the fidelity of pets

A crafty person might learn a way to place all their demons in someone else's pocket.

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When that person has left the room, or the house, or their life, they might allow themselves to believe that the demons have gone with them.

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But you can't keep a good demon in a pocket for very long. A good demon knows how to find its way back to its owner.

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look carefully before you cross the road

A highly developed instinct towards kindness is one that almost always leaves the bearer subject to disadvantage and open to abuse.

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It is tantamount to placing oneself on the back foot; or offering something for nothing.

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No wonder it has come to be considered a foolhardy instinct, one a wise individual should refrain from indulging.

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as wordsworth and others observed

We all of us possess a child within us.

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Which needs to be both indulged and resisted.

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Without the child, we lose our sense of wonder. We cease to grow.

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Ruled by the child, we forget the value of all we have learnt. We become stunted.

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the warrior

Generosity of spirit is a by-product of courage.

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When one acquires the capacity to place one's strength at risk; one also acquires the capacity to give that strength away.

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how do we know unless we are gay

Are there fundamental differences between the sexes?

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Of character and temperament, for example.

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Or are we lead to these conclusions because we are never made to look into the mirror of our own sex.

We rationalise differences in personality by ascribing them to the most physically discernible difference; because this is easier than confronting our beauty or our flaws.

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Have you never known a man who was winsome or a woman who was cocksure?

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sparkle

Being fascinated with someone and being enamoured of them are two seperate things which are frequently confused.

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in the library

Through the simple act of sitting in near-silence for a while, with a task to be done and no distractions, a state of serenity can be achieved.

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the nietzschean hippy

People tend to believe that if someone's incapable of hating, or even disliking, their enemy, or someone who crosses them, then this is a sign of weakness.

They are wrong. It may not look like it, but it is a sign of strength.

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note to parents

If you grow up accustomed to unhappiness, it becomes a hard habit to shake off.

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madonna's sagacity

Wisdom is treated with suspicion by the materialistic society.

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Wisdom attempts to look beneath the surface of things.

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In so doing it senses the transitory nature of things.

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The more a society constructs itself upon a tide of things, the more wary it becomes of wisdom.

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In a society that has no place for wisdom, the wise man looks like a fool.

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ends and means

Thoughtlessness is more likely to emerge from weakness than malice.

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The perpetrator lacks the energy to think of/for someone else.

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It could be they desperately wish to do so. But they cannot find the way.

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There is a pathos to this scenario. And yet it does not diminish the effect.

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the sunken italian garden in priors barton

In my dream I looked out of the window and the sunken garden was being dug up. It was being excavated from the edges into the middle. An old chapel or chamber, with filigree lead glass windows had been discovered underneath the garden. My mother and I ran downstairs. By the time we got out to the garden, the area around the excavation had flooded. The chamber could be seen through the clear water, but what lay inside the chamber could not be discerned.

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south west london tales 769002

On the Eastern corner of Vauxhall Bridge is a large Farrellian building with green plate glass windows and a hint of ziggurat. This is the MI5 building. Beside it there's a slipway, where the duckboat and its tourist crew emerge from the Thames.

They needed to capture some footage of the riverbank. G had hoped to film in the mud where the tide recedes, but the tide was in. All that was available was the slipway. The three of them carried camera and tripod down, the walls of the MI5 building looming. Three lion's heads are sculpted into the embankment. The shoreline is a mass of bottles, rope, wood, junk, stone. The river laps at the shore. On the opposite bank is the Tate, Milbank, and beyond that, the Houses of Parliament.

They got the camera out and captured all of this, looking over their shoulders. No one tried to prevent them. They finished off as quickly as they could, and then walked away.

As they turned the corner onto the street, the camerwoman's eye was taken by the setting sun glinting on the stainless steel of the bus station. She stood on the pavement and filmed, then stopped and moved forward to find a better shot, the camera on her shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, G noticed the flak jacketed, shaven headed, military man heading towards them.

G took the camerawoman by the arm and dragged her forward. Mr C lurked behind. There was about a hundred metres between G and the camerawoman and the security man. The camerawoman tried to stop again but G grabbed her arm and pulled her forward.

Mr C heard the security man shout into his radio: Are they filming? Mr C lurked behind. G and the camerawoman made it to the corner of the road and turned right, onto Vauxhall Bridge. Mr C came up behind. The three of them hared across the road, dodging traffic, and jumped on a 436 bus. The security man had given up the chase. They had their footage.

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the long haul

Whenever a deep-rooted attachment comes to an end - a love affair, a friendship, a home, a place or a task - we learn a little more of what it will mean to die.

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a 'runter'

Is a technical term applied to someone on a film set who occupies the twin job descriptions of 'writer' and 'runner'.

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provisions

There is no way that someone can explain to someone else how much they love them.

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The object of these affections will either feel loved; or they will not.

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Love is not an elemental quality, like nitrogen or zinc.

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It has shades and degrees and differing levels of flavour or intensity. Like tomatoes, or coffee.

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The love that proclaims itself the loudest could be but an insipid imitation of the love that barely whispers.

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in order to break the pattern

We have to learn how to say the words which describe the things that cannot be said.

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And when they have been said, we have to learn how not to have to say them ever again.

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For a while at least.

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One day we'll get lucky. And forget them altogether.

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protection

Is it possible that failure could become a talisman?

The aleph which clings to your heart; which guides you on your way; which will one day lead you to safety?

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attributes

Your perfume is cleaner than soap, your fingers sharper than
Sunshine. Your touch more deadly than television, your toes
More agile than a teenage Soviet gymnast. Your smile’s
Prettier than Van Gogh’s dream of flowers; your neck as
Fragile as a galaxy which was spied once, one single night,
On the edge of a night sky, collapsing like a punctured
Accordion; its music too sweet for the universe to
Bear. Your mind’s an anaconda and a string quartet.
Your mind’s an undiscovered chamber in the pyramid of
Cheops. Your mind floats like a butterfly and stings like a
Nightingale. Your mind’s as pure as driven wine and as
Wicked as an angel’s. Your mind is rivalled only by your
Flesh in its un-transparent beauty and its transparent
Beauty to boot. Your beauty’s like a bubble, blown by a child.
It shimmers, defies the odds, sustains itself on the point of
Vanishing: should I try to catch it I’ll fear to lose it. Every
Colour wrapped in none, it reflects my world and floats
Within it: a philosophical challenge. Put down the ramp,
Drop the door, let’s travel the bubble together. Visit
Planets beyond the sensory range. Cross untameable
Seas, radical beaches, sulky jungles, runaway cities.
When the bubble’s energy’s spent, ready to pause,
Let her settle on my tongue, a safe haven. Rest there.
Sustain the perfect. Don’t ever burst. Don’t ever burst.

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