Painting a Statue of a Woman

Imagine:
the task of applying a coat of paint
to the statue of a woman; 
it would be to apply oneself 
to each and every aspect of her beauty, 
at once frail and human,
at once ethereal and undying; 
it would be a love letter to her, 
even if the statue represented 
no soul on Earth, 
and a love letter to the world; 

and yet all they would see is, 
oh, the statue is duck-egg blue now; 
yesterday, it was white; 
they would not understand the tenderness 
in each brushstroke, 
nor how it felt to take 
each aspect of her unworldly, 
worldly beauty in hand
and show that you understood it; 
understood its posture and geometry, 
understood its relationship with light 
and the human eye; 

the whole time, you would be whispering 
I know, I know, I know, 
I know; and she quietly, not looking up at you, 
would say: I love, I love, I love, 
I love; and you would ask - how could you not? 
You are made of love 
as all works of art are acts of love, 
love letters to the world 
written in self creation and self sacrifice, 
in genuine communication,
with the intention of being overheard; 

every second you would fear 
putting your brush in the pot of duck-egg blue paint 
only to find it dry, 
yet your brush would find it ever lubricious, 
new-smelling with the just-made odour of fresh paint, 
and as you completed the painting, 
you would find yourself wishing 
the gentle agony would never end;

once finished,
you would refrain from kissing her
still-wet duck-egg blue cheek,
and gather up your paints
and painting paraphernalia
as the brightness eased from the light, 
and you would go home, 
your bicycle wheels squealing,
and you sighing in the crepuscule, 
rejoicing that you're going home, 
lamenting that the day and all the work is done.

Solving the Surface

Just as the people could turn their heads in unison
and form a bold new republic,
the waters of the ocean could shift
and reveal the shale and rushes 
of a new continent,
a glistening child world,
knitted together
from corals and ancient whale song

And now knowing that,
you gaze entranced at the water's surface,
wondering what seashell charm
could compel it

Knowing it is possible because it can be seen
in the privacy of the mind's garden
and so also knowing:
the way exists

Shimmering footprints of moonlight hint at 
the great choreography that would enthrall 
the ocean's heart, 
so that it willingly surrendered:

brooding soil, 
swallowed islands, 
lost coins, 
monstrous skeletons,
surf,
mermaid-bearing delirium,
scatterings of stolen light,
fallen mountains, 

and all the other treasures
to which your hand is connect
when you but place it beneath the surface
of the gurgling, swaying, 
salt-crazed waters

And so you stand at the railing,
your eye stroking the soft blue-grey fabrics
and gently coaxing
the birth of a new world

Your Love

Your love is like a red, red knife
and a case of mortuary ice.

Your love is like a smoking pistol
known to the procurator fiscal*.

Your love is like a hangman's noose
just above some swinging boots.

Your love is like the ground up glass
concealed within a cooked breakfast.

Your love is more to me than life
and wholly worth the sacrifice.

*A Procurator Fiscal is a public prosecutor in Scotland with the responsibility, i.a., to investigate all sudden and suspicious deaths.

Never So Quiet

As I played the opening bars of my new composition
An old man stood in the darkness and began to dance
A curious dance in which he would spread out one hand
And then the other
And then there was a curious bowing routine
In which he would tilt forwards and backwards
And raise his hat to the young woman in the row behind him
It was mesmerising as a candle in a darkened room
It was profound as broken silence
It was tragic as a fugitive's fatal error
It was a dance none of whose steps or movements he would be able to recall
Though he stared at his polished shoes
And gazed at his beautiful old man's hands
And when he realised at last
That he had not performed the dance
It had been the other way around
He smiled and bowed until his forehead touched the soil of a distant shore

A Comparative Reading of Two 'Completely Different' Books

 

 

I usually read a few books at the same time, and there is typically some significant differences between them, along with some minor similarities or connections. However, considering the statements of Chicago police officers in the early 90s and the articles of faith of a 16th century Friulian heretic, I don't think I've ever read two books quite as different as these.

What Cops Know was recommended to me by my crime fiction tutor Dr Steve Somethingorother pretty much twenty years ago. The Cheese and the Worms was the subject of episode 458 of the History of Philosophy podcast, an extensive and truly world-class education on its subject.

On similarities, they both provide verbatim accounts, and they both deal with the delegation of the right to violence by the state. In the 90s, a conviction for murder in Chicago carried the death penalty, while poor Menocchio was eventually burned at the stake for heresy at the age of 67.

On differences, reading The Cheese and the Worms teaches you that a careful examination of a person's ideas along with their available reading materials (unusually for a 16th century miller, Menocchio was literate) can yield the definite identification of the influences on those ideas and the individual's particular way of understanding what they perceive.

As such, The Cheese and the Worms unintentionally provides the frame for reading What Cops Know. As I read the statements, I listen for the voices of their trainers, and the filters they apply to their experiences. The extent that What Cops Know provides a frame for The Cheese and The Worms is most probably that it provides an insight into the minds of the priestly interrogators who compelled Menocchio to detail his extraordinary theological cosmogony.

I can almost hear them speaking in the voice of a Chicago police officer, 'The most unbelievable thing I ever saw on the streets was this guy. He'd got together a bunch of books and cooked up this whole religion about the world being made of cheese, and angels springing out of it like worms. I think about that a lot sometimes.'

Individually, as a writer, Menocchio has provided a wonderful real-life model for a working class rebel whom I can see taking centre stage in a sequel to my debut novel Glassworld: Out of the Darkness (2024), while the paradoxes inherent in the multiple perspectives of What Cops Know are particularly fertile for writing.

For example, Chicago police officers blame victims. They blame them for being in their own homes and for not being in their own homes, provocative of the violence committed against them in either case, and they accuse murderers of blaming their victims too. Such self-contradictions have provided a basis - at least in thought - for a wonderfully creepy piece of true crime existentialism, which I have added to the stack of short stories I will write one day.

In conclusion, reading is one of the most immense pleasures of my life, not only for the works themselves but for the curious and unanticipated interplays that occur between them.