Thank you very much!
L
On Thu, February 9, 2012 18:06, Stephen Vincent wrote:
> Wonderfully intriguing, Lawrence!
> I am going to let this sit for awhile.
>
>
> Stephen V
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Thu, February 9, 2012 5:12:11 AM
> Subject: Elidius on his island
>
>
> When I had a door with a lock, the wind
> was often there, trying the mechanism, as it would go round back, pushing
> at walls in that persistent manner that it has; like a soldier; but what I
> remember is the insinuation of violent air, trying to make open what I had
> closed.
>
> Doors attract gusts as cats bring disasters.
> These things are invisible; but one hears them,
> the noise of their dressing or changing clothes before they go to night
> form; such noises, not unlike humanity; but surely dead or damned in some
> other way inhuman. And hands touch me in the middle of the night.
>
>
> Almost every afternoon as daylight falls,
> they climb the hill from the sea and turn about my dwelling, following now
> the western side along its great length. I watch them through it, keeping
> myself closed in, not braving to exchange vision with these lithe figures.
> Not that I would see insubstantiality.
> They are not there. They look energetic.
>
>
> One does wonder. It is, I assume, the dead.
> Some days they do not come. Or I’m not there.
> Or else I am not looking through the wall.
> I hadn’t known I could until I saw.
> They seem to coincide with us. We live.
> They have their own time and differing purpose.
>
>
> Which is the wind and which truly spirit?
> This gate leans out to me if I approach
> and then hangs limp as I take hold of it, swinging loose upon a squeaky
> hinge, soundless that moment before I reached and touched it as if some
> other being calmed its voice in the man-made mechanism; and that gesture is
> indicative. I must find its meaning.
>
> I was guest in a palace far from here.
> I had leave to wander the large building:
> room led to room, steps, passages: and, as I went, each door opened for me,
> as one saying “Please enter� though followers thought it
suspicious.
> I joy in welcome.
>
>
>
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UNFRAMED PICTURES by Lawrence Upton
42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
wfuk.org.uk/blog
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