Extract

Chapter one

       This first time that he saw her he thought that she looked like she had walked straight out of a painting. The sunlight was spiralling down through the domed glass ceiling throwing coloured streaks into her palest of blonde hair, creating a patina of shimmering auburn and gold highlights that no hairdresser could have produced. The angle of her cheekbone caught the edge of the light which threw shadow on her pale skin. Yes, she looked like a Rembrandt, that specific quality of light catching the translucent tone of her skin, or the heroine from a silent movie, all big eyes and expressive mouth, he couldn’t take his eyes from her mouth, the luscious curve of it.  It made him seriously think what it would be like to kiss her. For a moment he wondered if she was really there, or if he had just dreamt her up in one of his daydreams.

She looked like the Angel on top of the Christmas tree that he could remember seeing on one of his rare visits to church as a child. She looked other worldly, and she had walked through the automatic glass doors of the Arts Centre surrounded by what he could only describe as ‘Grace’ in the Old Testament sense of the word. His hands twitched beneath the reception desk for his camera, but he stilled them laying them firmly on the table in front of him, and placed what he hoped was an enigmatic grin on his face. He realised that she had spoken to him a minute ago or it could be a whole lifetime ago, he’s not sure:: time is standing still, and he needs to do something to move it on again to restore some semblance of normality before his inner turmoil gets completely out of hand.

‘’Hi can I help you’’

She turns lazily to fix him with an out of focus look, licking her lips and deferring to the girl with the flaming red hair behind her. Then in a soft voice with the faintest tingle of an accent that he couldn’t quite place she almost whispers her reply so that he has to lean towards her to capture her words; as if he was trying to catch the dust that flew across a sunlit room, as if he was reaching out towards a destiny that had always been waiting for him.

 

Was a big blue moon last evening

just hanging over sea

there’s a big old ache inside me,

that nothing seems to ease

 

I want to hold you close now

whisper moonbeams in your ear

for you’ve told me that you need me

that love is nearly here.

 

When the night moves on serenely

across the blackened sky,

when you’re lying here beside me

I can hear your secret sighs.

 

So darlin’ don’t be lonely

for as far as I can see,

the morning soon is dawning

& your hand in mine will be.

 

Our hearts will open slowly

this love has come  alive

yes the time is here to own this

just shout it from the trees

 

‘’I love you’’‘s not a whisper

it’s a song on every breeze

for your strength has made me whole again

& our autograph will be……….

 

‘’She loved him through the winter storms

        & in the summer’s ease’’.

 

For you’re tangled in my story

& I’m tangled up in you

yes you tangled in my story

when you tangled up in me.

White nights & summer’s on the run

marble cool beneath my feet &

river pulls over reed beds, fish

heads its secrets kept, its story

still unsaid.

 

I’m searching for a speck of star

beyond the daily dross, I’m looking

out for where you are, waiting still

for me: behind that tree beneath the shadow

of the day

 

that I might find just what I please

before the summer’s soft light touch

has vanished over sea.

1.

 

Wake to blue blue sky

birds flying high whirl

on upper air , around

& over like kites.

 

Sea smooth as ice

Caribbean cocktail

murmur of summer days

English ways.

 

2.

 

Tail ends & rough cuts

a pepper sky

sly moon bides time

horizon to nowhere,

 

love falters on the corner

about turn: drowns herself

in the tidal sweep, from my window

every vista precious

 

hand painted by the angels.

 

3

 

Here I am happy with little:

a handful of roses

an ice cream or two

 

tea in the garden

 

& the wild cacophony

of seagulls nesting

shatters my sleep.

 

Still no sign of

attainment: I lie

back on the breeze

 

outstretched to steady

myself as it curls in

to carry me

 

to carry me. 

1

 

I can only listen to Goldfrapp……….

………..the sea is in constant flux at the bottom of the road and I’m sore from the thrust of it.

Years and years of waiting lie littered like paper bags across the shoreline to mingle with the seaweed thrown up against the railings all tangled there like dead mermaid’s hair.

I could scream from the waiting, and a small hard voice in me asks

’’Waiting for what’’?

But I stealthily ignore it.  All of my writing is a diversion; it talks of other things, other people, it fabricates interesting stories to entice. While the point of it, the brunt of it seems to have been lost long ago in the existential looking out from this perception at others passing by.

Always passing by.

Falling off the edge of time

form into un- form: love lingers

in the by words, lost faces.

I am iron coated booted

courage; leaning through

a brace of steel. I am fashioned from

falling in, falling out.

All too much to bear; the sweetness

of a morning shared, the ecstasy

of nightly visions of you.

Better to live in the half light

twilight a flicker, later the

forgotten moon over water.

Its still silhouette continuity

of promise , of promise , you promised

till it’s gone.

Silver glints on skin

skin black as ebony sailed

from African isles &

oh the depth of angled eye

kohl lined darkness.

 

Skin scents sweet sandalwood

soft melting sugar skims under

finger & I would sail the

seven seas to have you

by my side tonight.

 

Silver taut on aching flesh

cuts a fine but definite line

between us: aligning planets

for this strip of time to store

in memory.

 

Skin tint of saffron waft of chilli

laughter leaps, smile that lights

grey of everyday your skin black

as ebony & the glint of sweet

sweet silver.