Two Prose Fragments, Autumn 2010

[after Ralph Vaughan Williams]

The specimen trees are canons of limbs, entangled at a level with the aerials; they leap by certain rules through a silver circle of sky, beyond prediction. Already displayed, how long these processes ossify, becoming a national literature; yellowing classics whose leaves are turning an autumn movement, in a notation for notianal lovers: the weather woven over their heads and the stubborn light in its pouring after, bound at the inner bound. Their ownerless dust recombines experiential elements, each refulgent bucket of rain reaving a cord in water, capable of emotional content and nothing exempt from the mill of the earth.

(Early November)


***

Thirty-four thousand seconds since beginning, when the sun is small and confined to a bundle of clouds, the spider returns unconcerned to her silk.

There are tendencies of voice stretching from clrestory to pavement; there are processes that hold in a life without architecture. It doesn't matter. After the history of music as a system of thought, indulge me with your tongue: a sensual approach to the intellect, written out backwards. I listen for signals...

... and I can't discover enough. This body of knowledge, rigged with ligaments, will ravel a rope of endings, ephemeral all afteroon in wishful suspension.

(Late October)

Concept - Shirioshi Monologues

This book will be a collection of monologues to be performed in public on crowded trains. The aim being to confuse, entertain, enrapture – generally to allow anybody who to create a viral fictionalisation of the carriage space for the entertainment of other passengers. A range of different approaches to the monologue concept will be included from stories about unrequited love to the ramblings of mad people – we will not include any work that specifically reference acts of terrorism (the ‘I’ve got a bomb’ scenario), however any other themes will be accepted.

The book will be published as an ebook (numerous formats) and distributed for free. It will also be published via a POD  service (or physically if funding is available) for individuals wishing to buy it. The cover will be black.

Brave readers will then asked to perform readings in trains and (if possible) record get somebody to discretely record them doing it. Videos can be uploaded to Youtube and then linked via the Shirioshi Monologues Blog.

The Lemonade Girl

Daisy-May is stripping the lemon pips off of her knuckles with her thumbnail, like a knife carving seeds outta peppers. Drawing a wrist cross her forehead, she’s gritty-all from the dust-wind. It’s getting up strong, she can feel it, like how static crackles through drying bed-sheets touching each other on the line. Zinging down her bones, like all else from Cherrybrook. Daisy-May is born of the earth, the sand and the dust. Mothers will be thumbing patterns in pie crust, wringing grease from their palms, gathering in their daughters and peeking through their shutters for their men folk, who are all but rodeo-riding spooked and bucking cattle to safety in preparation. The heat, it’s baking into her chicken-white skin, her chest heavy, sweat making a nest at the back of the tangled candyfloss of her hair, a dew of it balls down her temple, splashes her bare shoulder.

Refreshing.

A star winks in the strip-light bright of the day, the star becoming metal which becomes a truck in the flickering distance. Daisy-May is aching for the road, the possibilities it suggests, of getting out of this town.

The truck is rearin up close, chucking up spumes of sand like a raging bull. And Daisy-May, well she’s fetchin to leave. But then there was Donovan to think about, and Mickey-Joe. Sweet, good, kind Mickey-Joe with his gravy brains, as momma was want to say, God rest her. Daisy-May knew there was more to him than that, his lumbering figure and baby boy face. If not for him, she could mount up on a shiny white truck and ride out of town, leave her home, Donovan and her past behind.

Daisy-May remains on the dirt, the only girl about in the disintegrating town, resolute at her makeshift stall. Scallops of her lemon skirt twitch against the back of her knees, the stirrer clinking at the neck of the juice jug. Only sound for miles, it seemed.

As the truck slows, the girl with the chicken skin battered in freckles which were not dainty but fat like hundreds of miniature overstuffed cake cases and the lemon scallop skirt, the strangest pink-red candyfloss hair, buffeting in the breeze, as is the jug stirrer, rocked by the sniffing, snuffling exploring wind, whispering of lands far away, picks up her smile as the truck stops in an explosion of hog-squealing metal and grit sparks and says, ‘Well hey there, sir, y’all thirsty? Got some juice ready. 20 cents a cup.’

‘Darlin, I got some juice right here. Won’t even charge if you’re good.’

‘And where is it you be headin, sir?’

‘The question missy is where you be headin.’

The dust-wind is creeping strong, stronger and Daisy-Mae stands tall, spine straight as a schoolmistress’ cane. The wind pulls back her hair, smoothes over her freckles and curls around her body. The jug stirrer disturbs the buzz of the heat and that sound, that slither inside the dust-wind. It throttles the stirrer livid like a very rattler itself.
Daisy-May reaches out her forefinger, short nails, all practical, and stills the stirrer with a quiet but distinct tink. Her scalloped skirt is uniform, unmoving. The smile gains, eyelashes bat, her lips pull apart, ‘Oh no sir, you’re quite wrong. That ain’t at all the question.’

The truck driver goes bull eyes. He starts for her and it’s then the sky does crack.

Read more / Buy

P.F.C

You’re pretty fucking cool

- with your red-rimmed sunglasses

tucked in your hair

and your funeral eye make up

and skid-mark lips.

You’re pretty fucking cool

your top –

            fashionably slashed.

That ring through your outty.

That stab-wound appendectomy.

Hitching up your skirt

and showing me

the bruises on your thighs.

Showing me your cunt.

You’re pretty fucking cool.

The Unconscious Collective

Hello -

We are The Unconscious Collective. This is our work.