Published by The Looking Glass Society

www.thelookingglass.org.uk
The Looking Glass Anthology, YUSU, University of York, Heslington, York. YO10 5DD.

First published 2011

1

Copyright © all original authors, 2011

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CREDITS
Editor-in-Chief
David Zendle

Head of Production
Christopher Fraser

Editorial
Katarina Jovanovic
Charlotte Boyle
Michael Walkden
Cicely Taube
Thomas Gregory
Danielle Gagola
Chris Bennigsen
Jamie Criswell
Bryony Littlefair
Robin Synnot
Tamara Bowler
Anthea Gordon
Bryony Hall
Emily Gerrard
Sam Perks
Rebecca Bedding
Lola Harre

Publicity
Chris Bennigsen

Proofreaders
Michael Walkden
Lola Harre
Bryony Littlefair

Paid Members
Alix Dixon
Annie Webster
Anthea Gordon
Aiden Gonzales
Bryony Hall
Chris Bennigsen
Cicely Taube
Danielle Gagola
Daniel McGrady
Emily Martyn
Jack Thacker
Katarina Jovanovic
Katharine Hansford
Miles Deverson
Pierre Finnimore
Rachel Baird
Rebecca Bedding
Robin Synnot
Siobhan Hurley
Tamara Bowler
Thomas Lovatt

Funding
YUSU
The FR Leavis Fund provided by the FR Leavis Fund Committee in the Department of English and Related Literature

Foreword

David Zendle

In late 2009, there was a stitch missing in the creative fabric of the University of York. Dozens of students were avidly writing plays, short stories and poems, but there was no single place in which these pieces could be published: the community had an active mind, but no voice. Frustrated by this, a small group of students from the university's English department set out to collate the best pieces of creative writing that the university had to offer and publish it in a yearly anthology. Thanks to the support of the department itself and the FR Leavis Fund, our task was a success, and the first edition of The Looking Glass sold out almost instantly.

This year, we've returned as a YUSU society, officially ratified, and our editors (and authors) come from departments of the University as diverse as Physics and History. This was all made possible by the dedication of a small but hard-working group of individuals. I'd also like to thank David Attwell – without his support and encouragement there would never have been a first issue of The Looking Glass, let alone a second one. Thanks are also due to the York Annual Fund, who provided a significant chunk of our funding. Finally (and most importantly), I'd like to thank our editors and, especially, our authors. Having the bravery to submit a piece of fiction to public scrutiny takes incredible determination, and I'd like to thank you all for the courage you've shown by allowing yourself to become so intensely vulnerable.

With that said, I hope you enjoy our second issue!

David Zendle, Editor-in-Chief

On The Art of Empty Poetry

Libby Brown

I can write for you

Rippled notes,

Of future exploitations,

Love,

Retching, and purging

Of anatomy and intoxicated

Meta-poise.

Inked limbs and trepid clawing of

Knives on ice as we

Fall and cling and vaunt a maudlin prayer,

For rippled notes,

Of future exploitations,

Love,

And tepidity,

Lacking in a

Loquacious letter, or loot.

Deepening the trip,

Loosening the grip,

As we dip and scratch rippled notes,

Of future elegies,

And odes to felony.

I can't do everything.

East of Barcelona

Libby Brown

The lights are hungry. There are seraphim, and salt and a sense of having bones, and being bones. I can move, and my mind is wet ink. The uncarpeted sea swills past my sinews and my skin, inhaling me. I don't have to think. I am part of the sea, East of Barcelona, and the moment seeps from me like an offering. I have something more than language; the silk simplicity of being. Hot and ambiguous words trickle over my retinas, optical language-making as thoughts race to finish themselves before clarity washes over them like the tide. And when your lips touch water it is like kissing the perimeter of a secret – or, perhaps, the scarlet sheen surfacing the King of Spades. Loose and lucid cultural references penetrate and re-penetrate you. I think of East Barcelona, and I think of the water's boneless dancing and of glass, and my frost-blonde hair is clasped by a watery branch and becomes uncoloured by water, until it blends like soft tar with the black body of moisture. It vanishes me. I extinguish myself. I was a drop of gold on a landscape of rippled black. Now I am washed under and washed away to decompose, laughing literature and melting torn pages of my mind which hold nothing but fear, memories and scenes from Macbeth.

That night I felt that I had bled the sea from my heart, and that the waves dripping up my collarbone were spilt from me. I was there, legs falling into nowhere, before pools of my blood and myself.

Grandfather

Christian Foley

My Grandad exists in his own time capsule

Which takes the shape of semi-detached house

With windows peering out like wise but drowsy eyes

On the steep and sloping street that Time

Has time and time again chosen to keep the same.

The same can be said of my Grandad.

The misty crystal glass glows golden yellow on the front door,

Thawing the cold corridor, following the slight touch

Of a wrinkled, wintry index finger to a dull white light switch.

The door opens slowly, pushing against a heavy carpet

To reveal someone I expect to be older and more fragile

Than a snowflake on cold skin melting in the heat

Of the beaming sun.

Though when the door opens, I see a man

Wearing a gleaming grin, unbowed by the weight of the world

Carried for almost an entire century.

A shock of white wiry hair continues to work its way outwards

While thick and bushy eyebrows snake their way inwards

Above the searching eyes observing the circle of life,

The birth of a child, the hearse of a wife,

Hard work and happiness immersed in turbulent strife.

The same jacket of faded blue zipped to the collar

Clings to his body, the polished shoes still reflect movements

In the boss black leather.

A leathery gnarled hand

With veins that stand up like ancient tree roots on uneven ground

Reaches out to bridge our generation gap with a handshake,

That is not strong, but not nearly as weak as I anticipate.

Painted pictures of dreamy streams

And cleanest green landscapes decorate walls.

The hallway hasn't altered in the fourteen years I remember walking in,

The first door you see is almost closed, if opened it would bring

A moment of pain that flashes past the heart in a rapid pulse of memory.

Momentarily I'm four years old kneeling in front of the telly

Leaning forwards like the sounds and colours could save me

From the raw reality that in the next door room, Grandma Lillian

Had just succumbed to lung cancer.

I remember so vividly; the program we watched was Watership Down.

Pacing, racing hares, facing stares from a boy whose heartbeat

Matched theirs in speed.

Everything is copper toned, auburn chairs and thick carpet

Colours of autumn. Kit Kat wrappers glisten silver shining out from

The bin in the corner of the kitchen, tins of food form in ranks

On the shelf. Health, my Grandad says, comes from sleep.

Deep slumber, the frail chest rising and falling like tragic heroes.

Books and plays scattered haphazardly like a shattered mosaic

Prosaic letters echo the sentiment if something has to be said

Go say it, my Grandad tells it like it is.

He's my shallow breathing reminder that nothing lasts forever.

Summer won't spring into winter but May March slowly

Into seasons where breezes freeze features or gusts of cold air

Mean weakness, he greets us and sits down in the same chair.

For an evening, everything is preserved like museums.

I can pretend like a child that nothing in my own life has changed.

When I leave I return to the running river of comings and goings,

The humming and sewing of Grandma may have gone but

The house is a memory, our safe haven of the past. I seek asylum there.

We all know that one day Time will take its toll, but for now...

My Grandad exists in his own time capsule

Which takes the shape of semi-detached house

With windows peering out like wise but drowsy eyes

On the steep and sloping street that Time

Has time and time again chosen to keep the same.

Mathematics

Catherine Bennett

It's like mathematics, the way
we become opposite and equal
sides of the equation. You push your
hands through me; they clot in my hair
and we lay there,
nose to nose,
occasionally misting up each other's faces
with our breath.

I tell you we're parentheses
surrounding a nothing, or
the nothing is a something and the something
is that dream we each have
of our past lovers. I pretend you're
thinking of your last fuck, while we fuck,
because it makes me jealous and I always
fuck better when I'm seething.

You know this,
know these symmetry-games I play, matching
the holes in your body to the parts of her that
must have been placed there; I am like a child
learning shapes and numbers.
Circle. Square. Take away
and you have the proportional nth amount,
or the negative number that fills us.
You are you, +1, and minus all your old loves.

But mathematics does not show the trail they leave,
the ghost-fuck always between us, the droplets of
him still salting my stomach.
You can taste him,
the unknown amount – let's call
him z – but by working backwards you can
discover his mass,
the bulk of him that you replace, the number
recurring.

We are the probability of it,
the sheer unlikelihood that humans
can fit each other like a mechanism,
whirring and spitting,
the statistical blunder of negative number.
A clock which turns backwards, a bed left
yellowing in dirty light.
The sum of it all is n, where n
is the aggregate of memories
palpable.

It Looked Like Scarborough, But It Felt Like Florida

Christopher Fraser

You were standing out in the ocean when I arrived, just at the point where the top of each wave brushed against your neck. It was one in the morning. The light came from the arcades behind me, and the moon, and that was about it. There was that strange aural dynamic - far-off chaos, but immediate stillness. The atmosphere of the loner hanging around in the garden at every house party you've ever been to. Everyone else was inside, their £5 notes drawn to change machines like moths to a flame.

"Come on in," you said. I almost expected you to say "the water’s lovely". That's what people say, right? I shook my head. It's not exactly a fear, but I have a problem with the sea. I think it's one of hassle – the hassle of getting sand in your toes, of the awkwardness of drying off in public.

This was our first meeting; you in the water, me on the shore. Not to get too steeped in metaphor, but that was a pretty accurate description of every girl I'd ever met. There I always was, drawn to those enveloped in complexity, mystery, a whole bundle of paradoxes and details and connections to every part of life, with me sheepishly hanging around the periphery. Not scared to join in, but too content with my own life to want to risk it.

You blinked, and stared with a new intensity. You reminded me of someone. Scratch that - a few people. Resigned, I tugged off my T-shirt, lost the sandals, and stepped into the sea. A smile. The memories glowed a little brighter. Strange. This wasn't déjà vu - I hadn't been here before, hadn't seen you before, hadn't - for that matter - ever been into the sea, if you forget the six-year-old me being led, hand in hand, by my mother, in one of the quieter resorts of Majorca. This was new, definitely; but at the same time familiar.

Your hair was cropped short. Your face: ordinary-looking, besides that smile, a smile that was burning through me. I tried walking up to meet you until most of my body was submerged, then swam the rest of the distance. We were a long way from land. I didn't have my contact lenses in, and the details of the seafront were blurred and confusing, a streak of light giving way to blackness. I couldn't even see the stars like this.

I turned to face you, and all the details came back into focus. Every time I placed who you reminded me of, my mind shifted somewhere else. I'd notice your piercing eyes, think of a childhood sweetheart, and then immediately be reminded of my best friend by the way you reached up and scratched your ear. And, looking down, I could see that you had my mother's shoulders, the skull structure of my grandmother, and - judging by the way you suddenly laughed without provocation - the sense of humour of my father. He was always laughing for no reason, and he'd never say why.

Funny, but I didn't feel uncomfortable just looking into your eyes. Call it a fear of connecting, but generally it was my one big flaw - talking to people, I'd always look at the table, my fingernails - anything but make eye contact for more than a couple of seconds. You, though - I felt comfortable with you. We'd just met, but the way you looked at me made me feel safe.

I closed my eyes, just to listen to the sound of the waves, and the mariachi-influenced jazz music piped through loudspeakers along the bay, and the far-off chatter. Peaceful sounds. No pressure. I'd come here to escape the stress, and it was working so far. I hadn't spoken to anyone from home in weeks. And I'd switched everything off - no-one from home could speak to me.

My eyes opened when I felt your hand on my waist. I looked over at you, and you'd moved forward. You gazed at me again, the smile gone, looking as if you were about to tell me something deadly serious, and then pulled me close. I thought to resist, then didn't. This was strange, but at the same time... it felt too natural to object to it.

Our arms wrapped around each other, the waves slowly flowing across our shoulders and breaking hundreds of yards off. I could have stayed there forever.

Lesson Plan

Laurence Cook

The following is an instruction on how to create an exact reproduction of an autumn morning in 2007; the text is copied verbatim from a teacher. Please pay close attention to the following stage directions before using this lesson plan.

Epigraph

‘bird’s egg blue and until that and nothing else there is the permanence of something I’ve forgotten’

Setting

A large blue modern classroom on the top floor of a building, the back wall is completely glass and looks out onto a busy roundabout beyond a patch of grass below. The noise of this should be constant throughout and half-open blinds periodically sway to reveal more, and then less, pale light. It is cold; at least ten Students should still be wearing coats or huddling into the desks for lack of them.

Cast

Teacher: a man, 32. Tall. Glasses.

Students

…

Teacher: (The passing round of handouts may serve as punctuation. Copies should be bad to awful - though legible, they should look as if they had been scanned from an old edition and then copied again if not actually produced in this way.) I’ve copied this, because I think it’s something you should be aware of. If you don’t understand or - getting it doesn’t matter, what is important is that you see things like this and that you… It’s not on the syllabus and, again, this is not something you need to worry about… in fact I forbid you to worry about this. (Instructive) This poem is not something anybody needs to worry about.

(Teacher then returns to the front.)

…

Epilogue

‘At this point Miss Baker said:

‘Absolutely!’

with such a suddenness that

I started – it was the first word

she had said since I

came into the room.

Don’t worry it doesn’t mean much really’

Notes

Something should be mentioned about the feelings that should be evoked, though I can give no specific guidance on how these are achieved: An unspoken and as yet unrealised understanding between Students and Teacher, a feeling of the rest of the world passing by behind you (though this is somewhat achieved through the use of the window and roundabout behind the Students, it can probably be taken further), the feeling of one complete moment.

Sometimes I’m Glad

Laurence Cook

Sometimes I’m glad this isn’t forever.

the raingrey days of

early summer –

the black shining slates on roofs

are important because they won’t

always sit slap slap on top of each other.

some solace

in the ability to shut

everything out once and for all

as a thick window to an autumn storm

Or

to let hot, balmy day in

completely,

just until the cool of night.

A Young Toad’s Travels

Micky Nolan

Johnny thought, with his fluorescent imagination,
of the things he could do if only he had the patience.
So, once upon a toad, he wished to walk the road,
to find the spices of his life, that which he loathed.

And so Johnny went on his way, peeling his eyes as he goes,
until he came across a woman, covered in herbs from head to toe.
'How do you do?' said Johnny, 'What may it be?
I'm sorry to say this, love, but you're looking like a tree!'

'Business as usual.' she said, 'That's the reason for the load.
There's a lot of stuff back there - but there's nothing for a toad!'
Disappointed as he was, Johnny searched through night and day,
It was a long and dreary road, not that he minded anyway.

Then alas, after years of searching, the time finally came,
A quite exuberant fellow he was, he didn't even have a name.
So with a great sigh, Johnny explained, his words cold and flat, but bold and plain,
But the man understood what he had to proclaim.

So the trees blew, and the grass grew,
And in that moment his wish came true.
He could walk again, with power and might,
With not a hop in his step, just a smile of delight.

And so when Johnny looks back, he can look on back in pride,
And know that life can be even greener on the other side.

The Molecular Body

Catherine Bennett

The body is the place of love -
it happens right there, on
the skin or on the tongue, little pin-pricks
of knowing, bursting

into a carefully articulated
question, or a phrase that lightens
near the end. Why do you let me
continue in this way?

It always goes like this, she said,
soft in the middle and then blood
near the end, everywhere. Lymphs
pooling in the centre of the bed.

She used to steal the sheets. Stole
them for want of you, for love of
your body, you labourer. I am also
converted to thoughts of you, obsessed.

This city has a thousand tongues,
and they all speak apart. I see
you through the window, the sliver
of the outside world. Why challenge

me, why think me into life? The iron
in my blood, haemoglobin, platelets,
hormones and oxytocin and oestradiol,
spittle and oil, the salt that goes

into making me exist; all exist
separate. I am the miniature city,
my tongue the giant muscle that rolls
like the river through it.

You are remains, the compound that bleaches
bones in the sunlight. Why do you
let me speak without making a sound?
Why speaking? You. Speak.

Positions

Alexander Humerliss

Soil. Grass and flowers. Sighing trees, yellow autumn, and the weeping, wordless wind. These were the philosopher’s woods.

Running through the centre, moving at a playful pace, drifted the river. A girl skipped up its shallows, bare feet cold in the flowing current. Mother told her not to play in the philosopher’s woods, but why shouldn’t she? They were hers as much as his. And the river! The water felt so good against her skin, and she laughed as she waded upstream. The waterfall was only a little distance ahead. Only a few more turns. Yes already she could hear it:

‘The waterfall’s laughing!’ she cried. Oh - how it always seemed to be laughing! What was so funny? While she was kicking the water, spraying her hair and clothes, a fish moved out from the bank, woken from its slumber. It had such heavy, heavy eyelids, and such red, red eyes! Poor fish. He’d obviously been crying, she thought, as he swam in a fixed, straight line, striking fast through the water’s depths. She thought she would cheer him up, and tried to stroke him as he swam by. Eugh! He felt horrible. So cold. Scaly fish. Cold fish.

Cutting into the back of the cliff, behind the waterfall, tunnelled a cave. The scene was beautifully carved, like mother’s pots, but the cave was so terribly dark. And inside that cave lived an old man: mother called him a... a... philosopher? He was in love with something. He loved ‘Knowledge’: but who was Knowledge? She had never seen her. She preferred to play by herself. It was all very confusing. Hum! As she skimmed the stones, dancing their toes upon the surface of the water, she thought that every now and then, in between the joyful chattering of the slip-splashing waterfall, she could hear someone weeping. Weeping, weeping behind its torrents. Why, it must have been the philosopher. Oh! She tried to ignore it, but it really wouldn’t do, on such a sunny day, to have anyone upset. Not even the old philosopher. And besides, it was spoiling her play.

She waded under the waterfall, shivering as the cold water writhed like sliding forest snakes slithering down the small of her back. The echo of the water bounded off the walls, boom, boom, and the light was darker here, and there were many shadows, and the cave really was very deep, and she was cold, and shivering... Oh! But that sobbing! This philosopher really must have been very upset. Sob-sob-sob like a baby.

She crept through the cave, dry now, feet scratched with nails upon the cold earth. Candles lit the way: deep, dark underground. No wonder he was crying: how dark and lonely this cave must be! No flowers, no light, no warmth: all the things she loved. But really! She decided she must drag him up to the river, and cheer him up, like Father would do when she was upset, and alone, and lonely. Then he would feel better! If she could make him laugh…

She came to a large, open space, with bookshelves pushed against the cool earthen wall. There were many books lining the shelves, nestling close in the cold dark of the cave, papers rustling like leaves in the cool cavern’s draft. A fire burned in the middle, hugging its embers, and on a stool sat the philosopher. She sat watching him, head in hands, back turned to the fire. He faced the cold earthen wall, watching the shadows dance and flicker, dance and flicker.

And she watched him. And she watched. And watched. He? He sat, and wept, and sat. What a strange man. Was he always like this? But what a life to lead! She was nervous, and her breath caught in her throat, tight. But she would have to ask him, would have to…

‘Who are you in love with?’ she asked the philosopher. ‘Why are you crying?’

As a pebble drops from a great height, slicing clean through the silent air, making hardly a swish or a sigh, before thumping into the water with a great ‘plop’, so the silence broke, and her voice echoed off those ancient tunnelled walls, breaking the delicate surface tension he had so long kept company with. The air trembled, tremored: Spring meltwater sliding into stream. The fish awoke. He stirred, blinking, moving slowly to face her, and he set his eyes upon her, laid his staff across his feet, and after much time, composed himself.

A tunnel opens, and we move from light to darkness. Now enter darkness. Who was this child - so small and trembling - to make demands of him? He, who had looked upon the sun’s zenith, at her highest point in the sky, married to the heavens, finding only darkness and death wedded to the nadir, to the trails of her dresses. He who had lovingly traced the cosmos with the ink of his eye, drawing, exploring, as one possessed by the heat of the stars, burning with lovers’ heat, bound and wrapped within their spiralling, burning passion: yet when ink ran warmest, burnt brightest, clearest, so it had spilled and spilled over into a change, a play, a flux and fluid pattern. This ‘love’ dried now, dried long ago. Set, yet set in spillage. Long ago: philosopher. He would stretch out his hand; to grasp her, to hold her down; she so cold, changing, slipping as streams passing between rocks: truth slipped between his fingers… and ink ran free across damp parchment –

‘Take my hand’ she cried. He’d been sitting, eyes glazed, for a good while. Silly man. Why did he not respond? Old man. She grasped his hands: oh! They were cold, wizened hands. Eugh! She heaved him, bear-like, out of his seat. Before he had time to resist, to struggle, she dragged his frail body, stumbling, out of the cave, and out, out up the slope. They passed the candles, and several spiders, moving up for some time. She thought she’d taken a wrong turning in her hurry, but then they reached the end of the cave, the water rushing over its mouth. And it split them like a screen from the outer world. They stared beyond its shimmering wall. The light’s play through the water was beautiful. It split like an arrow thudding into bark, peeling layers of colour over their skin. She turned to grumpy, who was beginning to glaze over again…

Oh! How this waterfall pounds eternally against the rock: the rock a prisoner chained to its music. I know this sound well. I tunnelled underground, into Earth’s cool, chthonic embrace, to silence her weeping – the river. Do you not hear her weep, child? She weeps even as she flows, with each successive change. Each part, in succession, weeping as she’s forced ceaselessly out towards the sea, pulled by a force, a flux she cannot fight. She’s pulled from the land, dragged under by her own current, her own violence, towards that sea, and she sings her elegy as her fate is forced. Her music saddens me, striking deep, writing her notes deep, cut into my heart.

‘I hear her laughing,’ spoke the girl. She heard the spray skip along the rocks, the bubbling of the still water, lapping, lapping against the cave wall. What a silly man, and what funny things to say! Nothing for it. Out she dragged him, through, through the waterfall’s singing wall. Now dark, now wet, now…light! And they were out.

The philosopher shivered in the heat of the cool autumn sun. It stuck to his skin like honey, sweet and smothering. His eyes shivered too, stung by the waning sun, spreading its rays out through the trees, pollinating the reds and yellows of the woods with life. The air swarmed his lungs; he choked, and inhaled. Choke, choke. Bending over, he ran a finger over the earth, tracing its cool loam with a line, writing his existence back into the ground. As a child, losing its way in the darkness, stumbling, then leaps into the arms of its mother, so he embraced the warmth of her world. For this was ‘it’. This: these leaves sweeping across the breeze, joining hands with the girl, twirling in the fading light.

The girl was happy. She had made him smile! He wasn’t quite so distant now, and the tears had dried from his cheeks. The river, running through the centre of the Philosopher’s woods, moved swiftly on. In the middle of the river, just beyond where they were standing, stood anchored two rocks. These rocks had sat here for a great many years, facing the cave, head in hands, solemnly. They had rested here, anchored against the river’s flow, even before the philosopher’s descent into the cave. And that was long, long ago. She had seen him go down, and the people who had come to play in her woods had heard his weeping, had called this place the ‘weeping woods’, the ‘philosopher’s woods’. These woods were far older than him. She had been here since the first sap in first spring, when it had sprouted fast from the ground. She had watered it, nurtured it, and watched these woods grow. She had seen the river carve its channel, and the cave chiselled out of the cliff. The birds build nests. She had watched as the wind, earth, fire and air dwelt between her leaves.

The girl hopped onto the first rock, hopped onto the second, singing as she leapt. He followed her, jumping onto the first rock.

Knowledge and play. A strange alchemical formula: the transfiguration of two such unlike elements in the calcinatory should hardly have produced such striking results. The stone would conceal itself, hidden for years. And then, when it so chose, it would reveal itself, humbly, through the play of a girl. He had found her, stepping between the stones, stepping between the flux of the river. He caught her, mid-air, caught between one rock and another, dancing through the air, stepping between the flux. Found her between the folds of the red, red leaves. The river. The sky. Autumn. This girl…

‘Follow,’ she sang, leaping onto the bank. And she sat upon the warm riverbank, hands wrapped around her knees, smiling. The sun was hot. He had begun to dance, she thought. She hummed, and he, oblivious, danced to her tune. And so she sang his metaphysics to sleep.

He stirred from thought, glancing towards the next rock. A leap’s distance. But that girl’s smiling. Such a strange smile. That strange, enigmatic smile, which had gazed, gazed back at him as he had searched the nauseous expanse of darkness for his love. It was a smile that knew. Such strangeness. And a feeling rose upon him, gradually, gradually rising as the stream cuts through snow in winter, and it became greater, and it became great, sound, and roaring thunder. It tremored through his body, piercing his frameworks, his systems, tunnelling its music through the caverns of his mind. A great cloud moved across the sun. The sky greyed as if aged, and the girl was gone. A rumbling. A wall of water tumbling over the waterfall. He stood still, still upon the rock. And it rushed at him. Someone was coming. Someone approached, and he was helpless, yielding to her outstretched fingers, slipping between her hands.

Water. Head pounding. No rock; no anchor. Feet? Flailing. Change and the river, roaring past him, accelerating; drowning thoughts. Drowning sight. Drowning. Yet within the water’s violent, wheeling pace, at its centre, he was still. And he heard a music. A beautiful, playing music. She was singing, as she thundered and roared. How strange to find that, of all the places, the heavens, the woods, the caves and the bookshelves, it was here, sung to sleep in the arms of a flowing river, in the eye of its torrents, the stillness he sought. A great calm. That peace. He closed his thoughts, and singing with her, singing as in love, passed away, far beyond the woods, and out, out into the sea. And so the children would laugh once again, skipping streams and skimming stones, in playing amid the Philosopher’s woods.

Something Old, Something New

Joanne Hardy

Ruby was very proud of her house, everyone knew that. “A place for everything and everything in its place,” she would pronounce at least once a day, as she berated her husband Harry for leaving his wellies in the middle of the kitchen, or for leaving his newspaper in the downstairs loo. She often quoted her visitors’ remarks about what an exceptionally well-kept house she had, and wore their comments around her like a mink coat, her chest puffed out with pride.

On this particular day, Ruby was up early and down the town by seven-thirty. Harry had given up trying to talk her out of such early morning excursions, especially now it was dark first thing, but Ruby had Standards. Harry knew when he was beaten, so he settled for having the kettle on for her when she returned, not only loaded down with the day’s bread, newspaper and ginger snaps, but also bearing news from giggling shop girls about the latest neighbourhood scandals, “... and him thirty-five and divorced twice!”

Harry settled down with his tea, trying not to notice the date on his newspaper, while in the background Ruby got started on the oven. She’d had a man out to clean it just last week, but had not been convinced that the job was up to scratch. “How typical of today’s generation,” she’d announced, as she peered accusingly into the oven while the cleaning man loaded his equipment back into his van. “No pride in their work, no pride in anything anymore.” Now she worked her fingernail over a non-existent blemish and tutted under her breath. “If a job’s worth doing….”

“…it’s worth doing properly...” Harry parroted quietly, safely unheard behind the ramparts of his paper.

Ruby, hands gloved like a surgeon, glared at the oven, as if by the sheer power of her gaze alone she could burn off the grease and dirt.

“Right!” she announced, and began squirting foul substances into the defenceless cooker.

“Have you got the window open, love?” said Harry, as noxious fumes began to drift through into the back room.

“Yes!” came the snapped reply. Harry resumed his position behind the newspaper. He knew when his input was not required.

As the morning progressed, the house began to gleam with an almost inhuman cleanliness. Carpets were shampooed, rugs beaten, skirting boards washed and grouting whitened; all the while, Ruby scolding, stitching one task to the next with the fine thread of her dissatisfaction. In the face of this constant verbal onslaught, Harry retreated further into the sanctuary of his newspaper, not even looking up when he heard the ominous sound of ladders being propped and loft hatches being lifted.

“Are you sure you can manage, love?” he shouted half-heartedly, his eyes not leaving the headlines.

He received a muffled “fine!” in reply and was content. He reached for the television remote and turned on the racing. He settled down further into the sofa and reached into a trouser pocket for his betting slips.

“OH!”

A sudden explosive syllable abruptly halted Ruby’s monologue. This sudden absence washed through the house like a tide. Harry reached for the remote and turned down the sound on the television, then put down his newspaper and walked to the bottom of the stairs. He peered up the stairs, ears straining for sounds in the unexpected lull. Not hearing any movement or sound, he climbed the stairs to the landing.

“Everything alright up there?”

Nothing.

He moved to the bottom of the ladder and peered into the gloom. “Ruby love?”

Placing his foot on the bottom rung, he took four quick steps up the ladder, and poked his head up through the hatch. The still air caught in his throat and he coughed. Blinking through watery eyes, he could not at first make her out in the gloom. Then, forming slowly, like a developing Polaroid, shapes became defined; shadows coalesced, forming a figure. As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, he saw her, frozen, arms outstretched, cradling a bundle in her upturned hands.

He climbed through the loft hatch and into the cramped space, perching precariously on ancient rafters, not trusting the plywood he had laid down - when? Surely not ten years ago? He stood for a moment, disorientated by the darkness, while his eyes took in the scene: a roof space filled with sagging unlabelled boxes, keyless old suitcases and lacy bin bags, the contents poking their noses out like mice. All around him, the past piled up towards the ceiling, dusty and cobwebbed, insect corpses scattered like confetti on every surface. All around him hung the smell of damp decay. Unbidden, the word “mausoleum” formed in his mind as he surveyed the accumulated trappings of a family’s life, piled into mounds in a musty attic, reduced to shrouded dead things; out of sight, out of mind.

He moved towards Ruby, suddenly concerned, unnerved by the strange atmosphere of the place, so different from the bright world on the other side of the hatch. He reached out a hand towards her, suddenly fearful that she too would prove a ghost, insubstantial as the memories that pressed in on all sides. His fingers touched her shoulder and he felt tension buzzing through her like a current.

“Love?” he repeated, more gently.

She turned to him, holding the bundle towards him like an offering. Harry glanced at her face, disturbed by the confused mixture of emotions fighting for dominance on those familiar features, then looked down at her hands. Swaddled in a young girl’s grey school jumper was a small doll, its face and body faded and broken, yet wrapped up with obvious care and affection. A miniature plastic hand, missing fingers, reached up towards Harry. The doll’s painted face, worn out not through neglect, but through the touch of love over many years, smiled up though a threadbare sleeve and with an electric jolt of memory, he remembered.

“She never put this down, do you remember?” Ruby said, looking at Harry. “Everywhere we went, always clamped under her left arm like a handbag. Every birthday we thought she’d grow out of it and she never did. I remember us standing at the bottom of the stairs when she went to bed, listening to her sing “Away in a Manger” so the doll would get to sleep…” Her voice cracked and stilled, and her gaze returned to the faded face.

“Molly the dolly, wasn’t it?” said Harry, not moving his eyes from the small plastic figure. “We once lost her in that lay-by in Scotland, do you remember?” His eyes filled for a second time. “We had to retrace our steps till we found her. Missed the last ferry because of that, had to sleep in the car...” He smiled. “The things she had us doing for that damn thing.”

A crowded moment, heavy with emotion and memory, came and went. Harry withdrew his hand from Ruby’s shoulder and she exhaled heavily. As he watched, the years seemed to fall away from her like snow from tree branches at the first touch of spring sunshine.

“Do you know, I forgot this, I forgot it all.” Ruby looked urgently at Harry, astonishment and anguish lighting her features. “She’s my daughter. Our daughter. Half of you and half of me. All those years of care and love, watching her grow, keeping her safe… how could I just forget?”

She turned away, unseeing eyes darting from side to side as she replayed scenes in her mind: things being said that should not have been said, things left in disarray that should have been tidied up and mended but had instead been left unregarded, neglected. She took in a deep breath, then paused, suddenly unsure.

“Do you think she would still want us there? After all those awful things I said….” Her voice, already quiet, tailed off as uncertainty traced lines across her face.

Harry put his arm around her waist and she laid her head on his shoulder, feeling and then remembering the strength of him. They stood in that space for a few minutes, lost in thoughts and each other, and then both carefully climbed down the ladder.

Harry went into the bathroom and washed his hands carefully in the immaculate sink, while Ruby walked dazedly into the bedroom, hand automatically reaching for a duster left on the dressing table. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, fingers distractedly twisting the yellow material first one way, then the other, oblivious to its grimy state. Her eyes were drawn to the fancy pink and white feathers peeping from the top of a carrier bag that had been roughly stuffed behind the box of Christmas decorations on top of the wardrobe. That hat had taken her ages to choose. How could something so carefully selected be so quickly discarded?

Straightening up to dry his hands, Harry caught a glimpse of his face in the shaving mirror, unsure for a moment who the old man was looking back at him. Then he walked into the bedroom and took down the morning suit from the hook on the back of the door. Ruby looked up at him, her face holding a question.

“Don’t worry love, we’ve still got time to get there,” he said, and he hugged her as she wept into the yellow duster, tears washing away the dust and dirt of the years.

Wade’s Causeway

Joanne Hardy

We did not mean to go there
but our planned road was closed,
so we walked instead on a Roman’s road,
and we looked for him.

Our planned road was closed,
but the moor was open, infinite, beckoning.
We looked for him,
watching our feet and marking our path.

The moor open, infinite, beckoning,
but disclosing no hint, no glint of the previous.
We watched our feet and marked our path,
but came no closer to our foundation.

No hint disclosed, no glint of the previous
amongst the stones and moss and wind.
No closer to a foundation;
only echoes.

Amongst the stones and moss and wind
My daughter, yelling, stopped us, held us fast:
“Echoes!”
At the pointed stone by the bent fence post.

Held fast,
as voices roiled and rebounded through the landscape.
By the pointed stone by the bent fence post
we found a foundation at last.

Voices rolling and rebounding through the landscape -
how many had paused here, listening?
We had our foundation at last,
standing in the footsteps of ghosts,

by the pointed stone by the bent fence post.

In the Trench

Sandra Garside-Neville

In the trench, the cold earth
in yielding to the pick, shovel and trowel,
seems to sigh and slump,
as we strain to find the past. 

In yielding to the pick, shovel and trowel,
the sharp tanged soil,
as we strain to find the past,
scatters under our heavy booted feet.

The sharp tanged soil
gifts us pottery, bone, tile and maybe more,
scattering under our booted feet,
like bright eyes sparkling in the light.

These carriers of ancient truth lie
in the trench, the cold earth.
And past notions gather and
seem to sigh and slump.

Doubt

Victoria Touzel

Beneath the frail shell
There lies a bloody promise
Born of more than lust.

It was unexpected.

And the girl who lies within
This cold bed seems condemned;
Although it be laid double,
He may never touch her again.

Although ever bound by gold together
She still sees his eyes stray from her by day.

So now she suffers the contractions
Of a scaled and silken scarf
Slyly coiled about her neck.

Insidious and pitiless.

The Willy Pot

Sandra Garside-Neville

It’s a phally!

He cried, dark curly hair

Always red faced, excited

He has a present

Which he spreads before me

Dirty pieces tumble

Slender fragments,

Pottery covered in ancient dirt

Gently thud onto the surface

He shuffles the pieces

Swiftly making sense of chaos

It’s what diggers do

Yes, I see it now

A small jar emerges

My thoughts make it whole

From the broken sherds

With decoration icing the surface

And a golden brown slip

Cruel cockerel claws emerge

Holding up rude, strutting members

Complete with feathery wings too

They parade around the vessel

Proclaiming their proud mission

Bringing the owner luck and life

Only it broke,

Dropped by some Roman from near or far

The shards discarded, deposited

It tells me the sad story

Of that brief time in the light

When they were all erect and laughing

Keks Night Out

Peter Speller

My seam is aquiver
as the door creaks ajar
Will it be me?

A hand on my hanger
twists, lifts me free.
Please choose me.

Her skin warms my fibres
and brings me to life.
What will we do?

Booted and belted
we stride off outside.
Where will we go?

The pub would be fine
a club would be better,
I want to show off.

To rhythm and blues,
we’re flaunting our curves,
with consummate flair.

Some uncorking and clinking,
much laughter and drinking,
I’m under the table.

It’s creasing me up,
the belt’s getting tighter.
Undo a notch.

Now the tablecloth’s hiding
a hand on my knee.
That’s quite enough.

Then it’s all over,
discarded, dejected,
I need a wash.

With A Kiss

Serena Rudge

Confusion
Runs around my head,
Holds me hostage,
Won't give up the
Relentless stream of different dreams
Like black and white
Romantic films.
Is it real,
This fluttering feeling?
Heart throbs, head pounds,
Are these the signs,
The sights,
The sounds,
Does my head spin from memories
Or put a spin on the memories?
I took the apple,
Bit off more than I could chew,
Screw the clichés,
This is about you,
I'm falling fast, hard,
Waiting to hit the ground,
Need to hit it,
Not running but with a thud,
Knock some sense back in.
You stole mine with a kiss,
Stomach flips,
I need it back,
Legs tremble
When I remember
What you said,
Shouldn't have said.
I should leave you be,
But it's too late,
You charmed me and won
And I cannot let go.
I'm knotted,
Pulled tight,
No way out,
And my constant clawing for an answer
Simply makes this harder
And entangles me further.
Too many things holding me back,
Weighing us down,
Her, unwanted, far away,
But you won't act,
Him, who'd feel betrayed.
Your face, my thoughts,
Cloud my conscience,
I can't see,
Tumbling,
Still falling,
Waiting to understand
What to do
About what I want
But just can't have,
How to unravel
This puzzle
Of you.

Whirligig Beetle

Peter Speller

^ ^

^ ^

^ ^

^ ^ ^ ^

^ ^ ^ ^

^ ^ ^ ^

^ Living ^

^ in a swirling ^

^ two-dimensional ^

water world, twirling on

unbroken surface tension,

and with no apparent pattern,

its rapid, random kinesis leads

the casual eye to miss the guile

of nature’s evolution; instinctive

preservation aided by vision,

bisected, to see up and down,

simultaneously the threat

of predator from the air

or under water, my

happy whirligig beetle

twirls in circles, a

jig to thwart the

predatory wishes

of malefic

birds and

fishes.

Untitled

Naomi Cartmell

[Come up on Eve, sitting in a hospital bed in a private room. There is a jug of water and a glass on her bedside table, along with lots of papers. She has long, slightly wavy, dirty blonde hair, and a sheen of sweat is visible on her face. She has bags under her eyes, and has clearly been crying. She sighs, and does not talk for a long moment.]

[Whispers] What was I thinking? What am I even doing here?

I was stupid. Stupid and young. It’s not all about the money, you know? I see that now. [Her voice cracks, like she may start crying] Now; but it’s too late.

[She sighs and runs her hand through her tousled hair.]

Urgh, this mattress is so uncomfortable. I thought private hospitals were supposed to be like frigging spas. Not this one. A sadist designed these beds, I swear. [Scathingly] ‘Hmm, what can we do to make sick and dying people even more uncomfortable?’ Ha. But I’m not dying. Well, so they tell me. Feels like I am...

You know, I’d never been in hospital before. Never broken a bone, had a sprain, anything. I should have known my life was too good to be true back then, that God would throw a lifetime of pain all over me now, pain it feels like I’ll never escape - drugs and all. I remember the first time I lay on a bed like this, as the sadists slapped some gooey shit all over my stomach. It was freezing. Did they care? Did they hell. They showed me it on an expensive little TV screen. I couldn’t see it. Her. Just looked like a load of crap to me; I didn’t know how some freaks could get all soppy over it, it’s crazy, it’s not like Da Vinci created it, or anything - you can’t even see anything, barely. But I just smiled and nodded like they expected me to. Empty smiles, though. Ironic isn’t it? That I felt empty, vacant, when I was fuller than I’d ever been in my entire frigging life. Full with life. Someone else’s life. I can’t believe I ever felt empty. But then, I didn’t consider that deformed little sea-monkey as life, back then.

[Eve lays her head back and closes her eyes. She does not move or speak for around 30 seconds. Then she suddenly sits upright, curling in pain, clutching her stomach.]

OOOOW! OOOOH, SHIT!

[Her body relaxes, and she closes her eyes again.]

Bitches. Bitches didn’t tell me it hurts afterwards too. Grâce aux Dieu. Thanks, God.

[Pause]

But I suppose everybody else is distracted from the pain. They all have their little bundles of joy. Their gifts from above. Not me. Not me. [Whispers, barely audible] I am joyless.

[A single tear runs down her cheek. She quickly brushes it away and shakes her head.]

I remember the first time I knew I loved her. I remember it exactly, every detail etched into my very being. I was in the bath. I never used to take baths. I used to shower, every morning. Well, every mid-morning-slash-early-afternoon when I got up. Anyway, so I was I the bath, disgusted by my mutating body – they should pay you extra if you get stretch marks – and I felt the weirdest sensation, like someone was pushing on my belly, but from the inside, and then I realised that she was nudging me. [Eve smiles as she remembers.] A tiny little person giving me a tiny little nudge and saying ‘Hello, Momma’ ‘cause that was all she knew. I was all she knew. And I can’t even be that for her.

[Pause]

It was then that I realised I loved her. That I’d always loved her. Always and forever. Oh, yeah, and then Isabelle came round – She’s such a good friend, Isabelle; stuck by my every decision since prep school – and then we had a glass of wine to celebrate my little nudger. I’d been good, though, hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since I first peed on that little white stick – dignified, huh? I could go for some now though. Straight vodka, not fussy alcopops or shit. All I have is this water. Eugh.

[She pours some water from the jug into a glass, and drinks the whole glass without pausing, then puts it back on the table.]

Eugh! Tastes like hospital. How is that possible?! Even the shitting water tastes like hospital. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wash the microwave-food-and-fear smell entirely out of my hair. [She chuckles, half-heartedly, and blinks slowly.]

I’m so tired. I haven’t slept for about [she pauses to count in her head] about thirty-two hours. Thirty-two! That’s ridiculous. Trust me to go into labour when I’m about to tuck in for the night. [Sarcastic] Thanks again, God, for that ray of proverbial sunshine. I can’t even sleep now. Every time I’m about to doze off my mind just replays the moment when they took her away. I’ll have nightmares, I know it. I wonder how long I can go without sleep...

[Pause]

I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m replaying it now. Stop. I’ve got to stop. [She clutches her head in her hands.] Stop it!

[Eve slowly exhales, and inhales again.]

Nine months that thing was in me. Nine months. And she became a part of me. With her inside me I became a sacred vessel. And they just took her away. How can they just expect me to live without her now? How am I supposed to live without her? Before I knew it, my whole existence revolved around her, and, and now... it’s like they have taken away my sun. That’s what I would have called her. Sunny. Would have. It’s perfect. Just like her.

Just after I gave birth – must be about 2 hours ago now – some witless nurse clearly not aware of my situation asked me, ‘Does she have a name yet?’ I shook my head. ‘No,’ I whispered. She’s anonymous. Untitled. Some of the best works of art in the world are untitled. Some of the most beautiful. And so was she. [Her voice cracks and breaks.] She always will be, to me, no matter what ridiculous name they give her. My beautiful little untitled baby.

[Her eyes shine with tears. Some well over and run down her cheek. This time she makes no effort to wipe them away.]

[Through tears] That was when they took you... away. Stole you away. Away from me. ‘No! Where are you going?!’ My cries were useless. Nobody paid me any attention. You started crying, screaming, as they carried you away. I could hear you down the corridor.

But you’re mine, I thought. How can they? But they could. And they did. I guess they were right. You’re not mine. You were never mine. From the very beginning, you were never mine. [Sobs] You never will be mine. Never.

[Her fruitless tears run freely now.]

But I’ll always be yours. They stole you. But not before you stole my heart.

[Whispers] I’ll always be yours.

[Eve curls up into a ball. She shakes, sobbing uncontrollably. In her hand is a small pink teddy bear, visibly embroidered with the words ‘I Love You’. Go to black.]

Sonnet

Nicky Kingsley

You died. At once I saw you fly away,
No longer citizen of now and here
But four dimensional: each deed, each day
That you had lived, a part of who you were.
Your many faces, child and wife and crone,
All notes that made a single melody
Which hung in silence now it had been sung;
And then I knew you wholly, finally.

I fought then to stop time, to staunch the flow
That took you from me, till at last I saw
This was your parting gift, to let me know
That all the past is safely held in store,
And all I must let go, at such great cost,
Is mine forever – nothing has been lost.

Purgatory

Nicky Kingsley

Now we are in purgatory
Going back over it all
We are at last remembering the good times
Ends of days safely gathered in
Tucked up warm
Warm milk and honey
Music box singing
Guten Abend Gute Nacht
Warm lamplight
Safe harbour

Later the little boat lost its mooring
The current too strong
Pulled away
Each of us shouting it was the other’s fault
You ran along the shore
I fumbled helplessly with heavy oars
Both of us shouting

The rest is history
A long long journey
Not so much over now as completed
Look at it
Look
Look at that bit there
Where you tucked me in each night
Safe
At bedtime
That’s the best bit
The best bit
The bit we returned to
That last night when I gave you a last drink
Sang to you
Tucked you in
Held your hand
Sat with you
All night
Until
The end

Mum’s Egg-cup, One of a Set

Nicky Kingsley

You had sets, I have odds and ends:
This bourgeois egg-cup, pure white and gold-rimmed,
A little piece of Germany – of Sehnsucht,
Longing, for where I belong and don’t belong,
Of Heimweh, homesickness, for the homeless.
Oh Mummy, Mutti, did you ever think
When you adventured forth across the world
That it was my roots, too, that you tore up?

Melody

Mark Wiltshire

Amidst a perfect clamour, and the din
Of merry chimes more gaily rung than ever,
A single child’s smile breaks, standing –
Mind ripe, love pure, imagination clever;

He feels these sounds be soaked into the air,
For, open, flower-like will he reside;
Not prostrate, nor clinging, hoping but to float –
But tall and deep, within the golden tide.

And, if our smiling child takes the chance
To swim within the melody today,
It is his hair caressed by choral waves, and
For his eyes the wondrous sights will play.

To know fine moments of great truth and beauty,
To let our senses roam in things refined -
Is opportunity. And this alone
Can fetter-break the shackles that confine.

Yes! Let it be known that truth comes opportunely,
Not madly or in divine revelation;
But in giving yours to other lives and tides,
So we may love without dry hesitation.

For, bells still toll and gaiety resounds;
Our happy melody is full and bright;
So cover not with sentiments our ears,
But let us live life as a child might.

Small Thought

Chris Bennigsen

I knew you would be leaving soon,
But I never thought to question,
Where you’d be, two years from here,
After the wedding bells and celebration.

Will I feel alone or cheated?
As you drive the intimate night,
Leaving all behind you here with me,
Watching your small, fading headlights.

Believe me, I’m pleased for you,
It just hit me properly –

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