tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53050945384772956052024-03-14T03:41:07.522+00:00V for Visual
A space for writing and image, and where I think through my eyes as well as via words.v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-81295838517210626722019-02-14T17:46:00.000+00:002019-02-16T00:06:09.416+00:00<br />
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<b style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(29, 33, 41); color: #1d2129; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 11px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Blue Velvet Valentine</span></b><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">My hand an improvised blindfold,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I jab the pin into the magazine, <i>Blue Velvet</i>! Roses</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">of wide screen dimensions remind me of Poppleton,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">every house a castle, behind the hedge,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">corpse facades, a cockroach once</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">behind the bed. Dorothy Vallens, red mouthed, glamorous</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">in a black sheath, the boy enticed, the cinema like an ear,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">his hand at times, a blindfold on my eyes,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">as though he wants to be my dad, the fabric</span></span></div>
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of the seat, on the bareness of my leg,</div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">my dress slid rather up quite high.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">The Bass Clef in Hoxton, next chance event. An ooze</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">of saxophone, Southern Comfort and jazz,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">we go out instead of having sex, I never had it,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">you, my slick haired computer whizz, on placement year,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">pressed beside me by the stage, ’50s attire, a Blues Brothers</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">style, whilst I crush (then) on long-haired men, paisley shirts,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">patchouli oil, looking past - we so out of step -</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">for something else, letters, once the best of thrills,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">the postman so keenly awaited in Poppleton,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">the neat blue Quink, ghosted, insignificant</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">after I moved into halls. There were other boys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">*</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">So, we both rate David Lynch - could this perhaps<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">be enough? Was I once your favourite girl? Fake blonde fringe</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">in cornflower eyes, I could have been your Laura Dern</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">but, aged nineteen, so what do you expect? We drifted apart.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">A dice throw - <i>cinema!</i> another Odeon,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Wild at Heart</i>, with someone else,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">but you could have played as Sailor to my Lula had you<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">not gone and got married, texting on the internet,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">because you’re not allowed to meet or phone. You</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">are so owned.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="s1"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile I tidy basement rooms for another man,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">I first met outside the White Hart pub. One day, he said,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">‘You’re on probation, by the way,’ strangely dark,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">a twisted thrill.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">And are you the robin watching from a fence,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">the game I try to play, but fail?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Years later, happens to be Valentine’s,</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">as I listen to the Angelo Badalamenti score,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">all night, remember seats like velour gloves,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">you beside, a popcorn crunch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">I could have had you, couldn’t I? </span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">Remember </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">that night we first met</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;"> eyes beneath the Tudor beams</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">at Club Gemini in York? How you charmed me with a</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">wedding offer I declined? Ca</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">me next day to see me</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;">in daylight at the bookshop</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: small;"> </span>where I worked, a Saturday.<br />
'Look, the ball’s in your court,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">anyway,' you said, alone together in the book-lined<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">room overhang above Stonegate, never thinking<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">this is it. </span></span><br />
<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">By now we could have had a row </span></span>of David Lynch<br />
Blu-Ray discs, a house, a paddock, and a horse.</div>
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</style>v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-83023227249112292422017-10-30T03:24:00.000+00:002018-06-24T19:20:49.778+01:00PARIS in PHOTOS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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PARIS</div>
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Shakespeare and Company bookstore</div>
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The Museum of the Vie Romantique</div>
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Pigalle</div>
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Enghiein Les Bains</div>
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Paris at Night</div>
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-34629933479064439222017-09-12T02:27:00.003+01:002017-11-12T10:30:08.796+00:00Reading Keats in Hospital<br />
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Reading Keats in Hospital</b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">A poem for Salvador </span></i></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">(</span>now<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> age 19)</span></i></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">From the pillows of the sofa, you avert your gaze.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">You no longer want us to talk. At desk or stove, I am peripheral.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">Don’t you remember those times before? I wonder as I make</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">your preferred dessert. The sting </span>of the bedroom light, as I checked</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">your complexion, debating the edge between ash white and blue,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">you like a fish out of element, about to die, the calls to emergency lines.</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">the paramedics in the night and a babel to you of words like - ‘pneumonia’,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">‘collapsed lung’, ‘asthma’ and ‘oxygen supply’, the surreal gadgetry</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">in the back of the ambulance van, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">the ‘time travel; journey through some kind of portal we later said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Do you remember when I read you John Keats?</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You, buoyed on medical attention,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Prince of a half empty ward, nebuliser attached to your pearl white face,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">dislodged to make your requests, then back in place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A range of drinks and half-finished snacks on the swing out table,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">cherry stones used to passed down rhyming chants,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">quoted like half forgotten mantras.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A sealed view of the London Eye.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Film screen windows so vast and pristine that it felt like we</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">floated as though beyond portal or boundary line,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">hospital robes like angel gowns granted</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">by some unexpected God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">A vermillion zig-zag charting every abyss of relapse and recovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You steamed and mute finding a route like a gilded thread,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">a was through the Odes,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">restricted to hospital trolley and bedside chair,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">as I read of nightingales, and ‘mellow fruitfulness’,</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">sand waves and sorrow glutted on a morning rose.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Surely your delight is measured against those airless, melancholy days.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now you post pictures of the skate-park in Camden Town on the Internet and</span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I do not ask. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I picture your face like a bud of possibility, </span>the oxygen mask in place,</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8px;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">as I read aloud, ‘And full grown lambs loud bleat from hilly borne.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">I do not say.</span><br />
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-89095657114926884812017-01-09T18:38:00.000+00:002018-06-24T20:01:25.524+01:00Cefalu - the town and the beach / Palermo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
CEFALU</div>
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PALERMO</div>
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<br />v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-26821411869895431922017-01-09T13:38:00.002+00:002017-01-20T15:27:35.791+00:00Reading Gaol - 7th December 2016 at the 'Artists and Writers inside Reading Prison' exhibition (Artangel)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Quotations from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde </span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'I have lain in prison for nearly two years.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> O</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ut of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have passed through every possible bout of suffering. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Better than Wordsworth himself I know what Wordsworth meant when he said:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>'Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>And has the nature of infinity.' '</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> The original door of Oscar Wilde's cell exhibited in the former chapel more recently a rec room at </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Reading Youth Offenders'Institute</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> Stairways at Reading Prison</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'To regret one's own experience is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie onto the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.'</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Abdallah Bentaga - one of Genet's lovers</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Marlene Dumas</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jean Genet by Marlene Dumas</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dxvLGXFuYz0/WHOOaaTSUYI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/XUce2yDyVNMQtpLCGx5kTFqhZXI5xW2CACKgB/s1600/20161202_143334.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dxvLGXFuYz0/WHOOaaTSUYI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/XUce2yDyVNMQtpLCGx5kTFqhZXI5xW2CACKgB/s320/20161202_143334.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <i style="text-align: center;">Oscar Wilde and Bosie </i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">by Marlene Dumas</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The first set of books sent to Oscar Wilde at Reading Gaol after a new prison governor, Nelson, agreed that he was to be permitted reading material.</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wWz1vLxJsnM/WHOOaWao43I/AAAAAAAAE6Q/LeEZ5F5T7OUcvsePQX5sOe0Zvsvfomq0wCKgB/s1600/20161202_143147.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wWz1vLxJsnM/WHOOaWao43I/AAAAAAAAE6Q/LeEZ5F5T7OUcvsePQX5sOe0Zvsvfomq0wCKgB/s320/20161202_143147.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A further set of books sent to Oscar Wilde at Reading Gaol</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YF01G2vWE4Y/WHOOaerBUyI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/_CpWI7BRHKMFPHUfcGTGrx99gOoRHa_tACKgB/s1600/20161202_143134.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YF01G2vWE4Y/WHOOaerBUyI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/_CpWI7BRHKMFPHUfcGTGrx99gOoRHa_tACKgB/s320/20161202_143134.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A series of photos taken in Oscar Wilde's former cell </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">on the day of my visit on 7 December 2016</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7VKMlK0lUD8/WHOOaeaMscI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/wTCpmuYHWGc9IXcOwrnbEWqtSqT8aEK0wCKgB/s1600/20161202_135509.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7VKMlK0lUD8/WHOOaeaMscI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/wTCpmuYHWGc9IXcOwrnbEWqtSqT8aEK0wCKgB/s320/20161202_135509.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>"Many men, on their release, carry their prison about with them into the air, and hide it as in a secret dialogue in their hearts and at length, like poor poisoned things, creep into some hole and die,'</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>'I used to live entirely for pleasure. I shunned suffering and sorrow of every kind. I hated both. I resolved to ignore them as far as possible; to treat them as modes of imperfection. They were not part of my scheme of life. They had no place in my philosophy. My mother, who knew life as a whole, used often to quote to me Goethe's lines...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>'Who never ate his bread in sorrow,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>who never spent the midnight hours</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Weeping and watching for the morrow,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>He knows not yet, ye heavenly powers.''</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'I now see that sorrow, being the supreme emotion of which man is capable, is at once the type and test of great art. What the artists is always looking for is the mode of existence in which soul and body are one and indivisible, in which the outward is expression of the inward; in which form reveals... Truth in art is the unity of the thing with itself.'</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>'There is before me so much to do that I would regard it as a terrible tragedy if I died before I was allowed to complete at any rate a little of it.'</i></span><br />
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<i>Reading prisoners in the Victorian age</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>'There is not a single, wretched man in this wretched place along with me who does not stand in symbolic relations to the very secret of life. For the secret of life is suffering.'</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JNiVuVOKuUI/WHOOaYUDLXI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/mA-VKpK5qIMP0SBu3urdzIunTcFUrIzSgCKgB/s1600/20161202_134428.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JNiVuVOKuUI/WHOOaYUDLXI/AAAAAAAAE6Q/mA-VKpK5qIMP0SBu3urdzIunTcFUrIzSgCKgB/s320/20161202_134428.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>A lithograph of Reading Gaol</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Photos around the exhibition</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> The former cell were prisoners were held </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">before being sent for execution at the gallows</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Me at Reading prison</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J4awiJxsyWQ/WHOOaaZQ5II/AAAAAAAAE6Q/QO_M03BQtgE6Wr9FBrsjfXefClaTPJ0twCKgB/s1600/20161202_132856.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J4awiJxsyWQ/WHOOaaZQ5II/AAAAAAAAE6Q/QO_M03BQtgE6Wr9FBrsjfXefClaTPJ0twCKgB/s320/20161202_132856.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A poster I found</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Photographs by Nan Goldin on the theme of desire,</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">her boyfriend of the time as the model and inspiration,</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>shown adjacent to </i><i>the photograph of Bosie.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'Bosie'</span></i></div>
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Random photos from around Reading prison</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">7th December 2016</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Reading The Ballad of Reading Gaol</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> on the train home</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Notes: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When left for the exhibition at the former Reading prison last December, it is honest to say, that my awareness of Oscar Wilde was scant compared with the perception I had as I travelled back home, a train ride, that is, from Reading to London, during which time I read <i>The Ballad of Reading Gaol</i> and began to read <i>De Profundis</i>, the encounter with Wilde at the prison somehow set in high relief against my first experience of his temperament and ideas, as reflected in the words and satire of T<i>he Importance of Being Earnest</i>. st as Cecily Cardew in a costumed read through of the performance I remember to this day the exchanges of Cecily and Gwendolyn and considered taking a diary with me to read over on the train in true Gwendolyn style: <i>'One should always have something sensational to read on the train...' </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I had been around fifteen at the time and my mother had provided a Biba Maxi dress she must have bought in the late sixties but with the puffed sleeves and tight buttoned bodice as well as the frills on the hem it sufficed at least to make me feel rather like a Cecily, and I found the irony and elegance of the play rather tantalising, an interest in Wilde at that stage was engendered. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Years later (last autumn in fact) I attended an exhibition at Le Petit Palais seeing the original manuscripts of <i>The Picture of Dorian Gray</i> and <i>De Profundis </i>on display, as well as the controversial calling card of the Marquis of Queensbury alongside notes pertaining to the legal case against Wilde and only then did I really begin too factor the significance of Wilde's imprisonment into my comprehension of this writer's entire oeuvre. By chance, I then read an article about the exhibition I have documented above organised and curated by Artangel, a group that exists to take art into unusual places, and having passed time in the former cell of Oscar Wilde and traversed the grounds into the prison and on exit, I feel I have a measure of comprehension regarding how radically altering his time in such confines must have been, the hooded masks worn on the yards at hard labour, the silence and no eye contact rules, for example. The content of De Profundis is entirely comprehensible in the light of the fact that he was sequestered from the world that he had previously satirised, and he had there encountered such a level of suffering and hardship for the first time, no chance, there of opulence or elegant society. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Out of all the exhibits I think the sculpture, by Jean-Michel Pancin, which includes Wilde's original cell door seemed perhaps the most problematic and perhaps in the light of the way it lodged itself in my mind problematically, intriguing. To my mind the door is effectively re-contextulised here to suggest perhaps a shrine or altar of a kind, the door illuminated in a vast space and raised on the plinth, leading to ideas about the deification, at least the myth-making, surrounding artists and writers. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A further reflection:</span></i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic;">"Jean-Michel Pancin has created a poignant sculpture for the chapel: a concrete plinth in the same dimensions as the cells at Reading, with the original door from Wilde’s cell at one end. The door stands in the brightly lit room (one of the building’s less oppressive spaces) as a symbol of confinement, the barrier to freedom that Wilde would have likely stared at for hours on end when denied books and papers." Rachel Steven in The Creative Review</span>v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-51703808422122228122017-01-08T19:30:00.003+00:002017-11-27T18:47:27.180+00:00Mad Love (a visual poem)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mad Love </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><i>on Epiphany </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.24px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">Afraid of the January void, of these empty</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;"> days divest now of adornment,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">the time, the space, like a vacuum sucking me down, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">almost </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">a week in, offspring </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">at school, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">past the sugar rush of new year wishes,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">I take a double-decker </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">to a friend's basement in N16, the back seat,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">as a sage to a holy abode, and he fed me on spelt-flour bread </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">with brie, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">a supper of korma, aubergine, fine shavings of coconut, with</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">tumeric and Rosé. I gleamed the ash-smudged coffee table</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">until we could see again through the glass, and went for sea salt. And</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">he taught me nutrition - he likes to teach -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">and, sacred but not religious, we celebrated an Epiphany of sorts, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">he more radiant than ever in the warmth </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">of the fire budding out of the beeswax, glowing in the red glass</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">holders I had given for Christmas, scarlet stars shimmering...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">How much should we do for a beloved?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Could I be as a classical ballerina before an auditorium,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">feet latticed into pointe pumps, toes blistered, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">muscles honed,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">trained to make an artless show of hidden degradation,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">dancing at the shrine of love's temple, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">expressions as if </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">painted on? </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">A body like a glossy lid. If I were a dancer,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">my teacher would be Isadora, the name of both dancer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">and the girl I miscarried, whilst he would be teacher of love.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">He likes me barefaced with natural grace, my un-kohled eyes </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">undisguised. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">I did not learn artifice from him. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">He cannot be blamed for any prior</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">contortions. And did he teach me how to pose?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">To apply cosmetics? What to wear?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Or to eat less to try to stay thin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">Let's suppose we were strangers on a train, passengers, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">drawn together, initially just passing the time, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">I would want him </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">to stay on forever, skip every station, to the end. I would (I know) try</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">to keep him on, would agree to things, may, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">for example, wait </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">for him in the washroom cubicle, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">(depending on the state of it), </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">permit </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">access to my leg, stocking tops, beneath the table between,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">but like to think I would not agree to everything, and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">even if I was deep in I would not, for example, dance naked on the train,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">on the top of the train, to please anyone. Also, I'd be ready </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">for him to descend</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">at any time. (That paradox of non-attachment and desire they train you in.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">And never would I </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">threaten to throw myself onto the tracks if he should wish to descend.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">No blackmail. But who wouldn't chase the rewards? The thrill of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">the game. Only on the days </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">I'm not wanted would I, my new default setting,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">read Proust's <i>In Search of Time Lost </i>(not wishing to regret lost time).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">On other days, I travel home on the bus and watch an abstract </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">of lights through the rain blur and dazzle as a multiple of fire-ball stars -</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">fairy-lights randomly spaced along invisible threads,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">mad flowers, splurges of spilled ink in fluid...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">the image of my love-shot mind, stripped of sense and vocabulary.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">strung as if in twinkly love jewels, mouth quieted,<br />kissed </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">out, </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">mind </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">stunned, </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">as if </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">some invisible love-God secretly spiked the drinks,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">as if I'm not of the real world, as if angelic and wordless, unwilling </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">to limit my mind with the common currency of words, abstracted...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">And I don't know how to give this up - w</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">ill do anything, almost, for </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium; letter-spacing: -0.24px;">such (pain-numbing) euphoria - for the man - we as spirits -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">each others' medication, but I like to think I would not<br />lattice my feet and get blisters for the sake of love.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">I could not be a classical ballerina,<br />not even the prima donna,<br />not if I damage<br />my feet.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Simone Weil</i></span></span></div>
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-69644379043820749972017-01-04T04:52:00.002+00:002017-01-09T13:10:57.483+00:00The Freud Museum and Garden, Hampstead, London<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When I first encountered the couch brought from Vienna, and on which Freud's patients had reclined, my first thoughts cohered around the privilege which wealth can afford, in contrast to the relative suffering of poorer men and women who must try handle their emotional problems with the assistance of an over stretched health service or avail the support of their friends and family. The Freudian couch manifests (to my mind) as more than mere furniture or the place where a patient would recline, but as an altar to analysis. I did not feel a shred of resentment before the richly robed chaise, as therapists of any kind need to pay bills and must charge for their services, and national health services surely cannot run to installing their patients on couches draped in exotic rugs, or comfortable seating in private living rooms, on the funding available, and we cannot surely expect this to be the case. At most, from my limited experience of trying to set up in therapy via a team based around my practice, we may have the offer of a chair beside a desk in a rather cold, functional looking room. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> I have been to assessments in surgeries where I am frequently disturbed by random staff entering the room to look for items they need, no thought at all for the fact that I could be divulging private, personal history or that they may break the free associative flow, which, I think, seems an unimaginable luxury of an idea that we accept is mainly happens in private practice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After ten months I have not succeeded to set up any therapy although I was on a waiting list for a service based at Camden Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Service. The offer of therapy appears to have entirely fallen through and I had no correspondence to confirm the pending appointment pencilled in for January. The point of contact has sent a reply saying 'out of office' until February.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I am seriously thinking then of wandering up to the Freud Museum on occasion, and perhaps sitting in the garden, imagining that I am talking to a deceased Freud. The couch of course will be out of bounds, set within a roped off area...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n06/ange-mlinko/little-philadelphias" style="color: #0076cc; text-decoration: none;" target="new">H.D.</a>, who travelled to Vienna in 1933 to undergo analysis with Freud, described the couch used by Freud in his practice as a psychoanalyst, as an <i>"old-fashioned horsehair sofa that had heard more secrets than the confessional box of any popular Roman Catholic father-confessor in his heyday, the homely historical instrument of the original scheme of psychotherapy, of psychoanalysis, the science of the unravelling of the tangled skeins of the unconscious mind."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I think it is rather fascinating to consider how it must feel to recline on this couch and find ourselves somehow transported as if through a portal into a world where our conscious processes have less hold over us permitting a freer flow of thought from a kind of hinterland place in the mind usually less accessible. Apparently (according to Christopher Turner in an article written for the LRB) the antique objects in his cabinet were described by him as 'dirty old gods' and it seems that they point as if to an inverse deity in the usually hidden, in the personal space, totems of all that is potentially adverse and unacceptable and not part of formalised convention and religion but something quite apart from all this. They are companions in the dark confessional of the chamber of psychoanalysis which permits the analysand freedom we assume to wander at will in through the hidden recesses of the mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The couch was given to Freud by a patient, Madame Bevenisti in around 1890 and then travelled after him from Vienna to London. The rug which covers it was an engagement present from his cousin, Moritz, a trader in oriental antiques.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The study in which the couch is located is filled with antiquities from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Orient. Freud likened the unconscious to archeological finds which are durable and unchanging like the unconscious where as the conscious mind is more subject to change with conscious material somehow 'wearing away'. According to Freud, the objects had been found in a tomb and had been preserved through burial.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In his library which adjoins his study, where the couch is located, there are many books by authors such as Goethe and Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Mann and Anatole France, and several paintings, including <i>Oedipus and the Riddle of the Sphinx</i> -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I wonder often about the horse and rider image and how it is facing left when usually we interpret and read texts and images from left to right. This suggests an almost Zen koan disruption of reason to my mind, a provocation that sends the mind on a journey of a kind that is less predictable than that of purely rational, ordered processes.</span></div>
v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-79008492894245504492016-12-24T05:09:00.001+00:002016-12-26T14:59:36.651+00:00Christmas Eve 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Christmas Eve</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>December 2011</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">By the crib we are gathering,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">reflecting as much on the miracle of the shared endeavour</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to believe in this story of light from light, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as on the nativity story itself...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Later the wine and the cake prolong our communion</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">some of us hanker for the remaining crumb</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and linger, still for the last word of Christmas Eve conversation</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">before splitting like stars broken from a constellation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rain washed cobblestones,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">half past midnight games of tag,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as evergreens strung with a million lights,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the silent stars, silver and remote as unheard bells.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Crossing the piazza,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the children wander and disperse,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">euphoric,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Covent Garden suddenly theirs...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the performers and the crowds </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as though magically vanished </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">elsewhere,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">leaving it all for us,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a shimmering fairground, finally unwrapped,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">hide and seek, lights reflected like elusive</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">sapphires on the gleaming stone dark</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ground. Eyes in the night,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the colour of Mary's dress.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Losing count...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Diving amongst barrows and folded stalls</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">adolescent offspring</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">vigorous as robust angels</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">leaping and flying out of hidden lairs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Drury</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One in the morning -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">gifts shorn of coverings </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">as sheep of their wool</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a flurry of paper and unfurling bow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Long awaited births.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-55603910788707930182016-12-17T17:53:00.002+00:002016-12-24T09:37:20.424+00:00Pink Cigar - at the Mau Mau Bar - Portobello Road<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Bass player - Sam Rutland</div>
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Whiplash Jackson - lead vocalist and Sam Rutland</div>
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Guitarist - Edd Whyte<br />
Drummer - Sid Mayall</div>
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Whiplash Jackson</div>
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The Mau Mau Bar in Portobello</div>
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<br />v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-58728578023502691462016-11-12T01:25:00.001+00:002017-10-30T03:27:15.315+00:00Photos of a Day trip to Hampstead Heath<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>A Sculpture by Henry Moore</i></div>
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<i>Looks like a happy relationship.</i></div>
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<i>He has climbed a ladder and is giving her some cherries.</i></div>
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<i>In Kenwood House</i></div>
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<i>The Guitar Player - by Vermeer</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px;">Historical note: On February 23, 1974, this painting was stolen from Kenwood House, and held for a ransom of over $1,000,000US in food to be distributed on the Caribbean island of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenada" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" title="Grenada">Grenada</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px;">, or else the painting would be destroyed by those who had stolen it.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 11.2px; white-space: nowrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px;">It was recovered by </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_Yard" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" title="Scotland Yard">Scotland Yard</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px;"> in the cemetery of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Bartholomew-the-Great" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" title="St Bartholomew-the-Great">St Bartholomew-the-Great</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px;">, in London's financial district, on May 7, 1974. Although the painting showed signs of dampness, it was otherwise undamaged.</span></i></span></div>
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<br />v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-1407659481668851512016-11-05T01:30:00.000+00:002017-10-30T03:30:53.929+00:00Paris and northern suburbs by night - Tuesday 1st November<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Revisit to a hospital in Epinay-sur-Seine </i></div>
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<i>where I was once a patient</i></div>
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<i> </i></div>
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<i>Waiting for a tram at Epinay-sur-Seine</i></div>
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<i>Fountains at Enghein-les-Bains</i></div>
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<i>Reflections in the Lake at Enghein-les-Bains</i></div>
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<i>At the Bar - Polly Magoo in Paris around 22:30</i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--jlFekLEAvE/WB00Nqc8WEI/AAAAAAAADr4/Z-qFWJRdSC8bb1zfASWyGw73THYSW8gdwCKgB/s1600/20161101_215453.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--jlFekLEAvE/WB00Nqc8WEI/AAAAAAAADr4/Z-qFWJRdSC8bb1zfASWyGw73THYSW8gdwCKgB/s320/20161101_215453.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Shakespeare and Company bookstore at night</i></div>
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<i>St Julien de Pauvre</i></div>
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<i>The Church of Saint Severin</i></div>
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<i>The hotel where I stayed in summer... ^</i></div>
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<i>Shakespeare and Company bookstore...</i></div>
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<i>The River Seine by Night</i></div>
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<i>A few photos of my return home...</i></div>
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<i>Leaving France...</i></div>
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<br />v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-49735069005183759122016-11-05T01:11:00.001+00:002017-10-30T03:29:51.793+00:00A Tuesday Afternoon in Paris - Le Petit Palais, and the Musée de la vie Romantique<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>At Le Petit Palais</i></div>
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<i>The Picture of Dorian Grey</i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ArR02NyKmjI/WB0r6baoq-I/AAAAAAAADrA/9V6_SrMCGMkozLYpKDXETiONoaiJjXoAQCKgB/s1600/20161101_143934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ArR02NyKmjI/WB0r6baoq-I/AAAAAAAADrA/9V6_SrMCGMkozLYpKDXETiONoaiJjXoAQCKgB/s320/20161101_143934.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<i>A painting of Salomé by Gustave Moreau</i></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eU9U_QNhdrQ/WB0r6YazfzI/AAAAAAAADrA/un-E9rTUCvUtCMNyoxFlhVg0cWcqiFfTACKgB/s1600/20161101_151149.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eU9U_QNhdrQ/WB0r6YazfzI/AAAAAAAADrA/un-E9rTUCvUtCMNyoxFlhVg0cWcqiFfTACKgB/s320/20161101_151149.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<i>Statues in Le Petit Palais</i></div>
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<i>in the Paris Metro</i></div>
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<i>Looking for the Musée de la Vie Romantique</i></div>
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<i>La Musée de la Vie Romantique</i><br />
<i>Rue de Chaptal,</i><br />
<i>Pigalle</i></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VOtlPRNeLYU/WB0r6Y2thlI/AAAAAAAADrA/vTvdNTrOJ5wCoVsPCm2N4KhICKKQ_38xQCKgB/s1600/20161101_155151.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VOtlPRNeLYU/WB0r6Y2thlI/AAAAAAAADrA/vTvdNTrOJ5wCoVsPCm2N4KhICKKQ_38xQCKgB/s320/20161101_155151.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4YraGA_vAgQ/WB0r6Z6inLI/AAAAAAAADrA/mB0Rvzj6i1YRJ9bfH5EVMq2ki2e3t2VTgCKgB/s1600/20161101_160057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4YraGA_vAgQ/WB0r6Z6inLI/AAAAAAAADrA/mB0Rvzj6i1YRJ9bfH5EVMq2ki2e3t2VTgCKgB/s320/20161101_160057.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>A painting of Sapho by a 19th century artist</i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4qN8--YKYpA/WCbdC5-5JzI/AAAAAAAADw4/0cnRdNKBgZEGZSMZIxNVjWX9fnB04dPGACKgB/s1600/20161101_160323.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4qN8--YKYpA/WCbdC5-5JzI/AAAAAAAADw4/0cnRdNKBgZEGZSMZIxNVjWX9fnB04dPGACKgB/s320/20161101_160323.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<i>A staircase in the 'Museum of the Romantic Life'</i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B7PMBpVU-2Y/WCbdZ59k2GI/AAAAAAAADw8/7622GumdzwcsozAnpk7pyjJgLXEUN-PEgCKgB/s1600/20161101_162130.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B7PMBpVU-2Y/WCbdZ59k2GI/AAAAAAAADw8/7622GumdzwcsozAnpk7pyjJgLXEUN-PEgCKgB/s400/20161101_162130.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<i>In the Baudelaire exhibition</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-58V2m8F_wxU/WB0r6f3BuQI/AAAAAAAADrA/DVYb9SMqBswsIi7XdqHXU8Vbe3T6X88IgCKgB/s1600/20161101_160702.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-58V2m8F_wxU/WB0r6f3BuQI/AAAAAAAADrA/DVYb9SMqBswsIi7XdqHXU8Vbe3T6X88IgCKgB/s400/20161101_160702.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Baudelaire by Courbet</i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9yiLMBG0oDg/WB0r6cUYouI/AAAAAAAADrA/8j5-k_j5eaUv8XmZQ9AW8cFWgHnI3l9twCKgB/s1600/20161101_161101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9yiLMBG0oDg/WB0r6cUYouI/AAAAAAAADrA/8j5-k_j5eaUv8XmZQ9AW8cFWgHnI3l9twCKgB/s400/20161101_161101.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>A letter written by Baudelaire </i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eMkeR-E3EgA/WB0r6UmEfgI/AAAAAAAADrA/tIZhUQ2vm4sp_uT_ryFOS7wzOea_GijoACKgB/s1600/20161101_162216.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eMkeR-E3EgA/WB0r6UmEfgI/AAAAAAAADrA/tIZhUQ2vm4sp_uT_ryFOS7wzOea_GijoACKgB/s400/20161101_162216.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Early editions of Baudelaire's books</i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-idWKUXAL2WE/WB0r6Wz3u6I/AAAAAAAADrA/YNuRYUN0Dqwe3FRTr-mGCu3r4H-rCxTQwCKgB/s1600/20161101_161315.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-idWKUXAL2WE/WB0r6Wz3u6I/AAAAAAAADrA/YNuRYUN0Dqwe3FRTr-mGCu3r4H-rCxTQwCKgB/s400/20161101_161315.jpg" width="400" /></i></a></div>
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<i>Original manuscript of the Épilogue of Spleen de Paris</i></div>
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<i>Baudelaire</i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r9H99uWpWHk/WB0r6XOOUTI/AAAAAAAADrA/NdOEuvlj9EgarZ6lWHLHAOuGhmkSjNXqgCKgB/s1600/20161101_164652.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r9H99uWpWHk/WB0r6XOOUTI/AAAAAAAADrA/NdOEuvlj9EgarZ6lWHLHAOuGhmkSjNXqgCKgB/s320/20161101_164652.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Paintings of George Sand</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5f1dPER1D80/WB0r6dM8_lI/AAAAAAAADrA/kw2IEDwZPY8ms9zlxhZ1KKuVj0bfAIxcwCKgB/s1600/20161101_164728.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5f1dPER1D80/WB0r6dM8_lI/AAAAAAAADrA/kw2IEDwZPY8ms9zlxhZ1KKuVj0bfAIxcwCKgB/s320/20161101_164728.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U2x7HzZidSs/WB0r6ZABtAI/AAAAAAAADrA/TbWNc253Zxkqq5yfOo_30AbT_tW_Lb1KQCKgB/s1600/20161101_164807.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U2x7HzZidSs/WB0r6ZABtAI/AAAAAAAADrA/TbWNc253Zxkqq5yfOo_30AbT_tW_Lb1KQCKgB/s320/20161101_164807.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>A cast of the hand of George Sand</i></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cBJzRYnS3eQ/WB0r6aeH6LI/AAAAAAAADrA/xRYkaH1hzy4Lheb6gP4zhFIlW2dCkUxDACKgB/s1600/20161101_164749.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cBJzRYnS3eQ/WB0r6aeH6LI/AAAAAAAADrA/xRYkaH1hzy4Lheb6gP4zhFIlW2dCkUxDACKgB/s400/20161101_164749.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>From the jewellery collection of George Sand</i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G0LwaMXlRVg/WB0r6fO4S8I/AAAAAAAADrA/U0c8DAjx4ag48EQQI7JES5GHQN9uIXaYQCKgB/s1600/20161101_164845.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G0LwaMXlRVg/WB0r6fO4S8I/AAAAAAAADrA/U0c8DAjx4ag48EQQI7JES5GHQN9uIXaYQCKgB/s400/20161101_164845.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>A cast of the hand of Chopin and the arm of George Sand,</i></div>
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<i> with a copy of an unfinished manuscript, </i></div>
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<i>left unfinished because of illness</i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iOjyzdnPF_Y/WB0r6VdR0nI/AAAAAAAADrA/q_dMtZ88fzIMACNuGVYoDdGZph30DRGggCKgB/s1600/20161101_164902.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iOjyzdnPF_Y/WB0r6VdR0nI/AAAAAAAADrA/q_dMtZ88fzIMACNuGVYoDdGZph30DRGggCKgB/s400/20161101_164902.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_lgQ0PaQ9QY/WB0r6eRxtWI/AAAAAAAADrA/t5hd99opOTEJuoSnnpNwOOQ8ap5i7g9gACKgB/s1600/20161101_164837.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_lgQ0PaQ9QY/WB0r6eRxtWI/AAAAAAAADrA/t5hd99opOTEJuoSnnpNwOOQ8ap5i7g9gACKgB/s320/20161101_164837.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hwb_PJt_WtI/WB0r6U5kHVI/AAAAAAAADrA/L5GxLCeeppEiqVHyGAN749UCiDIm4EciACKgB/s1600/20161101_165002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hwb_PJt_WtI/WB0r6U5kHVI/AAAAAAAADrA/L5GxLCeeppEiqVHyGAN749UCiDIm4EciACKgB/s400/20161101_165002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>La Mort d'Harold</i></div>
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<i>The Death of Harold 1837</i></div>
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<i>Theodore Gechter (1796 - 1844)</i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pkg4EpenJdg/WB0r6XZkFxI/AAAAAAAADrA/C6igqvZoTYI91rdZOHnJHvC39lOO94cqwCKgB/s1600/20161101_165052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pkg4EpenJdg/WB0r6XZkFxI/AAAAAAAADrA/C6igqvZoTYI91rdZOHnJHvC39lOO94cqwCKgB/s320/20161101_165052.jpg" width="180" /></i></a></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Faust in his cabinet</i></div>
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<i>Arry Shaffer </i></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--kBeaBM59Yc/WB0r6crv6QI/AAAAAAAADrA/anBaZU7keBwFvCQU5vsLYjg5c-YMLYE6QCKgB/s1600/20161101_165157.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--kBeaBM59Yc/WB0r6crv6QI/AAAAAAAADrA/anBaZU7keBwFvCQU5vsLYjg5c-YMLYE6QCKgB/s400/20161101_165157.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<i>Leaving the museum around 6pm</i></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SSc74Xin-Zc/WB0r6VxA9WI/AAAAAAAADrA/TGXqRbxryDITa3ZMs1WhtPsv-7vy_3OuQCKgB/s1600/20161101_165454.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SSc74Xin-Zc/WB0r6VxA9WI/AAAAAAAADrA/TGXqRbxryDITa3ZMs1WhtPsv-7vy_3OuQCKgB/s400/20161101_165454.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TnwVpmfQzNc/WB0r6RHmwII/AAAAAAAADrA/Z7bcE40pwXIw9L4pju6Q6jRI1r2LjVoUQCKgB/s1600/20161101_170055.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TnwVpmfQzNc/WB0r6RHmwII/AAAAAAAADrA/Z7bcE40pwXIw9L4pju6Q6jRI1r2LjVoUQCKgB/s400/20161101_170055.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6oBQzItF6G4/WB0r6c5k6gI/AAAAAAAADrA/SmggmyBXJDcdAdi9AXpJyfZ7S4crVqW9wCKgB/s1600/20161101_170154.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6oBQzItF6G4/WB0r6c5k6gI/AAAAAAAADrA/SmggmyBXJDcdAdi9AXpJyfZ7S4crVqW9wCKgB/s400/20161101_170154.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-37359960287650733522016-11-04T23:18:00.003+00:002018-06-25T00:03:02.024+01:00A Tuesday Morning at Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris - 1st November 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HBt_hzk3mo8/WBsR0SPs-UI/AAAAAAAADfs/6CX5j4qNh0cy7KTQs6WCVw830T_y8d6_ACKgB/s1600/20161101_073920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HBt_hzk3mo8/WBsR0SPs-UI/AAAAAAAADfs/6CX5j4qNh0cy7KTQs6WCVw830T_y8d6_ACKgB/s400/20161101_073920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Pere Lachaise Cemetery at sunrise</i></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XKkyc4raeWU/WBsR0dIIJJI/AAAAAAAADfs/I5QzXlAuQJQszGsd4tdFm83pzVH_g2yFwCKgB/s1600/20161101_074003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XKkyc4raeWU/WBsR0dIIJJI/AAAAAAAADfs/I5QzXlAuQJQszGsd4tdFm83pzVH_g2yFwCKgB/s400/20161101_074003.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PJqA9AxwRGs/WBsR0UkwVeI/AAAAAAAADfs/uFTJYznlxLQ2CJnppUfcz5855-_ZV1KjgCKgB/s1600/20161101_074054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PJqA9AxwRGs/WBsR0UkwVeI/AAAAAAAADfs/uFTJYznlxLQ2CJnppUfcz5855-_ZV1KjgCKgB/s400/20161101_074054.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yv5NNS0pgnQ/WBsR0TrlGrI/AAAAAAAADfs/ts8NThlwzDQL3wxfhx-6aNV0LLwxcCpaQCKgB/s1600/20161101_074221.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yv5NNS0pgnQ/WBsR0TrlGrI/AAAAAAAADfs/ts8NThlwzDQL3wxfhx-6aNV0LLwxcCpaQCKgB/s400/20161101_074221.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>II</i></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Breakfast time at </i><i>La Factorie,</i></div>
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<i>Boulevard Mémilmontant</i><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gOeI--QHO6o/WBsR0WMRg3I/AAAAAAAADfs/GSgnYjRjklsbinTwmQMulOg9fkxbGdW_QCKgB/s1600/20161101_085432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gOeI--QHO6o/WBsR0WMRg3I/AAAAAAAADfs/GSgnYjRjklsbinTwmQMulOg9fkxbGdW_QCKgB/s320/20161101_085432.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>III</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Pere Lachaise Cemetery</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jqnUXeMKZoo/WBsR0Vp2NKI/AAAAAAAADfs/QtdKp97UjZ8vnaqb2u1ZyTcgEd0581tcwCKgB/s1600/20161101_090617.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jqnUXeMKZoo/WBsR0Vp2NKI/AAAAAAAADfs/QtdKp97UjZ8vnaqb2u1ZyTcgEd0581tcwCKgB/s400/20161101_090617.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L5CwcXpYh_U/WBsR0WnkGlI/AAAAAAAADfs/UeNv80nDmCUoFbDov6QbjlXcCxGQK6VFACKgB/s1600/20161101_090639.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L5CwcXpYh_U/WBsR0WnkGlI/AAAAAAAADfs/UeNv80nDmCUoFbDov6QbjlXcCxGQK6VFACKgB/s400/20161101_090639.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0j4fe7upYgk/WBsR0ToVolI/AAAAAAAADfs/Tj24JvfTnt4Qur-vZsC-9Dj7eSUICKsYQCKgB/s1600/20161101_091250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0j4fe7upYgk/WBsR0ToVolI/AAAAAAAADfs/Tj24JvfTnt4Qur-vZsC-9Dj7eSUICKsYQCKgB/s400/20161101_091250.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gXYfRJ-Htmk/WBsR0WqEwvI/AAAAAAAADfs/pcBCrB0raus8SUy9-6ZzLOMzk-Ct7v40wCKgB/s1600/20161101_091719.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gXYfRJ-Htmk/WBsR0WqEwvI/AAAAAAAADfs/pcBCrB0raus8SUy9-6ZzLOMzk-Ct7v40wCKgB/s400/20161101_091719.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UBxmpmlP1gA/WBsR0S10hLI/AAAAAAAADfs/ohFA4YVTOeMku6xTGae7y6KAREFhFWdhQCKgB/s1600/20161101_091740.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UBxmpmlP1gA/WBsR0S10hLI/AAAAAAAADfs/ohFA4YVTOeMku6xTGae7y6KAREFhFWdhQCKgB/s400/20161101_091740.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GvKIYA-Cdgw/WBsR0WBIzxI/AAAAAAAADfs/z-vVdYoi3yQG_eJEEdn2sRsQYJsnx4G6wCKgB/s1600/20161101_091800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GvKIYA-Cdgw/WBsR0WBIzxI/AAAAAAAADfs/z-vVdYoi3yQG_eJEEdn2sRsQYJsnx4G6wCKgB/s400/20161101_091800.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KCD_QvIvKtk/WBsR0Q8tCHI/AAAAAAAADfs/w1wJfRVoAP4YVQ3TYmB7D4UIUDAoKwvCwCKgB/s1600/20161101_091830.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KCD_QvIvKtk/WBsR0Q8tCHI/AAAAAAAADfs/w1wJfRVoAP4YVQ3TYmB7D4UIUDAoKwvCwCKgB/s400/20161101_091830.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--eJz9CJUP8U/WBsR0a_ZzkI/AAAAAAAADfs/2RagwxyWw5UV-S7RUk0gZXD_hCiAvWtAgCKgB/s1600/20161101_091924.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--eJz9CJUP8U/WBsR0a_ZzkI/AAAAAAAADfs/2RagwxyWw5UV-S7RUk0gZXD_hCiAvWtAgCKgB/s400/20161101_091924.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Colette</i></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--MgKYstFxyY/WBsR0WTkWPI/AAAAAAAADfs/roiGq6QcM_0a8_YJ-9q_7jpRCby5-_JXQCKgB/s1600/20161101_092127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--MgKYstFxyY/WBsR0WTkWPI/AAAAAAAADfs/roiGq6QcM_0a8_YJ-9q_7jpRCby5-_JXQCKgB/s400/20161101_092127.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XxKqvY_CHBY/WBsR0axqv5I/AAAAAAAADfs/d_f3q6uSjRIc9avlzKiOGiUQkZXbM4-LgCKgB/s1600/20161101_092217.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XxKqvY_CHBY/WBsR0axqv5I/AAAAAAAADfs/d_f3q6uSjRIc9avlzKiOGiUQkZXbM4-LgCKgB/s400/20161101_092217.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t_x9S5Hf6gU/WBsR0R06BYI/AAAAAAAADfs/D0Q1qbLrqfUurD6LGRWzBCrHWidiXOhIQCKgB/s1600/20161101_092250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t_x9S5Hf6gU/WBsR0R06BYI/AAAAAAAADfs/D0Q1qbLrqfUurD6LGRWzBCrHWidiXOhIQCKgB/s400/20161101_092250.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E0aQ-kOOyXs/WBsR0VAA7II/AAAAAAAADfs/s3SMGd0-kggJ4sBqnM0Y148DJdqTRLkgwCKgB/s1600/20161101_092451.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E0aQ-kOOyXs/WBsR0VAA7II/AAAAAAAADfs/s3SMGd0-kggJ4sBqnM0Y148DJdqTRLkgwCKgB/s400/20161101_092451.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-beBSCKej4WY/WBsR0ajCovI/AAAAAAAADfs/k3LKRYvgmnIF-VKGkYMvLw8TnBmN3YArQCKgB/s1600/20161101_094257.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-beBSCKej4WY/WBsR0ajCovI/AAAAAAAADfs/k3LKRYvgmnIF-VKGkYMvLw8TnBmN3YArQCKgB/s400/20161101_094257.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Marcel Proust</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oA8GurakfQY/WBsR0cTS1VI/AAAAAAAADfs/47f6LSu5PugG97csXL2XuvKK5KPwATGVgCKgB/s1600/20161101_094022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oA8GurakfQY/WBsR0cTS1VI/AAAAAAAADfs/47f6LSu5PugG97csXL2XuvKK5KPwATGVgCKgB/s400/20161101_094022.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TaSxv_wF5dw/WBsR0bs1ghI/AAAAAAAADfs/ERVrfJGxGlo5Kv4RiAdWyK9xzbYL8fsCgCKgB/s1600/20161101_094557.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TaSxv_wF5dw/WBsR0bs1ghI/AAAAAAAADfs/ERVrfJGxGlo5Kv4RiAdWyK9xzbYL8fsCgCKgB/s400/20161101_094557.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-55J2RLB_GUQ/WBsR0anpNjI/AAAAAAAADfs/B__0cy_DDPs5u7osXl2D7l2GIJcJ8sKXQCKgB/s1600/20161101_095356.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-55J2RLB_GUQ/WBsR0anpNjI/AAAAAAAADfs/B__0cy_DDPs5u7osXl2D7l2GIJcJ8sKXQCKgB/s400/20161101_095356.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Sarah Bernhardt</i><br />
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SjLJatLmB90/WBsR0TI2m7I/AAAAAAAADfs/wOHdRjDnyaAKxtcwF2sufDnG_uKDKL_dgCKgB/s1600/20161101_095829.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SjLJatLmB90/WBsR0TI2m7I/AAAAAAAADfs/wOHdRjDnyaAKxtcwF2sufDnG_uKDKL_dgCKgB/s400/20161101_095829.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uPFfqadR3rs/WBsR0SUW4hI/AAAAAAAADfs/w4Gr3i6BNasyIPq8oQGgtS568myu1EwHwCKgB/s1600/20161101_100104.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uPFfqadR3rs/WBsR0SUW4hI/AAAAAAAADfs/w4Gr3i6BNasyIPq8oQGgtS568myu1EwHwCKgB/s400/20161101_100104.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dwI082ThDMM/WBsR0YKq_qI/AAAAAAAADfs/iwkxYKh98bE9YV1pbU3AO9l0RSqsJHA5QCKgB/s1600/20161101_100127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dwI082ThDMM/WBsR0YKq_qI/AAAAAAAADfs/iwkxYKh98bE9YV1pbU3AO9l0RSqsJHA5QCKgB/s400/20161101_100127.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nsss50jDY2M/WBsR0Y-mMiI/AAAAAAAADfs/sTYTBR6ztzgziaHmtvaeH6epnXFducbzgCKgB/s1600/20161101_100135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nsss50jDY2M/WBsR0Y-mMiI/AAAAAAAADfs/sTYTBR6ztzgziaHmtvaeH6epnXFducbzgCKgB/s400/20161101_100135.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yc-cV5nOgVo/WBsR0aSg5TI/AAAAAAAADfs/-XkkyQAG09MqBfU_agtg5iK8Z8_D0RNoQCKgB/s1600/20161101_100221.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yc-cV5nOgVo/WBsR0aSg5TI/AAAAAAAADfs/-XkkyQAG09MqBfU_agtg5iK8Z8_D0RNoQCKgB/s400/20161101_100221.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-21_RIHLcNnU/WBsR0c3dXGI/AAAAAAAADfs/vVyTeunnYLkRBdNzjYfMzN8X_KFkAtT8gCKgB/s1600/20161101_100300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-21_RIHLcNnU/WBsR0c3dXGI/AAAAAAAADfs/vVyTeunnYLkRBdNzjYfMzN8X_KFkAtT8gCKgB/s400/20161101_100300.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rDh16D4htII/WBsR0ab6ugI/AAAAAAAADfs/Q17ya4nL_noFmfVXIrawtqC8-6-F3CdewCKgB/s1600/20161101_100637.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rDh16D4htII/WBsR0ab6ugI/AAAAAAAADfs/Q17ya4nL_noFmfVXIrawtqC8-6-F3CdewCKgB/s320/20161101_100637.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3QIDNnaqvkY/WBsR0TM2ydI/AAAAAAAADfs/dFDYe0Lmi7w59ySKkd6nYh3-qeT5MJhnQCKgB/s1600/20161101_100704.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3QIDNnaqvkY/WBsR0TM2ydI/AAAAAAAADfs/dFDYe0Lmi7w59ySKkd6nYh3-qeT5MJhnQCKgB/s320/20161101_100704.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Sarah Bernhardt</i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y_ns2rTLdFw/WBsR0f-5c5I/AAAAAAAADfs/9tKLGazZBSgZNvsuOaR9Rs57xYpETlS0ACKgB/s1600/20161101_100754.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y_ns2rTLdFw/WBsR0f-5c5I/AAAAAAAADfs/9tKLGazZBSgZNvsuOaR9Rs57xYpETlS0ACKgB/s320/20161101_100754.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xyii53VCEc8/WBsR0VLjBFI/AAAAAAAADfs/vuUQqy0smkkksOY1R1SqVAKySVd4Q0oNACKgB/s1600/20161101_100814.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xyii53VCEc8/WBsR0VLjBFI/AAAAAAAADfs/vuUQqy0smkkksOY1R1SqVAKySVd4Q0oNACKgB/s320/20161101_100814.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MpPOztdVoJI/WBsR0TiwJfI/AAAAAAAADfs/ilxiB9BGDPYe8bCPtK-9Hj6DPWHtGs92ACKgB/s1600/20161101_101010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MpPOztdVoJI/WBsR0TiwJfI/AAAAAAAADfs/ilxiB9BGDPYe8bCPtK-9Hj6DPWHtGs92ACKgB/s400/20161101_101010.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YBsKRni8Kx4/WBsR0UVqcMI/AAAAAAAADfs/uuQHnsuUR1wOeVkcbZDU7LVwnHTzpBfNgCKgB/s1600/20161101_101028.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YBsKRni8Kx4/WBsR0UVqcMI/AAAAAAAADfs/uuQHnsuUR1wOeVkcbZDU7LVwnHTzpBfNgCKgB/s400/20161101_101028.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>V</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GiZYHL4tZ3k/WBsR0dodAQI/AAAAAAAADfs/L-ZULXyvrdU2SUQahuNIjJt3MiC0KN8-ACKgB/s1600/20161101_104820.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GiZYHL4tZ3k/WBsR0dodAQI/AAAAAAAADfs/L-ZULXyvrdU2SUQahuNIjJt3MiC0KN8-ACKgB/s400/20161101_104820.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>At Bar le Ramus</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>drinking Kir</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HlGGUvswMRU/WBsR0XMM5TI/AAAAAAAADfs/VGUU765IR3kmDE-Zr1qIZPryFLVYIekIACKgB/s1600/20161101_104957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HlGGUvswMRU/WBsR0XMM5TI/AAAAAAAADfs/VGUU765IR3kmDE-Zr1qIZPryFLVYIekIACKgB/s320/20161101_104957.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FnMqtT_OpuM/WBsR0aKAkUI/AAAAAAAADfs/80la0-U5PBshLiW0Rcm_Kx5MGDCUfg9wACKgB/s1600/20161101_105002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FnMqtT_OpuM/WBsR0aKAkUI/AAAAAAAADfs/80la0-U5PBshLiW0Rcm_Kx5MGDCUfg9wACKgB/s320/20161101_105002.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iTqPrvrUNrs/WBsR0WHmNbI/AAAAAAAADfs/h3erqTpZI982ShbR2e3bBm4FAukDq7N8ACKgB/s1600/20161101_105017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iTqPrvrUNrs/WBsR0WHmNbI/AAAAAAAADfs/h3erqTpZI982ShbR2e3bBm4FAukDq7N8ACKgB/s320/20161101_105017.jpg" width="320" /></i></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Bartenders </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pGIPMtNxBEI/WBsR0X2T3FI/AAAAAAAADfs/IBZG1pgBDtwyV6wguciNHaxnBoDZZNzlACKgB/s1600/20161101_105031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pGIPMtNxBEI/WBsR0X2T3FI/AAAAAAAADfs/IBZG1pgBDtwyV6wguciNHaxnBoDZZNzlACKgB/s400/20161101_105031.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>V</i></div>
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<i>In memory of Tutsi victims in Rwanda</i></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EMqCiO5LFNM/WBsR0ZRSb4I/AAAAAAAADfs/IsE8nvutsbsIVzLNzxnsUPW1-8HhsXMfgCKgB/s1600/20161101_111356.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EMqCiO5LFNM/WBsR0ZRSb4I/AAAAAAAADfs/IsE8nvutsbsIVzLNzxnsUPW1-8HhsXMfgCKgB/s320/20161101_111356.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i> Flowers scattered on the grass </i></div>
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<i>Oscar Wilde</i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VKMnJMsxSqQ/WBsR0Swja9I/AAAAAAAADfs/dRAxCQjQHKgPHR9QDlivkdPKJGitzsmEACKgB/s1600/20161101_112948.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VKMnJMsxSqQ/WBsR0Swja9I/AAAAAAAADfs/dRAxCQjQHKgPHR9QDlivkdPKJGitzsmEACKgB/s400/20161101_112948.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>in memory of the victims of Bergen-Belsen</i></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CLnr0kqiRog/WBsR0XcJSgI/AAAAAAAADfs/3CeShSiUw4krZQm1pCrFAvdLgaLwyViYwCKgB/s1600/20161101_113004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CLnr0kqiRog/WBsR0XcJSgI/AAAAAAAADfs/3CeShSiUw4krZQm1pCrFAvdLgaLwyViYwCKgB/s400/20161101_113004.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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<i>in Memory of Prisoners of War in Ukraine</i></div>
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<i>a view from the cemetery</i></div>
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-59323517037224769552016-10-21T02:02:00.001+01:002017-10-30T03:33:23.431+00:00Paris Runaway Triptych - Part Three <div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>IV</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Notre Dame bells awoke me at nine, such a <i>complete relief</i> from being disturbed at around 8am every morning, except one day, always a Sunday, by the loud demolition work in London (a local sorting office being gutted near my home only the listed outside to be preserved whist the interior is caved in, requiring hour after hour of loud machine damage day after day)... I tried to count but wondered if I had missed the first few peels. I lay there perhaps for an hour after that, writing, and reflecting on how this experience of being woken by the sonorous, timeless sound of the bells, must be carried with me, <i>within </i>me, so when the demolition work starts off every morning I shall have the memory of an alternative, and some hope of resilience in the face of the urban nightmare of building destruction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The night before, I had slept without a single disturbance. No adolescent buzzing at the intercom, keys forgotten, or takeaway food delivery summoned by one of the children or anything else by way of rupture to the quietude. No gangs of friends or child awaking in the night and clattering around the galley kitchen leaving that kind of disorder you view with that ambiguous, 'well, at least they can cook, they just need to learn to clear away now,' kind of feeling as you set about restoring the place to its former state. Anyway, I had not slept so soundly as that for many years. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> That morning I wrote for about an hour. And once I had written the entry (each one is headed with the time of day unless I did not know what time it was, in which case I had to guess) I dressed, brushed my teeth with the Colgate I had remembered to bring, teeth brushing, the one thing I do with vigilance and frequency, ate nothing and wandered around to the bookstore, creaking up the narrow stairs and playing the piano for a while, a few pieces from an Associated Board Grade Three collection on the top of the piano with a slew of other music... I shuffled through, then hesitantly played a</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> rather nostalgic rendition of a Grade Three piece I remember playing as a child at my father's house, when when the lid had not been locked, that is, with the little well hidden key (mentioning no names in case of reprisal but it was not my father who did this), my frequent arpeggio practice perhaps tiresome, I wasn't sure as the piano-locking was never explained. I turned round then on the stool, and met 'Sandy', presently based in Hungary, her son in China with his father whilst she teaches and travels in Europe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> 'Did you live here?' she asked. 'Yes, I stayed on this bench here, where I am sitting now,' I said. 'It's lovely to be here again, in a place once my home.'</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pkGb9Pbr9I0/V9p41LpVfjI/AAAAAAAAB8s/GlkVP8pizJ8M_yFd_BrB0nh30k-8XavvwCLcB/s1600/20160802_205615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pkGb9Pbr9I0/V9p41LpVfjI/AAAAAAAAB8s/GlkVP8pizJ8M_yFd_BrB0nh30k-8XavvwCLcB/s400/20160802_205615.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The map-sketch of the walk to Montparnasse</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Outside the bookstore</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A few photos then taken on my cell-phone - aware of the fact that I had only forty-eight hours in Paris and no time to loiter - I then set out on the trip that was my main reason for the stay in Paris, filling up a bottle with water at the fountain, and embarking on the route to Rue Cabanis, the destination: St Annes Hopital Psychiatrique... I will explain this in the memoir when finally it is put together, the reason for the trip and what happened in the past, as far as I understand it, that is, and remember, and for now, just a brief summary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Until that point and I had consumed nothing, so decided to order three 'tranches' of toast with some salmon fumé near the Musée de Cluny with some parsley sprinkled on and then coffee and croissant at a café called <i>Le Sun Café</i> on Rue de la Sorbonne, glad for this one euro offering. I then made my way, stopping briefly in the Place de la Sorbonne...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">covering the length of Boulevard Saint Jacques on foot, turning left by a railway line and right off this wide street, with a greengrocer where I bought a plum, and next right to St Annes in Montparnasse, the map I had inked out the night before, perfectly comprehensible and I found the place easily entering via a supervised desk. It is <i>'interdit</i>' say the signs (not permitted) to take pictures in the grounds or vicinity of any of the wards, set out on Allées around the site, each named after a writer. The hospital museum was closed, so I feel I must return again in the autumn, but at least I have few pages of notes already to hand and I feel like I retraced some of that journey that day by ambulance...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the café beside the bookstore drinking home-made lemonade with my French friend (from the ride-share)</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "\22 georgia\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> she asks me about the book I was writing and I said, 'The book is called <i>Forty-eight Hours in Paris</i>, and I happen to be forty-eight and I am writing a diary entry every hour and trying to recall something that happened for every year of my life as I wander round and memories of the past are triggered...' She leafs through. We talk for around two hours then decide to leave. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">'Shall we go?' we say, and then we cross the bridges to</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "\22 georgia\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> Le Marais. Numbers and formula, structuring devices and constraints seem secure and grounding, and I rely on them I think to curtail the anxiety of too much choice, although later I often abandon the criteria which were the starting point.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I enter a church, the Church of St Gervais, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">not religious</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> yet taken up with reflections on my Catholic stage, I won't (for purposes of concision) dwell upon here. How strange, anyway, to leave the Church so far behind me and avoid attending mass as if taking the eucharist is the sin instead of not, and yet feel almost nostalgic for the aesthetics and the liturgy and the refuge from the outside world. In the church there is a statue, <i>Notre Dame de Bonne Déliverance, </i>apparently found in a house at 22, Rue de Roi de Sicile, on the night of Pentecost, 1528, the head of the madonna and the infant damaged by a 'fanatic Huguenot', says a booklet on the church history, Francis I arranging a procession to bring her to St Gervais for restoration and display. That day I became almost obsessive about historical details, however random and apparently irrelevant, a distraction of a kind, and every distraction is a wanted tangent away from myself, and away from the unfinished memoir that lies unfinished still in London, that third of a million words across three volumes, not yet properly ordered or checked... away, crucially from the self I no longer liked, had never liked all that much, and could forget about with a constant flux of new historical facts to somehow wonder at and patch together. It seemed a meaningless kind of activity, like a jigsaw of a kind, but then different as there was no picture on a lid I was following and this was about a collage of the random, and a path back, in a way, through different stages, but then out through all these doors, forward as they swung back behind me leaving me not turning back, but continuing as if on some pre-laid out trail.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">V</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After the church, the street is a blast of light again. I don't know where I am heading and have no plans, but dive soon into a vintage clothes store on the corner of Rue de Roi de Siçile, the door open onto rows of stacked felt trilbies, and racks of knee length ball gowns, voluminous taffeta skirts and little bodices, shoes with pointed winkle-picker toes like my mother wore as a girl. In Paris, one of my rituals has become vintage clothes shopping, it does not really matter where, the arrondissement is irrelevant and it is more about change, this habit I think originating in the purchase of a green dress for ten francs, on one of my early trips to Paris form a stall at the Port St Ouen flea market, worn for my poetry reading at Shakespeare and Company bookstore. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Another Paris ritual - seeing films and Paris is the place where I first saw </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Wings of Desire</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Unbearable Lightness of Being. </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Often I reflect on that title. Is it our unbearable lightness, and the flightiness of our minds that creates such intense desire to pin it down?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> At the vintage shop, I purchase three tops from the '3 euros' an item box. My entire summer wardrobe has cost me quite little this year, partly thanks to these finds, (the only other two purchases from Urban Outfitters in London, one of those items a black vest top which laces down the front), last worn on a visit to a friend's house with black shorts and hold-up stockings with bows on the front, having become tired of the many weeks at home, writing, hour after hour and almost without reprieve of any kind, generating a third of a million words, but still to be edited, the afternoon chez lui (under the pretext I would help with the spring cleaning) all entirely perfect, I felt, in contrast to the months as recluse, except that the next week we were, once again, estranged, another derailment (so it seemed) of carriage from track, which somehow, <i>at the time</i>, shattered everything, flagging up bringing me down for a while as if from a height suddenly to ground level. Perhaps these early derailments will serve to make a later reunion all the more poignant, or maybe I just needed time alone, as if something lay still incomplete. As if I had some mechanism in me still had to repair perhaps, and had to work out how to fix it, before it was going to work out... always some theory that it will work, that it can work if somehow I change myself. My mistakes and never his. My apology. My attitude doubt a barely disguised grovelling whenever I feel I need comfort. Though I have resisted for months at a stretch. I have tried.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Anyway, in the shop I am at least distracted by the racks of clothes and this idea of re-invention and I feel like I did at nineteen or twenty back in York Vintage with the rows of dresses and the boxes of old jewellery, items to rifle through whilst you compose another self, like a piece of music which has not a note on the stage and you are starting from a tabula rasa. And I think those early trips to clothes stores set a precedent in a sense. I like the yellow silk blouse. Hadn't Baudelaire worn a daffodil? And daffodils are yellow, so does not the blouse then tenuously connect me to Baudelaire? Does it matter? If, on our heads we are Baudelaire reincarnated, who is to steal that 'madness'? It is benign and harms no one but perhaps ourselves... And, there are times where</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> almost any tangent is<i> </i>on the good scale and not the negative,<i> </i>that leads you beyond the walls of a myopic, self-hating state, so in Paris I just followed any random idea of non-sequitur because I have two days to do as I please. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The red dress, had to be left, as it didn't fit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I continue, passing number 22, where the madonna statue had been find, to give some rough sense of direction before venturing further into the unknown streets north east of the Beaubourg, vaguely planning some future novel and scouting for locations where it would one day be filmed, and addresses where the characters would live. The memoir in fact is starting to feel like it is finished, and like I was stepping out of it like a dress that was falling about me to the floor... Perhaps when I pick it up again it will feel different, and I will remake it in a slightly different way, like an outfit could be reassembled in a different way, but still has the same essential components.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>A window in Rue de Roi de Sicile</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>At Café Le Sevigne - nothing I really want to eat, not even the Filets de Hareng or the Parmentier de Canard. I considered the expensive Salade de Mer, with crevetttes, petrouches (scallops), grapefruit, pineapple and papaya.. Anyway, I feel I must wait until I have sold at least one novel or play for such extravagance... And of my hates is eating alone. I'll order another coffee; my main sustenance of the day being sugared coffee. Trying now to get on the internet thinking, perhaps I should message a friend? How much more solitary life as 'flaneur' before I start to feel a little tired of always being the one alone... I cannot not get an internet connection... </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fated to being on my own, taking off then towards the Beaubourg but shooting past it to Boulevard Sebastopol, I am lost then and </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">start</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to drift around unsure of how to get back to the bookstore-hotel-'jardin' opposite the hotel that is the base that is home for those days. B</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ack at Isle de la Cité after the trip around</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> le Marais, I rush over the bridges as I wanted to go to the cinema. I start to feel obsessed then with getting there on time to see <i>La Tortue Rouge</i>, which I had noticed advertised, and which I thought meant Red Torture... </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> for a kind of</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> of veiling of my unrelenting and all too visible</span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> solitude</span></i> for a kind of veiling of my unrelenting and all too visible</span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> solitude and sorrow in the velvet lined interior and escape for a while, the dusty </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">velour</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and the timeless interior, the blending and fading into a background where no one can see me at all...</span></i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Unable to find the cinema,</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I double-back to Polly Magoo. I bought a glass of wine, attempting to overcome my paranoia about being so visibly alone when no one else was. No lone writers anywhere that I had seen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On Pont de Marie, I pause on the edge of a kerbstone, alongside a few others, a slight and conspicuous gap that perhaps will be filled up to join me to the rest of the crowd, to listen to a string quartet (playing<i> I love Paris in the Spring.</i>..) thinking, how cute in that Paris kitsch way you can tire of within a day - I need some <i>adventure</i> to happen,<i> I want to wander in the oceanic cloud of the night, forget everything and just somehow escape, even if only for a night</i>... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> On my way then to Ile Saint Louis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Finally.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> One of my favourite places so far in the world; I would go there, to the place where we had drunk wine, George Moore, the poet, and philosopher professor from New York, singing with his guitar and a bottle of dark red wine passed round like our own version of dogma-free communion. My mind was spiralling away, and I decided to take some notes, but then I looked down to my side thinking that the diary was there, and found that it had gone! I must have abandoned the journal somewhere earlier on, at a guess already twenty thousand words scribbled roughly down. a summary of thoughts and events and conversations that had unfolded since the trip to Hampstead Heath and I felt so lost without it, because it seemed like it was all I had, the only minor achievement to my name, although probably it counted for nothing to the random person who perhaps had picked it up and had no value to anyone but me. It was, in fact, a muddled piece of work in terms of lay out and legibility, but to me it seemed a kind of life-line, a traversing from one state of mind to another. I had started it the day I went swimming on the Heath a week before, that scissor blade slash through the silk-surface of the waves, the decisive moment when I stopped crying about how depressed I had become since being unwell with anaemia, but not only that. A</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">nxious and unhappy without the book, my state of mind suddenly on the edge of bewildered, I retraced my steps, calling in at little stores where I had briefly been to buy bread, camembert and fruit, thinking back to the last stage I had written, surely at Polly Magoo?... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I turn then onto Rue de Petit Pont, entered, ascending swiftly upstairs. The diary! Oh my God, <i>what</i> a relief! On the counter upstairs where I had left it when I went to the bathroom. I had felt divest of a child, devastated, like a part of me had gone, but at the same time, I did not feel that surprised that it was there. She'll return, they must have thought. I gathered up the diary and the loose sheets and bookmarks and postcards within, and left the bar as it was by then growing late and I had lots of ground that I wanted to cover on my walks around Paris and a bar in mind where I wanted to write.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>VI</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> leaving the bar, the twilight sky darkening from the colour of blue to blue-black Quink ink, the like the ink in my mother's ink bottles when I was a girl - I wandered the Quai de la Tournelle, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> swimmers stripping down to boxers and diving into the Seine, getting out and shaking off droplets of sparkly water like puppies, and dancing and madly cavorting on the river bank, two male swimmers like capsules of exploding delight as they French kissed and danced on he bank, guitars playing into the sultry night, warm then as a velvet cloak, the warmth as if seeping in and melting down all hostility and angst as I</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> wandered on to Ile St Louis. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I had intended to walk northwards to Rue de Oberkampf, and spend the night in Café Charbon (open until five), whiling away the hours on writing and drinking coffee, then swapping to a bakery that opened at 5am and served coffee and croissants, seeing daybreak, and in this way also saving on a night's hotel fee, just checking in if I really had to, as the hotels seemed far from full. It did not seem a crazy plan, but just a common sense way to save some money. The night before I had slept for ages, after all, at least nine hours, I would not need sleep as necessity until the car-ride home, and by now I know (far more than before) how to conduct wakefulness and sleep to my advantage. Moreover, I had not wanted to deplete reserves at home in London, and felt my sojourn was self-indulgent enough without the luxury of two nights in a hotel. Somehow I would get by in all night bar, with the diary as a kind of retreat/defence and accessory to my writer persona which served me well at times as an identity. Is the critical at least surprised gaze that we sense at times coursing over us, as we wish that the night time belonged to women as it seems to belong to men, imaginary? Is it our own paranoia perhaps? Or are we judged as defenceless and therefore unsuited to night-time wanderings and bars? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I did not make it to the café. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I spent most of the night with a French man, Michel on Isle St Louis. His opening words, 'Be careful you don't vomit,' when he saw me look with horror as a rat scuttled right by my foot there on the rain-sluiced riverbank footpath that led along the south side towards the Western tip. Why should it matter? I wondered, as it will be washed away in the rain... I felt a little disconcerted then on seeing the man in front of my path the dark, darkness of the night river to my left and a wall to my right. Had I not realised by now to think ahead? The River Seine lay to my left, my only escape. Ahead of me, a random stranger, clearly twice as strong as me, in my path... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Fortuitously, I liked the man, and once our eyes met and he spoke I could see at once that the man was benign and not a threat in any way. <i>I was out with my cousin</i>, he said, in French. <i>Do you want some wine?</i> And we shared the remains of a bottle of sweet pink Muscat on a stone bench. I felt quite drawn to the fact he worked for the French railway, that he rose early and went to the gym and he was young and had proper French kind of work and was not just a student drifter of the kind I had met before who somehow just 'drift' and remain nostalgic for other pasts, wishing they could replicate how it once was, or fixating on the lives of dead writers, constantly discussing the past as if there are not writers presently in Paris, as if they cannot be those writers because they just don't have those kind of lives... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> 'So you go to the gym as well?' I asked. 'Yes,' he said. 'You want to see?' and he pulled off his t-shirt and it fell to the ground onto last years' threadbare leaves showing the kind of body that only regular weights and protein shakes and press-ups can create, not that I have a body-type that is my preference. I am open-minded and feel that this is fair, as no man should be under pressure to have the body type that today's fashion houses tried to make fashionable, no man or woman should feel enslaved to a stereotype. At the same time I liked that sense of his pure visceral strength... We established then our age. He said thirty-six and I said forty-two. He then admitted twenty-six and so I came out as my age, and the gap then widened but this did not matter. I liked the chance to practise</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> French, discussing Jacques Brel and Françoise Hardy, as we wandered, off the island for</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> a while, then back to my hotel as I wanted to retrieve a jacket, but finding the hotel was completely locked up. Perhaps there were no other residents and the owners had gone home or gone to sleep, although they had said I could ring anytime. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The fact of the locked, inaccessible hotel, placed me a little further into the company of Michel, but I considered him a protective kind of angel in fact, and expected he would walk me over to the Café Charbon. Anyway, we whiled the hours away talking in Polly Magoo, and then back over on Ile Saint Louis, the</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> mute waves of grey and black and the moon like a yacht sail up above, the silence between the songs that rippled across the Seine from the other bank until four o'clock in the morning, the night like a passage into a liminal borderland state, edges between items and place, between the ground level, or the treetops or the river and the sky somehow dissolved, blurred into a bluish shimmer under the starlight falling through laces of leaves. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> What is it about the night-time outdoors? </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">Finally freed from that anguish of our sense of separation, self somehow disguised in the all forgiving night finding us, somehow in the darker, more remote places, merged into it, aloneness masked beneath the rustle of foliage and bird-life in the moonlight, we see/perceive with all senses, eyes resting as sound and smell is stirred into hyperactivity, the world suddenly, in the dimmed light becoming multi-sensory in a way that daylight denies through illuminating visual side of experience which somehow becomes dominant then, unlike at night when we feel, in the dark, intuitive and as if the link between item and perception has shifted and become blurred. To have that sense of the ground wavering and to leave grip of the quotidian I think is a way to cast off the self, to break it apart. And I wonder if I wanted to reverse the terrors of that night in the hospital by somehow bidding for freedom when I had the chance, for I only had two days it could hardly be put on hold.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Michel appeared attracted to me and was attractive to me, so then we were, at the time like magnetic surfaces, his arms like strong wings on the stone bench, as the sun rose casting petals of confetti light into the waves, but I rebuffed this young man's invitations to go to his apartment as why set up some attachment with a man I was unlikely to see ever again? Although at that point I had begin considering what it would be like if we were married, as my mind does tend to race ahead like that and I have to try to keep it in check. Anyway, when eventually I saw the sun rise and the sky faint to pale grey and then blue, this was actually like a kind of cold bath in terms of ending the secluded magic of the night before and I said I would have to continue on. No time to get to the Café Charbon and no regrets about that, as did I really want to sit awkwardly in a corner seat, pretending my jacket was an invisibility cloak and no one could really see me, the glass of wine into which I stared alone, like a pond reflecting Narcisse gazing into dark waves. And I had not seen any other lone writers in cafés.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sometimes I wonder what I would have done if the person ahead of me had not been Michel but a murderer who had </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">attacked</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> me and pushed me in the Seine. Or he could have come for me and caused me to leap into the river as my one escape. I failed to factor in any fear or measure any risk on the run up to the riverbank only hit with it once I was almost at the stone bench where we used to gather in the past, propelled, I think, by nostalgia and a wish to relive the past. to somehow reclaim what I had seemed lost for so long. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>VII</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After parting from J.M at first light, I walked up to Parc Belleville and back to the hotel via Pere Lachaise and Bastille. The diary charts the walks (between sunrise at 6:30 and around 11am, but I don't have photos of that time because the cell-phone had crashed, just the notes, and the sketches of houses and apartments and bars frequented by a cast of characters somehow appearing like friends to me, as if perhaps I knew them, or was on of them, and perhaps fiction fills in the gaps and we learn to invent to somehow make sense of solitude. After Pere Llachaise - barely time to reflect on that vast Momento Mori, as a passerby called it, a man fresh back he said from Constantinople as he perched on the edge of a grave to read poetry (there is always someone like this I think in Pere Lachaise), I returned to the hotel, and I collected my things, and bade farewell to the owner of the hotel, and when I descended the metro this really was when that Paris bubble had to burst and I left that dream for reality. At Porte de Neuilly I met another driver, Jean Paul, climbed into his BMW and set out for home. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> London bound and those two days as a Paris Runaway were over.</span><br />
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<b>Recueillement</b></div>
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Sois sage, ô ma Douleur, et tiens-toi plus tranquille.</div>
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Tu réclamais le Soir; il descend; le voici:</div>
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Une atmosphère obscure enveloppe la ville,</div>
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Aux uns portant la paix, aux autres le souci.</div>
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Pendant que des mortels la multitude vile,</div>
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Sous le fouet du Plaisir, ce bourreau sans merci,</div>
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Va cueillir des remords dans la fête servile,</div>
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Ma Douleur, donne-moi la main; viens par ici,</div>
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Loin d'eux. Vois se pencher les défuntes Années,</div>
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Sur les balcons du ciel, en robes surannées;</div>
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Surgir du fond des eaux le Regret souriant;</div>
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Le soleil moribond s'endormir sous une arche,</div>
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Et, comme un long linceul traînant à l'Orient,</div>
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Entends, ma chère, entends la douce Nuit qui marche.</div>
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— <i>Charles Baudelaire</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">***</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Afterthoughts</i>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Scandal of the Flaneuse</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">How scandalous, if at all, is it to be a night-wanderer by night? And should we need to carry diaries in order to feel less like we look as if we could be a prostitute, when a man can just wander with a cigarette or wine bottle because the night somehow is theres, it is assumer that it belongs to them and no suspicions are aroused if they are out alone. Should we make it safer by being confidently 'out'? Or remain safe at home and in our hotel rooms? What if the story we are writing requires that we cover that distance, that location at that time, even if we don't quite know why?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My limit would perhaps be a war-zone. I would not walk into war-zone late at night by myself because this would carry a risk factor slightly too much tipped towards danger. Does the fact that one of my children is almost twenty and two are adults change my attitude? Possibly. When they were little they were in my arms and I was within their vicinity as if some invisible glue held us together. They are growing up and I cannot sacrifice my every freedom without the sense of self-imprisonment, which can lead to depression (in my case) and which would definitely jeopardise my abilities to run my life as a mother.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Not that I wish to cultivate an addiction to borderline 'danger'. To do so could be rather like treating lat night-time wandering as a drug - the drug of the unknown - the adrenalin perhaps of stranger-danger - of areas that permit little to no escape. I don't intend to go on that route again, the walkways adjacent to the riverbank and with high wall to the other side could lead to entrapment and it is just something to bear in mind. Yes, it should be safe, yes, we want freedom to roam, but I just feel that some areas are more hazardous than others. The Isle St Louis 'adventure' was (I think) about nostalgia and a reversal in a sense for events of the past (that I don't want to get into here...) It was a 'one-off' but I would not want to be without that night, and sometimes we cannot resist that sense of compulsion that seems to decide for us, as if a story is pre-written and you just have to find it, live it out, and write it all down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "\22 \\22 times\\22 \22 " , "\22 \\22 times new roman\\22 \22 " , serif;"><i>Fear</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "\22 \\22 times\\22 \22 " , "\22 \\22 times new roman\\22 \22 " , serif;">Fear is a great oppressor. Although to some it would seem that fear keeps us safe. We have to decide I suppose on how much of it was want... what dose of it will give us the protection but the liberty we require?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "\22 \\22 times\\22 \22 " , "\22 \\22 times new roman\\22 \22 " , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "\22 \\22 times\\22 \22 " , "\22 \\22 times new roman\\22 \22 " , serif;"><i>The envy behind the objection</i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: , "times new" , serif;">Overnight I started thinking, why? Why do they mind me being free? Is it envy?</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Yes, I think it perhaps is. So let them be envious about my fearlessness and I shall go forth!</span><br />
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<i>It happens to almost every writer that some particular story seems outer-willed and effortless - </i></div>
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<i>it is as though one were a secretary translating the words of a voice from a cloud.</i></div>
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<i>Truman Capote - </i></div>
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<i>Other Voices - Other Rooms</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-8744488599199372522016-10-20T16:47:00.000+01:002018-06-25T00:59:52.462+01:00Paris Runaway - Part Two - III, IV , V And VI (edited extract from an unfinished work)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;">T</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif; text-align: start;">he wallpaper in the narrow halls, an oppressive black and pink floral design </span></i></div>
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<i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif; text-align: start;">did not endear me too much to the tangible surroundings, but relief of a kind was granted from the mad florals by the framed</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: start;"> engravings of Esmerelda</span></i></div>
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<i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">III</span></i></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Pont Tolbiac, adjacent to the Seine - my alighting point that day. The driver had intended to drop me at the Biblioteque National, but when he offered to take me to the Seine, I said, yes, please do. I then had to leave the comfort of that transitional car- space, for the rainy riverbank, alone, and this is where I had to start to make something of this Paris trip or just sit alone at café tables writing fabricated stories as a substitute for the unbearable emptiness that can be life. I alighted then at Pont Tolbiac, crossing a quiet quayside road, and descending to the rain-wet bank that edges the Seine, the passing flow of settings shifting. altering before my eyes, like the variegated patterns in a child’s kaleidoscope, there for a split second then gone with each move changing what you see. I felt at once dazzled and entranced by the unfolding scenario, and, as far as I remember, it really was that quick, the trajectory out of depression, and somehow I forgot the recent past as though that first glance of Paris was a shot of drugs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"> And I went then down to the quai, the Quai François Mauriac, delighted at once to sense the rough cobbles beneath my soles and hear the water plashing against the péniches, and I wandered down the river bank taking pictures here and there distracted by what lay around.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1"> </span></span><span class="s1" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">I take a photograph, no reason at the start for the pictures - but no reason is required to make art, or image or a phrase or poem, at least you don't need to know it at the start. It is like playing at it, bricolage, invention, experiment and later you will often find the reason if there is one at all, no reason at the start for the photos, but no reason is required to make art, or image or a phrase or poem, at least you don't need to know it at the start. And how I hate that feeling of being walled in by the words I have written - a third of a million over a few volumes of a memoir I began in 2012, and have yet to finish, a fact which creates a sense of failure I have to lay aside everyday if I am not just to abandon the endeavour - walled in, as if sliding between high, towering waves, so I look for ways to make the process less arduous, more fluent and sensory. The pictures float like little rafts. Or like gaps in tiles pulled off to change the pattern, something beneath the surface like a raw wound beneath plaster, even though I only take point and shoot photos with a cell-phone of what is before my eyes. And I stopped at a deserted table here and there at the closed up bars, quiet in the afternoon, as if abandoned, but a bartender or girl here and there were busy, prepping tills, or with the polishing of chrome surfaces and arranging of chairs. I had an expresso coffee and started to write.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I alight at Pont de Tolbiac, descending to the rain-wet Quai Françcois Mauriac edging the Seine,</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> my note-taking</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">swaps immediately into the present tense - I </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">think </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">because I am immersed so much now, in the present </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">(</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">the passing locations altering before my eyes every singular moment, there for a second then gone, each move altering what you see), k</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">eeping up with the unfolding scenario is a new kind of challenge from the second that I touch down on the Paris riverbank. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paris, like an old friend or putting on a familiar, loved garment you realise how much you have missed. That feeling you know her ways, quirks and temperaments. And I barely even feel like I need actual friends as I walk along the riverbank through the strewn about chairs and tables of various bars with signs up for cocktails such as <i>Seabreeze</i> and <i>Pornstar</i>, like a lone figure in a deserted film set. Later a cluster of boys spray-paininting tags beneath a concrete arch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Further on, three men looking rather like they could have strolled off the set of Godard's Le Weekend unload instruments from the back of a van, flared trousers, hairstyles a tumble of red and turquoise green waves, jackets appliquéd with Peruvian designs made of felt and embroidery silks, this peacock like attired contrasted with Doctor Martens threaded with different coloured laces. Perhaps they are tired or brands and fashions and feel nostalgia for the styles of the past I wonder to myself, and wander along the riverbank, each cobble felt through thin shoe soles, and the sound of rippling water and occasional patter of rain, a gauze of it but I don't mind... I am glad to be out of the wrapping that is home, but after as while I want to leave the riverbank, unsure, however, how to get up to the road. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Then, after</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> passing the old clock of Gare du Lyon to the right, adjacent to a row of vast metallic buildings, which says four o'clock, I notice a narrow flight of around fifty stone steps up a slope ragged with grass, weeds and wild flowers like campion and poppies, and a gate at the top that looks locked. I decide to mount the steps, that I must get to some café, or source of nutrition, and at the top I have to climb over a padlocked gate (unsure how else to reach the roadway from that area of the riverbank), traversing a roundabout then to the Jardin des Plantes, my route (spontaneous and unplanned) crossing the garden to Juisseau. In the garden I remember my children as infants on the merry-go-round riding on the painted dodo and dinosaur... (I cannot entirely forget them and so often some random event or association recalls them to mind) and I remember that trip where the roads around that park were full of 'monsters' as their father called the cars, as if to inculcate required caution through a children's book kind of metaphor, whilst I held them firmly by the hand, envisaging the cars then with sharp teeth and mutant monster-metallic bodies, never again seeing traffic in quite the same way in fact, since those days, Paris (in that phase with little ones), almost a nightmare of dangers to navigate!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Once in the student district West of the garden I find a café on Rue Jussieu and settle in behind a formica topped table to eat crepe with purée de marrons (chestnuts) and chantilly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A football match playing on a large screen but no one is watching it, no other customers as I spoon the chestnut flavoured cream into my mouth, Bob Marley playing on a radio </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">as </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I eat my way through it, suddenly able to eat and regard it not only as some laborious inconvenience I have to do to stay alive for the sake of the children who are relying on me being there, the support structure of the home. I finish it and start writing the diary.</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Opposite are university buildings, had we not been to a student canteen in the past?</i></span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"> Sara S. Long Pre-Raphaelite hair. The two of us seeking out cheap meals in the university canteens, trays shunted along the serving aisle, students sprawled across the utilitarian furniture, then back at the bookstore retreating to our own corners again to read. I had been happy there, until (in June, 1988) it all came prematurely to an end...</i><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"> so I h</i><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ave come here, to Paris, to try figure out what happened. Why the hospital? Why did they take me away? And the past is seeping back to me out of the surroundings, comprehensible in situ whereas trying to work it out in a room with just paper and pen would have been impossible and anyway, the solitary writing had made me extremely ill in the sense of isolated and anxious about going out and fraught with chest pains perhaps from being at a desk typing day after day. And the 'just write' advice I have fielded a few times, as if I won't get to where I want to be unless I am chained to my desk and pen day after day, I'm now starting to think is the worst advice ever as sometimes the answers are not in your own living room or bedroom and they have to be tracked down and found... it takes travel, and random encounters and probably hours of solitude and perhaps you write very little but you find out the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">answers</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to the questions or at least the questions you really should ask...</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At seven thirty I reach the little </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">'jardin</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">' near the Seine and the hotel, and it feels like home, the same circular flower bed in the centre ringed by four archways adorned with red roses, and in the centre a bronze sculpture of interlocking figurines and deer. And I wonder about the artists. Rodin perhaps... I feel tired after the few miles of walking, then check into the hotel Esmerelda, arranging my sparse belongings... I like the feeling of my own place to set things out. I lock the door. Then I exit and swing round the corner to the bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, and within minutes I am climbing again that same narrow staircase as so many times before beneath the same familiar quotation as before, to the library -</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The desk on in the front room of the library seems (to me) like it had long awaited my return, and I went to it as if to greet an old friend and set out my books and fountain pen in the space, the typewriter, still there, on which many many summers before, I had typed up a brief autobiography, leaving the seven typed pages behind, when suddenly I was taken to a hospital, a piece of writing I later found published in a small volume entitled Tumbleweed Hotel Volume One.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The editor, George Whitman, had added a brief note - <i>On her last night in the bookstore Maria had a noisy argument... that woke up the neighbours. The next morning she had disappeared. A year later when she was working in </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Waterstone's</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> bookstore in York, England I received the following lette</i>r... (and then there is a brief letter that I sent).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back in the hotel bedroom, a few items unpacked from my small amount of luggage, a black woven basket on a long leather strap, and a shoulder bag - a black patent leather satchel style which survived about four years wear and tear so far - swapping a skirt to dress, the one option I had with me by way of getting changed into something else, I sprawl then across the double bed, writing, each diary entry, headed with the time (approximately), the ringing bells my main guide as to the time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> A</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">lmost midnight, I add hold-up stockings and a cardigan to my attire as it is turning a little cold. I look out of my window. Huge filthy rats scuttling on the pavement's sheen and rustling through the railings of the garden before the Hotel Esmerelda. I shiver at the random suddenness of their motion, unpredictable as I step into the street, the long straggle of their tails trailing behind. </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> I lock up my room and head out into a warm night, no rain, the intermittent rain of the day has ceased for a while,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> but the rats are all over, three or four in sight as I swing left towards the river, striding assertively through, whilst inwardly shuddering thinking do not entertain fears and doubt then to cower only in your room, just deal with it ! as one perks up on its haunches with a leer. I pass, next, beyond the bookstore, the very young looking booksellers battening windows and doors behind locked shutters then sitting beside the drinking font for a while, but no sign of any red wine or guitars as I remembered form the past. I can't help but reflect then on how young I must have seemed in the past and how worried they may have been by my insomnias, and apparent instability. And maybe the bottle of sleeping pills I carried round was seen as some kind of red flag. I don't know. I just wish they had explained first, said what was happening and why... I will perhaps write about this in my novel. No time to say anything else here.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Rue de Petit Pont, and I </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">want</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> to sit again in the Polly Magoo, the same striped awning and name emblazoned on the front, in my mind back there, black, sugared coffee set before me, and across the table a young Irishman, a young man, I don't remember his name so I won't try to guess at it, with a floppy fair fringe, attired one of those timeless cotton shirts, off white after years of wear, and, quite possibly, several owners, that you want to touch, the two of us invited to read at a young person's poetry event. I had written seven poems handed to George one night, the night we had gone to dinner on his motorbike, and I think he had read over in his room, before saying we must hold the event. And because of what happened at university when I was about to read from my poetry collection one night, and I had rehearsed and was all prepped, but then they took me back to the hospital in Norwich, somehow it seemed significant, just a poetry reading, not exactly a book launch, but I had gone from that hospital ward to the bookstore and an audience and to me it really mattered... The Irish boy/young man, I can visualise still in my head. and I want to go in, reliving that scene, but</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> that night, twenty-eight and a half years later, and the bar is packed out and everyone in groups, spilling right out on the pavement around tables around which they gather, leaning in, an overlap of laughter and bodies, and a loud football match playing on a huge screen, and it is all the more striking as I have not seen friends for weeks, except for some newcomer who had messaged me via the internet and wanted to meet me at The Garden Gate in Hampstead. We met a few times, though as can be the case, the exciting 'fantasy world' we had engaged in on-line did not seem reflected in the half ciders set out on a semi-hidden heavy table, and we spent the whole time discussing what we could do whilst just talking and drinking and very little else. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Other friends somehow had disappeared or I had all but forgotten them, whilst unwell in the winter, so maybe <i>this</i> is why I felt the presence of all this happy banter more acutely, and wandered on, trying not to look like I was even considering drawing out a solitary chair, attempting to look like I had some purpose and was going 'somewhere' although I had not purpose except to cover the area I had roamed in the past because I could not think of any other purpose in the middle of the night except to sleep which seemed like opting out of Paris entirely. What was the point of being there if I was cloistered in a room?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Anyway, unwilling to enter that fray, I crossed Rue de Petit Pont, passing the numerous kebab stalls </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">on Rue de la Huchette, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">where some of the impoverished 'Tumbleweeds' had eaten in the past, slices of meet shaved and </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">felled off the huge skewers, and the men with the air that they could do this without thinking after so many years,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and then</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> covered the familiar Rue St André des Arts, gazing for a while into the same little jewellery shop with the window I always saw as such a treasure chest, but then feeling struck by a sense of panic as if I could see my isolated figure from the outside, and I wished to get back inside, instead of lingering in a purposeless way. So I made the way back, buying three Lebanese honeyed, flaky cakes, flakes of it spilling on the bed sheets back at the hotel room. I wanted to get to sleep to shut out the rats and the solitude which sometimes seems to wear heavy. I know - the theory is we should love the hours that we have alone to devote to art or writing or whatever and up to a point, the stillness and the time to think, and I know that those with rushed, busy lives in offices or institutions envy us, thinking that writing and art is some excuse perhaps for a life of halcyon barely structured days, of the choice to wander at will, and take up, dilettante like with some new obsession or other that we miraculously 'make into art'. I have heard - </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">I envy your solitude.</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Or </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">I wish I had the time to write poems, </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but at times I wonder why I find that live like this, no one to go around with or why I am such a masochist that I to choose to parade this isolation, seeing it inversely reflected by the prevalence of couples and clusters of friends, instead of retreating at home... Too much solitude and it wears heavy, and awkward and we are aware of it all the time like we have a visible disease, but too little and there is no time to think let alone to write...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> As for the hotel, well I did not see another soul in the place the entire time I was there, except for the two Frenchmen, interchangeable guardians of the front desk and the panel of room keys, although I stayed for only one night, my second day and night finding me much more as if a distant satellite, heading into other galaxies with the hotel just as a base and the option of a kind of refuge, that is, the foyer and the washroom on the landing. The idea - to save money by reserving for only one night, and, as good fortune had it, I was able to store belongings at the concierge, and access them at will thanks to the concierge who seemed to have little else to do but open and close the door to the little storeroom behind his desk, happily discussing the history of the hotel, and fielding my questions as I rummaged through my things for a map, or hairbrush or mascara, fountain pen cartridge or other item </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">before stowing the bag away... So why is the hotel named after Esmerelda in the Victor Hugo novel? Have you read </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">The Hunchback of Notre Dame</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">? How old is the hotel? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">T</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">he wallpaper in the narrow halls, was an oppressive black and pink floral design that did not endear me too much to the tangible surroundings, but relief of a kind was granted from the mad florals by the framed</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> engravings of Esmerelda, creation of Victor Hugo, shaking a tambourine and for some reason, in the picture, dancing with a goat. I have not read it so I don't know about this scene and </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I like the timelessness of the rough hewn stone of the walls of the entrance foyer and the way it looks onto the small garden between the hotel and the River Seine. And its proximity with the Elise St Julien de Pauvre. That night I lay there awake for a while. Finally I had made it; freed at last from domestic tasks, that four or five hour ritual a day of sweeping and washing dishes, shopping and cooking, supervising homework, giving medicine to the sick child, signing forms and making birthday cakes and turning music down after ten pm because of the acoustically sensitive neighbour. Away from the noise, chaos, banter, stress and commotion of home.</span><br />
<div class="" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i> Twenty years since the last trip out of the England alone, </i>I wrote<i>, summer of 1996 and it seems so unbelievably strange and somehow just so kind of wrong at the same time to be so far away. I feel like a 'runaway' like I did as a girl, running off for two hours or so, then going home, somehow irretrievably changed by the gloom of the twilight hours alone in some remote backwater of the villages, the bank of the river Ouse or interior of an empty church, perhaps just in need of some quiet looking-glass away from home and that secret reflection, those hidden hours carried home and around with me then like some precious knowledge of my own. Impulsive, self-thwarted attempts to leave home, nothing more than a pound note in my pocket.</i></span></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> 1996 - the last time I went been to Paris on my own, Francis Angelo in the 'green room' awaiting his debut on the stage we call life, that is, 'in utero'; much of that five day stay whiled away lying on a bed resting and gazing at the duck egg blue sky in the window and the clouds that reminding me of a Maurice Utrillo painting and listening to the thrumming, plummeting of rain drops of shiny black vehicles, whilst stressing about whether I would actually get the baby out of me alive or would I fail also at that? There I lay, alone through the nights, checking heartbeats and wondering if I would be able to lactate. Would I have any inkling at all what to do? O</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ccasionally I ventured out, (always alone), wandering the Bois de Vincennes and around the streets of Montmartre, in the vicinity of my (inexpensive and very basic) hundred-francs-a-night hotel, already then sequestered from my previous Paris life of red wine and early hours music by the Seine. Slowed down and much altered by the condition of awaited motherhood, a kind of impasse at the time, and many years went by until I returned to Ile Saint Louis where in the past we had gathered to sing and drink until the early hours. </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Francis Angelo was duly born - and twenty years later, I left him, now a young man, to take care of his younger two brothers, sister and the cat (the youngest at Grandma's in York), strict instructions to turn the music down at 11pm. But will he have turned the music down? Will the neighbour have been </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">disturbed</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and come down to berate them? </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I began to wonder, a common fear when away from home for longer than a few hours, if the </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">house</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> was burning down, but at the same time I knew that if so then there was nothing I could do about it, and this fear was bordering irrational, and to let it take over my thoughts would be pointless.<i> I have return to the hospital grounds tomorrow, </i>I wrote,<i> and I must get back to Ile Saint Louis where I have not walked for so long even if it is late by the time I reach that much loved location, even if by then it was dark. </i>I wondered about the silence and the absence of church bells in the night. Made sense because it was night. My mind then seemed to wander over the river to the islands, to Notre Dame, picturing the vast now deserted chambers of the cathedral, and beyond to Ile Saint Louis. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I must have fallen asleep as the last line degenerates into nothingness and breaks off and the pen is still on the bed....</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif;">(Notes that I made soon after my Paris trip and have developed as part of my Memoir Volume Two) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-49614150647710233612016-09-25T15:55:00.000+01:002019-01-31T23:56:40.357+00:00Thoughts on a Complex Passion<div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<b>LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS </b></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; font-family: georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">
<i>September 20th 2016</i></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<div style="color: #1d2129;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two years since we met, your gaze</span></div>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">has </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">become</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> watchful</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, </span><i style="color: #1d2129; font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">knowing</i><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">my fragility, <i>now,</i> as you would comprehend</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the fissures in </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a favorite cracked vase</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">you try not </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to break when </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">pouring fluid in. </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now, I only have tiny </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">amounts of wine.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We know how I can get sick after a single glass and cry. </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And run to the bathroom locking the door, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">like that other time, you </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">attempting to get in, because maybe you think</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I will commit some kind of self-damage</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">alone, with a razor or other improvised</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">weapon of self harm. I won't, but you don't know it,</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that I'm not envisioning self harm, and maybe I made </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">you worry more than I realised at the time</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway, t</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">hey don't teach this, do they </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">at boarding schools in England's remote fields?</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">How you handle a crying woman in a bathroom? </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">They teach you to write to a far away mother.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Seal it and put a stamp on. No tears.</span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two years in. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And now we know everything there is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to know </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">about each other. We know it like we know </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The</i> <i>Songs </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>of </i></span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">Innocence and Experience.</i></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We know how to steer this carriage we find we're in</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">together and how fast this love </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">chariot drives in each different gear.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And how to press emergency stop.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is good.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">All fine. I think.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After the derailments and the rifts, the coffee dates and messaging</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">with the various chancers and newcomers, tried out to see if</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">there was anyone we preferred, like choosing a garment</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that is the best fit and style on us and moves </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">how we want it to move like some exquisite fabric,</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the perfect fit.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back together - you say,</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">look it may not be forever.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And I sense that you won't get aboard.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because you will be up,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">high in the tower, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">watching for other ships, still thinking</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">there could be some better option, some younger girl</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">docking in a glamorous port; you warn me it may not last,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">shining the lamps for me on the rocks.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And what am I to do?</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just sail away, into oblivion?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Or moor the little coracle on an island alone, </span></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">lighting the kindling of my own tiny fire?</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal;">
<div style="color: #1d2129;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And when you return like a seafarer with many stories to tell, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">do I surrender again at command, saying,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">'So tell me then?' The only consolation, the pillaging of ideas</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">for the novels you and I one day will write...</span></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And am I still in your contacts?</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do you have me on speed dial or someone else?</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I would like to drop you in the sea like a piece of cherished</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">worn down glass </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I no longer have space for in my pebble collection. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, I don't want a sybarite, I want your heart </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">stowed away in the curve of my little boat, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and sealed in box and bow so no one else</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">can get it. This is what I want, really want, but I'd never say that</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I want it all, want for nothing but for you to mirror me and say,</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">yes, it is all or nothing and yes I want it,</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">forever in your arms until death parts.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But you win me back anyway. By chance, for no reason, we are </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">discussing sports cars and you play me <i>Paradise by the Light of </i></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>the Dashboard.</i> You sing me it. Singing, part of your </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">charm arsenal. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Could have been written for you, you say...</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Did you copy the lyrics out from the middle stanza where she</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">tries to extract a marriage promise from the ambushed man?</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You know me so well. And I know it. We both know</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">how I say the right things but will agree to anything...</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And I know I am entirely transparent.</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And even as I rock about in the little storm of my passion</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">whilst you look on saying, it is just half-love, be ready</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">for this all to end, (and other such commitment-phobic euphemism) </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I stage anniversaries of first dates, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rosé with lunch, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(as it was that first day), the pink cardigan again, like</span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the first time; arrange birthday dates, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">drinks I know that you like, such as Cassis, or Strega, </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">imagining you under my spell. This time </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">he will not get away! I'm working on this behind the scenes! </span></div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sometimes I wonder if I am in love with love </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">instead of in love with you. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is the</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> real </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">you</span><i style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">in the picture at all ? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or a mere vision, a version of you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And you warn me, you can love me as <i>madly</i>, as I want, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but could hurt me <i>badly, </i>and you mean it, no doubt, although at</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> least </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">you say it straight...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'Remember what they say about me, sweetheart, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'Mad, bad and dangerous,' don't say I never said!' And I could</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">sail on. Sail by. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I picture you lighting up the lamps of the lighthouse, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">whilst I want to sail across oceans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The island has people on it now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I made sure I would not be alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you want me then leave the tower and come right down</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to the sandy beach. It's sandy see? Doesn’t hurt the feet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Splash through the shallow waves, warm and never cold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And into the deep water. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No rocks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Into the boat. Heart ideally for a ticket, I'd like to add,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">but I don’t. </span></span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I tell myself that I have it </span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and he has mine, as he steps in for nothing but charm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And to me we are inextricable, fused into one and it does not </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">really matter where he is because I am inseparable from him </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">as the cells of his being. And meanwhile I wear him around the house,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">even whilst miles away, and even if I wanted to cast off this garment</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and run off somewhere else without it, he would still be there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I did not choose it. Just</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">happened. Love chooses us. And in his absence I </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">cradled an imaginary him, never got over it, just replaced</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">absence with an imaginary him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yesterday, I read it back, a diary entry from before, barely able </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to read it over. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘I am nothing without love,’ apparently I wrote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I could never write such a line now!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I want him because I like him, but not because I feel like</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I cannot survive without the man. And </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m in the boat, waiting,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but not for long, not for long as it will take him to cut</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">out his heart and leave it like a blood stain </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">whilst I drag aboard a corpse. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I could call the yacht <i>All or Nothing</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whilst he calls his tower <i>Half-Love Hotel.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And stranded in the in-between he flutters an agreement</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">before my startled eyes -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I call it a ‘pre-fuck’.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is full of warnings and opt out options.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(But I have an opt-out date in mind. The last laugh to be mine.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the Strega will be drunk on his duvet spread like a </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">beach blanket in a forever holiday romance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stranded between - the sybarite and the hopeless romantic,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the scissors are on a high shelf and no cutting out hearts</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">or sick-inducing rollercoaster rides.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Where are the others? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That other girl?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whilst we are drinking this Rosé,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">this Strega, they are gone. Does it matter?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You’re the one. You say when you’re drunk. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sign here. Sign it in ink and blu-tack it onto the wall.</span></div>
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Dire Straits</div>
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Romeo and Juliet </div>
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<b>LONDON BALCONIES</b><br />
<i>September 25th 2016</i><br />
<i>on the second anniversary of our first date...</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Haven't heard since last Friday at 20:37!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Filed then under missing person /</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">gone to St Tropez with that girl who invited him</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to a Regatta on the internet. (A <i>Regatta</i> now !!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meanwhile, I dally writing love poems on the </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'second anniversary' of the first time we met</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">off-line and wondering if I can (with a clear conscience) publish </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">this spontaneous literary flurry </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">before <i>he</i> reads over them, and if not, then</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">how do I find the missing person so he can check</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">my portrayal does not depart too much from</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">his self-vision as perfection personified? Better not risk it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though I <i>want</i> to publish everything, being an exhibitionist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He <span style="line-height: normal;"><i>knows</i></span> about this exhibitionism (knows everything) and </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">whilst drunk has agreed to being written about, <i>but</i> I am unsure if </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">this counts as agreement.. (sigh) I could of course Phone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But what if he does not answer and I'm left there just</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hanging on the Telephone ? At least we both like Blondie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The one thing we have 'in common.' Anyway, supposedly we have a date </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">lined up for tomorrow. 'I will arrive early,' I said, but </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">it was only pencilled in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We have not confirmed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So lost now between thinking</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that this is a 'prep' day or I should just get on with my</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">novels. Stranded in the no-reply-for-a-day waiting </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">room </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of angst as though the plane is delayed without any</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">explanation at all. What did this to me anyway? What made</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">me into this tragic Juliet awaiting her Romeo like for sunrise?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">his last message incidentally, a link to the Dire Straits song Romeo and</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Juliet to which I did not reply for half a day as I was out. I was just</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">elsewhere at some gig in Portobello. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps he’s filed <span style="line-height: normal;"><i>me</i></span> under Missing Person / out with that man </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">who accosted her on the internet the other day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe not. But why did I leave it so many hours?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like a rejection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And that brief reply to the link I sent. 'Oh yes, I remember that track. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Good one. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Have to go out now. Bye.' </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Over confident. Feeling like I had the 'upper hand' for a while...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but now, two years since our very first date of the internet,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I hover as a butterfly on a plant that in my imagination</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">today is dead, but will burst back into bloom the minute</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a message lands into my inbox. Anyway, I always said</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">he knows just how to 'play me', and he does. Yes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am right there on the turntable now and I expect he can</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">hear these laments even via telepathy, wherever he is even</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">if watching the little yachts, sails like the pristine new untouched underwear </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of some new lover, shimmering in a patina</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of suntan oil like a girl ready basted for lustful consumption.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">She's probably sent him the single airfare to Nice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I won't even try to compete. What is the point?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway, I should do something else. Yes. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instead of writing a poem about the poems I cannot publish</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">until he reads them and says, fine, pin them up, pin me</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">up for a slating. For the devouring eyes of your readers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Where is he? Is he asleep? Is he (you never know)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">dreaming of me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway, I never got over it. Or over him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And neither of us ascribe to no texting rules.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Except evidently this has changed on his part </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and she perhaps has said no texting to your ex</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">lovers. Perhaps this is the explanation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not sure it's going to happen. The two dates</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">set up for this week. Will we ever make it to</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the so-called 'Strega day', just the first of many </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">birthdays together, each named after a different liqueur -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a different spirit to be sampled, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">birthday after birthday, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">until we die.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is the idea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But he does not know about it yet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">About the last scene I scripted in at his death-bed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">when he old and ready to slip out of my arms into</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">heaven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have not told him he must wait for me patiently and not talk</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to other women or text them. We do not talk about the future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He says, 'Don't ever look ahead and no promises.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I said, a few times, 'By the way, if you think the old 'treat them mean'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">adage actually works you would be quite wrong...'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway, I think he is in his apartment</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and <span style="line-height: normal;"><i>deliberately</i></span> holding out so he can 'pretend'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">he is at the Regatta. That's it. And he is simply making</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">his breakfast, and thinking well, it's Prep day, so I'd</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">better tidy round, as in, move a shirt off the floor, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">push those papers into a slightly neater pile instead </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of an avalanche, put all the things she left here in a little heap </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">for her to have back. Bracelets and stockings with bows on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">She likes to make her presence felt... he smiles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the this smile infects me like contagious telepathy, and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">makes me smile... I like this imaginary friend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And perhaps he is thinking, <i>how many </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>hours</i> until she is here?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Shall I phone her?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I don't want to </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">disturb her,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">my Juliet...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'll just smooth the covers on the bed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">III</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">December 19th</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not an anniversary of any day or date.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just another day in the year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We've done the birthday Strega,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and had the peace offering Cointreau after one or our break ups,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and I suggest tequila next but intend to hold off until Valentine's;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">then says he can make a good marguerita.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So next time at his apartment,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a basement near the River Lea, which has become now,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">my favourite River -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the footbridge to the fields beyond reminds of crossing the fence</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">between my back garden in my childhood home and the fields</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">beyond, the same angle on the railway track cutting through</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">we drink margueritas,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">side by side on the couch,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">with the margueritas he made...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tastes of the sea, I said, like being</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">underwater, and swallowing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">brine. ''Yes, but you get past that," he says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Is it sea salt?" I ask.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Himalayan salt."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My last marguerita was in Paris in around 1996.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Twenty years ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">About the same, he says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And twenty years from now perhaps we'll have the next one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tequila day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">December 19th is tequila day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Remember that day?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">By then we will be so old.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">How long can we make it together?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">How long will this last? Does it matter?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are just adding one day to the next,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">one date onto another like a string of them...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a string of crystals</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and whenever it breaks we mend and rethread it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">again because somehow it matters more than we</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ever imagined it would.</span><br />
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-32262161369249232582016-09-21T00:16:00.000+01:002017-02-24T19:30:58.541+00:00Paris Runaway - Part One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif; font-size: small; text-align: left;">The night was a most wonderful thrill, from the minute I found the journal I had inadvertently left on a counter in the bar Polly Magoo on the Rue de Petit Pont, breathless as I arrived to retrieve it, and then stowed it into my satchel for a while, the fountain pen zipped away, and made for Quai de Tournelle.</span></div>
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<i>A bronze statue in Place de George Cain</i><br />
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<i><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"></span>I</i></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Before leaving for Paris, I had bizarre symptoms which I don't want to discuss in detail. Suffice it to say that for a few months I had suffered severe chest pains, for which no explanation could really be found, like a vice around the heart. Tests proved that there was nothing wrong at all, no heart disease or cancer, although I was found to be anaemic. Perhaps the pains also were somehow in my mind, for in summer, the pains began to migrate to the wrists and I imagined blood pouring out, these visions unbidden, almost like hallucinations. Earlier in the year I had hoped that I could get a fatal illness; the picture of my psychological health was not good at all for the first half of the year. I decided to go to Paris in a kind of 'nothing to lose' spontaneous decision. Surely anything would be better than the frequent complaints at home that I was in pain and could end up in hospital. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> The decision about Paris, was not so much a mediated, intellectual decision, as one that was driven, and I don't know where a 'drive' comes from so I won't speculate about that. I am not an analyst, so I will not begin to try. I can write about it, but cannot explain only set it all out on paper and then reflect, writing in a sense becoming looking-glass, partly in the context of a very protracted process through which I will eventually access psychotherapy, but only after a wait of about a year. Anyway, I could not risk sinking further down, and day, after barely any trips out during this year, I went to Hampstead Heath swimming. And somehow the moment when I dived into the pond there was hope… </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"> Sometimes it is best to keep it all <i>quiet</i>. Since talking about Paris, I met with detractors. With critics who seem to think that I placed myself in a vulnerable position and often when provoked, when pushed like this I will say - no - don't pathologise that matter, this is twisting it into something that it's not. <i>PARIS</i>.... </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">The experience felt almost like a pre-written, perfectly composed story unwinding as I followed it around like a trail of clues, one place leading to another, or a thread that led me round the city, the pivotal point of the stay, an encounter with the pure puissant energy, the ripple of muscle, and the somnolent French of a man with arms strong as the wings of an angel, wrapping me in like a precious gift on a hidden bench towards daybreak as we awaited the pouring peach juice of the sun over the river Seine, knowing I would then move on, Northwards towards Pere Lachaise but nevertheless just sucking up each moment like a bee draws pollen from a flower.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> I had a whole route planned, and, whilst willing to skip the night-shimmer of the Café Charbon, on Rue Oberkampft, I felt as compelled to pursue the rest of the way, as you would wish to get to the top of a tree you had set about wanting to climb in order to see the view. </span></span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">And </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">anyway, I am not the kind to cling... So although, by mid-way though that August</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> night, I was already enamoured with the dark looks of my Frenchman, born in Paris, grew up in Guadaloupe, engineer for the SNCF, with a penchant for writing hip-hop inspired by Jacques Brel - a heady combination, it would surely be fair, and even (perhaps) objective to say... </span><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">n'est-çe-pas</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">?</span></i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> - an actual Parisian ouvrier, a skilled worker, in the context of a sultry climate - I <i>declined</i> (and perhaps this is the real madness!) the invitation to his 'banlieu' (suburb for those who don't speak French) apartment, unwilling to put a train ride between some remote dwelling and the transport I had arranged to travel home... And I do feel a pang of guilt to have left him barely hiding a crestfallen sulk, but I could not have everything. Daylight and cemeteries, canals and Parc de Belleville, or a few brief hours of pleasure I would never forget but at the same time would one day just file away with other flings. There are, to be honest, few of those; I was just trying to sound 'cavalier' for a minute! but I am not sure I am convincing however, being mainly a rather held back individual with barely a chance to get out!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "\\22 times new roman\\22 ";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Paris... I will <i>treasure</i> every minute of the trip and even what seemed like a malnourished solitude that bordered on the mascochistic, but since return I have divulged an edited recount of what I got up to in the form of an earlier version of this fragment of written work, and it is is all rather</span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"> strange.</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Not quite the most accurate words to use for the assertive voices of the 'detractors' who have read an earlier account, but I can't quite describe how I feel. Unnerved perhaps. It has been suggested even, that I had some kind of a '<i>death wish</i>'. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why else would you stroll the deserted banks of the Seine at night? Why would any sane woman put herself to such risk unless she was hovering on the brink of a depression pushing her right to the edge. What madness! What foolhardy risk say the critics but they just don't seem to 'get' that I felt like I had landed in heaven, that remote rain-sluiced stretch of the riverbank where we met not in fact a death-trap but quite the opposite, and had I done different I would have been limited to a far narrower range of options such as checking back into the hotel with the grim floral wallpaper in the hallways, or another little hotel perhaps somewhere on my 'route', Paris far from over booked; if not settling for coffee (several) at the Café Charbon on Rue Oberkampft, the intended destination, over-wired then by the morning on that sweet dark fluid, and what would I find to inspire in such a place? I could write about the gleam of chrome furniture, the handsome waiters adorned in black aprons, the neat shirts, their clean shaven servile countenance. But in Paris I found myself lamenting in my diary that no writers were to be found writing alone in the bars, that I was a solitary example, and why do I persist to do it? Why this self-torture as an onlooker with just the sparse covering of my diary for comfort, everyone in 'a group' except for me, because 'writers', as far as I know, are actually inclined to live first, and not only write about writing on a café table ? I could invent a story, that is true, from imagination, but is not imagination best reserved for long, cold winter days at home? And when you don't have all Paris at your feet and it stays warm all the night and is dark for such little time that you can see it darken and lighten again in what seems like minutes and not hours, time kind of intangible, no clocks required but the morning bells to stifle the flow of experience. Whilst in Paris I wanted as much of it as possible, not the bleak quadrilateral of a hotel room I would accustom to like it was a prison cell after a few hours, the logic of each glass and fold of curtain, light bulb and bedside piece of furniture soon an indelible imprint in my mind's eye, even when I briefly left, not the interior of hushed museum galleries or even the floral flower beds of the gardens, but the outdoors and preferably those remote, rather darkened corners of Paris where you feel it as a match for the liminal fraying edges in the mind's hinterland... off track, off piste where you can be and do as you please as no one is watching least of all yourself. Not that I am often at liberty to wander in Paris and I had not been alone abroad for some twenty years, so my vision of this stillness, this quiet dark cloud of unknowing floating as some ethereal vapour into which I would somehow find myself immersed, the sparkle of sun or moonlight on the wrought iron balconies and pewter roof a distant background beyond somehow cradling it in, was a vague idea based on very infrequent past experience... Or perhaps it has come out of poetry and reading novels set in Paris.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Discussing the trip with a friend of mine, one of the readers, in fact, of this blog, and a man who came on board from the relatively early days of writing it, I mentioned the sheer wall up to the right, the rats skirting the trees, in the intervals I was taking from writing a poem about the night depicting <i>the red stain of light bleeding off the pleasure boat into the shot silk of the river waves...</i> 'And that's when I realised the danger of entrapment,' I said. 'How I left myself without escape from a potential adversary, my only exit via the deep river to the left; but look, no worries and let me reassure you it was all just fine because the man who I chanced to meet that night was sweet as an angel, and protected me all night from all harm, and instead of wasting time on pretentious posing around in some all night-café, writing pretentious poems, superfluous to the requirements of the literary world, I had a wonderful adventure</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> with a Frenchman aged <i>twenty-six</i> to my forty-eight who could not have been more charming. We shared a bottle of Muscat under the ink dark midnight sky. Just so perfect. An unforgettable night.' </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> Silence for a while. And then a message. And suddenly you find that a near flawless memory (of the kind that you cherish the whole of your life, taken out like a favourite piece of treasure or jewellery from a velvet lined box, like a story that you made, or somehow found, like a found ready-made in your path, that you turn to over and over thinking at the times when your life is reduced to typing and editing and drinking tea, yes I have <i>lived</i>, I <i>lived </i>when I had the chance and this was the best that I could find to do in the small glimpses of unfettered time that I had to play around with on my terms) is as if some bad spell is cast, into a site of almost academic debate, like some dialectic is at play that you had not given thought to at all. And you start to field ideas about what is safe and how to navigate the border between danger and reasonable risk. And I began to see it through another kind of lens, as if my innocent vision of an almost prelapsarian kind of Adam-Eve state there had been shattered with some new knowledge. So perhaps the night-time is not my domain? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> I began to think back to when they put me in hospital. When they said I had gone 'psychotic' and began to think that the mechanisms even of perception perhaps were somehow damaged so even that thought could perhaps be invalid. Potentially no thought was real. And I felt the ground become unstable and this is how I feel about the questions raised about this Paris trip; the terrain, the nature of the debate is being pulled out of my hands as if there are other remits, other rationales and my perspective is flawed and to be somehow pathologised. The message:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“</span><i style="color: #1d2129; font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">re: you and 'dangerous' situations...my personal view is quite strong ... anyone - especially a woman - who puts herself knowingly in harm's way - is very foolish bordering on stupid... unless they have a black belt in something or are accompanied by a trustworthy friend/s ... even then not wise depending on the degree of potential danger... I do think you allow your romanticism or something more psychically acute to potentially influence you a tad more than is wise in such situations... written in good faith and your best interests at heart!</i><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">” </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a girl I was a tree climber and mountain climber, lost, on more than one occasion, on a wind ravaged mountainside in Wales or the Lake District with nothing but a compass and a damp Ordnance Survey </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">map once I was a Sixth Former,</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and once back on route I would unroll my sleeping bag in some mountain hut beside a total stranger bedding down, never once taught to inculcate a fear about possible murderers or unpredicted dense fog in which you could lose your way. So I don't have a sense of fear about the night. </span>In all fairness, however, and to concede a little way towards the 'death-wish' idea, I wonder</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> if the absence of sensed</span><i style="color: #1d2129; font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif;"> </i><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">risk until the last minute, or the way I settled for a higher risk quotient than I usually would when I walked forth along the apparently deserted bank of the Seine, fearless, even a little thrilled beneath a ragged lace of leaves over head, and the swoop of water to my left like a false floor on a stage that could so easily part to let you fall down, down into the hidden world beneath the deception of as sealed surface that could part as easily as a silk robe, had a kind of caution-thrown-to -a-storm facet, so perhaps they were right.</span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The diaries of the run up to the Paris trip reveal a borderline depressive state and yet lit up as if with a fairy light of hope here and there...</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">31st July 2016</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>I start the day feeling wretched like some sick poison is running through my veins, the same sickness and same nausea I felt last night coming over me in waves. I wonder if this is caused by my new disciplined approach to nutrition, kind of a detox process I don't quite understand, consumption limited to yoghurt, an egg and lentils for supper. Occasionally I permit the luxury of Goldenberries in addition from Waitrose covered in raw chocolate.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>1st August</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Again I wake up feeling <u>appallingly</u> bad. I don't love aloneness, my own narcissistic company and get sick of myself to the point where I want to </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">destroy</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> it, like I have lived with the same person (me) for so long that it feels like a burden I have to carry round thinking, why won't she go away?</span></i> <i>Perhaps I should go to Paris. Just somewhere that distracts me <u>from here.</u>...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For months I had suffered from a range of unwanted and quite bizarre and unexpected physical and emotional symptoms.... </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">suffice it to say here (this is an edited version of a much longer piece of work) that</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> there came a stage where I did not want to risk sinking any further down. So one day I forced myself to leave my local area after weeks of barely going out but for the shop, bank, school or the doctor's surgery, to go swimming in the mixed point on Hampstead Heath, a leafy area in London, not far from South End Green, (a side of me somehow dragging the rest out) and from that day I found that I stopped crying quite so often, and although I still awoke every day feeling desolate, there were occasional positive thoughts in the diary entries I wrote - the mention of the Goldenberries and the idea to go to Paris, too new glimmers that show I was not seeking a way out of life. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">2nd August - and </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">t</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">he street door slammed shut, sudden as a </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">scissor cut through an umbilical chord. and then I was out and looking straight ahead, East, towards the tube station at Holborn. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the tube-train, all too rapidly passing stop after stop of the central line - St Pauls, Liverpool Street, Bank, Mile End... somehow no time at any point to make a decision to exit and reverse the trajectory, I stared at my reflection thinking <i>no way back for the duration of two whole days, and the tube is sucking me further and further from home and somehow I cannot reverse the direction I decided to take, cannot coerce myself to spring out through the swish of an opening carriage door, and cross over to get the West bound tube back the way I have been, although in theory, this is so easily done and the children are far behind and left there without me, without mother...</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <i> and if I keep onwards then soon I will set </i></span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"><i>a tube ride, a car-ride, a whole sea, a mesh of motorways and then the Paris suburbs between me and the beloved offspring.</i>..</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A shoal of early morning thoughts swimming through my mind and then the tube pulled into Stratford and I descended and exited the tube station into the greyish dawn light. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">II</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The driver (of the internet booked ride-share) arrived after a flurry of further texting on the lines of - </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Where should I wait?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">at the escalator/taxi rank</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Are you sure there is only one escalator?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Yes, near the taxi rank.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Sure? I don't want to miss you because I am in the wrong place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">I'll be there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Where are you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Seven minutes away. Traffic</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">- how much longer now?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">two minutes. driving up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">I'm wearing a red and white dress, just so you know. You can't miss it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Ok </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Waiting, I tracked every Nissan Prius (his car) as it swung into the taxi area, checking for a man who matched the profile-photo on the website. I reflected on the tall intriguing building ahead of me, some kind of work in progress. What is it? The sculpture was almost statuesque, like some contemporary sculpture deposited in the urban grain of morning Stratford, the surroundings dotted with commuters rushing to taxis and trains. Essentially my mind was captivated then by something outside of myself (this surely a purpose of travel of any kind, however brief the intended vacation).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The driver's name was Francis. (The same name, as chance had it, as the first-name of my eldest boy, a young man of almost twenty, left to run the home whilst I was away for those two days, and the fact of the same name seemed to me a most happy kind of coincidence). Francis is French and has African parentage, and beside him in the front seat a French-Carribean girl of about twenty-two with cork screw black curls and doll-like big eyes talking about the items stowed in the back and some delivery they had planned. At the end of the trip she offered us each a bag of crisps which seemed rather a going-home-present kind of gesture after a rather wonderful party. A man sat to my left, an Algerian who ran a restaurant, but I cannot remember anything more about him, and we waited a while for another woman, French, and then the taxi sped across England, the morning landscape a muted greenish grey streak in the window as Véronique and I began sharing every significant detail of our life stories, lost for seven hours as if in the meandering streams of a conversation, as the muddied river of my mind began to clear as if flotsam and detritus was being washed aside, the two of us like</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> detectives or amateur analysts trying to figure out the reasons for what had before been unexplained, and f</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">inally as if through clear water, her story woven into the space between us like a fabric with little mirrors on reflecting facets of our lives I could look into the past and understand. Strange parallel between her father's story and mine, how he lost his dream work and finished up in a hospital with dinner served to his cell-like bedroom on plates of food pushed through a tiny square gap in a wall, although when I was in hospital I had meals in a canteen and not served to my room. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As Paris approached, I took a couple of photos... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Francis on the right in the driver's seat.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif;">This is the dress I wore for the trip which is red and white and has a bodice fastened on to the skirt section and a ribbon that ties at the back.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="font-family: '"times"', '"times new roman"', serif;">The Bois de Vincennes</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Pont de Bercy, adjacent to the Seine. And the driver dropped me off here, as a favour, the intended alighting point the Biblioteque National, but when he offered to take me right to the Seine, I said, yes, please do. I intend to walk along the Seine to my hotel on the left bank. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I then had to leave the comfort of that transitional car- space, for the rainy riverbank, alone, and this is where I had to start to make something of this Paris trip or just sit alone at café tables writing fabricated stories as a substitute for the unbearable emptiness that can be life...</span></div>
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-32076816375069691382016-06-16T10:49:00.001+01:002017-08-07T01:47:02.909+01:00Old Compton Street Vigil, Soho, London - 13th june 2016 - Solidarity with LGBT Orlando<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Old Compton Street vigil </div>
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Monday 13th June 2016</div>
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A tribute to the victims of the Orlando massacre</div>
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With thanks to all those who have taken part in these photographs.<br />
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(Any person featured who is unhappy about their portrayal here may contact me as they wish and I can remove the photo)<br />
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/jun/13/orlando-terror-attack-victims-pulse-nightclub<br />
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-71286181672874505012016-06-03T02:41:00.002+01:002017-11-21T13:49:59.058+00:00The Bee Glade - A Visual Poem <div style="text-align: center;">
<b>The Bee Glade</b></div>
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2nd June<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Enamoured with the flowers, I return the next day, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">entering </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the emerald silence, somnolent after traffic and street, taking </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">an avenue dark with evergreen...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">spills of lilac recalling my grandmother, saying, on our last walk together, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'Pull down that branch, Maria, please, with the crook of my walking stick for me to smell.'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I hooked it down with her cane, grandma inhaling the sweet aroma, that one image </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of the two of us, the most memorable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Further on, the gardeners are busy at work, a few of them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">They seem to be planting out seedlings, knelt in the soil, as though </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">they could be penitents at mass, but their Gods - the earth, the plants </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">they grow from it, rain, sun and each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wander on and reach a pool, pricked with water drops cascading </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">like the high notes on a piano. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is a vast font, with a sea god at its heart and mermaids, and water </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">tumbling from a conch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I take pictures then of my reflection, Dali's cautionary-tale painting - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Metamorphosis of Naricissus, at the back of my mind, the flower </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">erupting from the egg shaped stone, the fate of a man obsessed with himself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's like I have a gallery that travels with me inside my head.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I gaze, for seconds, at the distorted self-portraits, like nothing I have ever seen, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">some hidden-me mutant, dark and alone. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meanwhile, the water drops splash down that image, like crystal clear tears, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">beads </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">broken off a rosary, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">water flicked from a font in a collective blessing, my reflection </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">swallowing </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">pills of light and element.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I make a film, an idea I had for a while, where words on paper float and rearrange, </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but the words I write out - HB on rough-torn quadrilaterals - </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">CARPE DIEM UNTIL YOU DIE - are pale and illegible when later </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I view the recording, half submerged in the waves.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Never mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was a little prayer </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">said to the sky.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I turn from the pool, the mermaids frozen forever into their stone forms, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and wander along beyond clusters of buttercups, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">empty deck-chairs in pairs, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">daisies like tiny white stitches in the grass... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The deck chairs remind me of couples grown old,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">seated beside one another for a very long time, growing old by the willow </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the sycamore... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but I will bear solitude if I must...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the poppies astound me again with their effortless blaze.... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And this time, cupped</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in a glade of apple red light is the plump honey bee, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">pollen covered, bonded with strips of gold... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then gone to the next poppy of this dazzling bee glade.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For ages I watch the winged creature mesmerised by the fluster</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of silvery wings and whir of activity.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<br />v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-22414277479107338142016-06-03T02:37:00.002+01:002016-06-04T10:13:02.320+01:00Flowers in the Mud - A prose poem with images<div style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b></b></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Flowers in the Mud</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">8am</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1st June</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I left it too late to see the poppies cupping sunlight like the chalices of a divine drink. </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Too late to inhale their intoxicating aroma, like Thomas de Quincey imbibing an opiate.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I <i>think</i> I left it too late. It has rained all night. They’re sure to be battened down, like hidden portholes, besmirched flowers of the mud, petals like dead hearts pressed into the ground...</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Or perhaps they are missing petals, left with just tattered raiment.</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I left it too late, dallying on the internet, as in a grimy bar, with a fraudster I did not first perceive was a fake, all combats and toted gun, getting me at my lowest, most base, a wishful imagination conjuring a hero subduing the Taliban out of chimera and lies...</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The inverse of a hero, he played a dirty attack. </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They want you in the ring as defenceless as possible.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Don't tell <i>anyone,</i> they'll say, as the eyes you don’t see gleam like the blade of a hidden shank, secrecy, their gag, their accomplice in crime, a</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">nd what they want is to get you like a mink on a slab whilst they skin you of the furs of defence, then move into you as if with scalpel, to leaving you gutted of heart, soul and valuables. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: center;">A fortnight gone, the shield of laughter and adrenalin, set aside, like plasters pulled off an unhealed wound, the picture of a sorry girl entering, crestfallen, into a room, shown up, admitting she regrets it - such an idiot to be so </span><span style="text-align: center;">charmed by a bauble of delights toxic like the apple offered to Snow White.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: center;">I wish now I could erase that dalliance, disown that episode.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: times; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I don't want to go out...</span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Today, the wall of my self-disgust seems like a trench over which I cannot see or climb, a</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">nd I feel like I could self harm, scratch a knife point down this lustful weak-minded carnality, capable of reducing my better thoughts as though to dust, making me think with flesh instead of mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">But surely it would be pitiful to appear with a scar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A sign I haven't grown up or learned from the knocks of life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If I was an adolescent I could perhaps be forgiven for sinking into it, but I cannot play the wounded ingenue role as though this is the first time I was ever hurt, or shamed by my mistakes. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: center;">The poppy photos - </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: center;">Jonathan's, that is - which put the poppy idea into my head - </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">well, I <i>envy </i>now that whilst I was obsessing on soldier fantasies, almost two days lost to that gun barrel of phantasm, Jonathan, was out in the park </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">with</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> his camera photographing poppies in the spring light. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">And I <i>envy </i>that he saw them not <i>just</i> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">through</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> a screen, that he smelled and touched the fragility of the red petals, imbibed </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">the actual<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>poppy-ness</i> of the poppy phenomena.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">And I wish I had seen the poppies in their red skirted prime - fleeting as a blaze of ballerinas on a stage, a miracle of sun-shot tutu and leap and arabesque - their frailty, a gift, a sign of the fleetingness of existence, its elusive brevity surely a call to life...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">but distracted on pixilated poppy fields in Afghanistan, diminished and distant on the standardised screen I did not </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">go anywhere except for my escapist trips.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">How<i> stupid</i> can anyone be? I feel so mad at <i>me</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That shameless flirtation I wish I could erase out of my inbox forever. That.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If we could just throw it up, like alcohol after a bad night and flush it down into the sewers where it belongs as something we should never in the first place have sucked up. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We should have left the lift shut on that Pandora's box.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In shame I die to self, my reflection a blurred dis-integrity, a sick fragment I try to pull off and drown, as a damaged limb, canker to the rest. And I loathe what I did and wrote about but now it's done, what's to be done? I fall as though down, down, this latest mistake was just one of a sequence, I regret…</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The ground begins to seem shaky, and I admit I hate what I have done, that latest dalliance, somehow an echo of past, repeating mistake, talking to strangers when I know I should look away, and then a whisper like a gathering of angels, a Greek chorus that tells me, enough is enough, and i</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">t's like being lifted as though from the depth of a pond, and standing like Botticelli's Birth of Venus on a scallop shell.</span><br />
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4pm<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br />
(the same day)</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When finally I reached The Regent’s Park, I felt the grass underfoot like a buoyant wave - the first feel of grass for many months, the openness of the landscape like an unrolling of a sheet on which are written all my mistakes and sins, nowhere to hide, t</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">he sky saying nothing but it is my own reckoning that hurts. </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">And I picture the opprobrium of an all seeing eye in the gathering clouds, a gathering of minds saying - w</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">hat false, empty values she entertained. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But little time for self-recrimination, and I rush across the turf to meet J.M.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I'm sure they will be flattened, I texted on the way, by that oppressive rain in the night.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We'll see, he said.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">By the rose buds, he calls my name. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He saw me first. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I turn. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The first friend I have seen in four weeks. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Twenty-eight days of solitude. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Blue eyes meet blue, then a smile, an actual, bodily touch of hand on shoulder, light as a blessing.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I find it quite difficult at first to voice a thought but then he takes me to a border of poppies.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I tell him my misadventure, and it is gone, like a sin washed away in a confessional, but no Catholic priest to tell me they need the details, no questions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">No penance required to cancel it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It's gone.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The poppies stand tall.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Not a sign that they were crushed down, just a single petal dislodged.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">J.M has arrived with a camera.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, more useful to us than a rifle, I laugh.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And we aim it at the flowers just capturing what is there. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I take the camera then and zoom into the poppy middle, an abstract like a butterfly pictures we made at primary school where you press the paper in half to make an almost symmetrical image.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It is a purplish middle and the stamens are loaded with pollen and magnetise the honey bees, but I am too slow with the camera technology to capture the bee in the picture before it flies off. </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Never mind...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I move on, along the poppy row, peering at petals, middles and the stems which some tourists snapped off to take poppies home like trophies of the royal park. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">J. says the stems actually bleed when they are severed. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I picture then crying red tears, imagine a stem like a torso suddenly severed from head, face.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I want to remove a slug at one point, and try to move it with a grass blade but feel then like a malicious child and leave it where it is, t</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">he creature tenaciously bonded to its happy petal.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And what place mine to come in an evict him with stick or grass blade, like weapons to that small thing? I would be no better than that vile trickster on the internet to hurt one of Nature's little beings.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We wander on.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I photograph buttercups, to me, always a happy flower.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Forget-me-nots that remind me of the tins of anachronistic Yardley’s talc in my grandmother's bathroom smelling of forget-me-nots.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">And a wild rose, white, almost hidden rose behind the railings of the inner circle.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In the café, we drink coffee before a vast, cinema screen sized window, J.M framed like a film star but he refuses to be photographed, which makes me have to remember each line and the flop of hair and the blueness of his eyes, the knit of the crew neck, instead of staring at the diminished, pixilated version on a screen.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I picture him as a soldier who survived a war. </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">He looks no different to me from how he would look if it was 1918.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i>With thanks to Jonathan Michael Stone for participation and loan of camera equipment</i></span><br />
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-78126670522625714462016-05-22T17:14:00.001+01:002017-05-25T18:51:55.467+01:00Soldier, Scammer / The Madness of my Age <div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“There is always some madness in love. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">But there is also always some reason in madness.” </span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0px;">Friedrich Nietzsche</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Soldier, soldier won't you marry me,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>with your musket, fife and drum?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Oh no sweet maid I cannot marry you </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>for I have no coat to put on.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>So off she went to her grandfather's chest </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>and brought him a coat of the very very best</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>and </i></span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">she brought out a cloak of the very very best</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>and the soldier put it on...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Soldier soldier </i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>won't you marry me</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>with your musket, fife and drum?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Oh no sweet maid I cannot marry you</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>for I have no shoes to put on...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>So off she went -</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I remember, as a child, my mother singing me that song. There are lots of verses and 'sweet maid' keeps on going up and down the stairs to the grandfather's chest and bringing her beloved whatever he requests.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">'What sweet name you gonna call me?'</span> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> asked the soldier the first day we were chatting on the internet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Me: IDK maybe Honey or Babes. Jamie babes...'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">K.J: Cool</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Me: I could always vary it. Anyway, bye for now Jamie x</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He won me over on the internet. Or rather the scammer did. My friends think he is a scammer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The photos attracted me at first. Afghanistan. A field of yellow and green with distant houses beyond, a field of rapeseed flowers under a cloud dappled sky, and I said, 'Those fields look like the English countryside in the summer,' and he said, 'Oh really?' He said it was Afghanistan, and not knowing much about that country to be honest, I kind of believed it. Anyway, I flicked through the other photos on his profile, and I love the one of the poppies glimmering like rough edged rubies in the grass. I know they have poppies in Afghanistan: they have an opium trade, and I want to start painting and like the idea of painting the image in oils, or maybe tempera. Send me photos, I said. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don't care that much if he is a scammer. Whatever. I like the fantasy he has created. Or we have. The way that a fictitious character can somehow be brought to life that does not even really exist. My soldier fantasy... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> They know us well - women of 'a certain age' as they tactfully call it in France. In case you are wondering, I can't even <i>say</i> middle age. I just did, I know but I hate that phrase. My parents are always middle aged in my mind, however old, and that makes me forever young.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And anyway perhaps w</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">e could be licensed to skip it if we wish. Not that we really want old age either, not really. Young one minute and death the next would be fine with me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Perhaps we should 'select' age, pick an age to reflect how we <i>feel</i> and not the biological facts. I'm twenty-seven, by the way, because this is the age that I </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">feel </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">today... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It is striking to me how we live in an era where the real and the imaginary conflates at times in unprecedented ways - and we don't quite know what is real and what is make believe or illusion and the internet permits this overlap of the real and the fictional. And we are on quite unstable land it seems, a bit like it could all cave in and barely sustain our weight, which somehow we forget about if we are often typing at a screen, unwell perhaps, as I have been with anaemia, unhappy on my own in the outside world. And the on-line world can start to seem like a theatre of many masks. We may find ourselves flaunting 'personae' not quite synonymous with our all too familiar off-line character, and this has a thrill, the sense of being creator of a new self, we are, in a sense, the new cyber existentialists, but the risk is that we start to feel more cipher than human, like a character led around a video game with a few clicks, a Lara Croft, or one of those Sims characters on the Play-Station game, a pale imitation of flesh and blood... That sense of bodies without organs. And what we want is to connect in a way which makes us feel real in the fuller and physical, three-dimensional sense. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Back to age, I was saying that age can become an obsession once you're over forty and something you want to hold back, but which feels like a tide coming in. Perhaps the</span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> wonder drugs in the pipeline could be seen to offer a reprieve of hope, for those who hate the middle age. If, at a rough guess, they'll keep us functional until a hundred and twenty, then forty something is <i>not </i>yet<i> </i>the middle by that measure, or calculation at all. Anyway, no one can stop us from dancing </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">about to Taylor Swift of an afternoon when the children are at school. But you really don't need to know. In fact<i> banish</i> that thought. I </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">never</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> dance around to Taylor Swift! Never ! Of course, I listen to jazz or classical like a mature, stable woman realistic about her age and the passing of time, honestly, but dancing aside, <i>because </i>we want to feel young and <i>stay </i>young, we may respond well to a chat-up line from a young looking solider or any pursuer because that head rush that accompanies being told you're still young and pretty, still wanted not just for your mind, but your looks and your jeunesse, is, for some an escapist intoxicant they will seek out virtually any way that they can. In some cases it is almost an addiction... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Some women, and perhaps men, may set the bar pretty low to get the wanted thrill of attention. Perhaps you acclimatise to a toxic romance because it is you one escape route from the day to day. Perhaps it is the best you have found and you cannot face being alone. You could find that you talk to complete strangers on the internet and while away the hours on insubstantial banter just to fill the void and make you feel you are fascinating and can make someone laugh. And although we may set ourselves standards - a set of rules - no more flirting around - you find you can easily lapse, and all it takes is a minute or two of weakness, the split second ill-advised 'accept' of a drink in a bar or a friend request and you can find you somehow turn into their art materials and struggle to get the brush or pen back in your own hand. The point to remember - is that you are in control. And to surrender control at a point of incomplete trust and knowledge of who and what you are dealing with on or off-line, bears with it a risk. Discernment matters. Beware the poisoned apple. One bite and the poison will start to seep through your unsuspecting veins. And remember that voices are not to be feared. They can be our friends. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That 'Voice of Reason' could one day be your best</span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">friend even if it seems like some scary intimidator when you're growing up and you want to break free of it. Make it into someone you like...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And once you make friends with that sensible girl and get to actually<i> like</i> her, it could even be BFF! (Best Friends Forever for those who don't get the anacronym.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the extreme end of the play on reality that screen-life permits, we have fraud. Anyway, I was on this story about the soldier, and what I mean when I say that they 'know us' is that they know we are of an age where strange things can start to happen and we just don't</span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;"> even</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> know why. And we wake up one day - no matter that we had a much loved demin jacket with a CND badge on at seventeen, that long ago time when we actually had values and would come out with things at the tea table - I grew up in Yorkshire, in England where they have 'tea' by the way - like, 'You can change the world,' whilst they look askance and picture you carted off in handcuffs for some political protest and sigh and say, you're so naive, thinking, please darling leave other girls to change the world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Fast forward thirty years and we look around and we think - so what's new today? Oh my God this soldier is not just the usual random dropping a request in my inbox. This one's like totally gorgeous. I will risk it and friend them and just get out if it all gets too much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And suddenly we have this thing going on about a man with a rifle, army boots and camo-wear. And we kind of go <i>mad</i> for it and don't know what is happening. Is it the rifle? </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;">Why is it that soldiers are suddenly sexy? The pin ups of adolescence days are quite forgotten. Jim Morrisson's svelte bare torso dizzyingly sexy and grown up to a girl to seventeen suddenly seems like a boy's. He looks younger than our almost adult sons, that christ-like body rather too fragile to actually grasp onto - the pin-ups of our teenage hood not quite cutting it now. It's that profile photo of the man in the trench with a rifle that does it. That. We feel we have lost our minds but we can't control the base desires. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "\\22 times\\22 " , "\\22 times new roman\\22 " , serif;"> W</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">hat would Freud say about it anyway? we may wonder whilst we go about the domestic chores that keep us busy for a few hours of every day. Penis envy or something a bit complicated to read up on... Or not having enough well... stop right there, we instruct out wandering minds. At least I try to steer the pathways of the mind away from peril, red flags and pure, unadulterated self destruction, with the aim of staying stable and sane since the end of a relationship with the last man I met on the internet. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Anyway, that first day I spent seven hours, with breaks that is for a desultory surf around a few of my posts and comments, which suddenly seemed a bit inconsequential compared with the love story at hand, but the best part of seven hours, yes, almost <i>seven hours</i> on breathless unpunctuated texts with my soldier, that young man the one magnet that day, and after seven hours he proposed marriage and it was all pure cyber lust and excitement but all somehow made all just perfect and fine and wholesome with that virtuous promise of marriage twinkling in the cyber static like a glimmer, an oasis of happiness, a gold ring encircling a happy future together that would prove everyone wrong who said - oh but he is just a scammer. Everything good seems to happen in sevens I reflected. Like that seven minutes in heaven games, but this was seven hours of happy thrills. And now he has asked me to marry him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course in all likelihood, he is just some sleaze-ball scammer running a furtive operation out of some grim bedsitter in the outer reaches of Middlesborough. I don't know why Middlesborough, and I don't even know if there are such thing as bedsits anymore or if they are now known as studios, but that place just sprang to mind and a kind of bed-sit-land paisley carpeted hell, with Nescafé in a chipped mug; although my friend says the scamming industry is worth *billions* so perhaps actually they have gold taps and swimming pools. And who, knows really? And isn't this the whole </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">enigma? The rather </span><i style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">tantalising</i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> question that is the main question of that day, in the absence of any proper life since the children started school and you left work because of depression. And you are not that likely, you know it, to get to the truth at the heart of it. And you badly want to get to the heart of it. Find the real person underneath that web of fantasy. Like the minotaur in the labyrinth... What is the nature of this beast? Who is the writer? Who is the artist of this piece? Are they ruled by some Mafioso who writes them a script? Kind of pimped out and on commission? You start to get just as intrigued by the scammer's identity as the soldier. Who is he? What is happening to the world when it is a mirage of illusions? Or it is when you click accept on the request you know you should have just walked by like you did with all the others...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Redcar springs to mind. Maybe he operates out of Redcar. North of England and not far from Middlesborough. We went on a girl guide pack-holiday there once - the distant past - as in three decades ago - that long. Anyway, we went on a so-called 'midnight walk' one night through the brackish wastelands near the sea, then inland through Streets badly lit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I remember we walked past a bus stop. All graffiti and shattered glass. <i>Yvette shagged Jono. Chantelle is a slag.</i> Then a fight broke out in the street and a bottle got thrown and police called. As other girls slept peacefully in their Hampstead homes, or boarding school dorms, a little night light perhaps, teddy bears and fluffy bunnies, how it should be really at twelve, we were put through such Northern 'character building' ordeals. </span><span style="font-family: "\\22 times\\22 " , "\\22 times new roman\\22 " , serif;">But th</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">en learned to navigate the dark. And perhaps <i>this</i> was the aim - there always seemed to be <i>reasons</i> for things with the guides - the aim was to overcome our fear of the unknown, but at the same time they made it exciting. </span><span style="font-family: "\22 times\22 " , "\22 times new roman\22 " , serif;"> Had they </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">made me a lover of grim, abject excitement? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Whatever, the scammer is a criminal. A criminal is a subverter of all good, wholesome norms. It is exciting. Tainted. Suppose I fell for a scammer?! A bad, tainted love somehow dragging me down into the abject, horrible depths. Everyone would be shocked. And I wonder it it is all part of some attention seeking drive to get people out to rescue me from a fix. A kind of double wave of attention, first the squaddie who grins in bucket hat, khaki vest and combats like he's smiling right at you, and gazes out of the Afghanistan trench like a young war poet but kind of pasted in to a new landscape, there but not there, like he is acting or playing paint-ball on a day trip out with the boys, then the rush from your friends to save you from peril. And you act like you don't need them, but perhaps it is the attention that you want. You want to be noticed and not treated like can just be walked by and left by the wayside alone to there to fade and to die.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway, </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">another</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> photo came through today. Quite inspiring! I said. Your picture could inspire a painting.... And I wondered who lay behind the texts. Perhaps he could abandon his scammer project and write books with me instead. Or become an artist's assistant and send me photographs of Kabul and Nigeria. Somehow I could turn him around. What do you do in Afghanistan? I asked. 'We subdue the Taliban with power and authority.' A photograph please of such heroism... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I have two of 'Jamie' himself - but I can't share those here as it would be a kind of identity theft I am sure. And anyway, I know how it feels when your portraits are ripped off your Facebook and used on someone else's account. Happened to me. For real. Had a message from Zuckerbrg's assistants at Facebook HQ which said - 'Identity fraud alert. Is this you?' Words to that effect. And, true story, a photo of me in a straw sunhat with a bow, my hair neatly brushed for once, and a picture of me in a poker dot dress, navy and white, had been used on the profile of a certain <i>Lesley Victoria</i> who apparently attends an average American university and was masquerading literally as me. Her name and my pictures! And I can't think of anyone who wants to have a double even if it is just a cyber-double. It's just strange and a bit sci-fi an dystopian and like you wake up and realise you were cloned in your sleep. So more than a little aggrieved, in fact more than a little pissed off with whoever they are, and it is quite impossible to know, I messaged that <i>fucker</i> and said - if you don't take the photos down like fucking <i>pronto</i> I will <i>'call the feds!</i> Well I thought they were maybe American and as far as I know they have 'feds' in America. Anyway, no debate was required. I sent them that bare instruction, and the next time I looked up that account the photos were gone and in their place just a blank. And Lesley can be a blank if she does not have a photo she likes of herself. Let her be a blank for all I care, and <i>no way</i> is she/he using my photo for a scamming enterprise like K.J tried to pull on me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here is the landscape 'Jamie' sent me today. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I <i>wonder</i> if this <i>is</i> Afghanistan. I looked up a map of that part of the world. I don't have an amazing grasp of geography and I was seriously wondering if Afghanistan actually has a sea or at least a lake as the photo shows water quite clearly. Anyway, I found out that it is bordered on the South by the Arabian Sea which sounds incredibly exotic, a bit like The Arabian Nights... except 'sea' instead of 'nights'. Could be Afghanistan then, on the basis that there is sea in the picture and Afghanistan has a sea, which all adds weight to the solider rather than scammer scale. He is where he says he is, we trick ourselves, but a mind that wants to believe something is true, when it is not entirely true or barely true at all, will apparently swap logic for dream. And the scammers, somehow just <i>know</i> the working's of a desperate woman's mind, a borderline depressed and/or isolated stay-at-home mother, cutting a remote figure like a woman in an Edward Hopper painting just waiting for a life to come her way... Tired perhaps of going out to seek for it and finding it all falling apart time and time again... They know the mindset of their targets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> My friends say: 'They are very clever.' They never say - look you are about to lose your mind like a total fucking idiot because he has said he will marry you and fuck you senseless - or whatever he said he would do to you, or with you or whatever that has shot your impressionable mind still more to pieces than it already was, poor girl. You're a sucker for a man with a rifle and a career as a military commander because you don't have a life do you? Admit it.' </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Do they spell out what they are thinking? No. They tactfully say, 'They are very clever.' But it is transparent, and you sense a frisson of opprobrium, and that sense that they see you have to work it out for yourself. That you won't really listen because that's what you're like. You have to go in there, toes in the water, and learn from your bitter experience...</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And you feel a bit miserable about how empty your life really is and try not to read into the subtext of what they are too polite to say. And you know they mean well. And you start to feel glad at times you have these big sister type friends looking out for you, even though you should be big enough to suss life out for yourself by forty plus.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm not sure if this the Arabian sea, I reflected as I looked at the lovely, twinkly photo that landed in my inbox today. The flowers look a bit cultivated and all the photos I saw of the Arabian sea when I checked on the internet looked a bit wilder than this. But it could be. It is certainly stunningly beautiful and I feel it will make a lovely painting when I finally get round to actually painting anything instead of talking to soldiers !</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other 'doubts'.... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, the day we met, almost a week ago now, I asked where he is usually based, and he said, London. Before I said I live in London, that is, which did make it seem perfect. Wow, he grew up just <i>half a mile</i> from where I live. He then explained that he had <i>built a house </i>at The London Eye for his widowed mother. Jamie is twenty-nine. It sounds a bit young to me to have built a house at the London Eye. And - more to the point - are there actually any houses anyway at The London Eye? As far as I know there is the observation wheel itself. There is a kiosk, maybe a few kiosks, or vans selling ice-creams and hot-dogs. There is a carousel. A river bank. Then the River Thames. In the other direction a field of grass, roughly a square and a playground, but I don't recall any houses. No little cottage with a Mrs James answering the door and a bedroom with his things in all prepped for his return from the army. I could go to look. Except this way madness quite possibly lies. Correction. That way madness definitely, without any shred of doubt, lies, because we just <i>know </i>there is not a house at the London Eye. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And the school. I say - 'Oh I guess you went to The Nautical School then near the South Bank.' And he will say yes, that's the one and make you feel, how amazingly attuned that you guessed it. And you say, what was your favourite book. And he says, 'The military books,' but he cannot think up a specific title. Be alert to such subtle red flags. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Because the thing is this, if we start to believe the tricks that our mind is begging us to perform because there is a tiny bit of us, actually more than tiny piece of us, rather most of our malleable, crazy mind that wants to be well, handled by this young exciting, fit soldier, his rifle flung down and his combats and boots pretty much off at the door, well, then we are really gone forever and will start to sign up to things that send us still madder. Like messaging our name and address and bank account details, name, age, anything on request. Once a woman is lost she is lost. This is the premise that they work on, I surmise. The scammers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Alas, my</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> friends are making me cynical.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The question really is this. Have I been scammed? If he was a young soldier and we had struck a chord, then fine. An age gap of around fifteen years, no problem in itself. But the crux of the matter, is have I been duped? Or if I could be duped of I permit the liaison to go on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> By the evening of the first day, KJ raised the subject of bank accounts. He had accounts in </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">London</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> but no money in Kabul where he was stationed. He wanted to come home for his thirtieth birthday quite soon. It seemed a bit soon to me to mention bank accounts so that was a red flag. I knew little to nothing about internet scams at the time, but it seemed so predictable. He was about to ask me to send him the money for the fare. I changed the subject and then I logged out to get on with something else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The next day KJ. told me a story about 'gold bars'. He was about to be flown to Nigeria, he said, and was afraid he would lose his gold and his documents at war. A man had died near Kabul, he said. He fell down dead after being shot and I can't remember who shot him, but he had some money on him in dollars and in his house were several gold bars. Jamie was given some money and two of the gold bars. He is worried he will lose this small fortune in Africa where he is about to be sent. He wants to send me the gold. The dollars. Now, of course there is probably a catch. We are born suspicious so it seems, or made so within a few short years of our existence. We don't trust anyone. And admittedly the story looked kind of 'cut and pasted in'. I asked him a question about this mysterious 'gold' and within two seconds there was a seven paragraph story in dazzling detail dropped in my inbox in reply. How many other unsuspecting women get that little story parachuted into their inbox I wonder?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> How many other women look at his photos - that young man in a beret gazing away from the rifle and through the camera and kind of shooting you down, and get a frisson of First World War poet combined with twenty-first century cyber lust and get a bit lost in love with their soldier? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And one minute they pluck on the poet string, and the poems come rising right back, Wilfried Owen, Rupert Brooke, an indiscriminate blur of first world war poets in the mud and the rain of the trenches... 'What passing bells for those who die as cattle...' provoking that motherly urge just to save them and pull them out of the mud and into a tidy living room with a bottle or wine ready on the table and turned back sheets. It will be fine. Everything will be fine, we want to soothe and console, chance to fall back into the familiar maternal pattern, as the maternal heart string zings happily, and the young ones do look like they need a mother... Already <i>happy</i> with this idea of a younger man we will look after, now our children regard us as a cast-off garment they've out grown, we <i>then</i> get a dazzling image in our head of the 1940s glamorous young wife waiting for her solider to come back from fighting for the country... Some of us envied our grandmothers perhaps for their devoted letters and passionate reunions with husbands sent to the war. None of this Tinder-world horror, of swiping and clicking on the one you like the look of that day like they are a bar of chocolate to consume before moving to the next. The hook up, I imagine, not that I have ever done them, compared with their marriages is surely like polyester next to silk, lycra next to seamed stockings, just not the same. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And these scammers sense that many of us are dissatisfied with the emotional lives that we have. It is like they have a sixth sense of they have read up on basic psychology. And one way and another, they play us. We are as harps in their hands. The music seems really rather beautiful... And that day of breathless unpunctuated texts can seem like a happy day in comparison to the others you have surpassed, days of quiet solitude with just your cat and the family for companions, like laying your eyes on a mirage you think could be real.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I had all manner of advice from my friends.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One man, I don't know him that well and he somehow muscled onto my friend's list through the mutuals... Well, he said - 'So what is it with this soldier?' And I said, 'Oh, well just passing the time.'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And he said, 'Oh and I thought you wanted some AWOL soldiery or something, but forgive me if I am wrong...'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And I thought, AWOL soldiery? Like, seriously what the <i>fuck, </i>seriously, is 'AWOL soldiery'? Is that a 'thing'?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I did not ask. Facebook, to my mind, is notably formal and polite - leaving aside the personal message option, more law unto itself than the time-line, that is true... And 'AWOL soldiery' is probably a euphemism for sexual activity with military types, and best left unsaid, I decided. Later I looked the phrase up in the Urban Dictionary but I could not find it listed amongst the new phrases and terminology. Unique to Martin, perhaps ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Anyway, it has all been a bit far fetched and I know I should try to stay grounded, and actually get a real life instead of this fantasy world thing going down. That man, let's just call him Martin - not his real name - Martin, anyway, said 'I hope you don't mind me saying but I think your attentions are misplaced... Can't believe you take army profiles seriously, to be honest. A clever girl like you... Whilst I understand my need and desire for distraction, and 'empathise' with that - but that the inter web can be full of odd folk, scams and psychos... Just being guarded on your behalf as a sensitive type can be easily scarred... ' And I said, 'Seriously, Martin - I am on my guard!' I don't want his empathy to be honest. I can't help thinking it sounds frightfully dull and kind of a little desperate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Martin tried to get me from another angle, the 'rescue' one, somehow backfiring, and began to explain that he has a lot of experience as an infantry man in The Honorable Artillery Company, founded in 1537 by Henry VIII, the oldest military body except for the Vatican Swiss Guard and I asked him if he had been in any wars such as... No, he said, he had been a part of a kind of land army.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then the predictable little lecture about how the military types are all fake. Same old story isn't it? Anything new? And he sent me a photo, all red and white regalia and brass buttons and he is a about sixty-five, and I said, don't even try to compete... And he said, 'Look, if you have any trouble from those shameless scammers just bell me up any time. I'll be your knight errant.' Words to that effect. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Infantry men who think I want saving from scammers or soldiers or whoever they are can back off to be honest. It's ridiculous. Will some third bloke wander in to save damsel *not actually in distress at all* from the 'knight errant' who is trying to save me from the soldier/scammer? And could knight errant himself be a fake? 'I don't really know you, to be honest,' I said. And I am starting to think that this world is like a hall of mirrors, a sea of illusions and nothing is quite real.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Solider soldier won't you marry me?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Seriously, I wonder if this <i>fantasy </i>is more about me than K.J and who he is or might be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I drew a picture of Jamie last night and it is interesting to me at least how the combat get-up looks more like a fleecy onesie with hearts on and shapes that are almost like stars and moons but not quite. And I started to think - he can be anything. My imaginary construct as much as his. And maybe this fleecy number is me depicting in my mind the sweet side of the male. Or maybe he is my inner male reflected right there on the page. And maybe relationships give us that - a missing element that completes us in a sense. But I really don't know. I must talk to the therapist... Whatever, I have the picture now on my wall which fills the gap to some extent. The soldier in my mind doesn't <i>kill</i> anyone by the way. In this drawing he looks like he would not even kill a rabbit. I think it is about wanting to feel safe. A man around to protect me from wolves. I am not the best of feminists and I know I should feel confident I could look after myself instead of this fantasy about a man on guard at the door. But anyway, it is what it is. I am who I am, damaged, crazy or just too many hours of the days and nights alone. I don't know... Maybe I even have that syndrome. Stockholm syndrome. Perhaps. Or maybe part of me <i>wants</i> to be trapped and put through dreadful misadventures - perhaps for the adrenalin thrill... Not badly enough to make it happen, quite clearly! Well, not with these sleazy scammer types that steal the photos of perfectly admirable, up-standing soldiers who you won't ever get to meet or talk to because they are far too busy fighting the Taliban in poppy fields to chat up unsuspecting women like me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Anyway, one thing I <i>do</i> know, if nothing else, is that you can't deploy a fraud to protect you from wolves when they are quite possibly a wolf themselves just dressed up costume to lure you in. Oh yes, mother read me Red Riding Hood as well, where the wolf tricks the girl he wants to eat for tea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the 3rd June I am seeing a therapist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I went to my doctor a few times after a recent 'break up.' I keep crying, I said. I had a man in my life who I think maybe loved me but just did not know how to say it, and I did not realise until too late how much he means to me. And I was tearful each time I saw her, and she signed me off sick with depression and booked me in to see a psychotherapist. It's taken weeks to arrange and to actually get a date so most of my problems have completely diminished. I feel quite a lot happier, even going out on occasion in 1940s style red lipstick and wrap dresses and high heels. Anyway, when I see Vivienne, my psychotherapist, I will tell her if she asks about my 'problems' that I spend spare time drawing pictures of soldiers with rifles in trenches in Afghanistan and fantasising about married life in a house at The London Eye. Or at least I did for a day. Is it normal? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The second day I woke up and came clean with Killian James.I admitted that I could not go ahead with any wedding, it had been a day of crazy madness, that's all. And he sent me a crestfallen reply. </span><br />
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<span class="_5yl5">You know what I've been thinking, Jamie - I just can't. I just can't surrender my heart via Facebook as I thought perhaps I could - just so you know... And there are days where I lose my mind a bit here... And I think I 'lost my mind' a bit when we first met. I do really like you... We can be friends for sure and maybe more than that if we like each other when you come to London.... but I can't make promises before that !</span></div>
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<span class="_5yl5">Babe why are you saying this? I have already gave you my heart</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">His command of English is not amazing for a young man who professed to study at a London school - the notorious low achievement of some boys at such schools no excuse from a rationally minded perspective. And much as I adore those photos in the army gear, and some crazy instinct makes me suddenly <i>desire</i> a man who is stronger and powerful than me and will somehow be deployed to protect me from every danger, and perhaps from all of my doubts and fears, and help me forget about everything difficult, an escape route, escapist as a field of poppies, a cloud of opium, and I like the photos of places I have never been and possibly will never see in my life, I can't go there. At the edge - about to leap into the dizzying unknown I won't make the final jump.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I started to dream of a possible future together with you, Jamie, I said, but today I feel so much more hesitant. I don't want to lose my mind again like before. And I don't want to treat you like a chat up line... No personal photos required. No sexts. Landscapes are fine, just those. And I issued the dismissive I have had to repeat a few times on the internet when, on occasion, a message lands in my inbox from a friend of mine which says, 'What are you wearing? Do you have knickers on?' That kind of thing.... 'Sorry, but I don't as a rule do 'cyber-sex'. Jamie said, 'No worries. You don't have to do anything. And I will come there and marry you.' So I said, Jamie, I <i>can't</i> accept a proposal of marriage without at a few coffee dates first, at least ! And by the way - my age - I am not as young as I look. I know. I <i>look</i> like Scarlet Johanssen in my photos, but I am much older than that. I am actually over forty. I don't want any more children. I think I would make a really bad wife, if I am honest. You should choose someone younger than me. I poured out the honest truth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And he said, 'Well you never know there could be a little miracle... A little sweetheart out of the blue.' </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> More</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> miracle to get my children to the secondary school stage and have time to go on proper dates with actual real actual me instead of fake ones, than to make another baby in my reluctant uterus, I can't help but think, whilst another side of me says, how sweet, how endearing, and the other side is fairly certain he had fabricated this entire soldier in love pose so he can scam me for money or maybe my personal details.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> At one point I said, 'I think you could be a scammer. My friends said you could be a scammer.' And he said that he and his troops would come to London and attack them for saying that. At every stage - a display of bravado, but that remark made me very sad. My friends matter much more than him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have a song in my head - <i>Last night I gave you my heart and the very next day I took it away</i>. I can't remember the exact words.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Goodbye Killian James.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I feel I have been a bit harsh - as I cannot be <i>sure</i> he is a scammer - but where it comes to unknowns such as the random friend requester you don't know from a fraudster, the mind can make it all wonderful one minute, then the next day we fill in those gaps in another way entirely, join the dots and we come up with worst case instead of best case scenario, and suddenly the little dream gets shattered by the voice of reason, that inner girl guide bossy voice that says, that's enough fun and games we have camp fires to build today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> That dizzying flip from a vision of wifely duties in that cottage at the London Eye we somehow just hadn't noticed - perhaps too busy buying ice creams for the children and didn't see it at the time - how unobservant can you get ! - the mind just papering over the flaws to try get you to what you instinctively want - to thinking suppose I give out my address so he can post me the gold ingots he doesn't want to lose whilst taking down Isis in Nigeria... What if he comes to London, for real, takes the cat hostage and demands a ransom of a million pounds? And that is not worst case scenario, just one of the less extreme possible examples...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And suddenly we get a bit nervous. It's not always for the best, to walk out in the dark, into exciting unknowns. We're taking measured risks all the time but perceptions can blur into a haze if the heart gets tugged a bit hard.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> We need to be on our guard is all I am saying, and I don't mean 'on the guard' - literally <i>on</i> the squaddie because that won't happen anyway, well, about as likely as the most unlikely thing is to happen that is, and I can't think of what this is right now, but you know exactly what I mean. A little caution is a good idea. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Don't throw it all to the wind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And we don't need to give them anything... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We don't need to give them cloak, hat, boots, socks, personal details, address, date of birth, hand in marriage or anything else whatsoever. Keep it for a real man or woman or for yourself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the song sweet girl keeps going up to her grandfathers chest and bringing out more items for her solider at his request... </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and he just rips her off for more things. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the ending - oh the poor girl - you can imagine how broken hearted she is when she hears this...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>'Oh no sweet main I cannot marry you</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>for I have a wife at home..' !!</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The original soldier rogue !</span><br />
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And you</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> wonder at the time - why is mummy singing us that song again? And you don't really get it. You're just thinking what will she get out next from that chest? And one day it all seeps back to you, because it's in there. The songs they sang you are in there and you think your mother didn't really care and all the don't talk to strangers warnings were just designed to ruin all your fun, but one day you wake up and think to yourself oh well, perhaps she was right to warn her daughter of the scammers - what foresight - how did she know I would one day get pounced upon on the internet by man with rifle and a sweet line in proposals...?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">All too easy to lose our minds in the madness of this age, but seriously speaking, there are no houses at The London Eye... In our dreams perhaps - so have them - have your dreams - because they are yours and no one can take them away...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Notes:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thanks to 'K.J' for the photos of Afghanistan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thanks to Martin for participation and the 'AWOL soldiery' phrase.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Names have been changed</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A day after writing this story I came across a rather wonderful photo on my friend's facebook page. A close up of a poppy, made iridescent and shimmering with the sunlight shining through the petals, the middles are visible each like a smouldering, all seeing, eye. My friend says they are in Regent's Park but they won't last for long. So I want to find the poppies, real poppies I can touch and actually smell, not just a splash of vermillion on a photo that could have been taken off the internet and not even seen with that man's eyes. Why do I even think that there was a possibility that the whole site is not a fraud? I don't know. Sometimes reason goes off on vacation and only part of it comes back, and once hooked a bit of you always belongs to them, even if you don't think it does.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> Another poppy photos appeared. A pair of poppies then a group of three, one a little bud beside the other two. That's real. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> And another story is floating into mind - Poppy, Poppy - The Beauty of my World - It is the 'this-ness' that matters to me now - the tangible and what I can reach out and sense and touch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">An extract from Jezebel - by Anna North</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I discovered this article today. If only I had read this before I would have known to have been more cautious!</span></div>
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'The Army is warning online daters about a disturbing form of scam: thieves pose as US soldiers stationed overseas, pledge their (fake) love to women, and then bilk them out of thousands. Some scammers even steal the identity of actual servicemen to make their pleas more plausible.</div>
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In an unexpectedly poetic <a href="http://www.cid.army.mil/romance_scam.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #e21638; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">memo</a> last month, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) warned Americans to be wary of "scams promising true love, but only end up breaking hearts and bank accounts." The organization released a similar memo <a href="http://www.army.mil/article/36242/cid-warns-of-internet-romance-scams/?ref=news-home-title9" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #e21638; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">last May</a> — but, they say, "CID continues to receive hundreds of reports of various scams involving persons pretending to be U.S. Soldiers serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The victims are most often unsuspecting women, 30 to 55 years old, who think they are romantically involved on the internet with an American Soldier, when in fact they are being cyber-robbed by perpetrators thousands of miles away." The scammers are often based in African countries and accessing dating websites at cyber-cafes. Apparently they "will often take the true rank and name of a U.S. Soldier who is honorably serving his country somewhere in the world, marry that up with some photographs of a Soldier off the internet, and then build a false identity to begin prowling the internet for victims." In an especially creepy variation, scammers take the identities of soldiers who have been killed.</div>
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Once they meet a willing woman, they may profess love and even propose marriage to her very quickly, then begin asking for money. Some scammers claim they need funds to "help keep the Army internet running," while others say the Army won't let them access their bank accounts. These are lies, but victims who believed them have sent thousands of dollars. One British mom <a href="http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/02/army-online-scammers-pretending-to-be-soldiers-021511w/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #e21638; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">sent</a> $127,000 to a man claiming to be "Sgt. Mark Ray Smith," while another woman <a href="http://militarytimes.com/blogs/outside-the-wire/2011/04/12/soldier-romance-scam-strikes-again/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #e21638; line-height: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">sent</a> $72,431 worth of cash and electronics, including 12 Blackberrys and 10 iPods, to man who said he was stationed in Iraq but was actually in Nigeria. Says CID spokesman Chris Grey, "We cannot stress enough that people need to stop sending money to persons they meet on the internet and claim to be in the U.S. military." ' (11/03/2011)</div>
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-6379646481360964942015-11-29T11:48:00.001+00:002017-10-30T03:35:48.422+00:00Visual ideas for novel....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-40155357548047485032015-11-29T11:41:00.002+00:002016-04-10T11:24:13.870+01:00Visuals for Novel A<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">When I write, I see and hear the story I have in mind and sometimes take a few photos as reminders and inspiration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Part One</span><br />
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Part Two</div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Part Three</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Part Four and Five</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'courier new', courier, monospace;"><b>I am unsure about whether to include images, partly because some areas of the novel would be devoid of them and the reason for this is that the cameras I had with me ran out of film and my cellphone ran out of charge so I reached a phase on the Norfolk coast where imagery is purely stored in my head and I guess then I depicted what I saw in my mind and in surroundings in words.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I hope one day to make a film of my story. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>The photos act as a constant visual reminder.</b></span>v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-69730463825164389692015-11-06T03:35:00.001+00:002015-11-06T03:35:14.549+00:00The Persephone file<span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5b56; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5b56; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Rossetti on Proserpine</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5b56; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She is represented in a gloomy corridor of her palace, with the fatal fruit in her hand. As she passes, a gleam strikes on the wall behind her form some inlet suddenly opened, and admitting for a moment the light of the upper world; and she glances furtively towards it, immersed in thought. </span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YJp-QVO7NTo/Vjwfpo8tJ1I/AAAAAAAAAoY/WNu4OqW5KYE/s1600/Persephone.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YJp-QVO7NTo/Vjwfpo8tJ1I/AAAAAAAAAoY/WNu4OqW5KYE/s320/Persephone.jpeg" width="147" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qd3KUPi75sU/VjwfzJxQdDI/AAAAAAAAAog/3JbU4q2wFKs/s1600/abduction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qd3KUPi75sU/VjwfzJxQdDI/AAAAAAAAAog/3JbU4q2wFKs/s1600/abduction.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5c5b56; font-size: 12px;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span>v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305094538477295605.post-34463842412697783982015-10-02T00:25:00.005+01:002015-10-02T00:42:10.794+01:00The Light Album<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I started to compile some photos together on the theme of light</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BvKLAPqj4Ec/Vg2ztP-rVJI/AAAAAAAAAeA/j7PXeoYGr6Q/s1600/IMG_0631.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BvKLAPqj4Ec/Vg2ztP-rVJI/AAAAAAAAAeA/j7PXeoYGr6Q/s320/IMG_0631.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Menton</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QFSQ4vjTMiw/Vg20gveRhuI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/BThO0dWYlwE/s1600/IMG_0881.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QFSQ4vjTMiw/Vg20gveRhuI/AAAAAAAAAeQ/BThO0dWYlwE/s320/IMG_0881.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nice</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">reflection of a segment of the observation-wheel - </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Winter-Wonderland - Hyde Park</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">the dismantling of winter wonderland</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />car head-lights</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">crossing a common - in north east London</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zpy-nlotZv8/Vg3ELc3mCgI/AAAAAAAAAfs/NuVchpNvAJ4/s1600/1549439_10152515541091186_1491762094797109913_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zpy-nlotZv8/Vg3ELc3mCgI/AAAAAAAAAfs/NuVchpNvAJ4/s320/1549439_10152515541091186_1491762094797109913_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">on the way home from my friend's house</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">in a cemetery in Hampstead - London</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br />making coffee on electric stove - </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">a London morning</span><br />
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v for visualhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01345067161576329572noreply@blogger.com0