Fairy Tales

We were children, trapped in coddling innocence.
Our future a blurred dream,
our expectations reflecting limited experience:
dappled shadows dancing beneath sun-lit trees,
daisies on a fragrant lawn,
icecream on the beach,
flares that burnt fast-fading holes in our sight,
leaving scars that would not be discerned
until we reached a certain age.

Avidly, we absorbed oft-repeated bed-time stories
which left us believing
that evil was easily recognised,
since it arrived in ugly shapes
and was always defeated.
Only the good were beautiful;
all aches rinsed away by the chaste kiss
of a handsome Prince;
all kingdoms gained by betrothal.

Sometimes
injustice was perverted
by the person who pushed the pen.

Jack trespassed in the giant’s den,
following up his crime with killing and looting,
that he may live out his days
in tainted luxury.

Dick Whittington was assisted by a sly cat,
thereby obtaining his elite position
through deceit and lies.

The unfortunate daughter
of the silly miller who issued false boasts
was locked in a cell
by an avaricious king who wanted more gold.
Rumpelstiltskin offered a tough deal, but the girl
agreed to give him her first-born.
His mistake was in singing out his name, thinking
that no-one was listening.
In retrospect,
the entire cast behaved in a shabby way.

As for Goldilocks,
at least she learnt to steer clear
of burglary.

Not all the stories had happy endings.

The Babes in the Wood were buried beneath burnished leaves
by grieving birds and beasts, their lives curtailed by starvation,

The Little Match Girl was taken to a better place when she died,
yet I decry the shuttered eyes that caused her suffering in life.

So many fictions to pick through
in our sheltered realm
where parents swept salve on every wound,
our consciousness trusting that we
were charmed and good.

We would win the Prince;
a Kingdom we would rule.

We never knew that corruption
had mingled with truth
and sullied our very bones.

---

P.S.

Let’s scoop away the fairy tales
that recommend a life of greed
and justify the crimes we sweep
beneath our rusting thrones.
The whole world knows that children weep
while mothers die in hungered sleep
and thieves will feed on living flesh
engraving teeth-marks in the bones.

Don’t feed on living flesh,
don’t scrape away the bones.
Live an honest life of peace,
and leave the fairy tales alone.

---

©Jane Paterson Basil

My Friend Johnny

(Image Credit: Euro Cheapo)

Drenched by clotting dregs
of a cold-custard day,
too sluggish to juggle saucepans,
plates, food,
I watch cars, and muse,
thinking of armour,
of armies,
of uniforms marching
in single file as if in practice,
yet each with its own destiny.
Some face battle, others flee,
while a few
have been granted
official leave.

Monotonous shades of grey,
white vans, showroom red, more grey.
Sighting the next white van
I rise from my seat; this one
is unique;
embellished with wide wheels,
custom headlights,
boastful
tribal
decals.

“Johnny!”, I cry,
waving like one who welcomes
the first sunrise.
tenderness fills me
as this childhood enemy
who became a friend
drives by.

From this reach
he cannot hear or see me,
but “Johnny”, I whisper with a grin
thinking of how we meet
in the street to speak
of everyday things with an ease
that contradicts distance, remembering
the time he stroked hair from my eyes,
the sweep of his fingers
behind my ear;
intimate, yet more easy
the touch of lover; more like
a brother.

As Johnny’s van rolls out of sight
the evening sun escapes a bluffing cloud.
Effervescing rays needle light
through maple leaves,
seeking
to burnish an oasis
that grows between me
and the road.

The oasis swells.
Trees rise through concrete,
meadows stretch; nature’s blankets
woven in hues of gold and green
whose wild-flower hedges
stitch the patchwork of Devon together.

I burn fifty-five calendars
and race through fields.
Reaching the bank of a stream, I leap,
hair flying, feet finding purchase,
toes curling around smooth rock,
cool water a shock
that soothes and surprises.

Johnny waits on the other side.
No more do I despise his fear of drowning
or distrust his efforts to survive.
In turn, he doesn’t mind my wild eyes.
Like me, he is a child,
we are each ourselves;
He holds out his hand, wraps it around mine
and pulls me to his side;
I am home with my family,
ambling with Johnny,
Johnny, forever  my friend.

.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Who am I?

You ask me who I am,
this fool whose home-made skin
once glistened
with a million shades
of fake and real, incorporating
all the human I hungered to be
and wished to be envisaged in me;
this fool who
from a distance, glowed,
yet seen up close,
singed the eye.

You ask me who I am;
this woman so deeply seared
by uncertainty.
I can tell you I erred,
and that in erring,
I learned to learn,
crawling toward the cure
as each vain expectation,
each flaking fantasy,
each false pretence
was slaked away,
leaving me both less and more.

You ask me who I am
as I watch my multi-coloured dream-coat
shrink to flickering embers,
surrendered by my own hand
to the questing flames
of questioned truth.

You ask me who I am;
I’ll tell you what I know.
Old flesh shows through the vest
my mother dressed me in
long before I chose
my own showy clothes.
Its creases advertise passion
for laughter,
cheesecake
and peace in every corner.
Now and then my heart
aches from human disgrace
and residual shame.
beyond that,
I’m not yet sure
who I am.

This is my last-minute response to Gina at Singledust, who last week put out a call for bloggers to write a poem to introduce themselves, to be featured at The Godoggocafe.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Call it what you will

I cannot scroll down to the future
to reveal the mysterious code
written in hieroglyphics
upon sacred, hardened sandstone.
The time might come when the reason
glows out from a golden tome,
but I cannot predict what life I may meet
or what the penance or prizes might be,
though I stare at twisted shapes
and question reality,
and I hope that one day the reason
will be read from a hallowed page,
but although I can’t know I don’t believe
any truth will be shown in that way to me.

I squint down the street where babies
discover their fingers and toes.
I gaze at their faces and wonder
what their future might hold.
Even a mother can’t tell
if the future’s a river of honey,
or a motorway paved with stolen money,
or a misconceived living hell.

I roll past the stuttering changeling,
that grew from the child with wide eyes
who visualised dreams in the clouds of the skies,
then watched them evolve and go scudding by,
curling to misshapen needles and knives,
death on the streets and mouths that yawn wide
in shouts of hatred and silent screams,
and what went wrong with his dreams?

What ill-wind blew his dreams out of shape?
How do so many innocent babies
become haunted orphans and fiends,
and when will the suffering end?

Maybe one day the reason
will be read from a shimmering sheet
and when truth is revealed we’ll fall to our knees
filling the air with our thanks and our pleas,
as we burn in flames or take ring-side seats,
but this is not my belief.

Some say that we’re ants on a dung-heap,
some say we are angels supreme,
but we’re all of us sentient beings
on planet that used to be green.

I search for the secret message,
but the only thing I can see
is the wildest guess in a world that’s a mess
and although it suggests that faith is a boon,
we need to change the future,
and we need to do it soon.

.

For The Sandbox Writing Challenge 2018 – Exercise 23, I allowed a stream of consciousness to came flooding in…

©Jane Paterson Basil

The woman in his life

I was always the woman in his life.
Through all of the abuse.
he knew he could rely on my love
and he loved me, he always loved me.

He stole my money and more;
he took all of the things he could sell.
I struggled to keep the heart beating in my chest;
I fought to keep those gems that fade when all is not well;
the seasons, with their soft and crisp textures and breath;
the goodnight kiss of each evening sunset;
each mealtime caress on the tongue.

As a last resort
I curled up in a tight ball;
with less inches exposed to the air,
less pain could enter my body
while I thought about:
the pull of the moon;
the ancient hills of my home;
the hazel eyes of a long-lost love;
the waves crashing on the cliffs at Porlock;
the thrill, as a child, of holding an unread book;
and soon I would unroll, take up my laptop,
and write much of the remaining pain away.

Just recently
I have been superceded
by a wild and lovely young rose;
who with one blow, has tamed my son.
so long I have waited for this day to come;
a day when he would cease tormenting me;
when my suffering would evaparate,
as my beloved child’s life
finally came together.

I celebrate
and am relieved,
while the edges of me
ache with the
grief of
loss.

The Daily Post #Together

©Jane Paterson Basil

Before my memory

My father’s roll of selotape
was slightly rippled, as if from the damp
and I couldn’t remember a time
when it had looked any different.
Although he used it, it never seemed to shrink.

One day he told me it had been in his possession
for twenty years,
thereby joining a reel of elastoplast
and a plethora of other items
for which he claimed two decades.

I had lived for less than half that period, and yet
my past was an indefinable eternity;
with markers where I had achieved so many things.
I had learned to read;
broken my ankle;
gashed my head open against a stone wall;
and climbed the singing tree,
to swing on a branch with my brother Neil.

I examined my father’s roll of selotape
and concentrated until my head hurt
in an effort to imagine any kind of existence
before my memory;
but all I could see was a blank, leaden space
with neither sun, moon or stars to brighten the sky.

©Jane Paterson Basil

That day

Embed from Getty Images

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They told me I was growing and one day I would be an adult. I was old enough to know this must be so, but too young to truly understand.

Eyeing my tanned feet encased in their summer sandals, I thought: surely they’ve always been this distance from my face? When my mind reached back it seemed that I had ever changed.

It must have been the first time my three brothers had taken me beyond the end of our stony lane, and we stood for a moment by the backwoods signpost.

I was familiar with the road which twisted ahead, and the one that led to the right,
but we chose the untapped trail to the left, a thrilling path full of mysteries which I longed to see.

A jaded adult may have ambled and dashed past so many wild summer banks that they all looked the same, but to this happy child each one was unique.

In nearby hedges I had seen the wild glory of vetch and meadowsweet, I had bent with stained fingers to to pick wild strawberries, and I felt as if I had been breathing such beauty for eons, but this road and this day were beauty incarnate.

Above me the sky was a Van Gogh shade without the melancholy. The complex scent of miriad summer blooms attracted scores of butterflies, bees, and other flying insects, while beyond the buzzing in the still heat, birds sang and a distant tractor hummed as it harvested the wheat. Four of my five senses were being fed to a joyous fullness. The early morning dew had dried, leaving emerald nature glowing with health.

It was a perfect morning,
and in a moment of clarity I recognised myself,
knew that I fitted perfectly into the world
and I had no need to reach forward
to find out who I would be.

Written for The Daily Post Word Prompt #Reach

©Jane Paterson Basil

The years pass

In the beginning
it is like this:
you are little and it is.
There is no will be,
no was in your memory.
Your existence is.
You are in this minute.

Learning comes
from beyond your consciousness;
you have no recollection
of being unable to do what you can do today,
no expectation of future ability,
and when you are happy or sad
that moment
of elation or pain
is all there is.

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Time passes all around you
and you don’t know when the knowledge began,
but it is as if you always understood the passage of time.
You think your memory stretches back forever
but you are only five
and though you try
you can’t recall
a time when you weren’t alive,
and you can’t imagine
that some day you will die
or even that you will age.
Life is a series of days that stretch on forever
in a complex but unchanging pattern.
You dread your sister’s Monday temper
but look forward to her weekend games
You have discovered your past,
know there is a future,
but mostly
you breathe the moment.

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You are eight.
When you don’t understand long division
you remember how reading
was once so difficult
and yet now it’s easy.
You think of all the changes that have taken place in your life,
all the things that you have learned.
You are clever and you know that one day
you’ll attain teenage status,
but thinking ahead to a time when
you’ll no longer be under the protection of your parents
is too distant,
until that horrific day when your friend
turns up looking miserable and you ask her what’s wrong.

She tells you her mother has died.

Something crashes, noisily, in your head
spreading crimson through your brain
thickening, blocking your ears,
constricting your throat.
There are no words
and when they finally come they are the wrong ones,
thrown out in panic, because all this is outside your experience,
and because suddenly you know that one day
what has happened to your friend
will happen to you.
You will be alone. It could be forty years from now
or it could be tomorrow.
You could come home from school
and find your mother dead.

At night, when you lie in bed,
the fears crash in
like vandals breaking the windows of a vacant property,
and they don’t stop kicking until you have cried yourself to sleep.
They won’t let you alone, and yet
you still don’t think of how it will be when you are grown up.
You tell people you want to be a journalist
but it isn’t real.
There is only the past, the present, tomorrow, next week
and your terror.

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Your teens
are driven by twin needs for excitement and love,
complicated by unsettling hormones
setting up battles in the brain.
You trip again and again,
rarely regaining your balance before a further fall.
You turn blind corners and scale forbidden walls.
You scale, you tire, you fail, you fall.
You scale, you tire, you fail, you fall.
it becomes boring, but you cannot stop
because you are lost in a lonely shadow
looking for something which you think
is out there.

Somebody says
you won’t find it until you find yourself,
You catch the the words as they tumble from his lips,
but they get jumbled on the way to your mind
and although you try you cannot untangle them.

You want to find your way in life,
but amidst all the confusion
you do not have the vision
or the time.

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On your twentieth birthday,
looking back at your errant teens
you think you have learnt all your lessons
and there are no more mistakes to be made.
You’ve escaped your most recent error
and you’re having a good day.
You assume you’ve cast
a healthy pattern for your future,
but when you try to imagine the rest of your life
you picture yourself cartwheeling through a sunny meadow,
arriving at the other end with skin still fresh
and energy fizzing.

You don’t know you have just hit
that quintessential moment of youth.
You walk down the street feeling the spring of your feet.
Your spine stretches and the sky tickles your chin,
and when you laugh
your laughter scoops merriment out of a void,
pulling it from the throats of strangers.
You feel like the chosen leader
in a land you have freed from
the tyranny of misery.

You think the planet is turning
just so it can look at you from the best angle,
but for five minutes you own the world.
For five minutes you think that life
will always be that way.

You will live long enough to learn
that those five minutes were worth more
than your finest rose-petal romance.

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Forty years pass.
Forty years of missed prizes and misdirected action,
of rubbings-out and scribbled correction,
resulting in good and bad things,
many of them enduring long enough
to cheer or chill you as you age
and when you ponder it,
you know that if at any stage
you had seriously thought about your future,
you would not have dreamed that so many of your days
would be so infused with pain.
But then, if you had thought about your future,
it probably wouldn’t have.

You enjoy the better things you’ve made
and you’ve learnt from your mistakes.
It would have been no education
to have come through life unscathed.

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Posted for The Daily Post’s One Word Prompt: Clock

©Jane Paterson Basil

Rebel

They remember
marveling at their child of light
stirring beneath quilt and blanket,
perking up to see them,
wakening each day
with a perfect smile.

Without a sound,
the chill,
like a stir in the air,
begins.

A  shower gel smell,
steamy fresh,
wafts from the bathroom,
trails through his bedroom into the kitchen,
collides and is swallowed
with the coffee.

He rifles through the closet,
argues about which shirt,
which pants.
There is no coaxing him.
He takes to debating when
the T.V. anchorman
tells his news.

Loudly
he punctuates every need,
before he goes
downstairs
to the basement,

a fresh little rebel
waiting in his lair, poised
to march forward

and away.

I took Calen’s lovely poem, Mornings,  and cruelly twisted into another shape. Thank you Calen, for inviting me to corrupt your words.

©Jane Paterson Basil

WALLS AND BRAMBLES

This is a beautiful world, where ugliness creeps in and tries to dominate. As a child, surrounded by fields and trees, protected by a loving family, I was happily unaware of anything more evil than the boggy area I got stuck in one day as I walked by the stream.

However, in school I felt alienated from those around me, because I came from a different culture than them. While I was as British as my contemporaries, this was a small village school in a rural location, and all of the children came from families who had lived there for generations; probably forever. My mother was a Scotswoman; a ballet dancer, and my father had been a professional photographer with a successful studio in London. When he hit forty, he decided to change his life, and gave up his business to move himself, his pregnant wife and his three sons to North Devon, where he became a farm labourer. I was the bump in my mother’s belly.

Although I was born in the area, I was never accepted as a local. My accent was different, and so was my background. I was heavily influenced by my father’s eccentricities, and was considered strange.  ‘Ers a bit mazed een the aid’ (translation: she is a bit mad in the head) was the way the locals voiced it.

I am grateful to my parents for encouraging individuality, but as a child, proud though I was of my heritage, it made interaction with those around me difficult. When climbing trees, turning cartwheels and running through fields I was confident and complete, but I shied away from most company.

I discovered the magic of books as soon as I learned to read; the way the heart would beat faster as I held a new volume in my hand, the feather tickle in my chest and stomach as I opened it, caressing the flyleaf while I held myself in suspense, putting my nose to it and inhaling the fragrance of paper. What secrets would this book contain? Only after that ritual would I open it, suddenly exhaling, and taking another gulp of air as my brain registered that I had been holding my breath.

My teacher had told me that there were twenty-six letters in the alphabet. I had counted them and she was right. And there they all were, between the pages of the book. Twenty six letters that can be arranged in finite ways to make words, and then those words can be arranged to make sentences – so many sentences saying so many different things, or the same things in different ways.  It was so exciting, and I wanted to do it. I found I could do it, and everyone told me I did it well, better than anyone else in the school, and better than anyone else in the other two schools I went to afterwards.

I could have a glittering future as a writer! Well, how could I refuse to make a living out of the thing I was most passionate about? So I took the obvious course. I left school as soon as I had the chance, without gaining any qualifications, and got a job in a factory.

Yes, truly, that is what I did. I loved writing but I hated school.

I had fun. It was easy in those days to step out of a job on a Friday, and into a new one the following Monday. Over the years I worked in several factories, a few hotels, I spent a year in Art College, nine months as a student nurse, I was an ecclesiastical embroideress  for a while and I owned and ran a retail business for almost twenty years. During that time I married a good man, had two children, foolishly divorced him, had two more children with a partner and sensibly left him to move into a place which was loosely termed a commune; where I managed their huge permaculture garden.

Since then I have worked as a cleaner at a holiday resort and been warden of a woodland holiday campsite, living in a tent with no electricity on site, which was the most enjoyable and rewarding job I have ever done. I’m supposed to be going there for the next summer season, but have decided not to, because I would it would make it impossible to carry on with this blog, or to do any writing to speak of, as I use a word processor now, and can’t seem to go back to the old way.

As you can see, I have spent my life jumping over walls into brambles, but I have never stopped writing, because sometimes when I write I feel connected to something powerful and loving, and I no longer feel alone, and sometimes when I read what I have written I am moved to tears by the words, those twenty-six different shapes on a bit of paper, arranged in a different order every time, and saying so many things so beautifully.

And I often wonder, where did they come from? They seem to have a life of their own.

I write short stories, and occasionally poems, taking inspiration from the way people respond to both advantage and adversity in life. I try to keep my stories short, because I think it makes more people likely to read them, and because the messages are often very simple, not really requiring embellishment. I like to write stories of less than 100 words sometimes, because it feels somehow like painting.

I started writing this blog because I have come to believe that I have something to say, and that  my words can move people. This blog was intended to be a first tentative step to see if anyone out there liked what I do, and if so, to try to get published. After only a week I’m no longer sure whether that is the direction in which  am aiming.

For financial reasons, it would be practical for me to make a living from my writing, but at this moment what really matters to me is that I may be able reach out and do something which will benefit others. I have seen and experienced some terrible things in my life, and often found myself unable to move forward until the right words appear before me in written form. Only a few days ago I was in despair until I found a lovely poem from an amazing person on a WordPress blog. I read her words and immediately knew what I action I needed to take.

So in a year’s time, I hope I have a good following of people who will benefit in some way from my words. I hope that I will have made contact with parents and partners and children of addicts, because we can help each other. I hope that I will be part of a supportive community of people with shared interests. I hope I have figured out more substantial way in which my writing can be of use to others.

And I hope it will be an adventure.

© Jane Paterson Basil