Overly Dexterous Manipulation

Obviously, any overly dexterous manipulation of your instrument will make any onlooker at least regard you with some suspicion, if not trepidation, as all forms of ability above and beyond the merely functional now get looked upon with something approaching disdain.

It does not do these days to be too good at something, lest others look askance upon your audacity to be talented beyond the acceptable limits of the mediocre. It makes others suspicious, for if you can be beyond average at any one thing, then there is a fear that you could be beyond average in other ways, especially ways that may turn out to be financially, or – concomitantly – sexually, beneficial to you in a way that puts you beyond the common herd.

That is not allowed, especially if you have – up until your secret was discovered – been masquerading as an ordinary individual – and if you can lie to those around you by having a hidden talent – then what else could you also be lying about? Perhaps you are not even human, which – considering the usual crowds you hang around with – would not be that remarkable as most of them seem to have been given up on by evolution not long after their ancestors accidentally fell out of the trees.

Anyway, where was I?

Ah, yes…. To put it another way: Perhaps – after all - the bagpipes are not really your ideal instrument, certainly not when attempting to play them in what – until now – has been rather an unconventional manner, even when – as you point out – the kilt does aid your rather… unorthodox – and to my mind, rather unsanitary - technique.

Monday Poem: To Shape a Secret

To Shape a Secret

We search for signs
and give the power
of names to all
we see and all we hold,

keeping special secret names
for all we know,
but cannot see
and could never dare to touch.

Your hand moves
through the air to shape
a secret between us both
neither of us will speak of

outside these bare walls
holding us close
to each other, never more
than half a bed apart

as we both try to deny
wanting these times
to spread out through
all our future days

until there is no space
between our coming together
and all our long lonely days
and too inevitable partings.

Weaving Worlds from Nothing

I don’t know when I grew old, but it happened so slowly, too slowly for me to notice. There was a time when one of the women would follow me away from the great halls at night, or wait for me out in the cold stone corridors, and come to my room for the night.

I always saw it as a form of magic; creating these people, places, and various deeds and doings both heroic and base, populating the long evenings with wonders for the audience. It was a form of magic the women always found fascinating. Where men would be held in wonder by those who could seemingly manipulate the world: do tricks, create illusions do magic, the women always seemed more fascinated by the way I could weave these stories out of nothing, how I could take them by the hand and lead the through a world of imagination and possibility with only the sound of my voice and the limits of my imagination.

They seemed to like the worlds I built for them when we were alone together too, those times I took them to whatever bed I’d been given for my stay. Women had taught me well when I was young, and I had always been a keen pupil in their schools. Later, I put all I’d learnt back into the stories I told those ladies under the sheets and blankets until they could take no more.

Now, though, I grow old and the corridors I walk to my bed seem longer, colder and far damper than they used to be. These days, the women no longer follow me or wait for me. All I have when I get to my lonely room is some wine, if I’m lucky, and a fire to ease the chill from these old bones. Still, though, as I stare into those flames, as I sit wrapped in blankets, sipping my wine I can tell myself the stories of all those women I used to know.

Spontaneous Ejaculations

‘Ah…!’ you may say, especially if you are the kind of person who often has spontaneous ejaculations. Then, after you’ve apologised – especially to the vicar and his special companion – and wiped up all the evidence, we can proceed on to what you were about to say, whilst – of course – all standing at a safe distance in case of any existential repeat of your outpouring.

Still, as they say Rome wasn’t built in a day, especially considering all the various people who needed bribing to get the planning permission for the Colosseum, let alone the provision of adequate chariot parking facilities.

So, as you were – no doubt about to say – there is not much happening today out in that slough of despond that certain vested interests like to pretend is the real world. So, let us go then, you and I, now the evening is spread out against the sky out to where the fields are green, the setting sun is shinning and the sheep are open to suggestion, instead of wasting our time sitting here waiting for yet another strangely disappointing website to load despite it promising all manner of earthly delights only to be – in the end – somewhat underwhelming.

Underwear Lapses

Even if the popular female celebrity had not done that with the mandolin and the llama, a very large number of people would be more than a little concerned about the fact that apparently she had forgotten to put on any underwear before setting out on her quest.

Luckily, though, for those thus concerned an alert tabloid photographer was on hand to record her mistake, so those that were worried about either her lack of underwear, or her lack of available brain power to enable her to remember how to get dressed properly, could hie themselves to a website where they could see the evidence first-hand and then express their various concerns in the comments section of the page helpfully provided by the site’s owners for just such a purpose.

The tabloid in question later – though a spokeswoman (herself suitably underweared) – said they regarded it as a public duty for the newspaper to inform any such celebrity - who happens to venture out unsuitably underclothed for the occasion - of their error and that by bringing such celebrity underwear lapses to the attention of the general public, they thus enabled those ordinary people to feel comfortable about their own underwear lapses and even to send pictorial evidence of those lapses by themselves or anyone else they managed to capture on camera to a new website set up for the purpose where a weekly prize of several hundred pounds would be given to the best such photo of the week – as voted on by visitors to the page. Everyone agreed that this would be a boon to the public debate on the urgent and growing problem of underwear omission that seems to be now plaguing this once-great country.

Not Much to Say

There wasn’t much to say afterwards… or, at least, I thought so. She, though, had other ideas and so she told me all she could say about it…. This took some time.

Since we were – as far as I could tell – stranded there, there wasn’t much else to do, at least until the shock wore off, so I just sat there and listened to it all.

As far as she could see, it was – obviously – all someone else’s fault, but for the moment she couldn’t quite see who deserved the most blame.

As she went on… and on… and on, I looked around. As desert islands go, suppose it was more or less typical. However, I’m no expert and all I know about such places is what I’ve seen in films and various TV programmes. There was one I remembered from when I was young, very young, back in the days of black and white TV, when there had been a TV series about Robinson Crusoe. All I remembered from it was a long sandy beach with footprints and – possibly – a parrot that just said ‘poor, poor Robinson’ all the time.

Personally, I would have strangled that parrot after a few weeks. I looked over at her, still muttering away about suing the travel company, the boat owners and all and sundry and wondered if I would be able to stop myself from strangling her, if we were still stranded here after a few weeks of just the two of us.

I got up and wandered away from her, hoping I could find some way of getting us off the island before the visions of my hands tight around her neck got too strong to resist. I was hoping she would not follow me, but then as this shipwreck shows, I’ve never been that lucky.

Monday Poem: A Slow Falling Down

A Slow Falling Down

A slow falling down to winter.
It is there, held in the hand,
a dream dripping slowly on
through the fingers and then

lost forever, like that handful
of melted snow turning to water
as you watch it slip away
through your closed fingers

to fall down onto the frozen ground
then left behind as you walk away
on towards the spring you know
will now one day rise from that ground.