THEY LIE TOGETHER.

 They lay together, naked and exhausted.

“You must fetch things for me,” she told him. “Things of no value, yet I will demand them… Buttons, and lace, and tears and the ceaseless silence between the worlds.”

That was when he became concerned, but she fell asleep soon after so she just held her gently and waited for the dawn.

He could not remember when he had last slept properly. But it had been long enough to seriously affect his memory, of that he was sure. He tried to make excuses; the traffic on the road outside the bedroom window, the unseasonal weather, the neighbours… Really, he knew that the problem was internal. So, in the light of dawn, he was unsure what she had asked of him.

However, as he was fetching her morning coffee he suspected that one day she would be asking for rather more than sweet, black coffee… like the breathless silence between the stars.

Days later.

He could smell her on the pillow. The usual sex smell of sweat and phemomones, a hint of the perfume he had bought her, a hint of gin and something else… Something a little too sweet… something unique to her. A smell like nothing else on Earth, 

‘By their stench you will know them,’ the words flashed through his mind, filling him with revulsion and guilt at the same time. Where did he remember that quote from? Some rare, antique book he had read years ago. He shook his head. Paranoid. 

He wasn’t quite sure when she had last visited. Maybe a couple of days ago. She often came to his house late at night, or left in the morning before he woke, which further complicated his exhausted mind.

He washed the bedsheets. 

“Do you ever wish to get away from all of this?” she asked him.

“Yeah, I’d really like to go traveling again some time, maybe Eastern Europe…” he replied dreamily, he was so tired that everything felt like a lucid dream. 

“No. I mean getting away from ALL of this,” she continued.

“Maybe I don’t understand…”\

“All of this, life and death, bodies and souls, gods and monsters. Once we were free of all of this. One day we will be free of it again.” 

“You and I?”

“No, not you…” she laughed almost hysterically. “We.’ 

He must have fallen asleep soon afterwards, because he didn’t remember anymore of the conversation. When he half woke in the cold dawn light she was gone.

She had left a note on the bedside table. It read;

“Bring me blood red ribbons, next time we meet, and feathers. Xx”

After breakfast he went shopping. 

The monstrous squid thing pursued him through the interminable tunnels. A sickly, violet light snuck through gaps in the walls and a foul substance slowed every step as he fled. He ran on, his chest raw with exhaustion. Not daring to look back, he continued, followed by the creature's cruel hissing and sweet, sweaty stench. It seemed terribly familiar, as though it had happened many times before. The same tunnels, the same monstrosity, over and over again for milenia. He ran on, with no destination in mine, no hope of a safe den, only AWAY FROM IT.

Onwards, he ran, then stumbled then crawled. Soon it would be upon him. He crawled further, crawling onto a few more seconds of life before the inevitable.

He woke up. Panting and feverish. 

She lay beside him in the semi-darkness. She looked down on him and grinned.

Sometimes, and he was reluctant to admit this to himself, he thought about killing her. It would need to be clean, and quiet, painless if possible, because he loved her, or at least sometimes he thought he loved her. She scared him, not in any practical, realistic sort of way, but she scared him in the manner that a distant storm might scare a child. The inner conflict drained him. The contradictions were intolerable. 

Did he love her because she scared him or was he scared of her because he loved her? Was it love or lust or hate that made him fantasise about murdering her? He was too tired to think about it, so he did nothing other than react to her demands. 

Recently she had demanded nettles wrapped in white silk and sealed with tears. It had been hard to make himself cry, but surely that was the best option?

Sometimes he woke from sleep with fragmented memories of being watched. In the ‘dreams’ the watcher was always with him, but rarely revealed itself. It was not in itself malevolent, it was perhaps amoral, perhaps older than morality. It observed. Watching was not only what it did but also what it was. 

One of them, he had decided, had to go. He could not continue always in exhaustion and confusion. One of them, she or himself, had to die.

It would not be her. He was too deep in love or lust or fear to harm her.

But first a long walk.

He trod the old pebbled path down from his home to the river. On the way he picked the petals of a certain flower. Then he walked along that wide, slow river. He felt the gentle breeze as though for the first time and  picked the pines of a certain tree. Then home through the woods, where he enjoyed the soft earthy smell and picked a certain herb. 

At home, feeling more relaxed than he had done in months, he put the petals, pines and herbs in his tea pot. Then he boiled the kettle, it seemed to take forever. Next, he put the water in the pot and waited for it to brew. It would need a few minutes before it was strong enough. 

He heard a door creak upstairs. Was it the wind or was she in the house? Had he forgotten that she was sleeping in his bed, or had she come in when he was walking?

He waited another moment. He heards birds singing in the tree on his street. A fly battered itself against the window so he opened it to let it outside. 

It must be brewed by now… he could always drink more. He poured a cup and looked into the hot green water.

She walked into the room.

He looked at her and she looked at him.

She sniffed the air, she gently took the cup from his hand and sniffed the cup.

“Stupid boy,’ she said softly, ‘it is your soul I want, not your life.’ 

THE CASTLE.

THE CASTLE.

The castle stands,

Up on the hill,

When we are gone,

It will be there still,

A thousand men,

For a thousand day,

Could not carry,

Every rock away.

The Rooms in the Ruins.

 Up crooked paths, through towering trees,

Where the castle once stood and stands still,

Along the ivy covered corridors, ascending crumbling steps,

He entered the rooms in the ruins, between fallen turrets, where

Three ladies wait, with total indifference, for the end of the world,

No need to knock on the door - it has rotted away,

Into the first room, the bedchamber of countless dreams,

Where spiderwebb tapestries reach up to the stars,

The first lady shines like starlight in the fog,

She will hug him too tightly and get down on her knees,

"You must fetch things for me," she tells him, "Things of no value,

Yet I will demand them… buttons, and lace, and tears,

And the ceaseless silence between the worlds."

The second lady lies, catlike, on the bed,

Her breasts hanging lazily from her gown,

She waits for him to come to her,

He passes through to the next room, which is 

Darkness, where the third lady has no need for a face,

Only impossibly long arms which reach from the shadows

And crimson hair that dangles down from the rafters,

He returns to the first of the rooms in the ruins.

P.S. Here, I experimented with a poetic-prose style. Not really a poem, not really a short story, just something in between.  Not sure if I like. Normally I write fixed verse, rhyming poetry, but it's good to try new things.

She Haunts.

 SHE HAUNTS.

Between crowded shadows,

Amongst forgotten meadows,

She dreams without sleeping,

And steals without keeping,

On oceans of moonlight,

She dances with midnight,

She haunts the darkness,

Between truth and madness,

With unreasonable stealth,

She is haunting herself.

Poems of memories.

MEMORIES OF GEMS OF HA LONG BAY.

The soaring grey eagles fly,

A mirror in an endless sky

Of swimmers in the sea below,

Floating deeper than they know,

Perhaps a million miles high

Above earth or below sky,

The ship afloat upon the bay,

Close- yet drifting far away,

Those turquoise islands must fade

Against a vast sea of jade.

EXILE.

Exile is where you are not,

And where you cannot be,

It is what cannot be forgot,

Those you and I cannot see,

Still we share the same moon and sky,

Touch the same ocean flowing by.

SLAVES TO STARLIGHT

 “Please, then just kill me now, I cannot bear it any longer,” he asked, looking up from where he sat at her feet.

Earlier. It seems much earlier.

“How was the weather today?” the Lady asked him.

“Just normal, a bit cloudy.”

“Tell me, you know it is important to me to hear it.”

“Yes,” he obeyed. “In the morning the sunrise came late and there was fog on the mountains. The fog had lifted by midday and there was snow on the distant mountain peaks. The clouds parted for a minute in the afternoon and there were brief rays of sun. But then the clouds returned, darker than before, it looked like it would rain, but it did not. The sunset was nothing special.” 

‘Every sunset is special,” she corrected him harshly. “I miss those long autumn twilights, and the sun through the trees in the summer…”

“Forgive me, Lady. At least you still have the night, you still have the starlight.” 

“We have nothing but starlight… We are literally starlight, The atoms of your body were formed from ancient exploding stars, All the energy in the food which sustains you comes from the photosynthesis of plants- from the light of our star. All matter, all of you, is light moving very slowly, all mass is energy and all energy comes from the stars.”

He gazed up at her adoringly. To him, it was as though she spoke with the wisdom of ages. To be in her presence when she spoke that way made all the suffering and sacrifice worthwhile.

“When you gaze up at me, all you see is light reflected from energy… Starlight,” she continued.

She treated him to a smile, and feasted on the power she held over him, how he melted under her radiance.

“Give me your hand,” she commanded.

He reached up foppishly, presenting his hand like a Victorian gentleman asking for a dance. She grasped his hand in her left hand and with her right she took a knife from her garter. It was a tiny pen knife set in ivory and the blade shone like the stars. She cut his little finger and placed it between her lips. She drank like a thirsty kitten. 

To him, it felt exquisite. If it gave her much pleasure, she refused to show it.

The next day, he woke up exhausted. Partly because of loss of blood and partly because she had required him for half the night but he still had to wake at dawn to perform his duties on her estate.

He pulled on his clothes, washed his face with the cold water beside his bed, quickly brushed his hair and then left his cell for the kitchen. After a quick meal of black pudding, fried bread and ale, he got his tools and started work.

He worked until sunset. It rained all afternoon, so it was a long day. He returned, exhausted, to his cell, changed into dry clothes and waited to be summoned to the Lady.

He waited. He drank tea and ate a cold beef sandwich and waited. He tried to read a book, but his eyes hurt in the poor light of the cell. He waited, and the summons never came. Exhausted  and miserable, he fell to sleep soon after midnight.

He dreamt of riding a horse in a meadow, the sky was full of stars, but if it was dark he could still see clearly. He came to a river, and he knew, without touching it, that the water was colder than ice. He followed the river upstream. The river led to a pond. The Lady was bathing in the water. It delighted him to see her that way. The horse was gone, or maybe he was the horse.He walked towards the pool and the Lady… suddenly another man appeared, naked, beside her, then another man, then another…

He woke in his cell, very much aware of how alone he was.  

The next day was much the same, but he was less exhausted and it rained less. In the morning he trimmed the trees and rose bushes in her gardens. In the afternoon he did repairs on her stables, and the sight and smell of her horses made him uncomfortable but he could not quite remember why.

The evening was much the same as the last. Ceaseless, intolerable waiting. He tormented himself with questions. Why didn’t she summon him? Had he offended her? Was she angered by his dismissal of the sunset? He had been careful to watch the sunset carefully, to remember every shade of scarlet, the movement of every cloud. He had fantasized about composing a poem for her about the last twilight, but his education was minimal and he could not put the words together correctly. Had she forgotten him? There had been times when she had only summoned him to drink for a few minutes, and there had been one evening, months ago, when she had been too busy to summon him, but never two evenings in a row. Never. Maybe very late tonight… What could he do about it? Nothing.

He slept, and was constantly woken by nightmares, but he could not remember what they were about.

The following day he went through his day's work like a very old man. His body was weak and every joint ached. His head was clouded like a drunkard, he could not stop thinking about her, but at the same time he could not focus on anything. Pictures and  words and hazy feelings swept around his mind. What had he done wrong? What could he do to make it better? He replayed the last summons, every word they had spoken, again and again. Then he would remember his work, if he worked badly it might anger her, but he was too weak… He forced himself to work, although he knew the work was not good enough, he forced himself to eat and drink, but he tasted nothing.He avoided speech, even eye contact with other staff, that was easy enough, most of them avoided him. He felt like he had a terrible secret which he needed to hide from everyone, including himself. 

Eventually, darkness came.

(The sunset had been brief, but beautiful, it had been orange and rose gold, with purple tints on the clouds.)

He lay in his bed. He could not relax enough to get comfortable, and yet struggled to keep his eyes open. After an hour, which felt like days, he was summoned.

He strode towards her chamber, struggling to hide his fatigue. He entered, bowed and knelt at her feet.

“You look terrible,” she said.

He nodded, so very grateful that she had noticed. 

She looked down on him, searching for something that she could not find.

“Shall I tell you about the sunset?’ he asked.

“No, I know already. Give me your hand.” 

She took his hand and cut his wrist (very carefully so that it did no serious damage) with her beautiful knife. As she drank, she looked away from him, at the stars outside the window. After a minute she was no longer thirsty, she released his arm.

‘You may go,” she commanded.

He looked down at his bleeding wrist, then up at the indifferent expression on her exquisitely beautiful face. 

“Please no…I …” he began.

“Pardon?”

“Please…” he knew it was madness to speak, to think of disobeying, but he was too weak. He had waited for so long, to be dismissed so rapidly. What was wrong with him? He could not stop the flow of feeling, of emotion, of words -damn words- from his mouth. “Please let me stay a little longer, I have missed you… Please… I love you.”

Silence.. 

“You think that you are in love, that is pathetic, like a rabbit loving a wolf… “ said the Lady. “What do you even know of love? Nothing it seems... Love is essentially both worthless and priceless, It can be given, taken and gathered up for free. It is like air or rain water. It is only the concept of possession of it which makes it rare and have any value. The fantasy of ownership. That is what people fight or starve for. What you work and beg for- nothing but an illusion of possession. Love, or money,  can be given freely, but people are scared to. They hoard it, and that is why it is rare. That is why, for you, it is unobtainable.”

Silence.

“Please, then just kill me now, I cannot bear it any longer,” he asked

‘You have misunderstood. That is not how this arrangement functions,” she dismissed him.