Last afternoon of the year.
Grey drizzle, grey skies.
Walked back from my morning shift at work through crowds of shoppers, most of whom seemed to have an inability to walk properly.
Flat is quiet. I'm the only one in.
Charging up my i-pod. The laptop makes contented sighing sounds -like breathing- every now and again.
Swapping messages via Facebook as I write with an old school friend, not seen for over twenty years, about the possibilities of reunions in 2012.
Closed curtains in my room. Dim yellow glow, dulled even more, by the globe of a lampshade.
Last afternoon of the year.
Only the past is resilient enough to thrive.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Friday, 30 December 2011
The Colour of American Summers in the 1950s
I read Sylvia Plath's journals a number of years ago now. I remember one entry where she had submitted a poem to the publisher entitled 'Rain'. The publisher rejected the poem saying that whenever America had had rain, they were inundated (floundering you might say) in poems called 'Rain'.
I must be remembering this incorrectly.
Surely all of America would not have had the same weather conditions at the same time, enough to provoke a deluge of submissions of poems to publishers? Same rain, different time-zones... I would go back to double check this, but the collected journals are hundreds of pages along and I like the idea of America having one uniform weather...
Raining today obviously, a slow, thick rain, greasily coating the pavements with an oil-like sheen. A coldness to the water too, this is the rain of drowning, not poems. A slow motion shower, a doom metal drizzle, a grey celebration of the depths of English winters. No drama, just a gloomy headache-y comfort.
I dreamt once of Sylvia Plath. The television set came replaying a short video of her, sat underneath a tree at a picnic in the 1950s. I did not know where the transmission was coming from and concluded that it was some kind of signal from the past. The picture was fuzzy and kept jumping. Some colours over saturated, while others were pale and bleached out. The sunlight was the colour of old wallpaper, bright and wrong and feverish. I have always thought of that colour, since the dream, as that of American summers in the 1950s. No details could be seen, only Plath's oddly predatory smile as she poured tea into tea cups that were dark as shadows.
I must be remembering this incorrectly.
Surely all of America would not have had the same weather conditions at the same time, enough to provoke a deluge of submissions of poems to publishers? Same rain, different time-zones... I would go back to double check this, but the collected journals are hundreds of pages along and I like the idea of America having one uniform weather...
Raining today obviously, a slow, thick rain, greasily coating the pavements with an oil-like sheen. A coldness to the water too, this is the rain of drowning, not poems. A slow motion shower, a doom metal drizzle, a grey celebration of the depths of English winters. No drama, just a gloomy headache-y comfort.
I dreamt once of Sylvia Plath. The television set came replaying a short video of her, sat underneath a tree at a picnic in the 1950s. I did not know where the transmission was coming from and concluded that it was some kind of signal from the past. The picture was fuzzy and kept jumping. Some colours over saturated, while others were pale and bleached out. The sunlight was the colour of old wallpaper, bright and wrong and feverish. I have always thought of that colour, since the dream, as that of American summers in the 1950s. No details could be seen, only Plath's oddly predatory smile as she poured tea into tea cups that were dark as shadows.
The Capsule, Drifting through the Small Hours
I tried to read for an hour before going to sleep last night, a last cup of tea and the dim bulb of my bedside lamp slowly warming up, like a street lamp for rooms. I had the quilt wrapped around me but I was still cold.
There was no sound of anything. I've been living here for three months and there are still times when it strikes me how silent it is at night. No taxis, no cars, no drunken shouts. With the curtains in my room drawn, it felt like I could be anywhere, locked in a capsule left to drift through small hours seas. For whatever reason, last night felt very remote, as if my room had settled inside another house, one far larger and labyrinthine with lost hallways and abandoned rooms. The cold had an odd and piercing quality about it, and when I turned off the light, I shivered under two quilts until I fell into a dreamless sleep.
There was no sound of anything. I've been living here for three months and there are still times when it strikes me how silent it is at night. No taxis, no cars, no drunken shouts. With the curtains in my room drawn, it felt like I could be anywhere, locked in a capsule left to drift through small hours seas. For whatever reason, last night felt very remote, as if my room had settled inside another house, one far larger and labyrinthine with lost hallways and abandoned rooms. The cold had an odd and piercing quality about it, and when I turned off the light, I shivered under two quilts until I fell into a dreamless sleep.
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