a gift from above

Edith lived alone. All her adult life she had lived alone and was very much content with the silence of solitariness which pervaded her cosy bottom-floor flat. She had neither radio nor television, she has neither a phone nor a computer and she had never owned a pet (not even a goldfish.) Edith passed most of her time polishing her very extensive collection of glass ornaments which pleased her very much.

Mr Greenbaum lived in the flat upstairs. Old age had left his legs almost entirely useless, even accomplishing the short trip from his arm-chair to the bathroom and back required much deliberation and strain. Hour after hour he sat in his favourite arm-chair, sometimes just thinking, sometimes trying to remember people's names, places he had visited or things he used to know. Yet most of his time was spent sleeping. Sometimes day would roll into night and then turn to day again and Greenbaum would sleep right through the transition. On one fateful occasion Greenbaum fell into one of his deepest sleeps unaware that he has left the kitchen tap running.

Edith had just finished polishing her most favourite glass elephant. She had been extra cautious to make sure she got into all the nooks and crannies round is beautiful retroflexed trunk. On finishing she took an upwards glance at her ceiling, ‘that’s funny,’ she thought on noticing an extremely ominous shadow spanning almost the whole length and breadth of her ceiling. Then she heard a crack followed by a lot of creaking. Edith began to panic, ‘by gum what on earth is happening.’ Before she could gather her thoughts any further a colossal smash resonated and water, dust and a Mr Greenbaum fell down from above. Greenbaum’s arm-chair crashed through the plaster and landed squarely in the centre of Edith’s sitting-room floor. Edith removed her dust coated glasses in disbelief, ‘Good gracious’ she said aloud. At that moment Mr Greenbaum woke up and timidly introduced himself.

After a while Edith got used to this new arrangement and was content to allow Greenbaum and his arm-chair to remain where they had landed, in the centre of her front-room.

On the bus everyday to uni I pass a block of sheltered-housing flats for old people. I was thinking how lonely it could be in those wee one person-flats and that's when this little story came into my head.

Happy Days

Sometime one day I lost my tomorrow. I bet Frank £200 that I could run up the stairs to level eight faster than he could get there in the lift. Turned out the lift was functioning uncharacteristically fast that day and Frank beat me there.
‘£200 please? He said.
In hindsight the bet was a thoroughly ridiculous idea. It was Frank who had initiated it. ‘But I don’t have £200 Frank. The rent’s due this week and it’s my mum’s birthday. I just can’t pay that.’
‘Well time is money,’ said Frank, ‘you’ll have to pay me with your time.’
‘How much of it do you want?’
‘Your tomorrow.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes’
‘Well can’t I give you my yesterday, it was really good me, Gareth and Sue had a picnic in the park then fed the leftovers to the ducks.’
‘No, I don’t want your yesterday. That’s been used already. I want your fresh, untouched tomorrow.’
Frank is good at arguing his point, he has very persuasive eyes and he clasps his hands together when he is talking with the sincerity of a priest in prayer.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I suppose you can have my tomorrow, but don’t waste it.’
‘Excellent!’ said Frank. And that is how I lost my tomorrow. At the time I didn’t realise that there are always tomorrows. Every day has one and every day becomes one. We never specified which tomorrow I would lose to Frank so since then I have been in a perpetual today. I’m poised somewhere unsettling in time where nothing progresses, nothing changes, everything is now. I am now. Concepts are growing hazy, words like "seconds," "minutes," "hours" rest on my tongue like foreign words; merely sounds with the meaning behind them fading. Soon there will be nothing.



started out as funny story but by the time i got to the last wee bit things became a tad bleak...i can't really think of a way to give it a happy ending...so i will just leave it with its grim gloomy end :)

Examerama

I walked into my exam hall today and found my way to a seat that looked most pleasing to me. Near enough to the back that I felt far enough over the door threshold to have fully committed myself to this exam, yet not too far as to feel peripheral. On settling myself down I noticed that everyone else in the exam-hall was me. Calculating that if the probability of a given outcome to an event is P and the event is repeated N times, then the larger N becomes, the likelihood increases that the closer, in proportion, will be the occurrence of the given outcome to N*P, then the probability of one of me passing was pretty good. On looking down at the paper I realised that the questions were all written in my hand-writing and on closer inspection all the answers were in fact filled in as well. Well that’s convenient I thought. Reading over what was written confirmed that these were my practice essays that I had written the day before; all perfectly transferred into the exam booklet. However, on reaching the end of the paper I realised that there was still a question left incomplete. Pfft I thought, the last one is always the toughy. I braced myself and read over the question:
Robert Burns was situated at a pivotal time in Scottish history both politically and linguistically, being profoundly influenced by the vernacular revival of his predecessors Fergusson and Ramsay yet also foreshadowing the lallans ‘plastic Scots’ movement of MacDiarmid; while also writing after the 1707 Union of the Crowns. Please colour-in the picture of Burns, Ramsay and Fergusson below, keeping within the lines....


if ONLY my exam had actually been like this!!!!

The End

I hate the end, I hate the end of anything and everything at all, I have never finished a meal in my life, always I will leave a cluster of peas or a selected piece of meat on my plate to highlight that the meal has not been entirely finalised, always in my coffee cup I will leave a brown puddle at the bottom, it repulses me to see the white china surface shamelessly announcing Finished, Complete, I hate full-stops so bold on the page proclaiming that the sentence is over, I refuse to entertain such certainty, the commas is much more hospitable on the page, sweeping, delicately suggesting a temporal break, which will inevitably be followed by more words, more and more, words, I love numbers, numbers never end, you can count add one count add one count add one and never need to stop even negatives, nothings, you can count nothing for all time if you so wish and they never seem to run out, blissful endlessness, the circle, the circle gives me the greatest joy, one complete yet endless line that you can trace with your finger never needing to stop and start at the beginning again round and round endlessly, joyously, round and round, when I listen to a song I always will listen to it on a loop, taking the music in a circle, it completes its course only to return to the start again never settling on the silence of completion, I have never finished a novel in my life I reach the last chapter and set it aside knowing that it rests peacefully uncompleted with the option of me returning to it at a later time always available, death is my ultimate repulsion I detest its finality more than anything, seeing gravestones lined up like a firing line makes me want to vomit, so ordered all in rows like the bars of a cage trying to trap the unruly dead in case they object to the condition of their final end, just falling asleep is what they say passed away, passed, passed, asleep


I have been reading a bit of Stanley Donwood recently (even though I should be studying. oops) and he is amazing at capturing the voice of paranoia in his narrators, so I wrote this up to have a go at toying with voice. I guess it’s an exaggerated aspect of realism in that, like the voice in this i don't really care for things ending but I’m not quite as psycho about it. See I can use full-stops. Quite comfortably. And I actually hate numbers. Quite a lot. But its fun to exaggerate part of yourself into paranoia. Guess I should get back to studying. Here endeths my creative break.

the end

Predictions and Warhol

In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes
In fifteen minutes everybody's future will be world-famous
In the future fifteen people will be world-famous
Everybody in fifteen future worlds will be famous
In the future minutes everyone in the world will be fifteen
In everyone's world-famous future there will be fifteen minutes
world-famous everyones for fifteen futures and minutes, minutes,
minutes

minutes

famous world-future for everyone in fifteen minutes



meaningless?

Core

Human stars flicker in the hazy light
dashing off the walls illuminating
outstretched praising arms; flash and they
shine like manikins set
against a thin stick and there is something so
unsettling awkward and I feel awk-
ward for thinking so. Silhouetted human stars.
Shells of stars. Glowing in the plastic glimmer
floundering in the clammy light.
Jaws clenched tight whilst resisting the
dictated mantra, even more unsettled yet – for
not being ashamed -
Yet this is no ventriloquist show.
Show me the grace bound truth
from its purest
Core.

'These people come near me with their mouth
and honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me' Isaiah 29: 13

Shameful Bargaining

Philip said, 'Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.' John 14:8


Philip believed that if Jesus revealed God the Father that would 'be enough.' Enough for what? I don't fully understand what Philip means here, maybe his claim is that if Jesus unveils the mystery of the Father then that will be enough to expel all their doubts? I don't know, but what i do know is that this verse unsettles me because in Philip's response i hear my own voice: 'Jesus if only you would do this it would be enough.'Enough for me to do genuinely as you command and deny myself, enough that i would direct my worship solely to you, enough that everything i do will be motivated by my love for you.

What is this bargaining with Christ? Who am i to demand more from Christ on top of what He has already freely given?

When i bargain like this i stand amongst the crowd of Pharisees who demanded Jesus to perform a miraculous sign. It is not miracles that we are called to put our trust in. Miracles are merely signs of God's supernatural power over natural things. Miracles do not satisfy a man's soul, unless he can see beyond the sign to the all-powerful signifier and messiah. Like the 10 men healed of leprosy, they all acknowledged the miracle yet only one acknowledged the Lord,the Messiah.

Therefore Jesus' response to Philip is 'Don't you know me?' Philip you have been with my all this time, do you not know that when you see me, you see also the one who sent me? Philip do you not see that the Father dwells in me and i too am in the Father?
You have seen the Father through me, now is that enough?

worship should be unconditional - like the air you breath, everything, all the time, constantly reflecting the glory of God.

to look on him and pardon me

Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
for God, the Just, is satisfied
to look on him and pardon me.

One with himself, I cannot die;
my soul is purchased by his blood;
my life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ, my Savior and my God.

‘But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. ‘ Hebrews 2: 9-10


The picture above is a sketch i did when i was reading Paradise Lost. There is a beautiful scene where Milton writes a dialogue between Jesus and God the Father in which Jesus offers himself as the ultimate atoning sacrifice for mankind. On the picture the words taken from Milton are: ' Though now to Death I yeild, and am his due/ all that of me can die, yet that debt paid,/ thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave.' Amazingly capturing the humility of Christ and the faithfulness of God. Don't think i'll ever be able to grasp just how awesome a sacrifice and a victory Christ achieved.

A moment of Poesy

I found this poem that i must have written years ago, it made me laugh when i read it! i think i wrote it after a philosophy lesson at school, when i was frustrated with how much faith we put in human reason. Warning:Its extremely goofy and excessively cheesy.Think i was just toying around with ideas which seem a bit ridiculous now but its good to look back at what i was thinking then.

Did Newton crash down from his tree, my friend?
Falling in fruitless flutter. He was spinning in, spinning,
In between Galileo and the sun that seems
To be sparking up all Edison’s dreams.

Shouldn’t Pavlov’s mouth begin to water, this bell
is ringing out, ringing out again. The golden king
needs to run from his throne
to save his golden republic – who knew it would
cave in so fast? Rene last night I was sinking,
thinking ( I think therefore I am awake.)
I see Newton rub is illusionary knees
after he tumbles from his tree.

Pavlov is that your belly that rumbles
Maybe we’re just in some thunderous times.
Edison where is your glowing glory.
Dr Darwin when are you going to make a
Monkey out of me?
I can swing there next to Newton, high up in the apple tree.
I can swing there next to Newton
Respecting the laws of gravity.

Did the apple in your eye mean you couldn’t see?
hey Mr Darwin,
when you're going to make a monkey out of me?

All good things are possible

A simple wee poem i wrote after seeing a photograph in the newspaper of a Zimbabwean lady reading a propaganda leaflet entitled 'all good things are possible.'

All good things are possible
All good things are malleable
All good can be accepted willingly
All good can be enjoyed equally.

Keep your eyes to the front

All good bares its bad appropriately
All bad will be good eventually
Catastrophe, malady – take each portion healthily,
moderately.

Keep your mind on ‘all good things are possible.’

Treat intimidation indifferently
Exploitation, suppression reasonably
Regard bright colours thankfully
And treasure small pleasures valuably

Keep your mind

__________