Footsteps

Walking uphill into a built up area, I was suddenly aware of a sound of someone walking close behind me because the swish of their steps came just after the sound of my own boots hitting the footpath.

 

But I wasn’t sure whether the other footsteps were someone else, or the swish of my own over-trousers, so I deliberately slowed down to make the two sounds go out of sync, the swish sound kept going, apparently at the same speed, so still not entirely sure, I began to feel a sense of slight threat and annoyance at the alien footsteps invading my space!

 
Soon afterwards I realised that I wasn’t really slowing down, so I stopped and also looked around. There wasn’t anyone else, all I saw was a cardboard box on a doorstep that had a picture of a blue plastic wheelie bin on it. 

So I had been feeling invaded – by my own trouser noise and this I found quite a comedy.

Earth

A plane of activity condensed upon the sweep of the electronic eye.

My habitual upright in clothes, avoiding the potential animal substances under foot, changed in the instant of camera action – my reaction throws my body and clothes to the ground!

Skin and eyes in the home of the sweet grass and dry clay, earth, miles of solid, bearing up chest, limbs.

9 MAY

Out of bed, working before eating or drinking, unpacking a pallet, every part carried by pale stick arms, body thoughts and memory, solve, lift and balance, and travel across the road through doors, upstairs, lowered into a tiny space trying not to scuff or knock. The scrap vans stopping, ingrained characters attracted without care for the edge of theft. A small girl’s restless blond hair inside a dusty red van of dented texture.
Objects and weight flow into a house, stratified life upon life, in one space

V

Roaming with bleached hair coiled up, walking to stay alive, older boys and simple men meeting her on the bench in the graveyard, she had something to amuse them, distant shouts!
In the era of the 1950’s village cinema, she was the living image of the on-screen female stars, sitting inside the glass, framed, ticket booth. Red lipstick, blonde hair styled up on top, figure hugging evening dress. She performed as the anonymous men filed past with a brief exchange.

Only Good

Jewels in a stream bed, quiet meaning, consistent and true,

scarcely heard.

Arrogance shouts, laughs, gesticulates

and cannot wait.