In this yew,
silver lipped bole,
divine the true
age of the year.
Whatever your wish,
to be still,
to tremble,
is hallowed here.

My bark is hollowed.
The wound
has revealed
the age of the moon
by her reflection
in my silver womb. 

Hold me,
sea,
that I would be
a craft that sets
sail in calm
or storm,
by day, stars
or planets.

Who but you to provide
the state of the tide?
A boat without guide
needs only sea.
Unafraid to drown,
or to land alone
on sand at dawn,
hull empty.

Josephine Dickinson

___________________________________________________________________ 

SEEING VOICES

Only with the light
on my lips can you
read what I would

say to you – sweet
nothings come
to nothing

in the dark, unless I
let my tongue
excite

its little code
along your spine – You
shiver at the word made flesh.

Seeing Voices – A Journey into the World of the

Deaf

                                              by Oliver Sacks

Tony Flynn

__________________________________________________________________

STILLNESS

Water is never completely motionless –
even the calmest lake stirs and laps
or prickles in wind. Stones are different. Massed
on beaches their gravity suggests they’ve slept
for milllennia; embedded in the ground
they seem not to have moved since Earth began
in spite of signs that they’ve been hurled, pounded,
compressed, expelled. This large pebble of mine,
its face painted with Port Isaac Bay,
bears on the back its long ago distress:
shingle-grey mottled with white and mapped
with dark continents. And yet there are days
when I contemplate the self-sufficient shapes
of stones and long to possess their stillness.

Myra Schneider

___________________________________________________________________

IMAGES

Wordsworth put Tintern Abbey in a poem.
Oaks claw the grassy banks of the Wye,
Wind chills the lichened arches of the ruin.
For three days I wander around, drunk,
Sober only to be drunk, yellow and violet
Blossoms welcoming corrosive drizzle.

Sebastian Barker

____________________________________________________________

A Merry Christmas To Us All

Dave and Allison live next door to me, at number 29; they moved in about eighteen months ago. A nice young couple, but straight as dyes. Not, I have to say, that they think of themselves that way, far from it. They see themselves as Alternative, counter-culture types. Pale, bony Dave has a ponytail which he gels back fiercely when he goes to work at the insurance office, a job he loathes and wishes he could escape from so he could be a traveller and visit far flung places. She - Ally - favours flowing crushed velvet dresses in shades of claret and purple, has a crush on Antonio Banderas but dare not mention it to Dave who she wants to believe has hidden depths of passionate jealousy. Ally is a nursery school teacher. She giggles, hennaes her wavy hair and is very fond of chocolate. They think I’m a good neighbour, a harmless, slightly eccentric older woman living on her own, probably divorced or even widowed; they’re not quite sure. As you see, I know far more about them than they know about me.
   For one thing, I don’t live alone. I share my undistinguished little detached house with Betty, my Weimaraner. She’s a beautiful dog and trained within an inch of her life, but still remarkably silly. I look into those glowing pale blue eyes, so full of love and nothing else, and wonder where her poor little brain went. But she’s an excellent guard and can do an extremely competent impersonation of an attack dog if needed. She really should have been on the stage; I always think of her as a drag queen in a dogskin. While I was at my worst with this bloody flu, Dave took her for a couple of walks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell him she’s word-and-gesture trained because naturally enough, he thought she was just a pet. Sensing this,Betty took terrible advantage and dragged him all over the snowy park, jumping into drifts, barking like a fool and wearing the lad to a frazzle. He was amazed when I said ‘abajo’ to her and she lay down immediately, like an athletic, silvery lamb. God knows what he would have thought if I’d have whispered ‘asalto’ and he’d seen her do her killer hell-hound routine.
   But it was very good of him to bother and I appreciated his kindness, and Ally’s. This afternoon, she’d come over to fill me in about the resident’s committee meeting at Mrs. Etterbuck’s house last night. She’d brought me some oranges and a huge bar of Dairy Milk, which I fortunately don’t eat as she consumed three quarters of it by herself. Her round, snub-nosed little mug was rosy with cold as she settled into the big wing chair and peered at the bank of computers set up on an old pine refectory table against the side wall. Betty huffed and twitched, fast asleep on the tattered old kilim rug in front of the pot bellied stove. We were very cosy.
   ‘You have got lots of computers, haven’t you?’ Ally said, puzzled.
   ‘Just two or three’, I replied casually, ‘you know, the usual. The Internet, my business stuff - working from home just means you never have enough space, doesn’t it? I really must clear up. Sorry, that’s Betty, she’s a bit windy, it’s that new dried dog food, it doesn’t agree with her.’ I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring manner.
   ‘Oh, yes. What - er, what is it you actually do, then? Dave said you’re into art . . .’ She looked inquiringly at me as I slumped lower on the sofa, flicking my long, untidy grey plait over my shoulder and wiping my nose with an old red bandanna.

  ‘Art, yes. Hmm. Well, you know, a bit of this, a bit of that. So, what was said at the meeting, then? Anyone mention the street lights, because . . .’
   ‘Mr. Sadiq said he’d phoned the council three times, but they just pass him along from one department to another! So Dave said he’d ring from work tomorrow as well, because if lots of people complain, you know, they might do something.’
   ‘I’ll ring too, that’ll put the windup ‘em.’
   ‘Oh, that’s great, I’ll tell Dave. Areyou sure you don’t want some choccie? Dave says I’m a real piggie about it,especially at this time of year - my mum gives me heaps of it every Christmas,she thinks I’m still a kid, honestly, but you know - oh, can I, then? Thanks.The meeting? Oh right - well, we talked about lots of stuff, I’m glad I went,really, and . . .’
   ‘What about Number 30?’
    Her pudgy little hand, its bitten nails a testament to her insecurity, stopped halfway to her mouth, the chocolate melting against the pink of her fingertips. She actually gulped, I didn’t think people did that except in old films. I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything, it wasn’t fair to frighten a soft little scrap like her.Everyone in the street knew something was very, very wrong at Number 30, but despite their suspicions, despite the horrors that might be befalling those kids, no-one wanted to - interfere.Be a nosy neighbour. Risk a scene. The whole thing made people nervous, scared even. They wished the whole house would disappear in a puff of smoke and they wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. I could see why they thought like that- I mean, what could they do? They were Jane and Joe Average, they had no power.
   It was different for me, though. And apart from anything else, this wasn’t an abstract problem belonging to other people, the kind of thing Betty and I dealt with for a fat fee. This was personal. This was in my street.
   Wheels had been set in motion to sort things out some weeks ago; sure, I’d had to call in a few favours, but I felt it was worth it. I was waiting for final confirmation now, and I was impatient; my besetting sin. Christmas was only three days away. Somehow it seemed very important to me that it was all done and dusted before Christmas. For the children’s sake. I needed to know that Mrs. Etterbuck’s  amateur vigilantes weren’t going to do anything awkward, like get their nerve up to go the police. I didn’t want them spoiling things, after all.
   ‘Oh, no. No-one - that is we - I . ..’ Ally stuttered, and Betty, smelling her sudden fear, woke up with a quizzical growlette. Ally nearly jumped out of her skin.
   ‘Tranquilo.’ Betty looked miffed but shut up pronto,a thespian thwarted. You could see her remaining brain cells whizzing about aimlessly before she gave up trying to understand humans and went back to dreamland.
   ‘Don’t mind Betty, she’s just checking we’re OK.’
   ‘She’s er, she’s very nice, isn’t she? Is she pedigree? I mean, she’s so - so sleek, and so - er, er . . . Gosh, is that the time? I must run, Dave’ll be expecting his tea! I’m glad you’re feeling better, I mean, this flu is awful, everyone’s coming down with it - no,don’t bother, you stay there, I’ll let myself out - bye.’
   And off she trotted back to her lord and master, big butch Dave. I clicked my fingers and Betty, who had only been feigning sleep, jumped up on to the sofa and did her best starving dog expression. I gave her a square of the remaining Dairy Milk and to hell with her waistline. We cuddled companionably for a while until her wind nearly suffocated me and then with a sigh, I heaved my aching body off the confines of the cushions and onto the bum-grindingly hard swivel chair in front of my computers.
   Three hours later, my spine a rod of fire and my shoulders locked in the ‘hunch’ position, I fell off the chair and staggered into the kitchen. I was well pleased. Things were moving fast now,very fast. I fed the girl her dinner, which she sucked straight down without it touching the sides of her throat, and put water onto boil for pasta.
   While I waited, I idly unpicked my plait and brushed my hair, then standing in front of the mirror, I re-braided it. I looked at myself. Art, eh? Well, I could see why they’d think that, it was the silver and turquoise Navajo rings, I suppose, and the hair. Maybe I should play the arty thing up a bit more, sketch some flowers in the garden next summer. Do some painted silk scarves and give one to Ally. That was a good idea, in fact. It would reinforce my image as a whole-earth, trustworthy hippie type; artistic, into crafts, no threat to anyone.
   That’s the persona I chose. Partly, I suppose, because it’s pretty much me anyway which makes it easier to stay in character, and also because it meant I didn’t have to have anymore plastic surgery or a radical new wardrobe. I’m too lazy for all that malarkey. I’m a tall, heavy-set woman in my late forties who favours loose black Gap casuals and hand knit jumpers. If you don’t look closely - and most people don’t -you’d think I was inclined to fat. Which is good for my work, if not my ego. Show-off muscles mean attention, and attention is what I don’t want. My complexion is still OK - brown, smooth and relatively unlined - and my eyes an opaque, shaded taupe. ‘Secret eyes’  Enzo used to say. ‘Noone ever know what you thinkin’, my Laura’.  He said it the Italian way,‘Laow-ra’. Enzo, Enzo, Enzo; you were the best. We were the best, the best team they’d ever had. If only you hadn’t . . .
   I shrugged. ‘If only’ never got anyone anywhere. I was out of all that now, thank God. I lived with Betty in this provincial city and worked when I wanted to, for who I wanted to. At least I was alive, and I intended to stay that way. But it made me think, and after I poured some fusilli into the seething pot, I checked the weapons lock-up, pulled my sheepskin boots on and went to the post-box by the gate to collect my mail. It was a Matalan catalogue full of Christmas gift ideas and a card from Andrea in Washington. Bless her, she never forgets. I shivered as Betty capered round my legs nearly tripping me up. The sky was heavy with the threat of more snow and I wrapped my thick grey cardi closer round me.
   Across the way, the lights of Number 30 glowed dimly through the heavy curtains. As I watched, the girl, the eldest of the two sisters, walked slowly up the street and unlatched the front gate. I stayed still and signalled Betty to freeze. The child was wearing a navy pleated skirt, grey woolly tights, clumpy shoes. A big padded parka shrouded her skinny body and a navy ribbed hat was pulled down over her forehead and ears. Her straggly yellow plaits were secured by plastic bobbles. She looked cold and tired. Her enormous bag swung awkwardly as she undid the gate.
   It was gone six, late to be getting home on a dark winter’s evening for a kid her age. She turned her head - that instinct kids have I suppose, I’ve seen it before - and stared at me, her expression unreadable in the light of the flashing multicoloured Christmas illuminations strung round the house next door’s porch. I raised my hand ingreeting, my eyes never leaving her face.

   ‘Come on, come on, come on girl, just walk,come to me, come on, love, you can do it, you can
…
   I willed her to drop the bag and walk across the road to me, as she’d done before in the summer when Betty, her and I had become friends. She’d come to trust us, a little more each day until the relaxation and happiness on her normally guarded face was a pleasure to see. She’d borrowed books and nibbled at biscotti in the blossom-filled back garden, artlessly confiding things to me that she regarded as normal, but that made my blood boil. Then finally, her father’s iron grip had re-tightened on her frail soul and her visits ceased, but my fury at her and her baby sister’s fate hadn’t. Something had to be done.

   ‘Come on, Shelley girl, come on,sweetheart, I’ll get your sister later, just come on . . .’
    She took a step, the bag dragging like a sea-anchor; I forced myself to look neutral, welcoming. Another step . .. Yes! Yes!
   The front door opened and her father stood on the threshold. A lumbering, burly man who favoured rugby shirts and ‘sporty’ clothes, his broad red face was a mask of fake bonhomie that easily fooled folk into thinking him harmless. No one asked questions; not even the girls’ frazzled, well-intentioned teachers who saw them every day and noticed nothing. I’d accessed the school’s records; only one teacher noted anything and he thought the girls ‘prone to fantasising’. Yeah, right.
   Her father looked at Shelley and his mouth opened to speak, then following her gaze, he caught sight of me. He stiffened, his body language radiating rage and brute violence. Betty growled softly in her throat, her hackles rising. He stepped out onto the path and grabbed the child by her arm, twisting it as he wrenched her into the house.The door slammed. Number 28’s lights flashed on and off in a demented salute, Santa winking on his chaser light sleigh.
    ‘Bastard, shit, shit. Oh dammit all to Hell, Betty, why didn’t you do something, eh? You useless hound.’
   ‘Urrgh?’ Betty cocked her head and put her silky ears on alert.
   I bent down and kissed her sweet-smelling doggie head and she licked my face with her sloppy tongue. Love, you can’t beat it, especially the canine kind.
   I ate my now-soggy pasta with unsalted butter, parmesan, black pepper and garlic, in the kitchen. Then I wandered into the front room and checked the computer screens. Information was coming in thick and fast, the code unintelligible to anyone but me. I went back to the kitchen and made a double espresso, taking it to the computer table.
   As I drank, I saw that tonight they’d be coming to sort out Number 30 - permanently.
   I read on. Homes had been found for the two sisters at last, with foster parents trained to help and heal children damaged in this way, in a country on the other side of the world. Other than the pair of predators who had bred them, they had little or no other family. What few relatives they had were scattered and distant, the parents having successfully isolated their children the better to exploit them. The girls wouldn’t be missed, except by me and Betty. Their new identities had been created and by tomorrow they’d be on their way. By Christmas Day they’d be free and clear. The video equipment and computers in Number 30 would be dismantled, the hard drives dissected, the contact lists removed and filed for furthe action, the pictures and films destroyed. The house would be sanitised, all traces of the occupants eliminated and cover stories set in place via operatives, records archives and databases throughout the UK.
   As far as the world was concerned,the family at Number 30 would have gone away for the holidays, put the house on the market and never come back. The street would breathe a quick sigh of relief then forget it all as fast as possible. It would be as if the people at Number 30 had never existed.
   The parents - if you could call them that - of Shelley and her sister would be . . . Dealt with. I hoped they’d forget the usual anaesthetic, in this case.
   I made another espresso and waited. By 2 a.m., my computers told me the operation was in full swing. I checked the street from my window carefully, but there wasn’t a sound, or a sign of anything untoward. Nothing. It had begun to snow again lightly, and the lacy white flakes drifted down like a bridal veil while whatever was happening- happened.
   At five a.m., when my main monitor flashed up the word ‘Rettung’ then went blank, I sighed and rubbed Betty’s ears.
   ‘All done, baby girl. The nippers are safe. Enzo would have been proud, eh?’
   I secured the house, turned the cameras and the infra red on and the lights off, and staggered groggily upstairs to bed, Betty scritch-scratching on the wooden floor after me.
   Under a raggled heap of quilts,furry blankets and dog, I stretched until my bones cracked and felt sleep creeping up on me with welcome black velvet feet.
   Betty snortled and let off an evilfart.
   ‘Nighty-night, sweetie-paws’, I murmured. Yeah, I thought, and a very Merry Christmas to us all.
   Outside, in the dull suburban street, in the obscure city where I live, snow fell thicker and faster. My neighbours slept on, undisturbed by anything other than the imminent ringing of their alarm clocks.
   It was over.
   We’d done good.
   We slept.

Joolz Denby

____________________________________________________________

A Vigil                  

Let go of your hands;
They have held everything now,
Touched all the faces, the warm stones,
The orange flowers and sunned soil,
Dipped finger tips into puddles of painted rain;
Let go of your hands. 

Let go of your feet;
They have taken you along every pathway now;
They have wound you down this green country lane,
Wearing your shoes well on this greatest of treks,
Worn them right through to the skin of the sole;
Let go of your feet.

Let go of your head;
It has thought through all the things a mind can dream,
Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed – all smiled in there;
Let your face now peel away like a petal from the black bough;
Close up your city streets, arcades and thoroughfares;
Let go of your head.                  

Let go of your heart.
How hard is this!?
Let all the love go,
The radiance of your summer's growth,
The fruit from the seed, the seed from the fruit,
And at last,
The stars will fall about you like silver rain;
At last,
Your love will fly like birds into the violet twilight;
At last
Your core will melt in the furnace
And stream out, a river of molten gold.
How hard is this!
Let go now;
Let go of your heart.

Chris Firth

____________________________________________________________

 Extras

A cannonball landing to the left is the sign for the women to turn back toward the city.
   ‘One, two, three. Now. Fall down,’ I whisper to myself and I throw myself onto the padded bank.
   We are extras in the making of a film called Valley of the Wind, a title which makes us all chuckle, and we are about to be slaughtered by some marauding army or other, in front of a city which is made of balsa wood and canvas.
   ‘Cut!’ someone yells and we rise uneasily to our feet.
   ‘Not bad. But you, third peasant from the cart...’ We all look round. He means me. ‘Yeah, you. Chequered head-scarf. You’re tired for chrissakes, so fall down easy. And where’s the crippled boy?’
   He shouts out notes to about ten of the crowd. We are to try again after lunch.
   ‘Don’t eat too much. I want to see you back here on the threshold of despair at two-thirty, no later.’ A few people laugh politely. We straggle off toward the buses.
   It’s my second day here, and I’m already having trouble with what’s real and what’s not, so when a bearded monk appears next to me, I’m not particularly surprised.
   ‘I am reliably informed that our choice today is chicken curry or mushroom risotto.’ He looks around. ‘Any idea where the halberdiers are?’
   ‘Uh?’
   ‘Halberdiers..?’ He sighs when I look blank. ‘Oh, never mind.’
   He stomps off, swinging his rosary, shouting for Jeff, the halberdier.
   I’m looking around for anyone I know. Where is Sandra that I sat next to yesterday, after we rioted in protest at the price of bread? She must have been one of those taken prisoner. The prisoners weren’t wanted for the next couple of days or so. They are to be hung or something, at the weekend.
   I’m an amateur at this. I just saw an ad on a web site. ‘Extras wanted. Start Wednesday. Must be free for ten days.’ And I called and here I am.
   I’m beginning to wonder why I was chosen. Someone at the interview said something about a ‘down-at-heel’ look, and at the time I thought they were discussing a girl called Alison. Looking back, I think they might have been talking about me.
   I suppose I must have looked a bit desperate when I got in there.
   Last Monday, I lost my job. I’d been four years at Halloran’s. Four years of accounts. Not very inspiring, it’s true, but it was handy for where I live and it was steady. Then bang, half a percent on the interest rate, and heads start to roll.
   I queue and order the risotto, which an Asian-looking man in a hairnet puts carefully on my plate with a metal spoon. He sprinkles it with parsley. I used to take sandwiches when I worked in accounts. This is quite exotic.
   I look for a seat, but the canteen is crowded. Someone leaves talking into a mobile, and I take his place at the end of a trestle table. ‘Hi,’ I say to the two peasants next to me, who smile briefly, and then ignore me and carry on their conversation where they left off.
   One says, ‘I told him, ‘I am not falling from off a cart. I can’t risk my legs. I’m Charlie’s Aunt at the weekend. I have to be in heels all evening.’’
   The other one chuckles and shovels down more curry.
   ‘And he says, ‘What you do in your own time is up to you, pet.’ Well, we had a laugh at that, but I hate it when they keep on trying to cut corners. Look at the extras they’ve hired. Must have dragged them in off the street.’
The second peasant nudges him. His friend looks at me.
   ‘Oh. Sorry, love. Nothing personal. It’s just that there’s actors out of work.’
   I tell him that it’s okay, but that I am out of work too. They are full of sympathy.
   We all go back to our food. The risotto is excellent. I had chicken in red wine yesterday.
   I think about work while I’m eating. I don’t think I can face going back to office work at all, let alone accounts. The peasants get up to leave. One of them puts a card on the table. ‘Get yourself an agent, love. This bloke might take you on. Tell him Rex sent you. Ta-ra.’
   Could I do it? Could I lead this gypsy life forever?
   In the afternoon, after I’m dead, soldiers fall upon those who are left alive. They are decimated by cavalry. One horseman is riding close, thrusting his lance viciously to kill the wounded,when a middle-aged woman near me suddenly gets to her feet.
   ‘Oi!’ she screams at him. ‘Don’t you bring that horse any nearer’
   The dead open their eyes. The horseman backs off and wheels about. ’I’m not having this,’ she says, to no one inparticular dusting herself off. Everyone looks at each other, wondering what todo.
   ‘I can’t stand horses.‘ It is all we get by way of apology. She hobbles off, ‘And I’ve twisted this ankle, no thanks to you.’ She rubs it, then throws the sack she is carrying at someone approaching. This girl with a clipboard has come up to see what the problem is.
   The girl is quite angry. ‘Jesus! You’re all supposed to be dead. Dead! Understand?’ But the woman who has resurrected herself is having none of it and doesn’t stop or turn around. She disappears behind the bank of cameras and lights. The girl who has come up turns to face us. She is slight and sandy-haired with sunglasses perched on the top of her head, a prize example from among the girls I envy.
   ‘Does anyone else have a problem being dead?’ she shouts at us. We shake our heads meekly. ‘Christ,’ she says.
   When I told the boyfriend I was going to do this, he was miserable about it. He said I should get a proper job so that we could keep saving to buy a house. Now I’m not so sure I want one. Especially with him.
   ‘Back to where we started now, I would imagine,’ says a peasant next to me with a crutch and a greasy wig. ‘It could be a long day.’
   I want to say, ‘Not as long as the days I spent working in accounts,’ but I just smile and nod.
   The thing was that when I was sacked, it was like suddenly everyone else hardly knew me. It was like I wasn’t one of them any more. After four bloody years. I’m certainly not one of them now.
   Sandra, the girl I sat with at lunch yesterday, says she’s going down to the coast when she’s finished here. She’sgoing to hire a car – a convertible - and drive somewhere, somewhere she can sit on a beach under a palm tree. She asked me if I wanted to go with her.
   ‘What’ll you do for money?’ I said, ‘It’llcost a fortune.’
   She said that with the way things were going, there was sure to be overtime, and when you worked it out, we might get away with quite a packet from this. When she said that, it felt like winning the lottery. I’ve never really thought of having any money of my own.

‘And anyway,’ Sandra said, ‘what about your redundancy? They must have paid you something.’
   I was just going to put it into our savings, but I’m having second thoughts about that. I suddenly thought that I seemed to have spent my whole life waiting for something. Waiting until I’d saved up a bit, waiting for next year’s holiday, waiting to become something.
   When I told Sandra about all the waiting I’d done, she said, ‘Just make sure you don’t die doing it.’
   ‘Now,’ someone is shouting, ‘Where are the peasants who are about to be slaughtered?’

Michael Spring

____________________________________________________________