Rivers of Life and Death
Ian M
Posts: 123
i)
The dead keep a rotten sentry
Atop the harbour swell.
Crushed by the Burden in life;
In death they’d not been weighed down so well
the swollen river calls to her half-blood cousin
inside of me
the cold finality in acceptance of the fated
my friends call from the other side
of the soddening expanse, but they should know
better how I can pay no heed;
how I am bound to the muddied,
bloodied pathways along these ever-receding banks
a healthier circulation might take me back to them,
and underneath grey skies I will indeed return -
but only to a narrow pretence of Belonging,
knowing now all the while where my waters were meant to merge:
out there on the plain to greet her first emissaries one clear spring morning
ii)
flung out by the last beating
of a blackened heart;
I will be my own surprise
returning to the liquid state
in mid-coagulation
laughing along tarmac highways
that fold and seal behind me
I will be my own motion
in flux perpetual until
Elision with my chosen kind
iii)
“The mind can only sustain beauty in a quarantine
Very well such sustenance may be for corrective treatment
But it must not be allowed to pursue its pandemic agenda
Else our entire operation here is forfeit, sir!”
She is laden with sediment;
A gushing torrent of all the words she would speak
Parched by droughts in every season,
Running a shallowing course to puddle muddily at her mouth
They would run and laugh with her young body
Like spring waters around the rocks in their path
How she wished she’d never taken his advice
Would he ever speak to her again?
---
[like a (rather long) epigraph, but at the end:
“The Army was in no condition to withstand the spotlight of public attention. The soldiers were first sent to Varna, on the Bulgarian shore of the Black Sea. Cholera broke out among them. The dead were laid to rest in the harbour, with weights round their ankles. The weights were too light, and as the decomposing bodies filled with gas they bobbed up, and, weighed down at the feet, they floated head and shoulders above the waves. With relief, the Army left Varna and sailed out past the corpses of their comrades to the Crimea, where they came to Calamita Bay. It took five days to complete disembarkation. As the soldiers in the tail end of the fleet climbed down into the small boats that would take them ashore, they looked across the water, and saw, to their horror, the same sightless eyes watching them, the same death’s head grins welcoming them, as Balaclava’s first fever victims lifted their rotting heads from the sea.”
Alan Ereira - ‘The People’s England’ (1979 or thereabouts), p.82]
---
Sorry I've been away so long: admit it, you missed me!
In my defence, I've been 'busying' myself elsewhere.
That elsewhere can be found here if you're interested:
http://ruggedindoorsman.wordpress.com
(It's where I took the above from, I'm afraid. More BBS exclusives will follow - promise
)
The dead keep a rotten sentry
Atop the harbour swell.
Crushed by the Burden in life;
In death they’d not been weighed down so well
the swollen river calls to her half-blood cousin
inside of me
the cold finality in acceptance of the fated
my friends call from the other side
of the soddening expanse, but they should know
better how I can pay no heed;
how I am bound to the muddied,
bloodied pathways along these ever-receding banks
a healthier circulation might take me back to them,
and underneath grey skies I will indeed return -
but only to a narrow pretence of Belonging,
knowing now all the while where my waters were meant to merge:
out there on the plain to greet her first emissaries one clear spring morning
ii)
flung out by the last beating
of a blackened heart;
I will be my own surprise
returning to the liquid state
in mid-coagulation
laughing along tarmac highways
that fold and seal behind me
I will be my own motion
in flux perpetual until
Elision with my chosen kind
iii)
“The mind can only sustain beauty in a quarantine
Very well such sustenance may be for corrective treatment
But it must not be allowed to pursue its pandemic agenda
Else our entire operation here is forfeit, sir!”
She is laden with sediment;
A gushing torrent of all the words she would speak
Parched by droughts in every season,
Running a shallowing course to puddle muddily at her mouth
They would run and laugh with her young body
Like spring waters around the rocks in their path
How she wished she’d never taken his advice
Would he ever speak to her again?
---
[like a (rather long) epigraph, but at the end:
“The Army was in no condition to withstand the spotlight of public attention. The soldiers were first sent to Varna, on the Bulgarian shore of the Black Sea. Cholera broke out among them. The dead were laid to rest in the harbour, with weights round their ankles. The weights were too light, and as the decomposing bodies filled with gas they bobbed up, and, weighed down at the feet, they floated head and shoulders above the waves. With relief, the Army left Varna and sailed out past the corpses of their comrades to the Crimea, where they came to Calamita Bay. It took five days to complete disembarkation. As the soldiers in the tail end of the fleet climbed down into the small boats that would take them ashore, they looked across the water, and saw, to their horror, the same sightless eyes watching them, the same death’s head grins welcoming them, as Balaclava’s first fever victims lifted their rotting heads from the sea.”
Alan Ereira - ‘The People’s England’ (1979 or thereabouts), p.82]
---
Sorry I've been away so long: admit it, you missed me!
In my defence, I've been 'busying' myself elsewhere.
That elsewhere can be found here if you're interested:
http://ruggedindoorsman.wordpress.com
(It's where I took the above from, I'm afraid. More BBS exclusives will follow - promise
) Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
This one pretty much gives the game away:
http://ruggedindoorsman.wordpress.com/2007/02/13/lakeside-monologue/
White is usually straight off the top of my head and down the cable, and grey is, well, a bit of a grey area really...
Hope that clears things up