Splodgy Butterflies

splodgybutterflies
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Underling

A candle burnt through the night
Beneath the sheets I slipped my small hand
Into my big sister's much larger one
There was a cease-fire. It would be over by morning
We had no need for sleep, we only
Peered at one another in the hot, dark cavity
Beneath the blanket. It was midsummer night
And I saw beads of sweat on her high, dark brow
An aristocratic forehead, they used to say
But that was another day – before the occupation
A terrible fear washed over me, and left its residue
I was one with my sister, until she turned away
I dreaded daybreak, when I would be alone once again

It was winter now. There was nothing more we could do
I failed my sister and I would never be forgiven
Her picture was embedded firmly in my head
That girl with the honey-coloured hair
We whirled around the office, tearing open drawers
Some underling approached me, a leather bound book
Clutched in her hand. My face paled, my heart pounding
Then I sat, numbed, the diary resting on my lap
My underling hovered. ‘You will never understand’
I told her silently. But then she wrapped her arms around me
‘Your sister’s not dead, she lingers on. Those pages are her.'
And then I knew: this woman truly understood
Probably more than I ever would

Anchored Down

I am detached from the world once more. I am working part-time now – supplementing my income with freelance writing and proof-reading. *sigh* I shall be famous soon enough. I feel heavy, anchored to the earth. I want to fly. I want to be translucent and incorporeal again. That light airy feeling that passed with my teenage years. When unhealthiness meanthealthinesss - my paradoxical self. That was my coping mechanism and I have found nothing to replace it. Not even my first love - writing.

Some good news - I attained a 2i on an undergraduate maths test. I feel an urge to hunt down my old primary school teachers and thrust this result into their smug faces. For it was they who told me (when I was about five) that humanities were for me. They taught me to despise the sciences and maths. They forgot to mention, however, that, on average, humanities graduates earn substantially less than science graduates.

The Blues

03 April 2006 (4)
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Sacrifice

I am the knight
Heavy armour weighs me down
Their queen is sacrificed
And peasants and drummer-boys
Flee before me

Burnt out buildings
Babies bombed to pieces
A full moon shines
Displacement of the divine
Deluded and euphoric

Silver ships sailing
War is not a curse, for us
It is glorious. We are flying
I am the Chosen One
The revolution has begun.

Criminality and the Underclass

I came across this observation in Auschwitz, the Nazis and the Final Solution (Laurence Rees) (I am assuming familiarity with the context): '...the individuals who sat at the table at the Wannsee conference were salaried functionaries from one of Europe's great nations, not back-street terrorists, though their crimes were to be greater than any conventional 'criminal' act in the history of the world. Equally instructive, when some still refer to an ill-educated 'criminal underclass', is that of the fifteen people around the table eight had academic doctorates.' (My italics).

School

100_0142
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Nostalgia Trip

Memories

By the Rockpool

In this winter landscape
We walk, by the rockpool
To an outsider we may seem
Heart shaped and superfluous

We carve out initials into the ice
Carve a loveheart into a tree, laced
With the last fall of snow
And we do not dive into that deep pool

Dusk descends and we head out
To the end of the pier – and you
Clutch my small hand so firmly
The bones crunch within

We feel far away from the world
We hear the sound of sirens from the city
For we two have absconded
If only for an afternoon

I feel your love for me cutting through my flesh,
To my marrow. My own affection
Is a pale dancing shadow
I do not find the solidity I crave here.

Those who can't...

Teach?

No, those who know they can't write asinine freelance articles for those who think they can.

Hills Road

100_0143
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Fearful No More

We will be fearful no more
In my fevered shrillness
I had forfeited my land
'Take it, take it, take it
'Take this land'. I held my frail hands
Out - Wrinkled, tread veined, blue-fingered
And their visitors look into my eyes
Deep into my eyes, detect a hint
Of madness. And the couple stride away.

And we cling to one another
As the wall of water is rising
And rising and rising and rising
A storm rushes through and the elements
Are doing her bidding
And the water closes over us
And the water closes over us
And the water closes over us
Showing us the seaweed bed.
We gave ourselves to them
We did not once resist.

Years later a van draws up outside.
My ancestral cottage. A tribe of children piled out
And dance with excitement.
A girl shrills: 'This is our house now!

'No, no, no, no,' the Ghosts cried silently
But the family remains - and our incorporeality
Renders us infutile. We are helpless in the face
Of their solid, fleshed-out existence

Misty-Eyed Nostalgia

Oh the good old days
Oh misty eyed nostalgia
Oh, shut up....

Yes, I am listening to 'Whinesport'. Charlie Wolf babbling on about this case and claiming that it is symptomatic of the problems in British society today. Here's a quarter for the 'clue 'phone', Charlie, it made the news because it is newsworthy and it is newsworthy because it is such an unusual case. I would have thought that someone 'in the 97th' percentile with a degree in journalism (ha!) would know that. Apparently, this is also symptomatic of the dreadful state that contemporary Britain is in. Again, an unusual case. He went on to claim that 'an armed society is a gentler society.' In other words, Charlie Boy is berating us, yet again, for being 'unAmerican'. There's a way of solving that, Mr. Wolf...I'll come and wave you off at the airport.

Scarlet

100_0145
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Depths

I remember standing in the harbour, watching
As the ships came in, as sailors disembark
Scarlet knee length dresses hiked up, glittering
With gold – on ears, on wrists, on ankles
They are our chains. They drag us down.

The sailors disembark, approach us but the officers
Barely register our presence. We are too tawdry for them
Bothersome. They fix their eyes on the town-girls
And now these recollections anger me. They bud freely
In the mind.. Others doubt the authenticity

Of my memoirs. They are inflamed
At the very utterance of my name.
Crimson paint over whitewashed lives
I dredge my story from the depths
Of their calm blue and bottomless sea
And, for this, they despise me

And they make no secret of it
I commemorate the colours that dwell
In history, in mystery. I am offered
A frosty reception. I am stilt wild,
I am still toxic, tearing the thin veneer
Away from the tedious and cowardly

Favours

I am uncomfortable when people do favours for me mainly because I am afraid that, at some time in the future, they might call them in. Why do I find it hard to believe that others are simply generous? Why do I have to be so anti-social and mean-spirited?

Someone, a 'virtual' stanger has paid for a website subscription for me - covering an entire year. I don't know how to respond to this. How do I pay my 'virtual' benefactor back?

Feeling: grateful and a little strange.

Bathing

06 April 2006 (5)
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Worshipping the Sun

Ink-black sky superseded by misty daybreak
The darkness dissipates as we two awake
In the garden we rest our heads against
The hard wood of the trees, listening
To the miniature, bustling worlds within

Blueness and blackness fuse. An imperfect
Work of art. We two do our part
In the garden we dance in ever enlarging
Circles – a kind of sacrament
Dedicated to the dawn

For we are pagans; sinful sorcerers
Worshipping the sun as it spreads itself
Across the sky and this is why
We are destined to die by nightfall,
Consumed by fire composed of dry branches
In the centre of the village square.

This is Why I am Drowning

Growing up with domestic violence is like you're inhabiting another world. Pounding on the glass, screaming and no one can hear you. No one wants to hear you. Starving to death in a land of plenty. Surrounded by lighted windows framing happy families. And then...and then...when you finally get out no one believes what happened to you. And you have to forget too because that's the only way you can survive. But some of us can't forget and that is why we are drowning.

Never underestimate people's capacity for willful blindness.

This is Me

Made of Clay

I am not a wild horse. I am merely
A docile diversion with creamy skin

And milky breasts and an empty head
I ask no questions; I make no demands

I am wet clay clinging to the potter'’s wheel
Ready to be moulded by your hands.

Letter to a Hostile Neighbour

To Whomever it May Concern,

Could you please refrain from crashing and banging late at night? You may not be aware of this but you live in a second floor flat. This means that there is someone living below you. That 'someone' happens to be me (unfortunately). If you wish to disregard the needs of others and make as much noise as you please then might I suggest that you apply to the housing authority for soundproofing. You should have no trouble getting it as past events illustrate that they are willing to go out of their way to accommodate you.


Pompous? Yes
Will it be sent? Probably not.

And the World Keeps on Spinning

100_0082b
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Immensity, Intensity

It is the duty of a witness to remember
It is the duty of the chronicler to dismember
This bloodless corpse, this nation’s history
But the immensity, the intensity
Of this task freezes the blood in my veins
And I am at pains to maintain accuracy
But there is a gun at my temple
A dagger at my heart and I stagger
Beneath the weight of this regime

That slid smoothly into place and the spell
They cast, the spell that put the kingdom to sleep
And, while immobile as statues, we still weep
At what we have become, at the crimes
Carried out in our name. As I am summoned
To the bunker of our histrionic dictator
They do not insist, yet I do not resist
And I live the life of a hedonist,
Destroying the future, obscuring the past.

Lightning Strikes

I am watching TV. I am watching Quizmania. And it occurs to me that TV is the most wasted medium on this planet. Should I end it all now?

Switch Channels - to BBC News 24. They are interviewing an Asian guy who voted for the BNP. Why? What is he trying to prove? Is he not aware of their policy of encouraging repatriation of non-white citizens? It's akin to a Jew voting for the National Socialist Party in the March, 1933 elections. I wonder if he is sectionable. It's not as if Nick Griffin (an alumnus of Downing College, Cambridge - He got a Douglas Hurd (or a piece of Turd - oh no, that's the man himself)) is a great orator. My cat is more persuasive than him.

I did not exercise my civic duty - I did not vote. There is nothing for me. I need a real liberal party. The kind of Liberal Party that Winston Churchill knew and loved (well, until he 'crossed the floor'.)

Collage II

18 April 2006 (4)
Originally uploaded by Bella the Cat.

Dipicting my Brother's life

Religion

There is no rank here.
The only thing that reigns
Is equality. This garden,
This damp, green garden
Is calm, is silent;
Too calm, too silent
And for a reason I will never
Quite fathom, Our Creator
Endowed us with free will
A burning need to rebel
And a craving for conflict
And to the one they call 'God'
I cry. 'Why, you really do
Have a rather sophisticated
Sense of brutal irony'
And I laugh and laugh and laugh
Because I am sure that humanity
Has provided millennia of entertainment
For that supreme deity in the sky
We have chosen to glorify.

A Message

What had she done?
She could not remember.

We stalked through the long grass that shot up between the tiles of this, once elegant, now dilapidated. There was a kind on unrestrained wildness that contrasted sharply with the stark nature of their life back at the hospital. But the need for routine was always there within us. And, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn'tÂ’t tear ourselves away from it. It was embedded in our heads. We each laid our hands on the head of the stone peacock. The walls were crumbling. Everything was crumbling. I thought I saw a red serpent slithering though the grass but it was only the shabby red college scarf that Ben had tossed away earlier. The occult means the hidden, Ben had whispered to me. nothingng more. Remember that. Everything else is myth. Myth and supposition.'