Lost Content, by Martin White

 At the back of a room of junk and forgotten things, I find a cardboard box. Inside, a tangle of lifeless wooden heads and knotted limbs; the remains of a troupe of marionettes that were part of the puppet shows that my friend and I presented at children's parties and village fetes a great many years ago. We had a rudimentary theatre: proscenium arch, wings and backcloth, which we would quickly set up. There were over a dozen puppets to unwind and hang ready for the show. This varied cast of characters had trod the boards of the fit-up, long consigned to the tip.

   Pelham puppets were a poular children's toy of the time, and we added to them puppets we had made ourselves. And so there would be a variety of turns, presented to music on the Dansette record player: Lullabelle with her maracas and grass skirt on the fringe of racial parody as she danced to a West Indian beat; clowns, acrobats and jugglers in a circus sketch; and Mr MacBoozle, a red-faced Scot, always ready to raise a bottle of whisky to his lips and stagger across the stage; Wag the dog enthusiastically running here and there; and, most popular of all, two skeletons cavorting to the tune of Danse Macabre, limbs flying apart, heads rising into the sky, bringing gasps and screams from the young audiences.

  These puppets had lain lifeless for years, their strings knotted and entwined, until a friend with more patience and dexterity than I could muster untangled them so that they might be able to move again.

.........................................................................................................................................

forgotten puppet troupe

   I still remember

 which strings to pull

 

Poetry, by John Garland

 As I lay in the darkness I tried reciting a certain poem to myself. I felt it was important: if I completed my recitation, something of great importance would follow. It was an awkward sort of poem, full of strange words and unusual turns of phrase, but the real problem was that my attention kept wandering and I found myself thinking of something else entirely, and I had to start again. Eventually, after much concentration, I managed to recite the entire poem without a break, though it didn't hold a great deal of meaning for me. I then waited for developments. But nothing happened; nothing whatsoever.

Perhaps it was the wrong poem?

Scratch, by Graham Attenborough

 Scratch

It’s the loneliness that gets you.

The mundane silence of the company you keep,

the monotony of your own repeated sighing in unlit streets.

And the scratch of the match repeats,

over and over,

lighting up darkness briefly.

Graham Attenborough 1959-2021

R.I.P.