top of the stairs leading from the wall, there was a passageway

Guiding into Dining Room having painted ceiling light over its walls' gray.


King's Hall had the throne in front of a screen with arched openings.

It had an oak chair and a footstool for guests to sit when they were coming.

It also contained some royal portraits, expensive furniture, and tapestries.

Here, the aristocracy came to enjoy their feast, and to share formalities.


Near it, a big Lobby having walls covered in rich fabrics was used

To entertain guests with sweets, while the jesters made them be amused.

After the meal, Great Hall was a huge space for singing and dancing.

It had monumental stone arcades in the light were really glancing.


Behind the arcades, there were the staircases leading to the upper rooms.

Those rooms were used by the guests to rest, and to dress in their costumes.

They had wooden roofs, and tall windows that were looking out upon the garden,

A domed pergola, shrubs, gateways, pavilions, and a forest of pine marten.

Blinded was she; the young girl in the corner,
Quivering with fear and trauma.
There was gunfire, shouts and laughter,
whilst she hid in the corner,
Hoping to blend in the scene.

They opened the front door,
and her heart sank to the floor,
When she heard the orders,
And they noisily raided her scene.

There were only two storeys,
Made of cardboard and metal.
She head time for one last tear;
one last prayer
before the men barged into her room
and dragged her out of the house kicking and screaming
and shouted praise at each other, like she was some sort of trophy.

She took one last glance at her home
In the Congo: the **** capital.
She wished she had died in the explosion, like her family.
She let out one last scream of pain before she was hit across the head
With the barrel of a gun.

And that was the end of Rosa.

Sheets of linen, palls of grey
Old bathroom walled
Scrawled dismay

School of halls, rooms of beige
Sheets of linen, palls of grey

Old bathroom walled
Stalls, dismay.

Flames behind me
the smoke blinds me
the fall in front of me
don't wanna jump, not for the life of me.

We've all hit our expiration dates
Johnson dangling, entangled in a wire
he's 68, he was about to retire
a burnt child dreads the fire
and he's a lump of charcoal.

Up many storeys
the planes hit precisely.
News helicopters flying and taping
there's no escaping,
the fire's approaching.

I need to jump,
no slow death here.
Here we go,
Geronimo!

Fire caught me in my fall
God's doing his roll call
pain in my legs as the ground comes closer
I move quick, I cannot breathe, my lungs are squished
Did I tell my kids I love them?
No, but I wish.

The national pride is nullified by the constant buzz of shores
being broken down and beaten with patrol boats
scouring the waves for lame boats carrying
malnourished passengers to a land of plenty.

With searchlights and stern rugged faces
blue uniformed and well fed, border patrol
scout out the weary travellers braving the high seas
and sharks to find a safe heaven in some hidden cove.

Pest control is serious business. Unlucky to be caught
and housed in centres with rationed food and worn clothes
herded into bare camps, often deported back
to home turf, the pest control cycle continues.

Take heed. A nation is built on pests., working hard, saving
every cent, running against the clock, against government agencies, starved and poor, defeated in justice, welfare,
community, papers, education and livelihood, slinking through
alleyways of paper networks, low paid, often beaten and bruised
packed in housing crates, stacked storeys high, nation building
begins at the journeys first step away from regimes too busy amassing wealth and wonder for themselves.

Nation builders are the pests you want. The pests you spend your money  to keep away from your own backyard
for a vote for safety.
Pin up a country that did not grow without these
masses of refuge pests?

Not one.

Author Notes
Migrants are nation builders. Check it out.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

The wind chilled the dead pigeons
the chimney had long been dormant,
if they had lain elsewhere
their beaks would carried the seeds of change,
yet the graded storeys were never condemned
as long as the Portland stone cladding
was not too evasive,
growls from under the porridge table 
by the occasioned Ginger
spared these absurd notions

China Cat

Standing on the mantel piece a black china cat,
Reminds me of sitting on nanas clippie mat.
She would tell us storeys of holidays by the sea,
Memories of the past the way it used to be.
Its funny how important little ornaments  are to us,
Sparking different  pictures of  family omnibus.
We hand them down with love and care,
From grammar  to mother   for all to share.
Little trinkets collected as we grow old,
Cherished as if they were actually made of gold.
But even if they break or get lost along the way,
We will still have our memories of the happy day.

Beside and beyond
the tabernacle
(evangelistic not catholic)
was one of the biggest

bombsites to explore
more ruins to climb
more places
to hide and seek

and you showed Helen
around the place
finding a way through
the wooden hoardings

put up to keep kids out
and she stood
gaping around
and said

gosh isn’t it big
and to think
that people lived here
and maybe died here

and she clutched
her doll Battered Betty
in her arm protectingly
and you with your catapult

in the back pocket
of your jeans
showed her
into what was left

of a house
climbing the wooden stairs
one wall missing
blown away

the sky visible
through the hole
in the roof
and she in her flowered

washed out dress
climbed gingerly
behind you
talking about what

her mother might say
if she knew
saying how her mother
would wag her finger

at her and say
don’t go in those bombsites
they are dangerous
in one room

was a lopsided picture
still hanging
and there
in the wooden floor

a gaping hole
showing the cellar
two storeys below
she gripped your hand

with hers her other hand
clutching Betty
pressed tight
to her chest

and she said
what would
your mother say
if she knew

you were here?
she won’t
you said
what she don’t know

will do her good
less to worry about
and from the top room
of the house

you could see
the tabernacle
in the early morning sun
feel the sunlight

seeping through
on your face
and Helen said
she was scared

and could you go down  
and so you went
back down the stairs
she gripping you tight

Betty hanging
by one hand to Helen
the smell of dust
and old *****’s ***

and damp wood
and bricks
and London still there
despite old ******’s tricks

with bombs and fire
for you to wander
and explore
and taking Helen

carefully
went out the door.

filaments burst into
eveningsong

deepthroated embers
the spreadsheets are tender
gestured compliance

(redwhite&blue glare; 10 storeys below ; and we are not safe)

          'just get done with it'
insincerity is requisite -
forced insouciance

          'we need to go, we are not safe'
rottten dignity can only be stomached for too long
but his sister is only twelve.

deceit, dulcet, you have gone wild
better you, just not the child -
'babe, wait, I’m coming'

tears tickle the back of the tongue
mellifluous moan regurgitated in turn.

filaments burst into
eveningsong -
- the police is coming, the police is coming.

The beryl high land smoulders….

Where skinny manes of cloven trailing, cuff
the rake of jumbled scree,
a porous crux of timbered carol
matins from the mossy shrine
to urchin on the bluff and draft
in nooks of birch and bilberry.

On that high dais, Corvid tribals
potter on the reeks of gale.
Fell boatman of the troubled storeys
quarter in some sleet cabal
to throw their onyx gauntlet down
a slating arc of fallow sky.

What doe's it talk to majesty a bit MSN cry?
How fast download the roast mist a MSN go
beforehand he really his gossip?
How management days mist a MSN present beforehand he films hid like storeys?
ALOT

My names
Of children
Keep me from recognizing
Their pictures
I had to many of time
And toys
Kept me from
Them
Yeah,
I used to work
Work used me
To get to them
Since,
You need your family's
Support
To raise you through
Life
Racing with work
Work races you
To get up the ladders

And passages
Of timeless

Jewelled lights
Inner city
Urban sunsets lookin' pretty
A Tower block rapunzel
hair spun from ghetto gold
15th storeys high
and the stories gettin' old
No knight is waiting
A million dreams are broken
the lift is out of order
Hope seems a foolish notion
Isolation is her captor
the city her disorder

******

Throwin' caution to the sky gods
She dresses in her armour
Advances down the stair well
Into inner city drama
On the 29 she takes a seat
looks straight ahead
Smile painted on.
The day she greets
********
At dusk again, in towered gloom
Moon illuminates her room
Stitching up torn, tired seams
of abandoned.
Long lost dreams.
Her heart.  
Already healing
Urban warrior forever
One day she'll leave this jungle.
Maybe. Who knows.
Whatever.

The city was laid like a wasteland
Like a rusting, crumbling sore,
Half of the houses were boarded up
Along a neglected shore,
The spirit had long gone out of it
That had made the city great,
Men fifty miles to the south of it
Were determining its fate.

Way up on the Presidential floor
Was a group of greedy men,
The czars of the old industrial core
Who had bled the town back then,
‘The real estate’s a disaster,’ said
A man who had been the Mayor,
‘The auto plants are a rusting heap,’
Said the man who held the Chair.

‘We’ve got more pensioners on the funds
Than workers in the plants,
There’s crime and violence in every street
And the Unions make demands.
So what’s the conclusion, gentlemen,
Do we give this plan its head?’
‘Whatever we do, it’s much too late,
The city’s as good as dead!’

And that’s how they came to build ‘The Tower’
To illuminate the sky,
‘There’s plenty of work for everyone
At a hundred storeys high!’
Nobody knew just what it did
Or what they were building for,
They only knew that they had a wage,
Could hold up their heads once more.

A central lift in The Tower went up
And down ten times a day,
Taking tools and materials
To restrict the Tower’s sway,
‘They say we’re going to go High-Tech
And they’re closing down the Plants,
The days of auto’s have gone for good
But they won’t tell us their plans.’

The Tower was built within the year
With a gaping hole up top,
A semi drove through the streets one day
And by The Tower, it stopped.
It carried a massive box-like thing
With a mass of flashing lights,
Was loaded into the lift, and sent
Up on its maiden flight.

They took it up and it crowned The Tower
While the people watched in awe,
There hadn’t been people in the streets
Like this since the Second War.
A massive counter was counting down
As the people stood and cheered,
‘I hope it’s not what I think it is,’
Said a man with a long, white beard.

While down in the Presidential Suite
Just fifty miles away,
A group of men put their sunnies on
And stood by the window bay,
‘Well how do you clear a festering slum,’
Said one, as he watched the clock,
While back at The Tower a sign lit up
And the word was ‘Ragnarok!’

David Lewis Paget

I stood there,
in the angry, dark air,
my hair curling everywhere,
and it was all I could do not to stare.

There must have been seven chimneys
In the great house on the hill,
I never actually counted them
While the house was standing still,
But the years had brought their own neglect
And the house was well run down,
By the time we pulled the place apart
For a new estate in town.

We couldn’t just use a wrecking ball
It was too immense for that,
When we took it brick by brick apart
We could build a hundred flats.
The chimneys were the hardest part
For the flues had twists and turns
As they rose up through three storeys with
Each hearth, soot black and burned.

It had been the home of Dukes and Earls
Back in Victoria’s day,
With gardeners, cooks and pantry maids,
All with a place to stay,
There were ***** and more for the gentlefolk
For the vicar and local squire,
And after the garden parties they would
Huddle, in front of the fire.

We chipped away at the chimney stacks
And gradually brought them down,
Brick by brick to the local tip
As red dust covered the ground,
But then a guy gave a sudden cry
During a working lull,
‘I think I see, what it seems to me,
The top of a human skull.’

The top of a human skull it was
Of a child, no more than six,
Jammed up tight in the chimney there
Imprisoned by old red bricks,
We managed to pry him loose at last
And lifted him from the flue,
But then the horror came home to us
For his legs were missing, too.

We saw the mangling hook they’d used
That lodged in one of his ribs,
That tore the body apart to clear
The chimney, for His Nibs,
The kid was lodged in a twisting flue
They knew that his case was dire,
And tried to make him climb up and through
By lighting a smoking fire.

We couldn’t tell if the sweep was dead
Or simply allowed to choke,
When someone ordered the fire lit
And sent up a cloud of smoke,
Perhaps he screamed as the smoke had streamed
And the fire burned, but slow,
He was just a sweep, his life was cheap
Compared to the guests below.

The little lad’s in the cemetery
He was laid with special care,
With everyone but nobility
Gathered to lay him there,
It’s a page at last from a cruel past
That we turned, but won’t forget,
Great wealth destroys our humanity,
Have we learned that lesson yet?

David Lewis Paget

I’d never felt comfortable in that house
Not once, since we’d moved on in,
A rambling, derelict, barn of a house,
Three storeys of age-old sin.
Nobody said there’d been murders there,
Or told of the gypsy’s curse,
Three hundred years of discarded junk
And I don’t know which was worse.

The air was dank, and creepy and cold
So I opened the windows wide,
Trying to get some airflow through
To clear the smell inside.
It was musty, dusty, smelt like a tomb
With a corpse, decayed and grey,
We cleaned and scrubbed it room by room
And the smell went slowly away.

We tackled the ground floor first, we thought
We could leave upstairs til last,
The stairs were blocked with a French chaise longue
From some distant time in the past,
It was jammed hard up by the bannister rails
So it wouldn’t go up or down,
I said I’d have to pull it apart
And that sparked a Hartley frown.

Hartley was the love of my life
Who tackled that house as well,
She said it was a pig in a poke
That its real name was ‘Hell!’
But we finally cleared a space to live
And she worked out a way to shift
That French chaise longue from the stairway by
Trying a twist and lift.

The second floor was a nice surprise
There was none of the junk and grime,
The bedrooms still remained as they’d been
Laid out in another time,
So Hartley dealt with the dust in there
While I went up for a look,
The room above was an attic room
And that’s where I saw the book.

It lay on a dusty table with
Its pages ragged and torn,
The paper a sort of parchment and
The ink, quite faded and brown.
The cover was ancient leather, cracked
And worn, as if by an age,
‘The Many Lyves of this House’ it had
Embossed, as a title page.

I cautiously opened the cover, read
The words on the parchment page,
The light in the room then turned to gloom
And a storm began to rage.
I raced on down to the ground to find
A man outside, who said,
‘For those inside, don’t seek to hide,
I say, bring out your dead!’

And a cart stood out in the street outside
A pile of the dead in place,
The street was cobbled, not like before,
But of bitumen, no trace.
And on my door was a huge red cross
With a white and painted scrawl,
‘God, have mercy on us,’ it read,
‘Have mercy on us all.’

And there on the floor, inside the door
Was a corpse wrapped in a sheet,
I dragged it out by the feet, no doubt,
And I left it in the street.
On climbing back to the topmost floor
I leapt and pounced on the book,
But the page had turned, and the fire burned
Before I had time to look.

London burned in the distance and
Lit up the night like day,
I didn’t know of it then, but it
Was burning the plague away,
And every page in that cursèd book
Brought a different time to bear,
‘The Many Lyves’ that this house had lived
Were all inscribed in there.

I slammed that leather cover shut
And I laid it on its face,
Then swore that I’d never open it
While the Lord would lend me grace.
And Hartley, dragged from her cleaning chores
She never could understand,
Why I put a torch to that ancient house
And burnt it to the ground.

David Lewis Paget

I tried not  to build the wall up
It just kinda happened
The way a chick suddenly realises
It's stuck in an egg.

I tried not to love you
Convince myself it was just friendship
That I craved
So deeply it hurt.

I tried to pretend it didn't hurt me
To hear you talk of her
And then when you stopped
To see the oceans you cried.

I tried not to secretly
Cry every tear you shed
Tried not to drench my pillow
So that I could wring the water from it.

I tried to be a good child so that
I would go unnoticed, uncriticised
I tried to shield my sister from the anger
That spread through the house

I tried to pretend I liked it,
Sitting alone at every break.
I tried to pretend that I wasn't an
Empty shell.

And to all those of you who out there
Live life trying- forget it.
You can try, but the try will fail
Crumble down when you think it worked.

The wall will be built
The tears noticed
So will you be.
They won't be protected
You will just get depressed
Your shell will be cracked
Like a fresh laid egg onto a concrete floor
From ten storeys up.

Three storeys high, and I can't believe
You told a lie, and now it all seems
Like we were not, even buddies
But you were shocked with what I revealed

Was it necessary to put on a show
Did you have to tell the whole world
You couldn't have done it on accident
Instead when we made up, you stabbed me again

And they might never wanna be by me
And they might always wanna taunt me
And they might never care again
If I fall, from a cliff, and I'm hanging on

Walking in a place, barely remembering to save grace
It was just another dream, that I'm in
And why oh why, would you even try
Are you unhappy with me, tell me
It doesn't regard all these whispers behind faces
They're just faceless robots
Trying to tear my heart out and replace
All the courage I got

It's Tuesday, I gave what you want
And today, you said what you wanted
And tomorrow, I never thought of getting
A text from you saying

Why would you, ever wanna pick on me
When I'm just an innocent little boy
Are you bored, or is this a joke again
Oh my word, can't you grow up even

Take your last steps before you fall down
I was there when they gave you your crown
This might have been the last time
Coz everybody might have believed you, this time

Do you think I care, do you think I lost
The thing is that I don't, think that you won
I might have been scratched up when you said it
Scratched up when I heard them laugh at me
But I still got what I want
And I'm gonna be it
And I just wanted to help you
But you turned me down
And we put it past us
At least I thought we did
But you went and escaped the secret
You were lying to me when you said sorry
This might have been your own democracy
The one I don't believe in
Could've been your true blessing
Guess it was no denying
Just let it be...

Till the day man goes to his eternal home,
Up and down this world he continues to roam
Frozen by the cold rain in the night
And warmed in a sunny day
Till the day air can no more seesaw in and out his lungs
He remains in the battlefield to make a way
A path his successors should find easier than he had
The bruises of a pathmaker must he incur because of a desirable future for his descendants he fights to secure

For the visionary man knows that
To make a better tomorrow
He must live like today is a borrow
A stuff not t spend on luxuries but to be invested in order to look back at and use as the foundation of his success storeys

Let the torn have her pound of flesh
Let the stones have their own next
As far as the skin is not taken away
The scars will only be the witness of the way

On and on he moves the success road till he sees that something improves

If our father's had remained in Babel till our days
The rest of the world would have been left a thick forest
A place crying to be discovered
So as life remains in the body of man
The task of getting the day's job done must he man
And that remains the plan

There’s not much of anything I can recall
From the time that we lived in the lane,
Only the puddles of rainwater eddying
With the wind’s gusting refrain.
Pamela knew, she was older than me
So absorbed all the essence of fear,
And many a time when she’d panic and whine
I would cry out ‘There’s nobody here!’

The trees were too tall and they ruled overall
By keeping the house in their shade,
The garden was cold and the rocks would grow mould
From the damp, in the part that I played.
The wind would come sniffing around from the trees
And shiver the hairs on my spine,
And then in a wheeze like a voice in the breeze,
‘You shouldn’t be here, this is mine!’

Our parents were never around it would seem,
Our time was spent mostly alone,
It’s true that I grew to be sensitive, too,
To the visions and sounds of my own.
But Pamela, she became crazy with fear
At every strange creak in that house,
So then when she’d scream, I’d say, ‘It’s a dream,’
And place a cloth over her mouth.

The house was three storeys, we never went up
To check out the topmost floor,
They said it was storage, and not ours to forage
So kept a stout lock on the door,
But Pamela said she heard noises above,
Like somebody padding around,
It couldn’t have been, or they would have been seen
Between the third floor and the ground.

But out from the garden I’d often look up
To stare at the sole window pane,
The one that was muddy, or could it be ******,
The colour was almost the same.
It was strange they insisted the stairway was locked
Could there be a grim secret to hide,
The darkest of murders, hidden away
And the storeroom above? Well, they lied!

Then Pamela said that she saw someone,
A shadow that fell on the pane,
Strange that the mud had continued in place
In spite of the seasonal rain.
Muddy or ******, it wouldn’t wash off
Though I stared and I stared, and I smiled,
The indistinct face that I saw staring back
Was the face of an evil child.

They say that the rest was over to me
Though I’ll never recall if it’s true,
It’s funny the things that you do in life
That you never thought you could do.
Pamela said I was quite the brat
But then Pamela’s such a liar,
All I recall is the face of a child
As the flames in the window grew higher.

David Lewis Paget

a farewell to quills / qwerty: alternative title to -new year's resolution and breaking thresholds of my mental stamina

rereading some works of Frank O'Hara thinking:
i wish a naive 20 year old once more,
just for as little as an hour - curse this aging and
getting predictable in one's assurance
    and disappointments -

i'm crushed today, absolutely crushed...
last night i managed to "****" the madam of the brothel...
that's the thing... i was coming back from
work, i drank one bottle of cider and a little
bit of whiskey, but i must have walked
around the brothel roughly 3 miles
in endless bouts of despair and excitement...

vomiting what little i ate that day...
thinking i'm constipated with an unfinished
little nugget of **** lodged up my *******...
queasy, excited, lost.... child-like...

like i said: "****"... she's a big woman...
i'm guessing in her 50s... definitely late 40s...
it's rather intimidating... and i'm like 5 months
shy from being 37 myself!
plump... but given her age that looks great on a woman
and... my god... the greatest pair of *******
i have ever seen... absolutely...
    a *****-**** where your actual **** disappears
completely?
                    it was just too intimidating...

whenever she let into the brothel for a £10
sat me down and inquired whether i'd like something
refreshing to drink... or she would let be choose
what music i'd like to listen to if all the girls were
busy...

******* no. 1 - lasted me for about 5 minutes...
flop... i finally broke my mental threshold when it comes
to casual ***... casually authentically transactional ***...
no games... not dating games...
no "relationships" / hook-ups...
me, going to the butchers - laying down £10 on
the table the butcher giving me a lump of beef...
that's it... no not me being older and dating 20 year
old women and beating them at the game
just by being older...

                                     the complete ******* opposite...
i don't know what her prostitutes told her
and why she suddenly made herself available!
(oh ****... i'm going to be sick... right this minute...)

.....................................................­.....................
...........................................­.................................
...............................­...........................................
.....................­......................................................
..........­................................................. (10 minutes
spent in the toilet puking, later).......................

unlike with Isabella - from Grenoble -
who i lost my virginity to -
i was a fresh 18 year old who already had
some experience with kissing and hand-jobs
while she was 21 and already with experience...
she just implored me to put on a ******
while speaking half-drunk half-passionately
(strange combination, i know)...
                  
older women... the gap gets even worse when
you get to the age of 36 and the woman is
in her late 40s or in her early 50s...
                                the allure is staggering...
a Grand Canyon of experiences -
                                      i am not ashamed that
i tried to get a ******* twice and twice failed...
as we were talking she didn't cut any corners:
it's not strong enough...
   oh **** me... for the 5 minutes it was hard
the way she just slapped in on her tongue...
but as the limo kicked in i just brushed it aside...
like dirt under a rug... not really taking myself
seriously - the situation was serious enough...
                          of course i didn't blame her...
                           and of course she knew that i couldn't
for the first time in my life i mentioned ******...
my head was aching with this notion...
but not too much: back in high school i already knew
guys in their tender age of 17 and 18 who had
early success with girls who were already
popping ******...
                                             but i know my bouts
of impotence... there's a word in Polish that perfectly
describes it: TREMA...
             which doesn't mean trauma...
                                the jitters... stage-fright...

oddly enough with her prostitutes hardly any problems...
but most of them are younger...
    with her prostitutes it's usually the opposite...
there's the hard-on but a mental constraint of being
unable to finish, to ******...
this was a completely opposite problem...

i dreamt of **** that size ever since i learned to *******
aged 8... and now having finally arrived at
my Mecca of fantasies and "expectations"...
******... the jitters...
                          which i could understand if i was
20 and she was 28... but not with my experiences...
not nearing 37... well...
                                   but she's nearing 50... ergo?
the canyon of expectations grows exponentially...
why? because... technically... i bought into
some Oedipal... she could technically be my mother...
not quiet... and on top of that:
                            she's the madam of the brothel!
she's the one who employs prostitutes and gives
them protection by employing a bouncer
who says a friendly: hello mate, how are you?
upon opening the brothel's fourth door...
oh yeah... you have to walk through 4 doors before
entering...
i have seen guys get rejected on the 1st door...
and the 2nd...

all these factors played a part...
ergo? my new year's resolutions are here...
my drinking has finally caught up with me...
i'm actually getting bored of drinking...
i know i said that once...
and never stuck to my guns of giving up
the habit... i'm also getting bored of smoking
cigarettes...
                     i can't smoke on the job
because i get nervous when sometimes having
to attend to large crowds... large crowds of
drunk football fans... i can't smoke in the morning
either... i get this morning tobacco sickness...
plus being a serious cycling enthusiast:
what's the point?
plus being pestered with a genetic predisposition
for high blood pressure...
the drinking is not helping... the smoking is not
helping... maybe that's another factor when it comes
to this one bout of erectile dysfunction...
high blood pressure...

and... writing... well... if i won't be drinking alcohol
my truth serum will be gone...
              and if i won't be smoking... what sort of writer
would i be if i didn't smoke?
the one eating carrots as a way of distraction and bad
habit?
                     i might as well admit that...
i think that i've written all that i have wanted / not wanted
to write -
     there's just no more incentive to continue this
dream - give up like Scott Fitzgerald... but instead
of turning to more alcohol... actually giving it up...
   all the vices... get in even better shape and...
                      go back to the madam and **** her like
300 Spartans...
                  
but on top of that she gave me more depressing news...
Mona and Kdarda ****** off... it would seem for good...
Mona became pregnant... what?!
oh yeah... she's in her 2nd or 3rd month...
she's back in Romania...
                                               who did she become
pregnant with?                                   ...
    ...                                          silence... not that i actually
asked the question...
                                    i sometimes wonder what
happens to those used condoms...
                                        it's almost like in the urban
myth i once overheard in Poland about...
either a man or a woman who sold condoms
having pierced them with a needle...

              well i have an urban myth of my own...
even though it's not a myth but a sad reality of being
with a woman, in a relationship,
who tells you she doesn't like you wearing a ******
because if there's going to be any latex involved it
won't  go inside of her but will be outside of her
so she tells you she will get on the pill...
                       only years later you realise....
it was impossible that she was on a contraceptive pill
because... you just performed oral *** on
a ******* who let you have unprotected *** with
her because she actually was on the pill
i.e. you can't perform oral *** on a woman who
is on the pill because there are no sweet juices flowing
there's only a ******* pharmacy down there...
it's bitter... so ergo... if that girlfriend of yours calls you
up a few weeks after she broke up with you
and tells you that she's pregnant...
                       on top of you suspecting her ex boyfriend
beta orbiter hanging around her flat in St. Petersburg
when you went over to visit one glorious summer...

why have only prostitutes  been the most
                                                 sane women in my life?
oh this night i'm going to drink my last
and write something rather epic...
                     because after tonight...
                                 a hiatus... complete darkness...
sure... any internet communication already established:
kept... but i'm not sticking my head out anymore...
i've done it for 8 years and i'm finally feeling the strain
that writing creates in the psyche...

i also realised yesterday that the ego can be sometimes
right... my ego planned that i wouldn't go to the brothel
until the next year, a day prior to ******* off to Poland
to celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday
(and obviously stocking up on duty free Camel cigarettes) -
as i was circling the vicinity of the brothel
trying to find the darkest parts - alleys, the park,
my ego was already telling: but you said so yourself
that not until next year, look at yourself: you're a nervous
wreck! you're not in the mood for ***... not tonight...
you just finished a shift and you're tired... just go home...
but i didn't listen to my ego: it's a painfully useful realisation
that this otherwise usually fickle entity inside of
my head with its pseudo-schizoid advantages / disadvantages
of rummaging in two tongues is somehow still
trying to help me, persuade me, comfort me and tell
me the whole truth rather than some delusional spin-off
some variation of a Satanic-whisper...
yesterday i was illuminated... but of course i didn't listen:
since it wasn't my conscience talking...
     i've already done the supposedly "evil" / "taboo"...

it's for the best... for the past 8... hell! more!
how many years has it been where there wasn't a single
day where i wouldn't spew some sort-poetic but mostly
rambling every, single, ******, night!
non-stop! sometimes, in my peak, that would involve
me sitting from 10pm through to 8am in
the morning - going to bed with the sunrise and
getting up with the sunset...
                             becoming this nocturnal monster -
living a life associated with the comings and goings
of an ivory tower, ******* Merlin the whacky etymological
historian of sorts...

well... today was eventful: just by waking up i was transported
into a warping of thought...
i needed to have a conversation with myself...
woke around 2pm... exhausted... lay in bed for
3 hours, hungry, hung-over...
       not moving, like a reptilian predator...
what did i have to eat today?
   my father used to call my drinking antics by using
the metaphor: rat...
   i always thought myself more of a fox...
although ask the Chinese...
                rats are not something to be cringed at...
they spread the wrath of the gods...
                       i couldn't **** a fly i couldn't **** a rat...
i remember this one instance in Edinburgh...
i was with Ilona and a mouse managed to enter my
wardrobe... i could see it: eyes glistening...
what did i do?
    i built a maze in my bedroom...
     with a trap at the end... "ushering" the mouse out
it ran through my elaborate maze and into my trap...
i caught it... pincer index thumb held up upside down,
she took a picture, giggle... purr me...
what did i do with it?
       i went outside of the flat (Montague St. can't
remember the flat number, tenements)
and left it on the communal staircase... thinking...
well... it might just scuttle away...
what did the mouse do? a ******* KAMIKAZE jump
two storeys down...
              which sent... shockwaves of trauma back
into my at-then-present-consciousness...
   when i was younger this bully of a kid...
thick glasses... curly brown hair... encouraged me...
to drop my hamster from a height telling me...
he'll survive... so... i dropped the hamster...
watching it fall... watching it hit the ground...
watching its tiny snout paint a ******* of crimson,
hue pink, hue... all the Hugh Grants and Heffners
in red...
    as i ran back to my mother and grandmother
crying... talk of parachutes... opening...
some magical force this bully persuaded me of...
the parachute didn't open! the parachute didn't open!
it was a joke for a while...
                           but i was the killer of my own pet...
and this kid... i still don't remember how
he came into my life... he wasn't the kid of any of the neighbours...
he just appeared in my life for this particular instance...
and there i was thinking i was morally superior
when i took a walk alone down a little stream
watching two boys **** a frog by smearing it with
lipstick and setting it alight...

things changed when hamsters became dogs...
Axl... i loved that dobberman... ferocious beast...
me and the upstairs kid: BIOŁY... Mark? Martin?
he was so blonde he could pass off as albino...
we were playing my Nintendo console...
because... i was the "rich" kid in the neighbourhood...
well... rich... living in those old communist satellite
state sort of tenements...
i was the kid with all the presents but no father
in my life and a drunk grandfather who was still great:
better than nothing given i only had one grandfather
and you're sort of supposed to have two...
so we were playing... got into an argument...
i don't know what happened in-between
i just know that Axl bit the boy's nose and the same
glorious gush of red-energy emerged...
                            
"i"...well... my grandmother had to get rid of Axl
after he almost tried to take my eye out
after... perfectly reasonable come to think of it...
he started biting my Alsatian ***** Bella
                 and i stood over him and in cold-blood
treated with "paint-brushings" of a PEJCZ...
             whip... honestly? some things sound so much
better in different language...
blitzkrieg sounds so much better than lightning-strike...

i still can't believe i managed to "****" the madam
of the brothel... she even tied her hair in pigtails
to give an impression of being younger...
my god... given her age... what an attractive specimen...
oh... and a plump girl can pull it off...
seriously...
                       but only when she gets older...
younger, plump girls... eh... nope... but when she gets older...
i just regret disappointing her...
but... a learning curve is a learning curve...
i'll have enough time to improve...
it's not like into video games... i never passed beyond
a PS1 games console... ergo...
there's plenty of night and nothing and brick-walls
to meditate / be ****** into... the odd sudoku...
a Chinese ideogram or my favourite:
a return to the syllables of Katakana...

all throughout i'm listening to just one song...
Salmonella Dub's Problems...
a New Zealand band...
                              back when i was a ***-smoker
i invested enough time to branch out
into a ***-smoker's type of music genres...
New Zealand...
   i worked two shifts at Twickenham...
first shift? England vs. New Zealand...
second shift? England vs. South Africa...
my god... the difference in spectators...
the South Africans felt... so proud... sort of ageless...
imagine a tribe of African living in Finland...
this is what it felt like... the New Zealanders seemed
like farmer-boys, sheep-shaggers, the Welsh...
they mingled and bred with the local population
of the Maori... the South Africans didn't...
South Africa once colonised by the English
fell into the hands of the Dutch...
    but these Dutch of South Africa weren't at all progressive...
of the modern day Netherlands...
they resembled escapee Nazis living Argentina...

we received the best compliments from the managing
team... our gate worked smoothly...
i don't know why i was given the megaphone
reciting robotic messages i.e.
a. 'ladies and gentlemen, please use all the available
turnstiles'...
b. 'ladies and gentlemen, pleasure ensure to use
the minimal traffic of all entry points via gate DELTA...'

Greek... hmm!
     fork in the road... so that's diFFer to... say...
hello sunshine:

      P            H
           Φ Θ    
      H            T             just add Poseidon's trident

of Psi into the mix... Ψ: alternatively see diFFer...
just so... the **** of iota of the omicron...
with psi emerging from the O that's an Omega
turned upside-down Ʊ + I = Ψ

    mind you... with these seeing, living eyes...
an F and an "F" mind sound the same...
but... the disparaging associations of meaning
create a... literacy barrier...
still persistent in the advent of graffiti...

the last time i beat an animal without eating it
was my second arrival of Maine **** cats
into the household...
i didn't know who the culprit was... so i smacked him
and i smacked her...
she was the honest one...
but the second time the incident happened...
well... by then i knew who was ******* in my bed...

i know that by quitting drinking i'll be the inverted
version of a bear... i know that i have sleeping
issues, which will become more exemplified
by a reached: hope for sustaining my sanity...
but this high-blood pressure ******* has left too much
turmoil in my head...

oh right, my father's rat to "non-existent" analogy
of my buying alcohol antics, smuggling bottles
of whiskey... alone, drinking... and then during
the day playing the party partisan of society...
like a fox... or rat... whichever...
what did i do today... i had a bed sobering up
session... and a in the cold sobering session...
i lay on the jacuzzi cover in the jacuzzi shed...
fidgeting... trying to conserve energy: i was fasting...
i folded my hands into an akimbo
putting one hand into the sleeve of another arm...
folding my trousers into my socks...
lying flat... then lifting my legs up
touching the beams of the shed...
      
             like, a wild, *******, animal...
i imagined: but i did... steal a slice of bread
from the kitchen... smearing it with butter...
again "stealing" a tub of a ****** speciality,
i.e. a vegetable salad consisting of raw celeriac,
raw Bramley apples... petit pois (canned),
cooked parsley roots, cooked carrots, cooked
potatoes. hard-boiled eggs... raw leaks...
all smeared with a dollop of mayonnaise...
pepper? yes please...
                           and a can of spicy tomato tinned
mackerels... eating it while standing up
in the 2nd shed... the 3rd shed has my father's work
tools and my Tour de France 2nd bicycle...
the Kolarzówka... which is a spring / summer bicycle...
it's not the autumn / winter mountain bicycle...

i hate cars... i adore buses...
if i hear some alpha bru'h trying to sell me a sports
car... i start to think of Dalmatians and...
can, you, ride, a, horse?!
owning a car makes absolutely no sense when living
in London or its vicinity...

oh **** me, even the thought of tomorrow shift is giving
me the Gremlins...
supervisor, again, why?! can't i be the break-guy?
i'm not even qualified... yet... i'm being given this
******* leeway like i earned it... oh, right,
i have earned it...
            i just don't want to experience
the fudge-packing headache of a delay in
constipation... which is not exactly a headache...
just a pulverising anti-music... a vibrating headache
that doesn't ache...
a vigilant reminder of: would i come out of
the Manchester Arena suicide bombing with PTSD?

i smile, i pause... i smile again... i clock faces...
it originates in my childhood...
this... sensation of numbing at the fingertips...
when... people... who don't own what
you own... are given a frightful... free... access...
and... you're sort of o.k with it...
you're not o.k. with it...
but you give up a stating ownership of objects for
the people using said objects for their own
pleasure... you feel pleasured by peoplg
being pleasured... but you just don't understand
why ownership of things is somehow important
a tier above the presence of the people
bypassing you owning and them: not owning
said, used, things, for that shared...
interaction... numbing of the fingertips...

i'm sad. Khadra is gone... Mona is gone too...
i'm left strapping myself to excitement and paranoia
and erectile dysfunction ******* the madam of
the brothel... watermelons, watermelons... watermelons...
ich spreschen Deutsche...
a bit like my surname... ******... Stalin...
made easier for English-speakers...
because... what the **** could they do with the addition
via E(sch)lert?!
                          oh sure as **** they couldn't find
the Slavic acute S in the Germanic SCH... could they?!

the only reason i have so much casual *** is...
i have yet to court a match of intellect in
the bedroom!
like i told the madam, excusing my limp-*******-****
situation... i shook her hand...
and this is what we do, formally...
but seeing you naked... touching your thighs...
your *******... my hands could talk for a seemingly
forever... and it would not tire me...
it would: embolden me!
things change... when... simply ******* prostitutes...
you get a stab... at... ******* the madam
of the establishment... you become nervous,
you become small... you become castrated...
you... hit rock bottom...
and then... Lucifer... Icarus.. what's up is down...
what's down is up!

you light a scented candle in your bedroom...
light your last cigarette...
does it matter that Muscovites are issuing concerns
over the Kiev-monstrum? no, not since the Orange
"Re-vo-lu-tion"...

i had... two... in all earnest... i had two... ****** revelations...
without all the chit-chat... two... both... prostitutes...
Mona and Khadra... a Romanian and a Turkish beau
respectively... there was only one woman in my life
that spoke... "respectably" similar level English to mine...
the rest... w either gave way to imagining Braille or...
whatever... but... insert crocodile...
why cry... when it, apparent ******* rains?!

i will miss them... tenderly, fully heartedly...
even as the Madam stroked my beard while i excused my
dysfunctional "third-party"...
                 why would a limp **** somehow diminish
my manhood... i.e. if a man is sized... surely...
a woman is sized too! a man's length and girth is also
reciprocated by a woman's depth and girth...
no?                              ergo?

plus all the mood swings that both the sexes share...
and have to... "en-ter-tain"...
but **** me... a madam of a brothel... me her and the pigtails...
well obviously i didn't deliver...
but... i'm thinking... if i quit drinking...
if i quit smoking...
that fat *** slurping lip brigade of an altogether
complete ****-buddy is waiting for me...
and i'm waiting for it... and the night and the foxes
and the crows are in my company...

well then! all the tales of vampires and werewolves...
can... become... true!
i can become a monster that understands
why... he feeds off being...
"casually" neglected...
why... it's not him who broke up with
a woman but the woman breaking up with him!
perfect!
which is why Mona and Khadra ****** up to
either Romania or Turkey, pregnant...
and i was left trying to **** the brothel's Madam..

melons melons! i'm telling you: **** like melons!
heartbreak and the heartless...
mind you... what's the other "thing" women notice
when courting...
apparently... ha ha... apparently... TEETH!
women like with no concern for dental insurance...
women like teeth... and hair...
i like... ****... what is it that i like?

                             i like snow... i like forests...
there's a difference between those more associated with oak
than those more associated with pine...
pines... entertain the existence of the scouts...
who are the scouts?! BIRCH... oak forests are the elders...
usually creating isolating environment
of island-dwellers...
               oaks don't appreciate birches...
and in terms of pines... well... in terms of pines and pins...
who's the one searching for the camel....
already in possession of the needle?!

my goblet of fine **** and saucy riches...
           i.e. my mouth...
                     i'll get ready...
as stated... once you **** your way up to having
the madam of the establishment that's
a brothel interested in you...
first time: disappointing her...
second time? you're going to quit drinking...
you're going to quit smoking...
you're going to sober up... simply because...
those ****... the fact that she's older than you by at least
one decade... and i like listening to horror movie
soundtracks... which makes perfect sense...
ugh... pristine nugget of fat and ageing...
it's like...
                  oh... ******* and jerking off...
that's off the table too...
        
             she's an ***-prized sort of a beached whale...
she's a Renaissance spectacle of the desirable woman...
plump... peachy...
now that i've had a taste... once the holidays
are over... when she asks for an entrance fee...
i'll need to seek out my hard-on in some other brothel...
paying her: sure... but only with you...
pigtails my ***...
                           freckle on her face...

then i'll start serving the concept of money...
Oslo? Brussels? Berlin... Berlin?!
ah... Bucharest...
                 no no... not south enough... Athens
i've already done... Istanbul...
        oh... wait... stop drinking... stop smoking...
regain friction with a hard-on...
**** the madam of the brothel...
   while her under-workers subscribe to texting each
other madly trying to figure out:
sq. not trg.!

now i'm becoming the baron of my own belly!

In public, they seemed to be so deeply in love
at home,  you could hear their quarrel from 10 storeys* above

During private times she bounced like a volley ball. Linda was dwarfish, sinister & bald. Her stringy hair was matted. Soon she would know death. The sisters hungered for a man's brutal love as neither chick had known of such a thing & were desperate to be plumbed as the term is often understood to mean.
   One day a man showed up. He knocked & Linda, the sister of Lisa, answered. “Yes? Do you want something?” The man didn't want anything from her. “Well?” She asked. But still the man said nothing. “Speak up!” Linda demanded. The man stood silently, a muted testimony to the hard-driven life that he had lived since boyhood. Linda slammed the door. The man knocked again.
   “What's going on?” A naked Lisa asked, fresh from the attic.
   “There's a man knocking on the door.”
   “Well,” Lisa said, still naked, “I'll see what this is all about.” Lisa flung open the door to find that the man was naked. “What's all this?” She demanded of the strange man who remained silent.
   “Let me get to the bottom of this!” Linda said, who was now naked, as she brusquely pushed her naked sister aside. “Listen here buddy,” Linda informed, “state your business or get lost!”
   “You tell him!” Lisa chimed in.
   The naked man grinned and then smiled. Lisa & Linda did likewise. The dew was drying on the grass and it wasn't half as dewy as it had been 20 minutes before.
   “We'd better do something about this before everybody knows,” Lisa opined.
   “What?” Linda asked. With that the mysterious naked man walked away.
   “That's strange,” Lisa observed. “We may never know the meaning of his visit.”
   Linda sobbed: “Some day he'll be the best husband in the world!”

They said that the Library was full,
Were going to pull it down,
They’d set up a whole new Google School
On the other side of town,
And nobody went there anymore,
It was bulging at the seams,
With every tome that had stood alone,
The source of a writer’s dreams.

‘What can we get from a paper book
That is not beyond a trace,
When just by tapping a couple of keys
We can pull it from cyberspace.’
They’d lost the sense of a cosy nook
On a languid day in June,
When curled up there with a thrilling book
They could drift and dream ‘til noon.

The Library was a silent place
With its soot-stained yellow brick,
It rose a couple of storeys, and
The air in there was thick,
The shelves rose up to the ceilings, more
Than twenty feet in the air,
You had to call a librarian
To climb up a sliding stair.

But up above there were volumes bound
In a red and gold Morroc,
Their wisdom gleaned from the ages in
A perfect printed book,
Though some had never been taken down,
Their pages were pristine,
They waited patiently there for me,
A world that I’d never seen.

They closed the Library down one day
And nobody even cared,
The lights went out for the final time
The cost of the power conserved,
A gloom then settled between the shelves
That had held the stuff of life,
The books, still patiently waiting with
Their sagas of joy and strife.

I broke on into the Library
Through a badly padlocked door,
Made my way with the aid of a torch
On up to the second floor,
The tension there was electric, I
Could sense them asking ‘Why?’
‘Why has the world deserted us,’
And the books let out a sigh.

I looked on up and I saw a book
And it seemed to freeze my gaze,
Glowing softly it shimmered there
In a pale, blue misty haze,
I reached on up and I took it down
Though it tingled in my hands,
My mind lit up like a picture book
Of far and distant lands.

I laid it down and it opened up,
‘The Book of the Universe,’
Then stars and planets poured out from what
I thought was an ancient hearse,
I heard some planetary music from
The deception that Neptune brings,
And floated up from the floor in there
Surrounded by Saturn’s rings.

Knowledge flowed from the book to me
Though I couldn’t catch it all,
It passed me by in a stream, just like
A glittering waterfall,
And then a voice in my head intoned
‘You can pass this message on,
You’ll never be able to smile again
Once all the books are gone!’

David Lewis Paget