Saturday, February 11, 2017

THE DARK GARDEN





The obsessive imagination, it gazes unblinking, it floats, in a cold cracked plaster room, somewhere between a bed unmade and a ceiling unlit and then, like sand, it trickles all too quickly through arthritic fingers to the floorboards and at best it is grit. Blink, and it is gone.          

1519. The New World. The Spanish stand steady, hands on hips and hilts, and here it is, under a steel grey sky, that they shimmer in their dark death garden.      

The Dark and Dirty stand sated out there beyond the treeline, backs turned upon sand once golden for them to grasp, but the trees do not care.

   “Who here lies earth wrapped, worm eaten forever? None as yet? Boys! Haul up the boats and make them fast. I am required to bide my time until the very last.”         

1629. Massachusetts Bay. The British stroll yonder, nonchalant, beyond the treeline. Myriad torches and pyres,  flames greedy for land, Cromwell’s sword greedy for blood. Seaward glances too few venture to make, over their shoulders, back, out beyond the treeline to the beaches that saw them land.     

Virgin sand was once out there before the treeline, nothing more, a once upon a golden time coastline that gunpowder, so deep a black, had conquered for flame.      

The Dark and Dirty stand sated out there beyond the treeline amidst the ashes. Compost, the trees do not care.         

The confounded minstrels compose a melancholy refrain. 

   “Who here lies earth wrapped, worm eaten forever? None as yet? Boys! Haul up the boats and make them fast. I am required to bide my time until the very last.”

   “Boys!”  

Seaward glances over a shoulder, toward hidden nightmare coves. There is never an easy night’s sleep out there beyond the treeline. There are shallow graves out there beyond the treeline, where history and time are simply compost. The trees, the plants, the maggots, they do not care, they simply feast.              

Under a steel sky shimmers the dark garden, awaiting its troupe of strolling players. Upon the sheltered lawn the confounded minstrels perform a melancholy refrain to invite you to the ball, minstrels a few, buffoons you all.

   “Who here lies earth wrapped, worm eaten forever? None as yet?”

   “Boys!” 

Between sticky rumpled sheets a head stirs, moves its unkempt, days unshaven face just slightly upon a sour pillow…     
Tick…A shrill carefree laughter taunts the itching crotch. It haunts, it echoes in all the painful longing places, it trades from all the distant walls…        
Tock…Sweat. There are no dark curtains drawn to filter out a sickly morning light…        

Silence.         


Silence of a sort.         

Tick…The hint of a sound, whiskers scratch across the smooth weave of a viscose pillowcase…    

Tock…The occasional breath, a distant gust of wind, rain against the glass…    

Glassy eyes stare toward and through condensation on the windowpane, the greatest of damned and accursed storm cloud steel sky cataracts…     

Tick…Cock a doodle doo…Cock a doodle doo…A bright new day is born.    

Cistern toilet chain mouldy toilet homely shit stink curled bristle toothbrush bleeding gums…
Kitchen sink stares, gags clockwise on half a cup of terrible stewed tepid tea toast…
Sibilant television talking heads sell sell sell, stare vigilant, toast burnt…
The split teabag leaves a silty runoff. Brown, rusty water drains…
Mud clogged gutter drain rain shards breaking glass industrial pop music in tinny earphones…
Trains clatter and screech through rusty sewers in the earth electric ozone baby…
Clickety clack through rusty embankments plants feel their way down through rich mulch nutrients…
Clickety clack under rusty red brick bridges, over them, brick crumbling, over rusty broken glass shards…

Grit, there is a shallow grave, out there, beyond the treeline. Plants feel their way up toward the daylight. The maggots do not care…

Dogs cock their legs urine snarl shit excuse me excuse me…
Skeletal umbrellas guns, groans the human and never abandoned condition position dead centre of it…

A voice here and there, shrill voices taunt here and gone death please police broken bloodshot eyes…
Thumbs on blue screens selfies scream a million smiles to sell a million poster dreams bolted down…
Screams to buy into violent dreams and the most delicate of flowers teeters...

Staggers on the edge of the abys...

There to strangle.
 
City telephones echo, millions of them stutter, ringing into silence out there in empty spaces, stutter stuttering and splutter spluttering and choking, choking, choking into strangled silence, no one, nothing, nothing at all left for them to share.      

No one. Nothing beyond the treeline where roots finger imperceptibly down through rich nutrients and the faded yellow orange petals of flowers half remembered indiscernibly reach up to touch the soggy suffocating evening light.    

Quite still, almost silent, under a steel sky, a dark garden awaits its troupe of strolling players, minstrels some, buffoons them all. It does not care.

"Boys!"





             


 The photograph "The Dark Garden" © David F. Brandon, February 2017