One day

 

 

18.......If life was a day, our childhood is done by 4.30 in the morning.

27.......For you, at 6.45, perhaps the sun has only just risen.

48.......Midday comes and goes.

55.......The sun has gone past its height by a 1.45, 

           but the day could be hotter than it has ever been.

           The afternoon stretches before us.

           These are the lazy afternoons, relaxed, perhaps the best. Enjoy these hours.
64.......By 4pm, we can take it easy. Maybe finish work early. Have fun.
72.......By 6 it's starting to cool.We think of pulling on another layer, 

           We huddle closer to the fire.

           The warmth is fading, the sky a deeper blue.

           Each moment becomes more precious with the fading light.

           Sun sets. But there is yet life to be enjoyed.

           We hope we are home with our loved ones.

88.......But 10 o'clock comes and goes and hours are not so common as minutes.

96.......Until the distant midnight chimes to leave the day for others
           Or on for a few more fleeting moments? 
           A glimpse of tomorrow?

All Souls’ Eve - a poem

This poem was written for the Tunbridge Wells Writers 'Fright Night' held around Halloween each year, though of course, it's not intended to be frightening.

It is, however, about death and it takes inspiration from the All Hallows Eve traditions of saying prayers for the dead, as well as going door-to-door, singing and being offered 'soul cakes' (apparently called 'harcakes' in parts of Lancashire - an idea that completely passed me by in my Methodist childhood) the forerunners of today's Halloween trick or treat customs.

So, in saying prayers or lamenting the dead, we might remember all the times they were as distant and removed from us in life. Other people are always, to some extent, separate - 'other minds' - and are no more or less alive in our imaginations when they shuffle off this mortal coil: where coyle meant bustle or disturbance, the real performance of life

---

All Souls' Eve

When you closed the door, you were no longer there.

When the light was extinguished and you refused to speak.

You were not there.

A soul, a soul, a soul cake!      

Mixed and proved and baked and cooled.

You were once, and now you are not there.

When you left the house to work, you were not there.

When you hid behind a book or ghosted into TV-land,

you were no longer there.

A soul, a soul, a draught of wine.

Grown and picked and pressed and kept.

You were once, and now you are not there.

When you sang and soared,

became another, you were no longer there.

When you stayed away; when you travelled far.

You were not here or there

A soul, a soul, a catch of song.

Plucked from the air and pinned to the stave,

flung from string into echo.

You were - once: you are no longer.

When you stopped, you breathed no more.

When you closed your eyes and refused to speak, you were not there

A soul, a soul, a soul-shell.

Born and mixed and raised and pressed and pinned

and flung and kept and cooled.

You were not there, you were not there

For none of us are here or seen or heard,

Unless we are here and seen and heard.

©2015 Philip Holden

https://www.illustrationx.com/artists/grayjolliffe

Willy

I've a willy in my trousers

It's been there since my birth

Though it hadn't got much length

And it hadn't got much girth.

I've a willy in my trousers

I had it as a boy

My Mummy said "Don't do that,

Your willy's not a toy."

I've a willy in my trousers

It led me on to knowledge

It allowed me in Boys Grammar School

Which got me into college.

I've a willy in my trousers

I've had it all my life

It helped that it grew up with me

And helped me get a wife.

I've a willy in my trousers

It gets me higher pay

I never have to use it

I only have to say -

"I've a willy in my trousers"

And I can be the boss.

You haven't got a willy?

Oh well, my gain, your loss.

Now, the willy in my trousers

Has many roles, though chiefly

It helped me help make babies

If only very briefly.

And the willy in my trousers

Doesn't ask for me to thank it

But occasionally gets restless

And then I have to ...readjust myself and try and think of something like Jeremy Paxman or the weather.

The willy in my trousers 

Will be with me when I go

Though it's silly to be worried

Because nobody will know

If my willy in my trousers

Made me kinder; made me meaner

Or that if I'd been a woman

I'd have called it Wilhelmina 

I've a willy in my trousers

And it's made me what I am

Not a genius or hero

Just a silly willy man.

Early Winter (2015)

 

The distant hills are pale grey, pale green. Overexposed. Desaturated.

The chill air holds them back from their humming, buzzing colours of Spring and Summer.

Nearer, wraiths of heating and washing and factory hover, reluctant, coiling slowly above the town.

Cold brick entombs the people. They are afraid to wake the giant Winter.

No snow, as yet. The frost is just the early rash of a deepening cold; it will melt and then return.

The air is sharp, yet thick and turgid, slowing the breath and the step.

Leaves are curled and crisp, buds hidden like children in the attic.

The breath is held. Why give up warmth? Why give way to the season?

The step is tense. Why slip? Why lose one’s footing?

We are on the edge.

In time we may say. “What happened to Winter? It was mild, wasn’t it?”

In time we may say. “Do you remember?”

That was when...

That was when...

The paradox at the heart of the Paris murders.

I think have an eye for puzzles. I 'see' them before I understand them. 

So it was with the murder of the journalists, cartoonists and police officers in Paris on the 7th January.  It was not the obvious shock and the futility of death but it was something to do with the narrative, the supposed causes and effects.  There was something self-defeating and contradictory. It seemed so convoluted that, at first, I couldn't even explain it to myself. But it was there. A puzzle.

Let us, first of all separate out the idea

that these were 'Islamic terrorists' from the act they committed.

There are, it seems, some Muslims who would argue that they are at war with, presumably, anti-Muslims. I don't know this for myself, since the only source of this idea is the media I consume.

It's this same media that sometimes makes me think that some Muslims are getting a poor deal - along with many other people; Christians, Buddhists, atheists, women, men.  Indeed, it is the media that tells me that some Muslims are being persecuted and I conclude that this is wrong.  Whatever their beliefs, they should be able to live in peace.  

And it would seem (from what I've read) that many people of all religions (and none) agree with me.  It is probably one of the few things that an overwhelming majority of the world's population agree.  Not, as it happens, freedom of speech, but freedom of thought as well as freedom to live.

So what effect could anyone (of any religion and none) think killing people who expressed a thought could or should have?

If Charlie Hebdo had NOT published satirical takes on the prophet Mohammed, then the gunmen would not have known that people held (apparently) anti-Islamic beliefs. In fact it gets more twisted because, of course, simply because such articles and images were published does not demonstrate that anyone holds a particular belief...  These are expressions of thoughts, parts of a conversation that takes place between the creators of the images and stories and their readers and thence between other readers and, indeed, prior to their creation between other people and the creators.

If I say to you I think God is stupid for creating different religions what can it possibly say about my beliefs?  That God exists? That he is a he? That he can't possibly exist because he makes stupid things happen? That he actually does exist and is stupid? That I can't fathom his divine plan?  However you interpret it, I can't believe all those things at the same time and (depending on your point of view) so which one would you elect to judge me on?

In truth the printing - ink on paper and, what, 60,000 copies? - of any article in Charlie Hebdo is a matter of little consequence. Like the tip of an iceberg it represents only the visible manifestation of a thought, a passing thought at that, that contributed to a flow of conversation.  It echoes (and is contested) in hundreds if not thousands of other conversations taking place in streets, bars, homes, on Twitter...sometimes in print...and yes, in churches and mosques all over the world.

And what these gunmen did was choose, quite arbitrarily to impose a judgement on a group of people who they presumably held responsible for part of this conversation.

But what they did was not only random it was also illogical.  

For the self-same freedom of thought is so basic, so universal, that the gunmen themselves depend upon it.

Even as the gunmen drove away from the site of their atrocity in Paris they relied on the common decency of ordinary French people to allow them to do so. To drive on the right side of the road to give way to them where instructed.  They themselves depended on the common humanity of people to allow them to take on the sole responsibility for their actions, trusting the masses who assembled subsequently in city squares NOT to turn into a mob and begin judging anyone who expressed a contrary thought.

Should they be caught (and not die in a shoot-out, which at the time of writing seems likely) what will they expect to happen?  They may anticipate being brought to trial when they may be defiant and uncooperative, but they will be afforded respect by the very people who condemn their acts.  They may confess and shout threats from the dock, but they will know that they will not be summarily executed for doing so.  

They will rest easy in the fact that the vast majority of people in the world respect their right to think things that are abhorrent to most of us.  And they will rest easy in the knowledge that that same majority will not hold their families responsible for their crimes nor condemn the doctors, police or prison officers who will care for them in the way that police officers attempted to care for the staff of Charlie Hebdo.

Their actions - the random and ill-conceived murder of genuinely innocent people who job was to print thoughts for other people to consider, and indeed reject - achieve nothing.  It is, by definition, self defeating.

Rather like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, if you kill everyone who disagrees with you, you are not 'right' (since there is no-one to observe you being right)...you are just alone.

And then... vraiment, vous etes un charlie.

The Letter, A Story for Halloween

THE
LetteR

The following letter comes from the old British Museum Library collection in Bloomsbury where it was found folded tightly into the spine of an old book in amongst a collection gifted to the Museum during the First World War.  The donor was long forgotten and the collection was a strange mixture of scientific treatises - mostly human anatomy - eastern mysticism and magic, of the black variety, dating back three hundred years. The collection had been unexamined until just a few years ago when the reading room was renovated and the contents of many such boxes were catalogued. The books and accompanying papers have now been digitised and may be read by anyone with access to the world wide web.

This particular letter is a puzzle.  It is dated October 31st 1849 and is addressed to a Miss D. Hallsworthy in Lincolnshire and consists of two pieces of paper. Though clearly both written by the same person one sheet is large, closely written on both sides whilst the second is somewhat smaller and the writing more untidy, perhaps frantic.  It is a mystery then that the first sheet is typical mid-nineteenth century cotton rag paper whilst the second is an example of paper from the Millington paper mill produced only from around 1912, leading some to believe that the whole is an extravagant hoax.

One final curiosity is a note fastened to the cover of the topmost book, in a bundle bound together with leather straps reading simply "Examine the contents of the box very carefully. Assure yourself there is nothing inside. Tell everyone."

This is the letter.

"My dearest, dearest Sister

What a wretch I am. And how wretched are you, though you do not know it; cursed beyond imagining. 

I hardly dare describe what I am about to suffer nor the fiendish person that has brought me to this end.  

Please, I beg you, do not tell Mother the contents of this letter. I am afraid that it would drive her to madness and I cannot bear to think on that. You, I know, are strong and have ever been my support.  But even you I fear to be crushed under the weight of knowledge that I must share.

I have been given but one hour and barely the light of a single candle to write this. I am sick with fear and dizzy with disbelief that I should be in this predicament to which, through my words, I must bring you in mind and imagination, though thank God, not in your person. However, write I must, making my account as full as time permits.

Believe me when I say, were it not for the foulest threats ranged against you and Mother, I would have summoned up the courage to fight, even to the death. But then I fear you would have heard nothing from me, nor could I then have protected you from the vengeance that is now being wreaked on me. Hence, I have no choice at all. My fate is before me and is terrible.

I should explain how I came to this pass.  As you know, I have been working in London these five years for Mr Eldridge, editor of the London Advertiser. My fond ambition to be a writer I thought that the position as junior clerk would afford me some opportunity and I was as industrious as any youth of seventeen years could be.

I believe that Mr Eldridge soon came to see in me some accomplishment and he sent me to attend Bow Street to report on the dramas that there daily played to a small crowd of reporters and the city's lowest creatures.

Having discharged my duties thus in short reports of crime and punishment, I occasionally added embroidery to what sometimes seemed dispiriting commonplace lives held up to the blind judgement of justice. Eldridge would grunt, strike out my most lurid prose and, gradually, direct me to work that afforded more licence for the artistry I thought I possessed.  

Within two years I came to be Eldridge’s principal reporter of entertainments, offered at the many music halls of which I know Mother would not approve. I may say that both on the stage and off, I saw such things that completed my education as a man of the world, or at least that nether-world that exists, I suppose, in all great cities and away from the gaze of good Christians. And I wish to God I had stayed reporting honest thievery and murder.

But enough. It was, I think just a week ago that I was instructed to attend the performance of a Fakir or a magician who had excited some attention from an acquaintance of Mr Eldridge and I attended late that afternoon the second house at the Green Gate Tavern, opposite the much more salubrious Eagle, in the City Road.

It was a dark, wet and foggy evening and the roads were filthy with mud. A few miserable citizens ventured out and only hardened drinkers lingered in the Tavern. Yet, it was at the Green Gate that the magician was to be seen.  Amongst the broken drunkards and incorrigible moll-hunters of the tavern was an imperious Chinaman with a painted face and dressed in a red silk gown.  An easel on the stage declared him to be "Fu-Chow the one true magician of the East".

He was not commanding the attention of the crowd. He produced living lizards from a red flame and caused a bottle of water to boil over and turn to bubbling tar, yet the crowd jeered and continued with their drinking. 

Finally, it seemed in a rage, the magician pulled at a damask cloth, uncovering a cabinet; a red painted box little taller nor wider than a coffin.  He opened both the front and the back to show it empty and invited a volunteer to assist.  The first drunken man to stagger forward proved too corpulent to fit within the cabinet and he gave way to another who was smaller but no less inebriated.  The smaller man walked with a stoop and used a cheap bamboo walking stick in his left hand. After stepping into the cabinet, the doors front and back were closed.

After a moment and some incantations, almost inaudible over the din of the Green Gate customers, the Chinaman opened once more the cabinet to reveal not, as one would expect in this age of cheap trickery, an empty cabinet but instead a skeleton. I was intrigued, especially as the skeleton both stooped and held, wedged between its bony fingers the same bamboo cane which the cripple had taken onto the stage.  The Chinaman, far from being triumphant cursed and kicked the cabinet violently. Even then, the audience bayed and catcalled, one shouting that they were well rid of the man. Then a bottle was thrown and, no doubt in fear, Fu-Chow called for the curtain to be rung down.

Out in the street I pondered a little on the trick I had seen, for a trick it surely was. No rational mind would spend more than a moment on it. I decided that the stooping man was a confederate of the Chinaman and that there was no more to the illusion.  Would that I had thought longer and even ventured backstage to enquire of the man.  I did not. And instead I wrote a mocking account of the ‘One True Magician of the Green Gate Tavern’ which was published in the following evening edition. I was, I must admit, too proud even to admit to myself that I was troubled by the skills of the magician I had seen, and instead I sought to belittle him and his conjuring in the eyes of our readers.

It was the day after publication that a message reached me at the Fleet Street office of the Advertiser to request urgently, but politely, that I attend a house in Clerkenwell that afternoon where Fu-Chow himself would be glad to show me some of the secrets of his trade.  Perhaps you have already guessed that the magician was seeking some recompense for my dismissing his performance and I am afraid you are correct. To my lasting regret I did not think on this until it was too late.  

The magician Fu-Chow himself answered the door at my first knock and smiled at me broadly. He was indeed from the east, his tanned, yellowish skin was taut, over a round, clean-shaven face. I estimated him to be perhaps forty-five or a little older.

Immediately he began gabbling at me in a mixture of broken English and what I supposed was his own tongue. No sooner had I entered the house than I was led down to a cellar lit only by candles in which stood the same red painted cabinet I had seen on stage.  Fu-Chow explained to me that I should examine the cabinet very carefully. He urged me to assure myself that it was empty. These were undoubtedly words of English that he had practiced for his performance, for they were pronounced clearly and carefully unlike his earlier gibberish. Finally, and comically I thought at the time, he prompted me to "tell everyone", although there were only the two of us in the cellar room.

He gestured into the box and I innocently stepped inside as he closed first one door and then another. A small chink of candlelight illuminated the inside which appeared plain and smooth. I tried to make a joke of the unsettling situation by asking him questions. Whom did he suppose I should tell about this cabinet?  Was I too to be transformed into a collection of bones?

My dear sister, he laughed. It was a laugh so high in pitch that it seemed to pierce my heart and it spoke only of his demented triumph at my imprisonment. It was then that he slipped this paper and a small pencil through the crack in the cabinet and told me to write an account of what I had seen. Though he assured me that I would not be transformed as the stooped man had been at the Green Gate, I was - I am - fearful that he was hiding his true object from me so that I should write this account to you.  Further he swore that, should I not co-operate, he would seek out all my family and cause them to enter this self-same cabinet to face who knows what end?

I have but a slender hope that you will receive this before I die. 

Though I can hardly place my faith in this loathsome beast. He has promised that he will deliver this letter. My entreaties to bring this letter direct to your hand have been met with silence. On one occasion only has he uttered anything about his intent. Through the merest gap in the cabinet - through which the faint light of the candle seeps - I heard his fearsome voice tell that my letter would be 'found'. 

I cannot but suppose he means that it will be after my death.  Or that he is completely without his wits for, in his ranting, he says there will be a time when my letter will fly through the air like a vapour to materialize before the eyes of hundreds, if not thousands of people. Quite insane. He wants me to tell you that one day his magic will be understood and welcomed by all peoples, by emperors and paupers and on that day will my letter be seen.

I have no more paper and so must close with only love for you and Mother. Your fond brother, John.

 

The second, smaller sheet is undated...

---------------------------------

My dear sister, on this second page I have to continue but I hardly know how to explain what has happened. In the blink of an eye my fear has increased tenfold. 

No sooner had I slipped my letter to you through the narrow gap than the room in which this cabinet sits was bathed in light. It was a harsh, sickly light so unlike the candle it replaced.  I cannot say that I had slept for it was but a moment. I had sighed, closed my eyes momentarily and opened them again as I heard a hissing and the now familiar crackling laugh of my tormentor. Still held in my hand was the pencil I had used, but the room, such as I could discern seemed, indeed smelled, changed.

I called out, asking the Chinaman what had happened and he answered with a laugh.

"It has worked" he called triumphantly. Yet his voice sounded changed, his command of English more accomplished.  I asked him what time it was, fearing that I had been drugged. Again he laughed and slipped me this second sheet of writing paper with which to continue my letter and then he urged me to record this, the most insane story of all.

He claimed to me that it was now the year 1914 and that he had caused me to die, to waste away in this box, and then to come alive again at his bidding. As he spoke I peeped out into the now brighter room in which I had been ensnared and I saw not the flushed face of the man I had met just moments before but the grizzled face of an ancient, bearded man. The voice was recognizable; the same strange accent but now undoubtedly far older and creaking as if he had but few breaths left in his body.

Oh sister, should you be delivered of this letter read it only once and then destroy it. Do not seek help, do not cause any other living creature to read its content. The fiend has explained, and I cannot but believe he has the power, that he has placed some kind of hex, a spell over the very paper and the words that I am writing. He has told me, with a cold voice that commands my absolute and terrible faith, that it is so arranged that the cabinet, with my living body within, will be buried here under the floor of this cellar and that I shall die as I feared I would, trapped and without hope. 

But he has a yet greater torture prepared for me. He tells me that I was revived after sixty years by his reading the first page of my letter and thus, should these pages be read in their entirety, then no matter how long I have been beneath the earth and no matter how corrupt my body I should be revived...I should become alive again, though trapped, in order to die once again within this cursed cabinet.

Mark my words, sister, should by some miracle, you receive this do not I pray, cause it to be read again. Destroy it. Allow me to rest in peace.

Eternally your brother, John

 

© 2014 Philip R Holden