On days abandoned to silent contemplation
when elation, has been sat on a back burner
that’s been on slow glow
for the last 17 days and furthest
from your mind was the idea
that anyone gave a damn now
that anyone might draw near
and say.. How..
is it going?
How are you doing?
You’ve been quieter
than a church mouse
in a midwinter’s
midnight empty house
with a window creaking
in the empty wind
and only ghosts
to keep you company as friend.

Except, the mark of the friend
is the one who raps
on the quiet door
when you could no more
raise a hand to write a mail, make a call
throw a rebuttal against the dark wall
that is mood and self imposed solitude
that comes like a baleful black cloud
sitting on the sunshine
deadening the sound
of your heart
beating in time
with your over active mind
that insists…
retreat is the best option.

It isn’t.

The sign of a friend
is imposed connection
when they push you
step on step
cajoling you to tell them next
asking when you’ll phone or text
and if, after a day blurred to four
they’ll tough love push some more
and demand a response
in recompense
and self repentance
for your pointless, personal exile

it’s understood it is worthwhile
connecting, not retreating
losing self-abnegating denial
in exchange for speaking
your mind, your heart, your soul…

and knowing,
your friend,
without judging
will listen
and lighten, the load
returning the favour
you once told
them, in their darker times:

a true friend will know
and call
and will never require
anything reciprocal.

…thank you.

The seas lie, calmer and flatter
than an obsidian speculum
reflecting deepest slate grey skies
the colour of my eyes on
darker days

Inert waters
belie deeper currents
where subdued ire
and frustrated wonder
flow in eddies and undertow
that pull ever deeper

Cinerescent clouds
pallid faced
paler than ashes
dullen and silence, words

that fall in cascades
with no sound
but pound
and ricochet
like buckshot
to no effect
like hailstone pieces
that bounce
off the frozen surface

this perfect waveless
self possessed
reflection
that lies a smoothly
dispassionate
imperturbation

All I want to do
is break the surface:
this perfect glass
and dive to the deepest
place
where currents sweep
and roil and pull
a maelstrom of action
the only place where I can clearly
hear you call
away from the deadening calm
in the flux and flow

where, in the swell
and chaotic fall
it is all,
or nothing.

“the path up and down is one and the same” ~ Heraclitus

What happens
when an unstoppable force
meets an immovable object?
a connectivity paradox…
does an encounter of opposites
signify some kind of unity?
or agreeing to disagree,
separately?

perhaps,
the unstoppable force stops,
and the immovable object moves.

This afternoon, whilst walking into Edinburgh city centre, a man in his thirties, happily sauntered down the side of the road in parallel to me. I couldn’t help myself, I just started to grin, like a Cheshire cat. With a wonderfully pronounced wiggle in his walk, said chap was sporting a dapper black dinner jacket. He was also wearing khaki shorts, brown ankle socks with jesus sandals and a bright sky blue knitted beanie hat. Wow.

It was quite obvious that he was enjoying the odd double-take glances he received, and that said get up was a deliberate ploy for attention, or a dare; I couldn’t figure out which. What struck me was in the very uniqueness of his dress sense (or lack of), he stood out like a beacon as he very merrily, dancily wandered his way down the street. He was the extreme exception to the ’standard’ rule of dress.

That having said, in my time, I have worn clothing that has been deliberately selected to incite a reaction. Be it in rebellious youth mode wearing outrageous punk goth chick gear, or later on, the alternative femme fatale provocateur in bohemian silks and modded boots. It seems to me, historically, during past generations – that in dressing up, we aimed to establish ourselves and please and tease – to grab attention. Somewhat like the peacock displaying it’s best ruffled and fanned feathers, humans are capable of tarting themselves up to elicit a reaction. But always in a way of expressing some form of individuality: some self expression – an extension of who you were. Effectively accentuating your own personality to share with others and celebrate the difference.

Except, is it just me, or in recent decades, has the western world gotten a tad more conservative in its’ self expression? Or simply less original? Previous generations have expressed themselves through unique dress sense, make up, hair styles… but the most recent generation of youth I can’t help but notice some degree of bland out. Girls seem to all have shoulder length straight hair, peachy make up, shimmer fake tan, regulation slouch t-shirt, leggings and ugg boots. Boys wander around in sports shirts, slouch jeans and jello stylee hair. Even the little emos seem to pick their designer stripy leggings, rock boots, slogan shirts and dark khol looks off the pre-made, catalogue sourced shop shelf.

Perhaps, in an age of mass media and ready made commercialism, originality seems to have laid down and surrendered to a mass conformity in a pre-made standardised one-size-fits-all identity of not so much self expression, as mass unoriginality. Even in the expressions of so called ‘alternative’ – the spark of indie customisation, has given way to mass accessible off-the-peg attitude. Over commercialism makes it all too easy to access everything pre-selected, pre-made, pre-determined identi-kit.

I admit, there may be resistance pockets dotted around… some rare cases of self expressionism who don’t want to be a clone. But I really wish the spark of human cockyness and the need for rebel excel would come back. Because in the conformity of lack of self expression, there’s a danger that the please and tease of coquetry may be lost, and with that, a little bit of original human expressionism.

The Loom, designed to encompass
the beginning and the end
a frame of time and space
outwith warp and weft: suspends
two sets of diverse threads
at angle to each other
interlacing a myriad
of chords of colours
an all encompassing synaesthesia
a polychromasia
a symphonia
of whirr and whorl
as multiple patterns unfurl
with the flow of the shuttle
in and out; back and forth
countless strands that bind
to follow perpetual paths:
spools continually unwind
flowing, weaving, trying to find
a composite connection
an entwined collation
of twisting, winding, ripping yarns
manifesting into many forms
each filament, each fibre, interplays
connects, combines in infinite ways
all bound up yet running free
each an integral part of the tapestry.

A girl distractedly wanders, head in book
unable to look
ahead, she senses her wending way
through madding crowds, past a boy
head bouncing to an unheard beat
quick walk dancing through a maze of feet
avoiding an old woman who, dazed
confused, slightly bemused
is asking two tourists; which way is best
who apologetically, shake their heads
frantically, obviously wanting to be
setting out on their long journey
whilst wheeling pedal free – a girl
careens illegally carefree
pavement cycling, avoiding the
old man, focused, step by tortuous step
leant on a stick, stubborn, independent
on frail, worn out, fragile footfall
as two young lovers, on the corner call
joyously, uproariously leap and greet:
her arms wrapped round his neck
her toes sliding up the back of his legs
nose to nose, as the world goes
by, stamping, tramping, dawdling
a businessman, all import and man bag sling
briefcase, makes haste, at professional pace
narrowly missteps over the invisible face
of the beggar, who leans self consciously over
their precious sign, beseeching almsgivers
to credit their existence with a few small pennies
and I watch silently, behind a moving pane of glass
the morass
of humanity, in all its guises
that collides, avoids, connects, devises
pathways through ever changing perambulation
to some unknown, final, destination.

‘Smile’,
she said
‘You’re on camera’
she plead

As you turned to face
the lens glare
the lingering stare
and devil may care
attitude

‘No photos -
I don’t do those’
You chose
to say

‘Too late’
she grinned
and clicked
and a little piece
of your spirit
slipped
into her
slick photographic
carriage

and slightly disparaged
by your angried
expression
she left

unable to discern
how she’d stolen
a little piece
of you.

Fingers, hesitantly feel
instinctively along the wall
in near dark, half light
sensing what feels right

Tracing an uncertain line
surface scratched to define
a nearness, a half guess
appraising what comes next

Words now gently search
tentatively to approach
near likeness, a half glimpse
holding to possible promise

Reaching out, gathering in
seeking some connection
close understanding;
fully accepting:
who we are
and what we’ve been.

At the moment I’m trying to walk everywhere I go (within feasible distance). It saves me money and it’s part of a health regime to get my hinny figure back after a month of junk food whilst I was teacher training a couple of months ago.

The one thing you will find when you walk anywhere for longer than five minutes is the sheer variety of encounters that are simply lost when travelling by car. In a car it’s a sealed zone, a small pocket of vacuum packed self, buffered from the real world as you drive past fleeting images that become remote and objective – like images on a TV screen.

Travelling by foot is an entirely different affair.

For a start there’s the weather, which, if you’re in Scotland, is very much a changeable experience. Yesterday the skies were a solid block of steel grey with driving rain, which at some points resembled what my grandmother would have called ’stair rods coming down sideways’. Today is warm, golden autumn sunshine – with billowing winds that whip and buffet you – so much so that it’s a battle at times to walk in a straight line. Leaves, twigs, indeed the odd branch seem encouraged to loosen from trees, and flags not so much wave in the breeze as rattle like staccato gun fire.

Then the encounters.

Trekking down via the Grassmarket and reaching the end of what is affectionately called by the locals ‘the pubic triangle’ (where bars are largely populated by pole dancers and windows are firmly blacked out), two gentlemen reeled precariously in the centre of the pavement, and were in a dainty, dancily kind of way, holding each other up. It was like watching an unintended Argentinian Tango, lurching unexpectedly down then up, tenacious fingers clasped on each others shoulders as they wavered in the feisty breeze. Negotiating the tango twosome looked like an intriguing challenge against the busy road. Pulling my brolly in against the wind and rain, I wryly smiled as I approached. Both were dressed in traditional kilts, and cutaway jackets and I don’t doubt they were ex-regiment. Right now they were ex-scotch bottle.

“Oooph” grins one, looking up from the latest lurch, “heezit raining under therrre?” pointing at my brolly embattled against sideways rain. I laughed and said it was as I passed them by. Because really, it was.

I wheel around the corner, cross the road, and a hulking mass is shambling its way down towards me. Down and out, tattered rags criss-crossed this bear of a man with an unkempt shaggy grey-yellow-white mane of hair: not so much clothes as makeshift wrap around pieces of cloth all bound around him fluttering like dismal miniature bunting. His figure was crooked, as if someone had snapped him two and left him to drag himself along the street, a large amorphous industrial bin bag in tow. I stepped aside to make room on the small pavement – eyes connected for an unspoken moment, distant and disconnected, before humping on down the road. Another classic case of social service failure and broken will.

Five more minutes down the road and a large cargo van stands with the back screen drawn high. Coming towards me at speed is a young man in blue overalls, weighted under the full mass of a single bed mattress. Make or break. If this guy stops, the mattress is gonna keep going. Stepping aside for a second time I watched in vague admiration as this man-mattress-made-one wheeled around the corner in a smooth manoeuvre. I eyed the back of the van and noticed four more similar mattresses. By the end of the day that guy was going to have a seriously sore neck.

Home leg: long trek past a large building site, five storeys high. More flats built in a nouveau neo-seventies brown brick and ‘designer’ chrome and glass finish. The air is heady with the smell of new tarmac and damp dust. Bargain basement designer blocks that will look like rain stained ghetto land in ten years time.

“Hoooooy!” …drifts across the rising howl of wind and plastic bag rattle and flutter.

“Heeeyyyooooooyyyy!!!”

Raising my head up from its wind resistant 45 degree angle, I realise there’s no-one around this stretch except me. I look over my shoulder. No-one. I look up and sure enough, four storeys up, there’s the cocky builder in cheery yellow safety helmet and smart arse grin, winking and waving at me. I give him a you’re too young and I’m old enough to be your mum look. Still doesn’t stop him grinning, having bagged yet another gal’s attention.

I wonder what his tally will be by the end of the day.

I used to see you
through (ironically) rose tinted hue:
a filtered view through alcohol
infused a distinctive shade of blue
Curaçao cruel
yet surreal feel
laconic sympathy
an empathic symphony
of ecchymotic melancholy

a blue-white wash away…

&

a new palette has come into play
these cyaneous eyes
azure sure appraise
with cobalt zeal
the real teal?
I’ll have to watchet
indigo to commit
a mazarine new scene
ultramarinely
serenely at peace
calmly cesious
cool blue, now, the new rose