Metamorphosis, by Patty Lafferty

Butterfly:
strange, and it might be true
as you fly over
rosemary, and forget-me-not blue
that you vaguely recall
your grub-life grief
laboriously
crawling on a dangerous leaf?

Do you remember, then 
freedom from the soil?
your joyful flight from the
wearisome toil?
Then from chrysalis limbo
cocooned against strife
do you know you've transmuted to
etherial life?

Maybe like you I 
will one day have wings
and shed my old body and its
arrows and slings.
Will I
rise up anew; fly 
higher than the sky?
Where gravity is no more;
and know the answer to: why?


(Patty Lafferty died yesterday at the age of 87, having been disabled for many years. This poem is one of the last she wrote, and reflects her increasing disability. I publish it in her memory) 

Two Coffees, by Sandie Zand

Way back, when it mattered, I'd said: "There's only one rule and that is there are no rules."

You laughed. “You can’t do that,” you said. “Can’t say there aren’t rules and make that a rule – it’s a contradiction.”

“Okay,” I said. “Call it a guideline then. No rules, that’s the guideline. Agreed?”

“Yeah, cool,” you said. You laughed again, you sounded full, and I knew I had you.

You were making coffee. Instant. You didn’t drink the proper stuff back then. Even with coffee, you wouldn’t follow the rules; you’d pour hot water into the cups then sprinkle granules on the surface where they’d float in belligerent denial of purpose. You had to stir it for ages before they dissolved.

Now you’re making coffee again, in the espresso maker we bought last June, and you hand me mine – black, just as it comes. Into yours, you shake sugar from the bag, not caring whether you get one measure or five, and you stir the sticky brew with an egg spoon for ages.

“I was wondering,” you say, “what the guideline would be for seeing other people.”

The coffee burns my top lip, hits the roof of my mouth and burns that too. I swear, jerk the cup away, hot liquid curls over the edge and spills onto my shirt.

“I mean theoretically,” you say, “you know.”

“Why ask me?” I dab at the spill with a tea-towel, but it’s seeped right through and is clinging fast. I go to the sink, dampen a cloth and press the stain gently, glad to have my back to you. I wait for you to speak.

“Well, as guardian of guidelines,” you say. “I mean they are always yours, right? So I thought, well, you might have... you know... one in reserve…”

You move forward and peer over my shoulder.

“Rub soap on it,” you suggest.

“It’s silk,” I say, “dry-clean only.”

“They always put that, just covering their backs, it needs soap.”

You do the laundry with the same reckless will with which you sweeten your coffee. I had to make it a guideline in the end – after the first couple of months of sludge-grey whites – that we each take care of our own clothes.

“So…” You drain your cup in one mouthful, swallow it down on the pause. “What say you?”

“I suppose it’s a case of to thine own self be true,” I say.

“That’s the guideline?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Okay,” you say. “Cool. It was just theoretical, just curiosity, you know.”

You put down your empty cup.

I stand by the sink, a circle of damp encroaching on my chest.

And I wait for you to leave.

Battersea Fields, by Freda Cook

Do not forget me, Battersea fields,
in the park where grass
was ankle high and seed heads
crushed in the hand
sweetened the morning air
heavy with fat smells
from candle works,
where each green blade
seemed softer under fingers
than fine lawns did years on
at the north end of the staling city.

Do not forget me, Battersea streets,
whose gutters were cobbled,
grouted with gravel, dust
where summer-sole shoes
curved over their hunch, bent
unsteady ankles as mud
from the ‘mere slipped underfoot
and matchbox boats in rain
swirled slowly by sweet wrappers
down drains through whose wide grids
slopped childhood lives.

So, I can turn to the place
where, if I am not wiser now,
I still feel strong,
the last of your grass in my hands,
your cobbles under my feet.

Mist, by Peter Morford

If you can reasonably see the view for half a mile – that’s mist. If you can’t see that far, it’s fog. If you’re choking, it’s smog. If you’re wearing a face mask, it’s Tokyo, Beijing, Los Angeles or London’s South Circular Road.
It’s all very well for Keats to praise the mists of autumn. Wordsworth loitering on misty Westminster Bridge at dead of night could be lonely as a cloud while the city slept. But I’m pretty sure that neither of them was ever stuck on the M1 for three hours while the police cleared up the wreckage. Half a mile visibility is all right if you’re walking a docile horse but at 60 you never see the road signs in time. As any HGV or white-van driver will tell you, fog and mist are bad news if you have a schedule to follow.
Fog was Dickens’ inspiration and he dreamt up ever more nasty deeds for his inventions.

Sorry.
I’ve just realised I’ve already broken my NY resolution circa 2001. Look on the bright side, I told myself, see the good things amid the aggravations of life.

Start again.
Mists and mellow fruitfulness. How true. Use a little imagination. It’s a few minutes before sunrise. The tide is creeping into the estuary. By hazy light you can just see the small boats leaning over in the mud and, beyond them, the outline of a fishing boat, shored up by timbers because a hermit lives there. Look again and you’ll just see the dark shapes of other craft. It is quiet enough for you to hear the tiny sounds. A frog below your window, distant birdsong, the lapping of the gentle waves; the tick of the clock in your holiday rental. It’s already getting warmer and you know that soon the sun will burn off the mist and the old boathouse will be visible again. A van will be there and several men will emerge to unlock the great doors and begin another day’s work of hacking, bashing and burning a hulk into many tons of scrap metal.
If you head for the hills there are better mists to enjoy. It’s just hazy enough on the track to dampen your coat and smear your glasses. It’s not cold on this October day and you know that in perhaps half an hour it will clear and you will reach the top and enjoy the view as you eat your picnic.
In the valley, hundreds of feet below, there is a blur of trapped mist. We cannot see the village in its wrapping. The people down there cannot see us. It gives all of us a sense of being in a special place as we start the descent.

Police Report on a Double Death, by Jan Rees

(From the office of Chief of Police Andrei Ivanovich Krupsky: St. Petersburg; May 15th 1897)

The case of Alexei Pavlovich Tikhonov, following the discovery of the two bodies, has awakened much interest throughout the city. Although not all the facts have yet been ascertained,enough has been discovered for most of the story to be constructed.
    Tikhonov was a middle-aged scholarly bachelor, and most of his immediate circle were people like himself. His life had hitherto been blameless: the only one of his acquaintances known to the police was his disreputable schoolfriend Ketsbaia the Tatar, who was suspected of being a receiver of stolen goods. But Tikhonov's quiet life was to be overturned by Yelena Borisovna Chetskaya.
   She is described as being young, vivacious, friendly and very pretty. She remains something of a mystery, in that the police have been unable to trace a single relative of hers. It has been suggested that she was, as the old saying goes, "no better than she should be", but no firm evidence on that point has yet come to light. Why she was attracted to Tikhonov is not at all clear (it could hardly have been for his money, for he had little), but there is no doubt that he quickly became besotted with her. Rather than take her back to his sparse bachelor apartment, he installed her in an expensive hotel, where they lived together for several weeks. He bought her clothes and jewels, and accompanied her to the theatre and other public events attended by the cream of society.
   Tikhonov's limited finances were soon exhausted. He sold such of his possessions as were of any value, but then had to turn to other methods of raising money. His old friend professor Razminsky has reported that several rare old manuscripts are missing from his collection, so it seems likely that Tikhonov stole them and then sold them on through Ketsbaia. He may have committed other thefts as well. But he must have known that his crimes would be discovered before long, and he would face exposure and punishment. He therefore obtained a measure of poison, and on the third of June poured it into glasses of wine, which he and Yelena then drank.
   Tikhonov's suicide is readily explicable, but, why he should murder Yelena is harder to understand. It was not only pointlessly cruel, but goes entirely against what we know of his character. It is better to think that the two of them, having briefly found happiness in each other's company, resolved to depart this life together.

Assurbanipal, by Peter Shilston

(Written after a visit to the Assyrian exhibition at the British Museum)

Behold: the king!
I am Assur-bani-pal: mighty king, king of the world, king of Assyria.
The king is the representative on earth of the gods. The duty of the king is to restore the earth to perfection, as it was created by the gods at the beginning of time.
Accordingly, I have rebuilt the shrines and temples, with proper reverence.
I have brought together in my libraries the books of the ancient Sumerians and Akkadians; the tales of their storytellers and poets, and the wisdom of their astrologers.
My soldiers are as numerous as the sands of the desert. With them I have crushed those impious wretches who rebelled against the will of the gods: I have destroyed their kings and nobles, scattered their peoples and laid waste their cities. 
I have slain lions without number, for they symbolise chaos and disorder.
And I have commanded my builders and sculptors to record my deeds in stone, that they may be remembered for ever.
Behold me: the king!

Foretelling of a Death, by Pauline Fisk.

(This is a republication of another story by our late founder, Pauline Fisk)

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

On the day he was to die, Robert the Canadian told the truth once, though not to himself, lied five times, as discovered afterwards, bought a swim, took a shave and shampooed his hair.

It was in the Quarry Pool, on his sixteenth lap, that he joked aloud about his dicky heart.  That was his truth, not that he recognized it as such. Later, in the castle garden, he told the old lie about the sea-going yacht.  He had a nautical air. The dog woman, whom he often talked to, never questioned him.  Neither did the beggar on Pride Hill who was used to Robert striding past, crisp in plaid shirt, polished boots, woollen walking socks and combed-back thick white hair, dispensing coins because a rich man like him, with a house on leafy Kingsland Road – lie number two – liked to give to those less fortunate than himself

Lie number three had its moment in the Loggerheads that night, sitting in Poets’ Corner watching Pete the Painter sketching. He was off to Manchester next day, Robert said. Lecturing. Pete - who often disappeared himself - never thought to question the Canadian’s movements. The man came and went.  He had a farm in the Scottish Lowlands, which he talked about with fondness, and did so again tonight, lie number four.  Sometime he’d take Pete up there, he said, though Pete - who knew the Canadian as a man of his word - knew too [by what reason he couldn’t explain] that he wouldn’t do it.  It took one to know one when it came to the fantastical. Perhaps that was it.

Pete went home, door locked, ‘Do Not Disturb’ note sellotaped to knocker on the off-chance that nocturnal friends came visiting.  The Loggerheads closed its curtains. Its last drinkers took the hint, leaving only ghosts to haunt the staircases, or so the Landlady said, drinks in hands, hopes jangling in their pockets, a remembrance of bygone days when the pub had housed a brothel. 

The streets of Shrewsbury after midnight are like a millpond sea without boats.  Only the latest of night prowlers would have witnessed the last walk of Robert the Canadian down St Mary’s Water Lane and under the English Bridge, following the river, though not home to Kingsland Road as was his proud boast.

It was in the Quarry Park that he was found. Who knows why a man would choose one particular bench to die on over any other?  In the morning his body was stone cold.  A rough sleeper with polished boots - and nobody had known it.  The dog lady hadn’t had a clue. The Loggerheads lady, so attuned to lost souls, never caught a whiff of his. The swimming pool attendant – where, as often as he could, he went to keep himself neat and tidy - never would have put him in the category of the man who begged on the street. It came as a shock.

Robert the Canadian kept his secret to the end. It was his only treasure in this sad old world. He wasn’t even Canadian.  That was his fifth lie.  This is a true story. I have not made it up..