‘And yet I may'

Somehow in these vignettes I always find myself playing the lonely gentleman observing – observing himself, and the world, but cut off from them both. Once this character practised other lines – soliloquy’s of universality, the building of webs from bonds of care and generosity, the thread of compassion. Once he wrote, as a first resort, not a last. Once he lived with a band of brothers, who he kicked and screamed and railed against, but loved and learnt from all the more for that.

And now, in the thousandth cafe, I yearn to drive, but my car is in another zone altogether. I long to speak, to share excited thoughts and wild imaginings, but my pen keeps such sharing at proxy. My fingers strive to dance, over the naked body of an instrument, or the fretboard of a beautiful lover, but all I give them is this pen with its one point and single colour. It is all I can do to keep from tracing these trails along the walls and floorboards, to contain these entire other worlds of sound and sensuality within this monochrome plane and feel my existence only through the faint glimmer of trust that these rough markings will reach other's retinas later, by magical, digital means.

I look up through the window, to St Paul’s’ and feel that cushion which is time past catch under me, rock me in its arms, a baby rocked by lullaby to sleep. By the eye of a centuries dead architect, by the vigils of a volunteer force, by a whole order of people, like ants worshipping our queen, by a congregation with its beautiful and imperfect faith spread across time, by these am I lulled to quiet exultation.

A tourist boat chugs silently by.
A vapid lovers rock tinnily plays through the sound system.
New shoes make their novel presence known to the hide of my feet.
Gradually the night light motions backwards through its name, even though I will not witness it reaching its beginning.

I thank you for your generous indulgence.

Tom 9/2/7