Even When Tonight Is Over

Published by Fontana

First published in Great Britain by Kindlight 2010

Copyright ©Mark Binmore 2010

This edition published in Great Britain by Fontana 2020. www.markbinmore.com

The right of Anonymous to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and publisher of this book

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Even When Tonight Is Over is a collection of short stories written over the years. The stories deal with life, death, love and passion but each with their own hidden meaning which may mean something different for the individual reader. The energy of lust is described in L’Amour Looks Something, while passion hidden behind a mask is discovered in Lord Of The Reedy River. We start with Another Day, the birth of love and completes its journey with Nocturne, a time to let go. To me they are personal, they are my existence, and in that light, I ask you, please be kind to my mistakes, because I never am.

Even when tonight is over, someone, somewhere in the world, is thinking of you.

Another Day.

The sun has gone.

I turn around and walk away. From old ghosts, old autumn hopes and dreams. They no longer have a place in this lifetime. They have taken my precious time, worried and wasted, drained me dry. Hope has fallen from my eyes as dead leaves to Earth. To rot, to nourish. My bare wooden bones are left to brave the winter snows and whisper my tales to the winds. These dark, bloodied roots plunge deep, oh so deep, into the soft, moist folds of her body. I feel her energy, the life force that gave me life. I breathe her, take her deep inside me, and take her blood into me as she takes mine.

The hope, the dream.

She lets me return to her womb where I can sleep for a while, ready for another re-birth. The black mother of winter understands, feeling her own death from within her creation and draws her midnight, moon spun cloak around us both. I am safe.

Mother and child waiting for the right moment. Waiting in the darkness of her womb as once again I recreate myself. Transformation.

It is another day.

I look back over my shoulder and remember how we all began. Our first days together, my beautiful one. Snow in the air, the smell of Christmas trees and late nights by the fireside. Candlelight in warm room where you first undressed me and touched my chest with your gentle fingers. Your tongue teasing, tasting, waking the soul in me, waking the witch. Making me want more of this new found world, hovering somewhere between heaven and earth with every touch, your mouth exploring, exciting me, tempting me until the almighty explosion as your fingers beckoned and I followed, crying out with the passion and joy of our first awakening. My shuddering breath on your neck. Feel the juice run. My fingers wet with your desire, feeling the soft and the hard, tasting my musk on your lips. Would you like to come with me now? Would you like to take me here and now?

My first, my only lover, my sweetest first taste of love, an initiation into another level of being. Treading the snows of that first winter. Looking back, I can see our footprints across the forest floor. This is how far we have come together.

With each footprint, a memory. Each tells a story. Of love. Of you and together. And apart. Of happiness. Sadness. Of joy. Of struggle Of strength. Of life.

How we struggled to be together. How it tore us apart with so many trodden miles between us. Railway station tears and parting gestures, holding onto each other for as long as we could, wondering how long we could stick out this terrible time of separation, living for weekends, with memories and long letters for company.

Declarations of love, promises of forever, hopes and dreams for our future, sorrows and weak moments bore. Best of friends, best of lovers. We have come so far you and I.

I loved you a long time ago and we found each other once again, to fulfill our purpose. Promises kept from lives before. Passion and fire in your witch eyes, stealing my soul, feeling your hardness deep inside me. I gave you my secret, gave you everything, my precious one. Lying in your arms, I whispered to you. 'Stay.'

Stay with me just another day.

Moonstice.

She hangs in the sky, lighting the traveller’s path. Like a child in the dark, hiding, afraid, she peeps out from behind some stray thread of night. You sleep and wake to find she has never left your side. She soothes your brow with crescent fingers. You have no power to match hers, nor do you want to, for you are happy to lie in the arms of this so familiar stranger. She wraps herself around you never letting go.

She is woman and you are a child. She is the lover, mother, whore and hag. She is always by your side though sometimes you are blind. She governs your life, your every thought. She is the Great White Goddess of them all, the light in the dark. You may not know her yet but please, wait a while. Some may try to kill her, to kill the old ways through their fear. They cannot allow themselves to believe in the truths that were already ancient, as our forefathers and mothers lay down in maps of stone, circle and tor.

Days when the land, sea, life and their God was one. Much time has passed, the dragons were slain and the harmony seeped out with their blood. The old ways were buried, but the heart remains.

Through all of this, she watches, helpless yet she always returns. The Ancients kept their promise. So has she. Her face grows pale and she weeps for those who have lost their way. She always returns. She watches as you sleep, laying in arms, breathing in the warm musk that still lingers on her skin, your head against her soft white breasts. Some love her, for she governs their lives.

However, you. You lie there, oblivious to her and it is she who is dying, taking the seas and waters with her. You will take it as read that she will return.

But a day will come when you forget her and she will be the one who sleeps. Who then will light your way and keep you from all that lurks in the darkness as you whilst your cherry mindless tune to scare away the demons?

'Not I,' she will whisper.

L’Amour Looks Something.

It is one of those warm, seductive summer nights, when the sky never quite sinks into sleepy darkness but reaches out and touches the senses of all creatures in its midst. She is calling to them. She waits.

Here in the small stone cottage set high in the Cornish rock overlooking the sea. Patiently, she hopes.

Opening the window of her room, she looks out across the wild sea and smiles at that old temptress of every man and watches the white horses crashing hard upon the rocks below her. How near death she sometimes feels. If she should slip and fall into the arms of the Sea Priestess, only to be kissed of life and her body drained empty then left to seek some dark hollows of some cave hidden from mortal view. It scared her, sometimes. A chill breeze flickered across her shoulders. Often would her imagination gallop far ahead of her. Many, many miles had they covered together. She stands at her window, the watcher in the night. A speck on the horizon. A ship. A drowning sailor. Smugglers making their escape. Secrets. Protector, guardian of the tombs. Silent little lady of the sea and moon. She comes alive with the birth of the stars and the fall of the night, as all creatures of darkness.

The moon is at her peak. Full and round, shining her light gently upon the waters, gliding, sliding over the rippling belly of waves, combing her long dark hair into the sand, to fall against the rocks. It is such a prefect night.

Her room is candlelit. White candles dripping onto the wooden floor. Incense from eastern lands fills the room and wings it way out through the window, teasing the night air. The seductive perfume fills her with its own special magic. She closes her eyes. Hair sprays over her shoulders in the warm breeze. Her gown falls in a soft secret whisper to the floor. The moon shines wet, silvery rivers upon her pale skin, wet, wet kisses, soft tiny moon kisses moistening her lips, licking the fullness of her lilt petalled breasts, tracing paths down her belly leaving silver dew threads trickling down, down, down, gently marking out the key lines, moon juices twinkling in the candlelight. Breezes blow like a child’s kiss tickling her skin. Sensations spill onto the floor. She smiles to herself, the look of a lover in her eyes. Seductress.

Maybe he will come a little later, but the sea, moon and night have already touched her and claimed her as their own. For a while. She cannot resist, she is a part of him. They want her, they will share her. The window is open inviting him in. When he is ready, he will fly to her and they will dream together. She stands before the mirror, the magic mirror. She is some Snow White ready to devour that handsome prince. Wet and hungry for him, or at this moment any man, every man.

She gazes deep into her own reflection and wonders at her beauty by candlelight, regarding herself as some long-hidden brotherhood painting.

She can almost see her soul; she moves her slender hands over her breasts as if they are his hands. Such pleasure. She gasps for the night air, the moon kisses her.

The sea below lashes at the rocks, singing, wanting her. Her lips crave her lovers kiss, warm wetness down her baby-soft thighs, falling in raindrops to the floor, pitter-patter, such a sweet sound. How sweet that little mouth, those lips. A sound rushes towards her like the sound of the sea kissing the rocks.

To and fro, the edge comes closer. Beyond her reflection, she sees him at her window, his moonstone wings folding against his body with an angel’s breath. With catlike grace, he moves to the floor. He watches this vision of beauty and smiles with delight at this little goddess before him. How she thrills him, her reflection smiles back at him, coyly, her eyes teasing, inviting. She watches him, raindrops fall to the floor, moonlight and candlelight play over his body, and he shines. Shadows are cast here and there, it pleases her, pitter-patter. He whispers his fantasies to her, breath upon her shoulder.

He tells her of the magic of his lands and the worlds beyond this realm where all creatures know love and pleasure. The watcher in the night, how it thrills him to look at her, the way she throws back her head, eyes wild, her mane of hair tossed madly around her cascading down her back, her body moving in that endless dance of life itself. She is like a rare, exotic butterfly few have seen. His body is marble against her. He drifts. Too soon in the morning. Can’t the sun sleep a little longer?

The dreamers merge and become one. He is the arrow, she is the target. A little death each time. The moon rests upon the waters. Night sighs and lifts her widow’s veil.

Soon the morning.

Too soon.

The candles have burned to nothing, cold wax ripples on the floor. He wraps her deep within his wings and could so easily carry her away to his lands. Instead, she will remain here, his little Earth angel, his goddess, for she must teach the men of her world the ways of the other long, lost world where he comes from.

Bending her over he kisses her, oh so gently, so not to wake her, a last kiss. Teardrops trickle warmly across her skin and fall into her hair. Blessing her, he promises to return, for he had been but a fragment of her imagination until last night. She had invited him in.

In the pale, waking shafts of sunlight, his tears turn to moonstones for her to wear around her neck. Part of him would always be with her. To touch the stones by moonlight and he would return to her. His rare butterfly freed at last from her cocoon.

A last glimpse at her, then out of the window, his wings spread wide to be carried on the winds, back to his world. Someday she would fly

with him but for a little while she had her task to fulfil, the love had to be taught to the ones who have lost their way. She would teach them well.

Lord Of The Reedy River.

Vital, strong and young. The arrogance of pride shows through his face. A face that could have been carved from marble; clean, cool, with bright blue flashing, laughing eyes that twinkle with all the silver light the night stars have given him as their gift. His visage is beyond all beauty, for he is born of the Gods. His body, to all those fortunate to share his sex, an envy and to those of the opposite, fairer sex, an object of lust and desire. The skin covering his muscle and bone is so smooth and silky with an incandescence, not a hair blemishes the perfection.

So why did he not choose to walk the Earth in his own true appearance?

Because love was just a meaningless game to him, not once had he suffered the misfortune of being caught up by it and today he will make himself a swan. It must be lofty and regal, to reflect himself. He will glide through the water as though the waves are propelling him. As he rests among the river reeds and rushes the first gentle ripple flows through the water and ebbs against his feathers. Slowly, he raises his head and surveys the surrounding river. From the direction whence came the first soft ripple come more, ever insistent for his attention. He turns his full gaze to the little boat heading towards him and his eyes alight on one so fair she could almost be a match for his own perfection. The boat draws nearer and he sees her naked body shine in the midnight moonlight like a beacon sending out a message of hope for the souls of the lost and lonely.

He swims towards her, she reaches out her hands, arms encircle his long neck, and as the boat pulls away, she slips into the water. Her human flesh nudges up against his soft down and focuses her gaze on his clear blue eyes.

Her eyes are dark, deep and mysterious, lost in a faraway look of lust. They cling to each other for what seems like forever while their minds soar above the river, above the little boat and they glide on the breeze of their love song. Their bodies roll, a soft moan escapes from between her clenched teeth.

She catches her breath. All too soon, the moment is over. Her eyes regain their focus but with a hint of sadness in their depths and a sigh are emitted from their lips. The friendly lapping of the wave’s smooths her long dark hair. The water surrounds them and the act that has taken place like a cloak of secrecy. Once more she reaches up to him, softly whispering, 'Apollo…,' and as he resumes his rightful guise, she closes her eyes and slips away from him.

Sitting In Your Mirror.

As she leaned over the edge of Halfpenny Bridge, looking down through the water, Isabella suddenly felt an arm snake around her waist.

For a moment, she closed her eyes and willed herself back to the year before, back to the girl she thought she would love and be loved by forever. They had stood together in that very spot only twelve months before, had held each other’s gaze knowingly, lovingly and kissed the kind of kiss that freeze framed everyone around them, leaving them in their own private bliss. Now it was no longer her beloved next to her, it was a new lover. She knew it was a mistake to go, but the tickets to the city had been a gift despite being hastily given. Not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, she agreed to go and now she stood, awkwardly, in a place she would not rather be, her unwitting new love smiling gently beside her knowing nothing of last year’s wrath's that haunted the bridge. As they touched, Isabella looked over her shoulder to see the small, breathy ghost of her beloved laughing and walking away from her. That evening, they went back to the hotel and made the strange, disjointed love of two people who do not really know each other, and probably never will. As they dozed, Isabella sent her little death off into the night to find her beloved. It would be a long journey but she knew that the little death would find her, somehow. It was at that moment that she knew it was all over.

Quietly, she cried herself to sleep, gradually finding herself swimming through the pool of tears before falling deeper, deeper into her past. As she lifted the curtains, heavy against the weight of time and sleep, she uncovered a mirror, shimmering silver memories reflected with perfect clarity.

The day by the beach when she lost her watch, the moment she let go of her pram and it crashed into the road, the morning she and her beloved moved into their new home, the first day of the rest of their lives, or so it had seemed. They finally realized this is what they wanted; their love had died a long time ago. As the wraiths of her past moved through the looking glass one by one in a ghostly parade, the reflection began to change. There was someone there, staring back at her with eyes that she knew well, the familiar flecks of green and brown, that steady, searching gaze, but behind that gaze was wisdom and knowing that she had not seen before.

The woman’s hair fell around her shoulders and reached down to her waist in silver white wisps. In an instant, Isabella knew she was looking at herself, again. Not of her past, where the memories of whom she had been at different stages of her life consumed and tormented he, but the self she would be one day. As she moved towards the mirror, the old lady moved closer too, until the only thing that stood between them was the wooden frame of the mirror and thin veil between two worlds.

Isabella placed her hands on the glass, and as the cold mirror turned to air, she found herself holding the old lady’s hands. They looked into each other’s eyes and felt the beating of their one heart pulsing between them. Time is the old woman’s eyes were spawning her past lives. Now is the place where the crossroads meet. Will you look into the future?

Isabella looked down.

For so long, she had been living so utterly in the past, allowing the tide of sadness and grief to wash over her, keeping her captive in her own history. This moment in time. It does not belong to you, it belongs to me.

Where on your palm is my little line when you are written in mine as an old memory?

The old woman turned over the hand and slowly ran her finger across her palm, and as she did, it was as though a path was clearing in her heart, a way through the woods, leading her to sunlit pools, where her memories would be kept bright, and for the first time neither her future or her past frightened her. The old woman pulled her close. 'Come on, let me live.'

So she did.

The Fog.

I am not here.

In the splintered moments of yesterday, I was held in your arms. I did not know what to do, what to say or feel. Since we last met, a great change has taken place. Inside me, the very essence of who I am and who I will be. Something so precious, so gentle but so very hard. But I had to do it, for both of us.

As we travelled the land, back to Avalon, the world took on a strange, surreal guise; gold and green dancing through my eyes, into my head to mingle with my own private thoughts of you.

Yesterday haunted me like the re-runs of a bad dream, to wake with tears soaking his shoulder. I cried a little as we travelled, he did not see me. I did not really want him to. He has been through enough. The haunting stayed me for a few days. It filled me with the fog, in my eyes, my mind, and my emotions all tossing me into a tormented sea. For these last days, hoping the fog would leave me. But leave me where? Below me little fishes flicker at my feet. Above me, blue sky stretched and ripped apart by the two invisible hands. To clear this fog, half in water and half-on land. And I have seen them both changing, from liquid lulling, lapping then raging before becoming ice in the deep winter sleep. And Gaia. I see her moving around me, feel her rolling over, and hear her heartbeat. I am changing too. Somewhere in that self-made fog, I was hiding and still trying to let go. If I let you go. Yesterday you held me so tight and said that you loved me. All I could do was holding you too. You felt my doubt. Your two invisible hands, tearing this little piece of sky. I could not let you go at first. We could not free each other, no, not at first. I have had to let go of the dream because it will never be, not on this level. So much to say, so many storms to clear. I did not think that letting go could be so difficult. I want to love you better than before. The fog has now faded into an old memory. I do not need to hide behind its shroud anymore. I have let you go, broke the fine silver thread that bound us and set you free with love. I will let go of you gently. And maybe you will come back to me.

The Final Wave.

As soon as she hit the water, she realized her mistake.

Only now, it was too late; the ship had already been swallowed up by the surrounding darkness. No one had seen her jump, she had made sure of that. Now with the numbing cold of the Atlantic setting in she knew she was going to die. After all, this is what she had wanted. The voices had told her so, or at least one of them had. The other voice had offered words of encouragement, had given her strength, given her hope. But she had listened to the evil, negative, destructive voice and now she was going to die.

The cruise has been her doctor’s idea. A holiday, that is what she needed, an opportunity to make a fresh start, to make friends. She had told them about the voices and the rejection of family and friends. And the voices.

And he had listened. He spoke of depression, but a voice in her head simply laughed.

The ship had been at sea for three days but she had made no new friends. With every passing day, she felt lonelier, unhappier, whilst the voices grew stronger and stronger.

Sometimes they would scream and rage at each other, each trying to take control of the woman, of her future, of her destiny. During one such rage, she found herself at the ships railings, hands clamped over her ears trying desperately to block out the shouts and screams. It was to no avail, but then, in an instant, all was quiet, save for a solitary whisper.

JUMP.

Although numb with cold, she instinctively struck out with her arms. 'I must stay afloat, I must stay alive.'

For several minutes, the voices had been silent but no one was whispering words of encouragement.

BE STRONG, KEEP AFLOAT, RESCUE IS AT HAND.

But as the minutes ticked by she felt tiredness engulf her. From within she heard another voice crooning softly.

CLOSE YOUR EYES GO TO SLEEP NOW.

She was alone.

The sea had frozen and as she looked around, the ice stretched away in every direction to a distant horizon.

She found herself skating across the frozen plains, above her the blue skies and below her the crystal clear ice.

She skated on for what seemed like hours, until she suddenly caught a glimpse of a dark shape below. For a while she circled the object,

when without warning, the ice around began to crack as the trapped body pushed to the surface. She crouched down and looked into its distorted face and saw her own, and screamed. This then was her destiny.

Her eyes snapped open.

Above her a million stars glittered in the night sky whilst all around her swirled the great icy mass of the ocean.

WAKE UP.

From only two words, she recognized the voice of her father. Then of her mother, her brothers, her sisters, her husband. Others came to her, her old school teacher, old friends.

WAKE UP.

Slowly she shook away her desire to sleep, becoming stronger whilst the voices urged her to stay awake. As she grew stronger, so did the voices but their tone changed.

No longer reassuring, they now threatened, accusing her of witchcraft. Her own family and friends were putting her on trial for her life. She felt weak wondering if this nightmare would ever end. The jury reached their verdict.

GUILTY! GUILTY!

The sentence was death, by drowning. Her strength ebbed away and as the voices faded, the darkness closed in.

GO TO SLEEP.

A fading murmur. Then another voice, her husband? What was he saying? Was he asking for forgiveness? Was he suggesting they should start all over again? If only she could concentrate on what he was saying.

She must stay awake, she must listen, she must understand. But the voice was already fading away. She had lost all track of time. How long had she risen and fallen with the waves? Hours? Was it only minutes? Exhausted, she continued to tread the ice-cold waters fighting sleep.

A movement caught her closing eye. An elderly woman materialized out of the gloom walking slowly across the rippling waves towards her. Who was she? Her face looked strangely familiar, but no. Was it her mother?

No.

It was a face even more familiar, the woman she would become. Now she understood. She must stay awake, she must live, and she must protect her own future self. The old woman smiled. She spoke words of comfort, words of hope before dissolving into the reddening skies of dawn.

Once again, she was alone. She gained strength from knowing that night was nearly over. Soon she would be missed and the rescue boats would come searching for her. Struggling to stay awake, she heard the voice again.

GO TO SLEEP.

STAY AWAKE

CLOSE YOUR EYES.

WAKE UP.

As suddenly as they had started the voice stopped. Now all she could hear was the sound of an engine. An engine? Frantically, she looked around until at last she saw where the sound was coming from. It was a boat, moving slowly towards her, its engine purring even louder. Then she heard another sound, a sound that filled her with dread. It was the sound of laughter. The boat now looked as small as she stared down from above. Scattered below her she could see several other search boats criss-crossing their way across the ocean. Despite her great height, she was not afraid.

'What am I doing up here?' she asked herself. But the voice just laughed.

The sun rose above the horizon spreading warmth and light over the searchers on the sea. In the west, black clouds loomed. A sudden gust of wind chilled the air around her.

OBSERVE.

The voice invited and once again broke into uncontrollable laughter. Angry black storm clouds were now scurrying across the sky, whipped along by a westerly wind. To her mounting horror, the search boats turned for home and shelter long before the storm finally broke. Her last chance of rescue disappeared before her eyes. She was now back in the calm waters of the ocean. Somehow, she felt strangely comforted by the gentle movement. A thick clammy fog had suddenly descended upon her, adding the feeling of peace that was spreading through her.

Alone in the water, she rose and fell with every wave, counting each one in turn, becoming each one.

Was this then her destiny?

All was quiet, save for a lone voice from within. It was whispering to her, coaxing her, soothing her, murdering her.

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND GO TO SLEEP NOW.

With genuine love and understanding, a single tear trickled down her cheek to the slowly forming smile. Jumbled thoughts and half-lost memories suddenly became clear to her. Now she understood. She thought of her mother.

CLOSE YOUR EYES.

She thought of her father.

GO TO SLEEP.

She thought of her loved ones.

CLOSE YOUR EYES.

She thought of her brothers and sisters. The voice never came.

Closing her eyes, she rose with the ninth wave.

The Ninth Wave.

There is a storm raging. A lighthouse stands, its lights sweeping round warnings of danger and a safe harbour is near. The house is dark and a woman lies in bed watching the storm rage outside. She fears the storm, yet longs to join it, to rant and rave and make her mark, to be someone. The storm passes by her window and she hides under the bedclothes. She tried to stay awake but she is very weary. She gives in and sleep takes her. She dreams she is by a frozen lake. Everything is crisp white, a picture postcard. She skates on the ice, spinning past trees, the thrill of the wind against her, the cold rush, rushing her hair. With the wonder of a child, she started to skate but now she felt fear. The skate’s move of their own accord, she has no control. Faster and faster, there is a crack, the ice breaks. The folds of the icy depths take her and she slips from one layer of consciousness to another.

Sensations return to her. She is in bed, in her room. She has a fever and can barely focus her eyes on the procession of people who visit her. Some demand that she gets up; they do not see that she is ill. Others speak more friendly but her illness prevents her from speaking. She hears her mother’s voice and looks towards the

direction it is coming from. There in the doorway stands her mother and behind her a group of Puritan Inquisitors. They rush into the room and grab our heroine dragging her from her bed. Mother stands for comfort, yet mother betrays her when she is ill and helpless.

The room melts into a shallow torture chamber and the Puritans try to make her confess that she is a witch. During the torture, a priest is present to read her the last rites. He looks like her loved one. She calls out to him to help her, to tell them that they have been mistaken but the priest acts as if he does not know her.

She is led outside to where a crowd has gathered. They are asked if she is guilty. Fearing reprisal, they find her so. Even the priest condemns her.

Her body is weighed down with rocks and she is thrown into a lake, the same lake that was frozen over, but now she is in water again. She flounders in the water as a helicopter flies above, a voice from inside telling her to get out of the water. We are back where we started, in the bedroom, in the lighthouse. Her husband is sitting in a chair eyeing the clock, he is worried.

A ghost drifts into the room, the ghost of his wife. She sees his love, sees his pain and anguish. She tries to tell him she is all right but she realizes she cannot touch or reach out to him. She has lost him and cannot get him back. She shares his sorrow.

Many ghosts drift pass the window. She leaves her loved ones and joins the others. They drift around the world, high, heading up for space, straight up to the sweet morning fog. They pass over a beach and washed up on the sand lies a body, the body of a girl. An old woman shuffles her way along the beach to the body. The woman’s eyes flicker open.

She is in a tumbled down shack. The old woman offers her hot broth. Her face is very familiar. The girl leaves and starts to put back her life together, but there is one piece missing, her ghost has departed. It hangs back, trying to delay leaving the world.

She feels no sense of belonging with the other spectral beings. She wants to return home. She looks back at the Earth, a tiny dot spinning into infinity.

She watches a storm start over America and hopes the fishermen can reach the safety of the harbour. She realizes that she alone cannot help the world.

She remembers the good time she has had in her life and finally realizes that she can change the people that she knows, she can bring happiness. With revelation, she sees that everything will be all right. She falls back through the morning fog to her body. Once more she is complete. She wakes a better person to find her loved one and family waiting for her.

Waking The Witch.

Break the ice, break it now. NOW.

Let me out, out and up to meet the sky. Let me take the first breath of the new born, the re-born. Let me feel the warm air sucked into my time-frozen lungs. Gasping. My second chance.

WAKE UP!

Out of the water, received into strong, loving arms surrounding, protecting. They lift me from the mother’s womb. Water fills my eyes, drowning and blurring my face. I hear only your words, soothing, licking, loving and filling me. You lay me on the green Earth. Many hands touching, stroking, wakening my senses, leaving me happy in this strange world of oblivion. Many hands holding me, softly touching, teasing, loving.

Then the love slips away, back into the water, out of reach, tender touch turns to scorn, to hate, fingers prodding, pinching where once they soothed. Who is there is this darkness? Was the ice not broken? Was I not rescued? Am I to be at the mercy at some other fate?

Out of my world without focus, I hear a voice, harsh, biting, crashing around inside my head as some mad beast beating, flapping against my skull.

God help me now.

Somewhere in the distance, at the back of my mind I hear the church bells toll, another death. Am I to be next? Out of the water, and in. See how the air bubbles to the surface. See how they wait for these bubbles to cease.

Another one dead.

I rise from the depths, he pushes me down, down, down to the reeds, where the little fishes live and feed on the dead, and where the slimy

weeds dance and writhe around my thighs, and where my breath escapes to the horizon. Then up and out to greet the sun, angering him and his hysteria filled, heaven bound crowd.

I will not die! My eyes are clear, I see it all.

God.

Mother.

Help me!

Air, fill my lungs.

If not by fire, then water.

The crowd agrees. They have no choice. But your flames cannot touch me, for I am the child of fire, of the sun.

YOU WON’T BURN, he hissed, cloak whipping in the breeze, cross in hand, damnation in his voice.

YOU WON’T BLEED, he shrieked, as his needles pierced my pale, chained flesh.

There is no fear, fear has left me. There is no pain, pain has deserted me. I have been taken past the point of no return, no feeling. Fear draws back my red, red blood. Sharper, deeper, harder into me. Still, no blood comes.

My agony is your pleasure.

YOU ARE A WITCH.

Does it thrill you? Is it as close to a naked soul as you can allow yourself? Held so I cannot fight back, and can only fall deeper into my dreams.

But my spirit battles on. Therefore, it must be water.

GO DOWN.

His hands pushing, holding me under. Accusation in the thunder-filled air. Darling, call the shape shifter, give me wings. Let me fill the air. Hold me, take me from this place, and listen to me. Help me, darling. Hear my pain, hold me. Through the water, I see his dark face turn to yours, and the hands push me down deeper, hold me down, burying me. Your hands.

GO DOWN.

My mother’s hands push down, hold me under. And Daddy’s too. Where is your love?

WHERE?

Have I not given you love? Mummy, Daddy, take me back, take me as I am. Please, just accept.

My tears are lost in the water. I do not want to die here underneath these murky depths. Will I be murdered by your hands? Those hands that reared me that now take me to death. Through the fine thread skin of water, I see you. There is no love for your child, not here, not anymore. Your whitewashed minds closed on me years ago, when I was younger, when I was a child. You shut me out, turned away and wept.

I am not what you want me to be. Here in the water you have the control. Of my life, but you will never have my spirit for it will always be free. You have pushed me from your hearts and therefore, I am a witch. You do not understand, you are not ready to know. Therefore, you link hands with your hunter, with God on your side. Listen to every word he says, because you are responsible for bringing me into this world. Yes, you must listen to every word uttered from his lips, for he is a man of God in his clergyman’s cloth. Does the witch-finder not speak the truth? What you cannot understand, you fear. My words are lost upon your barricaded minds. You have already condemned me. The beast under his skin is also under mine. I bleed with the tides, yet I do not die. What magic pulses through me, passion for life, for my darling, for them? In your eyes this cannot be. Is it enough to take me to my death? WITCH. GUILTY.

Put the blame on me, so you can at last be free. Is this the end? In the hunters face is the face of my mother, my father. I look a little closer and see the sleeping face of my lover. Closer still and I see myself. Into the water, filling my every living crevice with coldness. Your accusations killing me. I go down, only to rise again, stronger to carry on.

I have faced my fears, my demons, and stir the water with my hand, breaking the hunter and his guises into a thousand pieces, dispersing the negativity in my hand. I am born out of water and into the arms of my beloved. He sets me free, allows my spirit to fly out on its own. We are alone at the water’s edge, my little hand in his. He holds me, glad that I returned from my faraway land. My light shines brightly, as I see through the eyes of a child. My world is fresh, like the air after a storm. I feel with all of my senses and know it was meant to be; another thread of the testing, the learning, the changing.

Now I have taken my first steps, I have faced the darkness. I am strong and no longer afraid. I tread the hidden paths with the sun, moon and the stars to guide me on my journey to a new Atlantis where the wise ones will wait for me.

I am the star that has risen from the sea.

Room For The Life.

Woman.

She is timeless. She is like the moon, and never dies for long. Her red warm tides come and go in the rhythm of life, breathing the push and pull of her oceans. Red rose rivers run free with her tears. She waxes and wanes, longing to be full.

She is woman. Three in one, virgin, mother, seer. She is a tribute in flesh to the Goddess who looks upon us, protecting us with her light, taking us to her breast and nourishing. She dips her hand into the sky and stirs the planets with her fingers. Goddess watches, shining her light. She loves her children well.

Somewhere in a city, the whore has been earning her coins. She is still wet with the salt of yet another man, and rises from her bed, not knowing herself. Goddess sees, hears, and reaches out.

The lady stares at her reflection in the mirror, but sees no one, her soul is sleeping. She weeps, for her lost self, for all the unborn children, for all the men who have filled the soft flesh between her thighs with their desires, whispering their undying love.

Little lady, she plays the games for a price, dressing up like a child in the garden, putting on a mask, hiding between the lace and smudged lipstick.

She allows each man to steal a little of her spirit, and star by star she is locked away in a trinket box of their fantasies, killing her light. Slowly. The little child inside her has lost her way. Love slips away from her fingers, and is replaced by tears. Another man, same old game, same old ceiling. A few more stars stolen.

Goddess looks on, and touches this naked frightened creature, scattering flowers upon her, cleansing, awakening, and preparing her for a new beginning. Goddess initiates with her wands, blesses with her sword, will fill her cup. The journey can begin, little lady wears the colours of the fool, and along the path will find the gown of the High Priestess.

Stars are born into dark heavens and she will find the child in her soul.

On the Island of Fruit, there lies the scared hill where Mother Earth is joined to the Father Sky. Upon this hill sits a child-woman, her body not yet ploughed by the flesh of man. She sits alone making a garland of flowers for her hair. She is the Queen of the May, a child of the summer. She crowns herself with the garland, and smiles, as she toys with her long auburn hair, the sun behind her offering the vision of some Earth angel.

She is naked, but for the silver crescent moon strung about her neck. She gathers more flowers and cups them in her hands, brushing her lips with their cool petals, and throws them to the breeze with some falling onto her body.

The sun burns long and deep like fire, she can hear it crackle, and sing to her, taunting, awakening her senses, stroking its warm rays over her breasts, along her thighs, down her belly. The heat trickles down her body, filling her with the intoxicating touch of rich mulled wine scented with clove and anise.

Too many lonely evenings sitting by the fire, plaiting her hair, denying it and herself freedom. High up on the hill, she can be truly alive, her hair can fall from the bindweed plait, and roll in waves upon her skin. How she longs for the fingers of a man. The rites of passage soon to be hers.

Thoughts of him make her wet, she reaches down; the flowers are warm, golden pollen shimmers where it has been sown. She closes her eyes and begins to let go. Goddess smiles, and scatters stars in a crown above her head, and places the moon beneath her feet. She shines the colours upon the virgin’s naked belly, whose wish is to be fulfilled, soon to wear the passion and blood of the red rose of the Empress.

Goddess enters her soul; her body will be the temple. She is woman. The virgin, the mother, the seer. The scared trinity of the moon. Balance in all things. Female. Male. Black. White. Goddess. God. Creation is born and nourished out of balance, harmony and oneness.

Goddess waves her hand, spilling stars upon the Earth, and lies back on her feather bed of clouds. She beckons her God to join her, to enter her. She rests her hands gently upon her hard round belly, swollen with the souls of all the children yet to be born. The two become one, the

seas rage; the storm gathers releasing life energy onto the lands, tiny salty seeds of rain making the garden grow. Goddess reaches down to the Earth and blesses the whore and the virgin, anointing them with the sweet salt of the storm, and lifts two tiny souls from her body, and plants them in the rich red waiting wombs. They are souls to be born for the first time, perhaps for a second.

Goddess smiles upon the women. She is complete.

Father Oak.

I am sitting in my favourite place, beneath Father Oak. I ask him to speak to me again. The sounds of the earth swallow my pride. I hear the throb of grass crickets and the hum of the air. Birds sing distinctively in the sky and the clouds sweep softly by supported on by the breeze. A church bell begins to ring across acres of high summer grasses.

It is late in the season and I can smell the dusty scent of autumn. Soon, Father Oak will shed its leaves and I will watch them turn golden and rust as they fall and become a soft blanket for me to rest on. The earth is strong, caked hard by the mellow September sun. The berried bushes are bowed with the burden of their ripe fruits, thistles climb up above their sister grass, their purple heads watching me from day to day. Soon the fall will commence. The equinox tide will come in, and then day and night will become equal.

My Mother Brede and Lady Ariandrod of the silver harvest moon speak gently to me in the sweeps and gusts of the breeze as it caresses the treetops. They tell me to return to Avalon, to place the chalice at their disposal and let my friend proceed ahead with the sword.

So, I have returned full circle to the hub of the year where the primeval heart beats and pulses, its veins and arteries running into my soul. This is where I sit under Father Oak and listen to September.

Running Up That Hill.

The sun glares, heavy and low in the sky, red as blood on a white rose, staining the air, making our bodies wet with her heat. We have come for her sake.

She whispered softly, sadly in a dream last night. She left her tears in my eyes. Now we are here to do what we can. Our hearts and hands

open to heal and cleanse the place where pain still sears and the wound still bleeds, now but a wound of death where once it opened in birth and life. We will do what we can. We struggle together, holding hands, never letting go. You, my only precious one, protecting with your love and stopping me sliding back down. The path is steep. We climb with the chalk beneath our feet crumbling, stones falling behind and tracing our steps, smashing in sparks of white light, then to dust, back to rust. Still we climb, soon to reach the hilltop.

I am so afraid. I slip, catching my hand on the barbed wire fence. Torn skin. My blood trickles and falls onto the chalk. The white and the red. Running back from me. The pain melts, the flesh heals. She wipes my brow of salt, takes the fear away from me. You hold me close, I cannot fall.

The hill is so old, looking out to sea. Watching the tides and moons grow and fade, giving and taking life. We reach the top, breathless, hearts pounding hard and deep. You ask what I feel there. You tell me nothing of this place; you trust my intuition like the child trusts the parent. I open up, your love protecting. The hill breathes, shallow, the last breathes of a dying man or the slow spinning unborn child in the womb, waiting for the first shafts of sunlight to seep under his eyelids.

I open up and feel. The hill is warm, round and pregnant. Forever waiting for Lammas Eve, as he did each year in the old days, but now the birth never comes. I see the child, curled within the Earth, waiting. There is hope. I am alive. I breathe the still air, cloying and sweet, almost suffocating. I am the child in the womb of the earth, fresh and new. I am born and run across the grass belly taking my shoes off, discarding my inhabitations, freeing myself.

I run, my hands open, feeling the life energy pulsing through me. I take your hand and my power reaches out to you. I kiss you, softly, deeply, taking you inside of me. We hold each other so close, our love shining. I let you go, taking the silver pentagram around my neck and holding it deep within my hand. This was your gift to me when I was a child. I run alone to the ring of trees at the centre of the hill, I feel the power drawing me close.

I reach the edge of the ring. The air is so cold. There is an overwhelming sense that something is wrong. I turn to look at you.

This is why you have brought me here isn’t it? A cold tear runs down my face. You come closer and ask me what I feel, my faces speaks in answer, my skin sunk deep against my skull, pale as the deaths head of the waning moon.

Fear and pain in my eyes reflects in your own. I see the ghost of myself in you. I look to the trees, touching them, afraid of the secrets they could reveal. Their bark is like human skin, growing up and out of the hills’ body, sinewy figures of long ago, weeping, and reaching out to comfort one another.

I cannot enter the ring alone. I am not strong enough for that. We enter the ring, the forces of good and evil clashing around us, hitting us full in our heads. The trees whisper at us, clawing at our eyes, scratching their talons over our skin. They hiss at us, watching, tormenting. You hold me, protecting me from the visions only I can see. I am ready. I close my eyes.

I see the pain of long ago. The hill has been raped and defiled by those who did not understand the powers they were manipulating. There was a temple to her before these people arrived. There was happiness in those early days. I see the women and men. I see their love for her, the land and their love for each other and their children. I see them dance and celebrate life, they worship, they make love, they give birth, and they die. A long time ago. Then I see myself and I see you. Four thousand years ago, they loved her. A thousand years ago, the men came with their swords, slaying her people, murdering the virgin, the mother, the child. Cutting down lovers at the altar, and the Seer, her body worn and gnarled as an old oak tree. The hill is wet with their blood; it trickles and slides downwards making the chalk path sticky. The red on the white. The sun and the moon weep together. The murderers installed their religion and offer the hill to their God. They feared her and her people. The new ways were far safer; the men placed her crown on their riches and land. The holy men teach their apprentices to fear her. She is the dark unknown; they are terrified of the gaping mouth between her thighs from which they blood tide flows, where the seed is sown. They tried to murder our mother, their mother. They take stones up to the hill to build another temple to their God.

I hear them beg St. Michael to play guardian, to destroy the dragon. The stones disappear as they sleep. No church is built. They leave. The hill lies alone, raped and broken for many years, growing dark and

hunched like the hag. The air is still, cold. The power, the life force remains though quiet and barely breathing. Sometimes the hill weeps for her happy children, the salt of tears making a white stream down to the sea.

I cannot open my eyes. She wants to show me more. I see the dark ones come, casting their spells feeling that this hill has power from which they want to feed. They abuse the land, as the holy men had done. They murder and sacrifice, destroying and furthering the decay, playing dangerous games. She does not let them win. She protects her children. She protects us. She holds on.

The dark ones are but shells. She blows them faraway to a place where their souls may be woken. The ring of trees tower above, keeping the scared alters at their centre free from harm.

I open my eyes. You wipe the tears from my face. I go to the altar, carved into the scared oak. Mistletoe clings and climbs the ancient wood. I hear myself speak, my voice distant and in many tongues. 'I have come Mother.'

She moves within me. You come to me. She needs you too. We stand naked before her altar. She tells me what is to be done. I reach deep inside the oak and find the silver chalice. It is full of her holy water, the Goddess’ tears and milk. Together we pour the healing waters over the land, the cup is overflowing, and there is an ocean beneath our feet. We hear the children laugh and play; up they swim to the surface, reborn at last.

I take your hand and you hold me close against your body. We kiss, our bodies entwine, and we make love, softly, losing ourselves to each other and in tribute to her. The night is warm now, the air is sweet, and there is a veil of diamond dust. I look deep into your eyes, you knew all along.

Last night was Lammas Eve, the nativity and all is well.

The Thrill And The Hurting.

Vision of mirage loveliness with a garland of tiger lilies enwrapped in her sun-warmed hair. Hair, which tangles and spills like flyaway September leaves falling down, down, down, to mingle into her lace ancient skirts and see-through petticoats.

As a songbirds aria thrilled the shimmering air, small feet of the mink keep her skipping on her mission, a sort of trek homeward, to the place of the setting sun.

The darker one watches from the cover of shadows. Dense bramble thicket provides excellent protection from her light lilting gaze over everything, and this way he can observe and devour all the river-clear movements of the faerie-gypsy on her way towards whatever destiny.

Small smiles of February tilt the corner of his ready mouth, while the juices of Eden boil in secrecy within.

Just to taste for a moment. Her laughter; rich honey wine, her faraway brightness on the wings of a moon and her eyes that light up a forest with the royal blue of a summer morn.

He bows his head, black hair, a stallion’s forelock, falls into his young handsome face, barely hiding a trace of mystery.

Or melancholy.

Could you be my own? He would ask, but…

Sudden sounds of antlers shaking the aspen leaves, of hectic creatures racing in evergreens, of bird flutters and reptile scuttles, and a noise like the breeze telling secrets.

She stops.

She listens.

Closely, with soft, subtle breathing.

A watcher in the woods, come and dance with me. She calls out to the watcher in the woods. Such a sight in the drifting, fading sunlight, dancing in the few scattered rays that manage to outwit the treetops and reach the mossy forest floor.

When she turns, the sunlight catches her wild flowered hair and glows in the haze of her misty dresses, flowing over her childlike gentle face and reflecting pure innocence in those haunting summer eye.

He is aching inside.

He is breathless.

He wants her more.

There is silence.

Stillness.

Sorrow.

He cannot have her, she belongs to the sunrise and he to the night. So he remains transfixed, watching her melt away from him, moving deeper into the woodland.

He stands by himself as the coming dusk massages a few shivers into his bronze bare skin. He walks back the way he came, taking his time to ponder the precious flavour of her recent passing and thoughts of her special beauty.

Maybe again in the future their paths will cross, at this magical twilight time when the folk of day and night chance to meet in their separate comings and goings. Until that moment, he can only sigh and move on.

And wish.

And dream. And remember.

The Lady On The Hill.

She stands there alone on the hill.

Darkness has fallen around her like a lover’s warm cloak. The night sky is peaceful. He is her lover, raven and mysterious. He wraps his arms around her, his ebony flesh scattered with stars suspended as spirits making their way to the God-sphere. He is night.

She is day.

She is naked but for the fabric of clouds and misty blue skies that stroke her skin. The stirring, sultry breeze blows them close against her trying to prise each strand of azure and milk white away, almost wanting to leave her, naked and vulnerable. He runs cool fingers through her hair; she sighs.

She reaches up for the sky, to kiss, to touch. Her feet are bare. as a child playing in the sand. He kisses her and runs his hand over her tracing her form. She is open. Her lips are parted, her body open; ready to take him to another land. From beneath her clouds and blue raises everything that she is.

Life torrents forth from within, from her soul, her very essence. Through the sad, mellow chords and tones the life is born. It trickles out, in. out. in a harmonious orgasm of good, evil. black, white. male, female. It is all there, it is the very life of life. To another dimension, another level. It is born from within her. The beasts are given breath. They awake and become real, a part of her and this world she has created with her lover.

See the pure beauty of the swan whose wings will beat against her softness, and will take her, for she is his Leda. His grotesque mount sits astride him with cruelly webbed fingers that should wade water, gripping him firmly around his slender feathered neck, almost defiling his virgin milky down. The beast holds him as though our King were a wild stallion. Grotesque little beings spy from behind their gowns as

conspirators in a plot, creatures from the earth, sea and air, creatures from hell. The bat flies out at his onlooker, his wings lashing out leathery spiders webs. His sharp senses detect all. The all-seeing, all-knowing eyes of a cat peer out from her lovers embrace; almost human, guarding some threshold. See the open rainbow wings of a butterfly as she makes to fly into the cool musky night air. So delicate, so perfect. See the pure, pregnant beauty of the whale as she sings her music to the waters, the breathing waters that rise and falls like the breast of a sleeper. Everywhere, ancient mythical creatures of long ago, from another world, perhaps yet to be. Everywhere, the shining bed-like eyes, reflecting candle flames; the bead-like men prying eyes, the soft child eyes of all the beasts; waiting and watching, wondering whose world they are each a part of. They are real, at least for a frozen photograph in time. They are her creations from within. They are gathered together as one yet they are separate. They are a stained glass window into another level of being. The lady on the hill.

She is the beauty of the lover, the mother. The dark sky wraps around her, stroking, brushing her cheeks. From deep inside her, from so very deep inside her where the soul sleeps, sweet and sad emotions trickle and run from her. She is not afraid to open her hands and show it to us, like a child who has caught a butterfly and wonders at its beauty, then releases it to the freedom of the breeze. She opens her hands and heart to show us, trusting us not to hurt it.

Mother Stands For Comfort.

I sit here under the outcropping of the jetty overhead. I have been here for quite a few hours watching the children running in and out of the sea; filling their buckets with pebbles, without a care that beaches should be of sand. They are happy in the world of childhood thoughts and fantasies. There have been old folk sitting in deckchairs. They have sat, in their straw hats and knotted hankies, also watching the children at play.

As well as watching these two generations I have observed people walking dogs, cyclists, lovers walking hand in hand. I have watched, with the tide lapping around my knees as I knelt, unseen. The tide turned and left our shore, left me dry. Slowly everyone drifted off to be replaced a while by fisherman, above me on the jetty.

Then only I was left, alone in the late evening, at the end of a hot summer day. The last rays of the sun fall behind me catching the edge of the jetty above me, throwing shadowy patterns on the beach, and I think to myself that he must walk in shadows too, reflections of walls and wire.

I sit in these shadows and welcome. Dark and light in harmony now, it never used to be like this. With the oncoming dusk coolness blows in from the sea and I welcome the soft salty breeze. I put back my head and let the wind blow through my loose hair, and watch the shadows grow longer while it gradually becomes darker. I am not afraid to sit in the dark, not afraid to face whatever lies ahead. This is a good place to think with my lifelong friend, the sea. My thoughts are with my love.

My love is locked away, inside my heart, inside stone walls. Put there for an act of crime his hands committed but not his heart. Those hands I have held. The same hands have caressed my body and I felt no malice from within their palms. His fingertips stroked my skin travelling with only love in the soft fingertips. Not then were they the hands of one called a murderer. And from his heart, I have felt only love. A vast volcano that threatens to overflow its boundaries and consume me, and I felt something else. Fear?

He looked into my eyes to read what he could find there. Like a child looking in the eyes of his mother. He has done something wrong and looks into her eyes to see if he can read his punishment there. However, I will not judge him, for as mother stands for comfort, woman stands for understanding. Mother hides the murderer; woman understands him still and loves him so. Mother hides the madman, woman tries to help him. Both love him without question, love without asking.

I lean forward to pick up a pebble from the seashore. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I feel the hardness within my hand. Could I throw it?

Can anyone truly take this stone from my hand and throw it at my love? No man may pass judgment now for he has already been judged; and those that know nothing ought to say nothing. Open your eyes and ears, look and listen first, judgment can always come later. For once sentence is passed it is hard to take it back.

Take away the walls and wire and he would breathe the air of freedom. Let him breathe deeply, filing his lungs, and with his release will come mine. No longer then, be locked inside my heart. My heart is dark, it does not see the light of love. Others hold the key and await the decision. Only when my love is free of my heart and come into my arms can I know that true light. Real like the tide slowly receding in the distance, pulling away, and showering another shore with gifts of shells, seaweed and driftwood. I stand to stretch my cramped legs and walk over to retrieve a piece of abandoned wood.

Another piece of that beautiful old ghost ship resting on our waters, in peace after the war. With the disappearing tide, I can see more of her masts. So many times over the years I have stood and observed the visible parts of this ship, some many times I have thought about my love over the years. He is not here with me on this beach but his presence fills my mind, take me hand, lean on me. He does not hear my words. He just waits, watching the clock tick the years away with the slow hand of time.

He never sees me entering, he never sees me leaving. It would be so easy to doubt him. Negativity can break a cage allowing the fear to escape and take hold. Many things fill the mind, taking over. The worries rioting inside, asking you to do things you do not want to. We hide from the crows like hunted birds from cats, but still doubt finds us and slips between the folds in our minds.

Like when I read the newspapers, there in black and white, words from friends and neighbours, people veiled in shock and scandal in the neighbourhood. Is that what really touched them? Oh, how the media goes to town. They drag out the facts and bind them with half-truths or, worse, speculation.

Then handcuffed to a police officer in number one court, he stood with a charge of murder read out to him and I wonder what he thought about. I stand here in freedom, alternating sunlight and shadows fall upon my body and face. Did the shadows run fleeting across the face of my love?

The full implication hit him in the face. Life for murder.

Therefore, while my lover serves his time, I serve mine. Did I tell him his arms were strong when he last held me? How they hold me still. I feel his strength pulling me to him. I want that power. I want to be

held that way forever. I left my love on an island but in my leaving gave a little of myself to him. Did he not notice me?

The shadows grow longer as the day turns to night then takes her leave and slowly starts to sink into the horizon. In the shadows, I see my loved ones face.

Mother will hide the murderer.

The Ice Dancer.

The snow falls in soft little flurries.

It is slower now than it has been all evening. A small figure rises from its huddled position by the lakeside, that it has held, head rested on knees for the past hour or so. Rising to its booted feet it takes a step forward and skate meets ice. Wrapped in a dark cloak the figure glides across the ice, frozen solid by weeks of winter snow. Two more figures passing by come to a halt by the lake, the older man putting his fingers to his lips to silence the half-formed exclamation about to be released from his eager child. Following his father’s advice the son bows down and watches.

Out on the ice the skater moves as though the skates were part of its feet. It makes no mistake, as it turns in the gently falling snow, oblivious to the world outside its cold peaceful haven, smoothly cutting circles, dancing like the breeze on a river, a painful beautiful vision of nature’s perfection.

Nothing stirred outside the periphery of the lake. No animal scurried as if eager to be about its business. No bird called to any other that may have been waiting nearby, parent and child watching in fascination. Minutes passed and the son moved his foot and snapped a twig. As he feared his father’s anger, he soothed when he saw eyes so gentle and understanding. Together they looked at the skater who had halted at the sound of the break. They were not prepared as its hood was brushed back and as they gazed on such ethereal beauty, it almost burned their eyes.

They had met a faerie who dances every Christmas Eve, all alone. She is one of the free spirits of the world, destined to go her own way, untamed and untameable.

She looks to the father and son standing still and smiles a mischievous smile, not altogether good neither evil. Her eyes shine and with a wave, she disappears.

December Will Be Magic Again.

The lake is frozen and the landscape is covered in snow. Church bells peel in the distance. Trees once covered in blossom and leaves now stand bare, desolate, and fragile. Their naked branches reaching out for a glimpse of the sun, winter sun, hoping and dreaming of days when the sun climbs high into sky with his warmth and light beaming down. The air is still, there is silence. It is December.

On the edge of the forest stands a house. A small house, if you didn’t know it was there you would miss it with a blink of an eye. Wooden and crumbling yet inside there is a light that shines. There is a fire burning and on the floor lie two lovers, naked. The fire warms the room and the lovers entwined. This is their secret place hidden away from preying eyes.

In the corner, there is a candle with its wax dripping white droplets onto the wooden floor. Scented sticks fill the room with an aroma of frankincense and myrrh from faraway Moroccan lands. There is music playing softly, the slow sensual Arabic beats break the silence. The furniture lies abandoned; the pictures that hang on the wall are covered in flakes of crumbled grey dust. There are stairs leading upstairs that takes you to a solitary boudoir complete with a vision of red, the sign of love, a sign of sex.

But our lovers remain downstairs, sprawling on the rug in front of the fire. Like a ghost, you watch and observe them as they gaze into each other’s eyes and explore their bodies with their hands. He pushes his tongue deep inside his lover’s lips, he licks slowly, he wants to savour the taste, he wants to explore and reach out. He gently caress his lovers face, strokes the hair and looks deep inside those eyes, he tries to look deep down into their soul. What does he want to find? What does he want to discover?

I open my eyes, half-dreaming. The air is still now, the breeze has died, and the flurries of snow have ceased. I rise to my feet, step out upon the white tor, and stand at the far sloping edge that leads down to the levels. Far below, the marshland has frozen over appearing as some ancient mirror to another world. It is so beautiful. You would have loved this scene. I smile to myself, as I always do when you come into my mind. Sometimes a tear falls, but I know you are never

far away. The air is warm for the sun has risen to her full strength and strokes her lush fingers over my hair. It is a special day.

I rest upon the snow. It is not cold just soft to my fingers. I lift my gaze and there you stand before me, as you had promised. I returned to Avalon on this magical winter’s day because it is time. You reach out and take my hand in yours, it is so good to feel you again and see you after so many years. Your hand is so warm and your face shines with the gold of the sun. We fall onto each other, laughing and playing like two children.

We fall onto our knees, fall into the snow. You wrap me deep within your cloak. The snow has come to cover us, comes to cover the lovers. We leave no mark. You kept the promise as I have done many lives before and will for many yet to come as we strive to become part of the sphere.

The sun rises above the tor, the day will grow again. But we are far, far away dancing, laughing, and playing. Until the next time when it will be magic again.

Get Out Of My House.

The house is silent, watchful, waiting. Standing outside he feels sure it has eyes that are looking at him, staring, and daring him to enter. He steps inside.

There is a menace here, a deep sullen foreboding. A few steps further and a white grey translucent mist swirls around him in unrelenting torment. However, the mist is deceptive. Nothing can be seen through it. It is opaque as any material held aloft blocking his view, teasing him with its non-substance, knowing it could not be pushed aside. Nothing can be seen through the thick cloud but everything can be felt. Beckoned, he steps further into the first room and at once, his senses are assaulted.

The door slams.

Heart-wrenching fear sends his blood pumping through his body. Adrenalin rushes sending out the frantic message, run or flight, fight or flight, but his feet are heavy, glued to the floor. He feels an uncertainty, not knowing what lies within the mist, unsure if there is anything really there at all or whether it is all a crazy mind game played by his overactive imagination.

It is that strange thing able to do whatever it will whenever reason takes a break. Hidden spectres taunt and jeer, they are not friendly. A sudden breeze blows cold and chilling; a kiss of ice and his heart misses a beat. Icy fingers reach out from the centre of the mist, grasping claw like. There is something to hide in this room, covertness, an all-seeing, all knowing awareness that will do anything to protect its dark, dirty inner secret. Long, thin sticky tentacles probes his unprotected mind, manipulating, fixing itself inside his brain, until sanity finally screams out. NO MORE.

And a peaceful solitude blocks out further perception. This house has no notion of age yet the mist was ancient before even time was recorded. It knows everything that has passed, all the mistakes, the evil doings that have ever been committed with the arrival of man and of untold years before the knowledge of good and evil. The house has been left to itself for countless years, uninhabited except by ghosts of the past, haunted by the memory, its garden overgrown by trees and shrubs, forgotten by the outside world. It only takes that warmth of a living creature to enter and wake it, it retaliates venomously.

It does not want to be reminded. The mist curls even thicker, thoughts lick out with fiery tongue, whipping up to frenzy, screaming out in pure unadulterated hate, GET OUT!

Death Came Upon Tiny Wings.

He sat each night upon the broad shelf of the window to watch and wait. Often he would be hunched, his feet flat upon the window shelf and his legs bent at the knee. His hair would cover his eyes, a dark pageboy’s curl long enough to meet his chin that gave his face a peculiarly innocent quality. Sometimes he would nurse a candle in his hands, focusing steadily upon the flickering light or passing his finger through the flame. He would watch them negotiate the cobblestone street below, and he would know when he saw one, as they would always be alone.

The room he used remained dusty and bare but for his mattress of straw. Cobwebs hung in garlands from every corner. He rarely left the room and most of the time he slept. When he awoke in the evening he would be hungry and restless, and lighting his candles he would watch

moths draw to the light of the fires that fluttered in the cold drafts. When he saw the lonely ones he would leave his seat by the window, and taking his candle, he would descend the twisting staircase to unbolt the heavy, studded door.

Through their enquiring gaze, he appeared to be a handsome man, his rich velvet clothes over-sewn with red and gold. The light reflecting in his eyes drew them, and they would go to him, men and women alike, their faces strangely empty as they sought to leave behind the cold and the poverty of the night. He would lead them to his room, where they would come alive once more, seeming bewildered by the dusty shapes upon the floor; the litter of crackling leather and the white ghosts of old bones. There he would take them, drawing out all memory, all existence, leaving them dry and empty as tinder. Then they too would be no more than husks upon the wooden floor, silent as snakeskin and discarded cocoons.

Sitting in his window, tired and fulfilled, he would watch the rain and the moonlight shining upon the slick cobblestones. Playing with his candle, passing his finger through the flame, he would feel the heat upon his cold, damp skin. Sometimes he would weep. Until, one night, death came upon tiny wings to take away his tears. He lay upon his bed, satiated and sleeping, the whisper-dry remains of a new feast upon the bare floor. His candle sat upon the ledge of the window, sputtering in a pool of molten wax. In the light of the moon, a moth flew in through the open crack of the window like a shadow. Drawn to the flame it danced about on the hot thermals, thrown back by the searing heat and forth by the instinct that drew it towards light, stronger than preservation. There the moth caught a spark of burning wax by its wing and soared away in a final flight of the phoenix, plunging to its death upon the brittle tinder of a human corpse. Dry as straw, the fragile lace of flesh caught afire within a heartbeat, flames scurrying across dust and blazing along cobwebs like tapers. The wooden beams of the house set alight, and only now did the widower awake, surrounded by smoke and light. He sat upon his bed studying the fire with a mixture of curiosity and resignation. As the inferno grew higher the heat clouded his mind, until, mesmerised, he watched his own fingers burn away, the orange light reflecting in his eyes for one last time, as he passed into the flames.

It Works For Me.

I need to know how you feel about me. Too long, we have played games, living and loving but not really giving. I can go on loving you like this forever but it would not be right for me. I love you and I need you but I have to know if you feel the same way too. We see each other often, spend our every spare moment together but the weekends are the best. Knowing that when I finish work on a Friday evening you would be waiting for me, we would drive off and end up far from anywhere, lost along the country lanes, and you would stop the car and pull me close to you. The trees would be as tall above us as we look up at their branches full of the watchful eyes of birds, understanding that what we did was wrong. Lying on a blanket we would be at peace with nature, all around would be quiet and still except for the tiny cries that escaped our lips. I would like to believe that it would go on forever but now I need an answer. What do you have to say to me? Let me know if you have the same feelings when we lay together, tell me about it. I want to know you. I want to get inside you. I need to get close now. We are so close, just you and I in the room. We have gone as far as we can go. I have given you everything but you hold a little back, you just cannot cross that final bridge to me, this burning bridge. You kiss me and tears are in your eyes as you accept all I have given and know it is my full self, but still you hold back. Like the hunted, you cannot fully trust.

As the dawn sun creeps into the room, you turn your face towards me. Can you answer me now? The look in your eyes says you cannot commit yourself. You just cannot tear down that final wall. You still cannot walk the burning bridge.

Though I have waited all night long, I realize the wait is not over. If it were a relinquishment of your body I know you not hesitate and half your mind is mine already but the other part I cannot reach, you just will not cross that bridge. It could be a million miles long for all the closeness I feel to that one part of you.

Have you been hurt before?

Were you burned midway across that bridge? Now you can stay clear of burning bridges because you know once it has burnt down there is no easy way back, you have to remain on the one side and who knows,

you may not be able to keep your head up out of the water the whole way.

There is only one way to me.

I stand on the other side of that burning bridge. We both need courage to make a new life together and sometimes we will need a little extra to get each other through the difficult times. I know I can do it, it works for me.

Be the hunter and let it work for you.

Your eyes lighten and the love shines through, you are on the bridge. You hold out your hand to me and I meet you halfway, we run together the rest of the way leaving everything behind us.

And The Ballad Of Lizie Wan.

I pull a chair to me and standing on it, take down the curtains. Once released they drift and fall slowly to the floor. Lace so light, chintz so pretty, they fall into a soft heap. My eyes wonder to the dresser and your photograph upon it. I lean over to take the picture in my hands and study it. Your dark hair so unruly, you could never do anything with your hair, it had a mind of its own.

Your lips, smiling and full, always so soft, so warm, too ready to receive a kiss. Your nose you always say is too large but it suits your face.

And your eyes, so deep and mysterious, gentle, laughing. You have an honest face, open. It betrays your emotions, an open book to any who cared to read it, the face of a genius. But you let no one come close enough to see those feelings etched in every line. You allow nobody to come near you believing you have all the love you need. You believe you have found it in me. But it cannot be, not any more. Already you have seen me for the last time today and when you return I will be gone. Do not try to search for me, I will not be found. I have taken what was mine from our room and once again, the room is yours. There will be nothing of mine around to remind you of me or of the times, times we spent together. Times that never should have been. Our love was wrong. It should never have been allowed to live and grow. It should have been recognized and pushed away to where it belonged. But we let it happen and for me there are no regrets. I loved you deeply as only a lover can, the whore, the virgin, and the mother, the sister. I revelled in the love you returned, wrapped up safe. No one

could harm me when your arms encircled me and held me close to you. You kept away the dragons. No thoughts could chill me whilst I lay in your bed, under the soft white quilt with you lying next to me keeping me warm, warding me off the cold that sometimes came to touch my heart, whispering words of forbidden love. I would feel your smooth skin and pull you close just so I could hear your every breath. As you lay there, I would feel your body hard and muscular and I would run my hands over every contour. A love so fragile, but beautiful. How could this be wrong? Two people in love sharing everything they have giving everything just to be together. I love you now with all that I am. There is no bone in my body that does not ache for you, for your caress. Still I turn to go and as I leave, my mind cries out for you to return and stop me. Reaching my destination, I sink to my knees and turn my face towards the hill that stretches out in front of me. This was our special place; we used to come here often. As I lay down to rest, the burden of life weighs heavily on my shoulders. My face is a cradle in the lap of the earth. I can smell its freshness, its vitality. It lives and feeds on the strength flowing from my body. Into my mind, unbidden images present themselves to me. Times when we were young, the toys we shared, the books we read together, the stories we were told. And the ballad of Lizie Wan. You were two years older than I was and took charge of everything and I looked up to you. Then I fell in love with you and you with me. How could we be so wronged? Why, when we care for each other, and want and need each other should we be forced apart in this way? So many questions I have no answers to seep through my consciousness into the cool Earth. There is no time to seek the answers. I know but one thing I have to do. This is why I have come here today.

I must leave you now, depart from this world, which cannot keep us together but could not keep us apart. Only once will you see me again, the eclipse of the sun of the moon when they meet above this hill where I now lie.

As the last of my strength is drawn into the Earth, my heart screams out for the two lives that are drawn towards the sky; my own and that of the child inside me.

My eyes close.

My mind quietens.

My breath expires.

My heart becomes still.

Nocturne.

I am sitting in a cave back at Monument Bay. I have been here for hours watching the dawn slowly rise with the morning fog and the sun trickle sunlight through the broken clouds. It is a day so late in summer, the time has gone, our time, one moment in time. As I sit here and reflect, I think back to yesterday and all those days gone before. We used to come to this beach every day, happy, smiling and carefree, do you remember? I sit here watching the waves going in and out, little fish swimming in and out of the water and remember how you used to stand behind me. You used to stand so tall and proud staring out to sea with one hand on my shoulder. I used to feel so protected in our own special little place. Monument Bay, our own solitude place. Those days in the summer, do you remember? How we used to get out of the town and vanish to the sea for a day. We spend our day laughing in the sand, swimming in the sea of honey, lying underneath the sky of honey with the sun-rays warming our gentle skin. Now it is late in the day. On this midsummer night, when everyone is sleeping, I close my eyes and travel back in time. I journey to the moonlight, to the horizon and wait for the dawning of a new day just as we used to do. Could this be a dream? Could it be reality?

Our clothes on the beach, the prints of our feet lead right up to the sea. No one is here, we stand near the Atlantic and we became panoramic. We are tired of the city, so tired of it all. How we used to long for just the two us alone, wanting more, much more, forever more.

The stars are caught in our hair, midnight stars glimmer through our fingers. This diamond dust is with us again, the sky of honey above our head, the sea of honey around our legs, milky silky water as we swim further and further out to sea. We are diving down, we dive right down. As we swim on this diamond night, in a diamond sea below a diamond sky. We are leaving it behind; I do not want to go back. Can you see what I am trying to say?

We dive deeper and deeper, could be we are here; could it be just a dream? I want to be with you again, just a second more on Monument Bay. Do not leave me behind; do not walk away without a final glance. This is our place.

Do you remember this place?

We are swimming to the horizon, my feet are tired with the sea, and I try to hold on. I am rising and rising with the waves, I am thinking of you as I rise and fall against the tide, this sea of honey, I am swimming under a sky of honey. Look at the light, its forever changing, climb up that aerial, come on, and stay with me. Reach for the light; I am coming alive in the water, its forever changing, look at me changing, look at me in the water. Do you want me to change? Is this what you are trying to say? I will try to change and become someone else with the water covering my every skin, but I will always be me. Don’t you like me the way I am? Do you want me to be someone else? I could if I tried, but I do not think I can. Maybe I do not want to try. The water is trying to take me below to the murky dark depths of the sea. I swim as hard as I can back to shore but you have gone. I look around and see you walking away in the distance, a shadowy figure at the edge of the bay. You stand alone, your face is pale, and you try to speak but no words echo from your lips. What are you trying to say? Is this your final word?

I collapse to the sand and believe it is all over. This once special place is somewhere I will never return to. It bears no soul and it wants to be left alone for new lovers to take within its grasp. I am tired; tired of thinking of how great and lovely it used to be. Maybe it was all a sham, maybe it was something else that I held onto. Whatever it was, I know it is all over so I turn to walk away.

At the edge of the bay where the ladder steps take me to the top, I turn back one final time to our own special place. Believe me I tried, maybe not hard enough but this is the real me, someone I cannot change. I guess I do not want to change. I am looking back at Monument Bay just one last time before I turn and walk in the face of my future. It is time to let go.