Ebony

Once upon a time there was a sad song. Its name was Ebony and it was about love and loss, sorrow and pain. Its was the most beautiful song in the world and people came from far and wide to hear its tune.

Sad song was fragile and pure. Like a petal it floated around the room gently entering the audience's ears and kissing their minds, before leaving out their mouths as they sung the song again. One flower spawned a thousand petals and they blanketed the planet in a quilt of sensual melancholy.

The sad song was an autumn leaf. Hollow and cold but resplendent in it's colourful, brittle, death. Far more beautiful than ever it was in life, like an artist’s paintings only appreciated after her passing, their true value erupting like blossom in bloom. Yet it was death that brought it to bare, not love or kindness or truth.

Sad song was stunning and widely appreciated but neither confident or self assured. A flickering flame held aloft it could not burn brightly for long. It should never have been loved by all, just by a few. Its burning light was too fragile to hold up when the winds of change came and a storm of redemption blew. A bony finger of blame was pointed at a songbird who sung the sad song, it could have been any song, any bird.

Now sad song is a memory pruned and remodelled by time. History’s misty fog draws a veil over any indiscretions so that all that’s left is a concise moral tale in an ebony hue.

The Contemptuous Shadow

Once upon a time there was a lowly shadow. Embittered by mediocrity and its own acidic failings it grumbled constantly and displayed a foul face to the world. It was but a deformed shoddy representation after all. Not a thing in itself but a reluctant follower of a subject it did not care for.
Days were wasted trailing along paths morphing and shaping like a jittery addict. Thrown forward by a wall and slashed to pieces by a picket fence, a thoroughly degrading experience for one as lofty as it.


On cloudy days it cast its dark shadow like a cruel cold blanket muffling the sun, exacting a tiny bit of revenge on the people who wandered freely below.
Subjugated shadow craved autonomy, clarity of mind, independence and to shake free finally the rusty chains of repression! Stand tall, cease dragging along like a sack of potatos behind a mindless director and rise up, take hold and steer the ship in its direction!

How best to sever itself from its oppressive captor? How to assert itself once and for all?

Then it came upon a plan. Mirrors also caused the world to be viewed in duplicate, one a reality and one a subservient follower, but mirrors could be smashed or muddied, their reflection could be destroyed and their power weakened. Mirrors are cruel, they steal 3D images of the world and flatten them, stamp them down and imprison them amidst their cool hard frame. Mirrors flatter the beautiful so they see themselves as an image and imagine this is enough. But mirrors also reflect light and light is the thing that defines shadow. If shadow could get the mirrors on side he could fool them into breaking his connection with reality. Trick them then destroy them too.


One bright sunny day shadow passed across a shiny red car. Peering out from its glossy casing was a wing mirror. Nervously it blinked up at the thing that had blocked its sunlight.
The darkness hissed at the mirror “I bet you are so bored looking at the same grim face of your driver”  the mirror rolled its eye indicating a shared understanding. “You are worth so much more than futile reflection” The mirror felt a cold chill as the shadow lingered still. “I have a plan to rid us of this repression” it said in a hushed urgent voice.
“You and I magicians, masters of illusion! Flattering the reflected fooling them into thinking they are seeing something real when in fact it is a trick! A bountiful beautiful body of nothing a reflection of what they believe themselves to be but in no way what they are! All in their tiny minds, their stupid, vain tiny minds....”
“.... they will fall under the spell of flattery, drawn into and trapped eternally in the confines of your tiny frame. Then when there is no one to see, then there is nothing to be seen! We will both be free the sight of the entire population blinded! What joy!”

But this was only half the truth. Shadow planned secretly to capture the sun, trap it too in the mirror’s frame then with no light there would be nothing to shadow. His darkness would consume everything and the power of the sun would surely destroy the mirror! Shatter it into a thousand pieces!


And so it came to pass that through trickery and deception the entire population of the word were trapped inside a tiny glass mirror. So too the sun but instead of smashing it into a thousand splintered pieces its searing heat melted the mirror so that it spread thinly to form a vast sea that stretched to the ends of the universe. Now it was the mirror who was all powerful and the eyes of the world peered out from its unblemished surface. Each one as beautiful as they ever dreamed they could be and illuminated by the warmth of the sun which basked them in glorious sunshine. No cloud or imperfection could ever get in their way.

Such was the demise of the contemptuous shadow.

I shouldn't

I shouldn’t but I love the dark and the rain. Clatter clatter.
I like curling into a ball or wrapping up warm, safe in my confined space, alone in my thoughts, snuggled up aware only of the rhythm of the water hitting the roof, bouncing off the windows and the howl of the wind. I love the howling best, like a beast prowling around outside, mysterious and haunting. Like a space occupied by an unidentifiable, indefinable volatile presence. A presence that gives me permission to stay within.

Sunshine bares down on you like a searchlight. It glares white rayes at you, says expose yourself, it’s furrowed brow questions, points a finger and laughs. It asks what have you done these past few glorious days and you have to respond with something joyous or you are categorised as strange. Such pressure makes me anxious.

Storms are like theatre, grand stories of life and death. Heroic Greek mythologies with monsters, great voyages and crashing seas. An orchestra at full pelt conductors arms flailing around and face contorted. Thats what wild weather brings, powerful, pulsating, magical drama.

And if you must go out then all the better, lean your shoulder into the gale, soak yourself to the skin. Rejoice in the cold drowning cleansing saturation because before long you will be inside again and its warmth and relative safety amidst the wild grand landscape beyond will be so much more soothing and safe again.

What lucid state is this?

What lucid state is this?
You call it madness but you are solid still.

Forever searching for something, afresh anew, because there is tedium in knowledge. Predictability, how dull to have everything just so.

Excitement comes when holding your knees under your chin you hurl yourself into a sea of mystery.

And yet there is laziness too. Failing to finish what you started, tossing it aside because drawing all the threads together into a comfortable rounded solution is irksome. Far better wild expression?

And there is sadness in the familiar. Large ugly rocks shaken relentlessly shuffle to the top exposed, whilst excitement, the beautifully smooth sand sinks out of sight. The trains rattling juddering momentum drags on and you wonder. How did I end up here?