At the bar..
Such inspiration as I find comes to me in the early hours of the morning, when I am half asleep, almost dreaming. By the time I am fully awake I have usually forgotten the subject of my thoughts as I have of my dreams. Unless that is I get to a piece of paper and a pen in time to make some notes. Thinking of the theme of a projected poem this morning I manage to reach my notebook in time. I write:
Flow.
Dragon fly. Power.
Elephants trek across sand in search of water. Thirst.
Taste.
Happy, happy, happy, happ ee e...
Ferment.
Perhaps it will make the poem I was looking for. Perhaps it will do as it is. Perhaps it will vanish from memory.
.
In the Pantiles this morning Father Christmas and some attendants from Hoopers, the local department store, arrive with balloons. The balloons are gas-filled and ride high above the little procession. Some of the balloons are black and some, mustard yellow. Soon people attending the Farmers Market and others, sitting outside cafes are holding black and yellow trophies aloft. One balloon, a black one, breaks loose and floats up into the sky. I look away and when I look back it has vanished. All day in Tunbridge Wells you see children with Hoopers' balloons bobbing above their heads.
3 comments:
Awake at 5.30 am but still abed I was visited by a completely new scene for the novel but was terrified I might lose the thread. Grimly I recycled it through my brain, over and over, until I could legtimately sit down at the computer. Afterwards I asked Mrs BB whether she'd mind me taking notes under such circumstances and we then fell to discussing the technology that would be necessary. At those early hours (as when I set out for the BR) the world is slower and clearer; traffic noise is discrete not continuous and therefore more threatening. It's a shame your mini-Odyssey had to end at a hospital where menace is triggered by the smell of that unique disinfectant. No one I know, including Mrs BB who should be able to, has been able to give that stuff a name. I can confirm that French hospitals smell the same.
Many years ago, I was struck by a brilliant idea for a story line, involving a young boy as hero. I was in the midst of cooking an elaborate meal which I could not leave in order to write a paragraph or two to remind me later.
So confident was I that I would remember every clever thought I had later when I could get to the computer, I quickly scribbled down these three words: "Like Huck, he..."
I still have that scrap of paper, with those three words. I no longer have any idea what they refer to, other than what I have written here.
You've written an elaborate note by comparison, and I look forward to reading your poem when you are finished with it.
:)
BB Not I suppose to be compared to the unforgetable smell of Jeys' Fluid associated rather with barracks and the like than with hospitals.
Crow: Like Huck he ... There's still hope that you might take it further. There was once a short story competetion in The Observer newspaper. There were various categories including a chlidren's category for Under Sevens. The sentence that had to be continued was: Perkins the curator was just about to lock up the Prehistoric Room of the Naturual History museum for the night when ...." . A child submitted an entry which simply completed the sentence with the words " ...a dinosaur bit his head off". Not surprisngly he won the prize.
Post a Comment