'The Bound One'  by  Trish



THE OUTSIDER

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Strips of bark burn bright in the old brick fire place.The radio plays 'A Prelude to Bach' beside me steams my mug of weak coffee. There's a place mat under the hot mug to protect the  polished Rosewood coffee table.


On the  mat is a tapestry of a hunting scene. The horses gleam black and brown in the sunlight. The hunters  gleam bright and fresh astride their mounts.The men's shoulders strain against their woven scarlet jackets. The hounds strain to the scent of their prey, the fox.

Though the woven fabric is no larger than a woman's handkerchief, I see  many tensions in the colorful threads that create the hunt scene. I pause, is it possible the tensions I see, are within me?

I often explore the possibilities within. I've named it, 'Pulling The First Thread'. Once I get that happening, it's all down hill, or up, depending on how you think. I'd say that's what makes a good story, pulling events apart, then reshaping them into an order that feels right?

Once that loose thread is the tiniest bit visible, the slightest tug unravels endless possibilities. It sounds simple, but to catch sight of the invisible flaw amidst all the distractions of need and want, can take years, and the effort can be too much for some, even the strongest character can wilt under the strain of it.

The fire makes a sound I interpret as a word 'glutter'. I repeat glutter over and over, until my tongue refuses to work, and so, for the moment, I'm dumb. I don't mind being without words for a while, because, then I can think. But first I listen. The Bach music has been replaced with the radio announcer's  velvet tones. He soothes me as much as the music,  lulls me into reflection.

What do I think of life? Quick as a flash I answer 'why it's wonderful, it's interesting and vibrant. I'll squeeze every creative drop of juice out of every day for the rest of my life. I'll capture all that I see and hear and love it. Why the very beauty of this moment demands that I catch it to myself, as we fly past. Offer it on a page, as a gift..

Imagination looms. I stare into the flames and wait. Twigs bend ,snap,  look like hungry, unloved  children, they call for help. Logs stacked neatly by the fire place, seem as helpless old people, and a sadness seeps into the small room where I sit and sip my coffee. The imagination  causes  my emotions  to jangle and my mood to suffocate me.

I dismiss the dark images, become present to the room I'm in. The room is a rustic sort of place and has its history written deep into the aged timber of the walls, into the matching pieces of rosewood furniture and the scorched piece of carpet, a target for star spitting  embers sparked from the fire.

I'm lured into a story. A throb leads to sounds of the sea. Enraged waves envelop and batter me. But, tangled within the wild waters, tossed by the frenzied winds, I hear a sweetness. The soft sound fuses into me like melting wire.

As though flung back onto shore, I become aware of  music pouring from the radio. It's a solo piece for violin, it weeps a familiar melody. I seek myself in the siren sound, listen, for myself in the unearthly movement. But I am not there. I am with the wild waves and crazy winds.

As the sweet spirit's call, fades. it urges me to sing above the fury of the storm, but I have no voice. The spirit no longer calls, or is it, I've been struck deaf, as well as dumb?.

'Miss Mousikins'  by  Trish 

FRAGILE CARGO
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Slip Slide go my eyes
This way then that
Trap.
Liar! Liar! Imagination!
Take a corner of cloth,
Suck, slowly suck.
Is this a poem? A dream? A nightmare?
Is it? Who knows?
Not me, not me.

FOR ME



'I Wait And Wait'  by  Trish

 FOR ME
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Always, I enter at the same point
It is as fine and bright,
as the glint from the sharpest needle
It is as fierce as the light in the eye's of a starved animal
It is a hotbed of frigid gems.
For some, there's no other way,
into this world

IN ANOTHER PLACE AND TIME



'A Symbol On The Wing'  by  Trish

 IN ANOTHER PLACE ANOTHER TIME
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Once long ago, I entered a new city. Well it was really an old city, but new to me. It was a pretty place, with lots of sunshine, but, it was not my place. For months I tiptoed through the miniature park that led to the shops and the market. Many elderly people, and young, took the chance to rest for a while under the shady trees, babies rolled  and crawled on colorful rugs, while young mothers sat on the grass beside their babies and chatted. I would walk and think.

I lived in a tiny place not far from the lovely park. Three of its windows, were covered  in hand painted sunflowers. The man who lived next door and sold me honey, said a skinny hippy girl , with hair past her backside, lived in the place before me, and she painted the sunflowers on the windows, which, he said, she had no right to do.  Once he even saw her doing hopscotch by moonlight, and on  another night, when she'd been hopping around  out there on her own, for more than an hour, the new resident, a bald headed girl from upstairs, came down and joined her.

The honey man's mouth would twist whenever he spoke of the last resident, but twisted more than usual, as he related how, from that night on,  the skinny hippie girl began to regularly visit the new resident, then  she began to walk, arm in arm.with the thin bald headed girl  from upstairs ,and he couldn't believe their audacity, when one evening, from his window, he saw them standing side by side in heavy rain , dressed in the skimpiest of clothes, kissing and laughing like crazy loons! I didn't like the honey man, or the heat from his hand on the honey jar each time he handed it to me.

Being a regular at the market, I soon knew all the isles. This morning I noted a new stall. Incense burned , and drifted a slow mist of exotic perfume Jewellery of all sorts was pinned to boards covered in black velvet, the fashion jewellery glowed a life like light. The velvet boards lent  against whatever was handy. Scarves draped carelessly over two squat white cane chairs and over a small trestle. Some scarves hung from fancy wrought iron stands. In the warm miday breeze the scarves invited, fluttered, and waved  a sunny mood over the new market stall  .

Words printed in fluorescent pink, on a piece of white masonite, read, "Nose Studs Done Free With Purchase". The new stall holder wore a ruby red stud on the side of her own cute nose. "Does it hurt?" I asked. "not at all" she said.  After examining  trays of  ornamental baby like buttons, and the other trays of silver and gold nose studs, I chose a plain gold star. Without any pain to me, she quickly put the stud in, then held up a mirror  "It suits you", she said. I thought so too. I thanked her and went on my way.With the money I had left, I bought two onions and four tomatoes.  I kept touching the stud and wondering if it made me feel free or lost.

My uncertain mood, was with me most days, because, as I said,  it was not my place, and the only person I knew, was the honey man and I didn't like him.  So, there was no where to belong and no one to belong to. But that was alright, because as I tiptoed and touched light as the  beat of a butterfly's wings on all  I passed, and on all  that came my way, when  it came time to fly, I left nothing behind me and took nothing with me.

JUST GET IT ALL DOWN

'I Got Rhythm'  by  Trish

"When I say start! commence writing and don't stop until you come to the end of the page", says the teacher of the creative writing class. "Don't think about what you're writing, just get it all down! .....     Start!"

Heads bend hastily over blank pages, hands clutch, pens, pencils, biros, whatever, and write and write! But not me. I  draw a magical mouse. In my very young years I used to imagine a magical mouse lived in my pocket and gave me the answers to all the problems that filled my life.

At fourteen I reluctantly gave up the help of my mouse friend and replaced its help with a tram ticket. If I  got a ticket with the same number either end, I knew it would be a good day for me.

My drawing looks nothing like a mouse. How to fill the page?  Creativity.? What did it mean? Fantasy? Making up untrue stories to stop adults from getting angry? Head down, I try drawing a mouse,that looks real. I drift to the past.

At age eleven, I was standing on the roof of a large building with a friend, she lived , in one, of the many small flats below. It was almost dark and the city lights made me think of a starry heaven. My friend Olga , a year older than me, said  "Do you ever wish you could fly?" "But I can" I replied . Olga shook her head, and said, "honestly, sometimes I think you're  definitely crazy".

We didn't see each other once Olga's family shifted to their new house, but I often wondered why it was so crazy to say you can fly, but not crazy to wish it?  My mother's words were all I had.  "We can't change the way we're born", so I accepted I must have been born to think in a  bit of a crazy way.

People, places, life, everything, blurred my vision, just like my mother's strong reading glasses did when I tried them on. One night I had dream, in it there was this one star in the sky, I looked up at  the star for ages, then suddenly, the world turned upside down, and I felt myself  fall into the bright light of the star. As I fell deeper, I became full of wonder and happiness. In the morning when I woke, I wondered what  was  in the dream that made me so happy. But all that remained was the image of the one shining star.

I drift back to the page. My pen has made a straight, strong line, away from the miserable mouse and begun to write;  I realize immediately, it's the memory of the bright star dream! Line by line it unfolds across the white page, pictures of my life and that of others, are born from the marks of my pen. Before my amazed eyes, a river of colors stream into the images on the page. Fiery reds and icy blues, flow and melt against a blazing orange sunset.

My word pictures paint a rich  landscape that's filled with  people. But, unlike the fruitful landscape,  the people in it are fragile, and ominous clouds hover over them. The people vanish, they are wiped from the scene. My pen continues to drip  life from its tip, continues to distill life and color, onto the now overflowing once blank page. "Stop!" says the teacher of the creative writing class. I do as she says, but in my heart, I know, I've just started.

The Raggedy One



'Walking A Slack Rope'  by  Trish

 I can see her now, all dirty from the rubbish and dust dumped on her by her family as they sailed along over her head. There was no door, or opening of any sort that the Raggedy One could see, but still the garbage continued to come into the Dungeon she lived in. At times she was so still and pale, I thought she was dead. Her arms and legs pulled tight into her body, and the awful barbed wire wrapped tight around her small frame , to keep her in the same state.

I've often pondered, how it is I know all this? I'm not aware of ever being in such a place, but there's no doubt in me, that I do know all about it. 

THREE BELOVED WOMEN



When I ,Opened My Eye's, I Saw' by Trish



Three Beloved Women
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Three women I loved and looked to for direction led me away from the garden path. They saw not where they had been and so were sightless. They talked as if they knew the way, their blind eyes wide and bright. One had eyes the color of violets, dark sweeping lashes rimmed the lovely pools of color. The other woman's  eyes were  green. Whenever I looked into their cloudy depths, it was as if I looked deep into a lake of blurred emerald. The color of the world within the third woman's blind eyes  eludes me.

I followed them faithfully for years, I'd probably have followed them forever if  I'd not, woken up. They didn't  love me. In fact I feared they may even hate me. It happened like this.

 I'd gone to sleep very early. I have no idea what time it was when I heard the voice, it was as close to me as my own breath. "They are slowly killing you and you must fly", the Voice Breathed. Terror caught at my throat like two hands about to choke the life out of me. "I have no wings" I whispered fearfully. e"I am not ready." My voice seemed to be that of someone else and I repeated the words to make sure I'd not imagined I'd spoken them. Then I asked "Where will I go and what should I take with me?" "Go to Love, and take only Love" Breathed the Messenger. And so I crept out alone into the damp night and stood there on the wet grass shivering with cold and fear, beneath the  willow trees that bowed  so deeply and darkly over me, like grieving old women .

To my surprise, I began vigorously to rub my body. Faster and faster went my hands, it was as if my body was starving from some lack, a lack,that my empty hungry hands failed to satisfy. Next my shoulders began to circle forward, faster and faster they went. I don't know how long I went on like that, but again the Messenger Breathed words that made me act. I stood still, long enough to gather some breath, then ran for my life, away from the wrath of the three  women, who slept the sleep of the dead, inside  the house, covered by the bowed grief stricken branches, of the  ancient Weeping Willow Trees.