Love or Death?

Anyone who has been in love (and let’s face it, surely everyone has?) will know how vulnerable one can become. Unlike the snail in the poem posted below, some retain an unbreakable shell to hide in. And anyone who has a relationship with a poet must know that they’ll end up ‘in these lines, from time to time,’ to quote Joni Mitchell. In that same song, ‘A Case of you,’ Joni takes a line from Julius Caesar: ‘I am as constant as the Northern Star.’ Having cited a play about horrific deceit and betrayal, it’s time to continue my tale about the person I thought I had fallen in love with last year.

When I first began to perform my work on the spoken word scene in Edinburgh, I found it nerve-wracking. Despite my experience as a performer, I discovered that reading or reciting one’s own words leaves a person exposed. It’s not the same vulnerability that falling in love brings, where one can risk being exploited with utter devastation – as have I learned to my cost. Edinburgh audiences are warm and supportive, welcoming people no matter where they are from or at as writers.

As I performed more, I became well-known for using props and pictures to accompany my words. I sometimes invited fellow-performers to recite with me. Playing my best hand, I sang in between poems, making my performance memorable to some. For one poem, I got a member of the audience (prior to performing) to flip a fifty pence coin at the end of the poem. This made the audience believe the poem’s end is decided by the toss of a coin. Not the case, but I like the conceit.

 

Decision-Making

 
They tossed a coin.
She had to leave the next day, so,
as if their love was purchased by
a simple ‘heads-or-tails,’ they tossed a coin.

They met by chance,

so why not leave their parting up to Fate.
They tossed a coin before it was too late,
before affairs internal intervened;
decisions better made by flip-of-coin
than flutter-of-heart or flicker-of-brain.
 
Before they feared all hope of love was lost,
before she caught her plane, they tossed –
although she’d bought the ticket with
the same process; heads, return;
(or was it, single?) tails, one-way.
That lucky coin had much to do to earn its pay.

It seemed a flippant way to choose

between a part-time love, long-distance,
or a momentary muse.
They tossed a coin and left to Chance
a future separate or separated;
a fifty-fifty abdication of
decisions doubly complicated:
What if either was to disagree?
Should they try for best-of-three?

They could, of course, ignore Fate’s fickle hand,
and do whatever Love had planned:
Love, that faithless mimic of Fate’s random.
It was Love had thrown them both together, tandem.
And so, they tossed the coin the one time only.
It was that coin that held them both together, lonely.

 

This poem was published in one of the Blind Poetics pamphlets. When I performed it at The Blind Poet last year, I asked an attractive young woman sitting on the sofa next to the stage area if she could do the coin-flip thing. A grey-haired man, old enough to be her father’s older brother, said ‘She won’t be able to.’ I gave him a look that said, I wasn’t asking you, and handed her the coin. I hate to admit that her companion was right. I ended up tossing the coin myself.

The un-named person at the centre of my current tale was, I later learned, that girl on the sofa. We met, by chance, a few months after and began ‘seeing each other,’ to coin a phrase. I subsequently gave her a second chance to flip a coin in exchange for tickets I’d bought to see something together, and she succeeded. It seems the grey-haired man didn’t know her so well after all. It also seemed that fate in fact had a different ending in store, although I didn’t come to know this for some time.

I had no reason to think the newly-forming relationship that I was in was destined for the disaster that occurred. Since I have indicated that she was a manipulative schemer, I’m not sure it was down to fate at all. Were there warning-signs? Oh yes, but when you are newly in love with a person who is a figment of their own imagination, even those romantic composers can be quickly dismissed.

 

Neue Liebe

Mendelssohn began where Schumann left off,

took a newer, or ‘renewed’ love,
and set off on a pacing steed into a night
of moonlit passion and speedy quaver passages.
Did he think he’d found the key
to an eternal mystery that Schumann
attempted to bury at sea?
Old Felix liked the water, true enough,
but couldn’t stop the floods from drowning Love.
His diminished chord on ‘Tod’ proved it was not,
as the Bible claims, as strong as Death.
Maybe he was expecting something truly
novel out of Love, not just a dull repeat.
But this was a man who claimed he could
see Fingal’s Cave from Arthur’s Seat.

 

As I have said, our relationship wasn’t straight-forward. She was a busy person, with her tutoring, studies, and business arrangements (although I’ll never know how genuine these were.) I have to admit I was upset when she didn’t come to see me performing my work, especially since the poems were inspired by her. But I’m not a possessive type. Once, before we were formally introduced to each other, she asked if I was going to a particular poetry event. I had forgotten our first encounter at the Blind Poet, and was surprised to find that she knew I was into spoken word stuff.

I attended the event in question and, naturally, looked out for her. She wasn’t there. It seems that, from the start, she was plotting her connivance. The first part of her plan was to ensure that our social paths never crossed. I guess it was important that I didn’t see that grey-haired man again. Lately, a friend said to me that this story has become the stuff of myth; we can never be sure what happened or did not; what was true or fake. I put her behaviour down to the fact that we wanted different things from our relationship. Yet she made it clear that she wanted me in her life.

 

Mixed Doubles

I tried to explain polytonality

to a student.
It’s two opposing modalities
played at the same time.
He looked confused.
Don’t the differing tonalities jar?
No, said I: it’s about what you feel,
not what you think you hear.
It’s a four foot stop
on the organ,
or that bit in the Bolero, you know,
where the high winds play
the same tune in a different key.
I could tell he’d never seen
that dance made famous
by Torville and Dean.
At the same time? said he.
Yes, said I, consecutively.
The pleasure principle, doubled?
said he, clearly troubled.
So I said, it’s like two lovers
who want different things,
and yet their love still sings.
He looked at me quizzically.
Why?
It simply is,
said I.

 

Of course I’ll never really know what was going on in the mind of this person I was dating, if that’s the right expression. I had no reason to believe that the texts, emails and conversations that we shared were anything other than genuine. I knew that the expression ‘love’ was hard for her, partly due to the difficult up-bringing she had been through. That said, I don’t know how much of what she told me was actually true. Either way, she seemed unable to express those three magic words.

Fickle Daisies

She plucked another petal, then

another when she found it true.
And thinking she’d been fooled,
she plucked another petal. Then
presuming luck – or fate – pretend
to know the answer over-ruled
she plucked another petal; then
another when she found it true.

 

I’m going to end this post with another song, by Genesis. After Gabriel and Hackett left, there were only three. It seems there were at least three people in this person’s life. And I had been lured into a waiting trap that I could never have spotted. For all her reticence to utter the words, ‘I love you,’ this person who shall not be named was quite able to say another three fateful words.

‘I am pregnant.’

A Confession

Last week I went to a poetry-reading by the Scottish Makar, Liz Lochhead. She is a great poet, and a great talker! Every question from the audience was answered with an amusing and informative anecdote. My question was about writing autobiographical poetry. Many novice poets write in first-person, and the ‘I’ of the poem is usually them. I’d heard Liz say before that most of her early poems were like this. It takes bravery and technique to adopt a persona and move from abstract to universal.

Liz Lochhead’s advice to new poets is, ‘Use feelings, but don’t name them – let the descriptions evoke them; be daring and write from someone else’s experience.’ There seems to be a trend in performance poetry to use ‘tell, not show’ technique, the very opposite of what creative writing manuals advise. The use of 2^nd-person narrative verges on condescension. Perhaps it’s meant to “draw the audience in,” but as soon as I hear a line beginning, ‘You see…’ Or even, ‘See…’ I know I’m about to be told some personal platitude. “Confessional” poetry is not a string of rhyming clichés.

I’m also ambivalent about having poetry shouted at me, as if the words are worthless unless voiced fortissimo and at double-speed. As Liz Lochhead also said, ‘It’s the voice of the poem that’s speaking, not the poet.’ I admit (but this is not a confession) that I used a lot of 2^nd-person narrative in my poem-sequence, The Olive Box, because it was the poet addressing his love, Olivia. And that person was a fictitious character, though based on various people from personal history.

A year ago, however, I found myself writing poetry from a far more personal point of view.

This time last year I found myself falling in love with someone I shouldn’t have fallen in love with. I let a young, attractive and, so it turned out, highly manipulative woman burgle my heart. Having been hurt and abused by several women before, I vowed I would never allow this to happen again. But Love has a different agenda – as did this woman (who shall remain nameless.) She too, so she claimed, had never allowed the perils and dangers of partnership to interfere with her busy, single-minded life. And so, one of my poems reflected this by using 2^nd-person narrative.

 

L’Après-midi

You left a window open in the living room.

Didn’t think it dangerous or risky.
Besides, only a small child could gain entry,
and it’s been some time since
adults had unscrupulous kids
climb chimneys, burgle houses,
or pick a pocket or two.
You left a window open in the living room.
You’d double-locked the front door;
all other entrances (or exits) were blocked;
you’d be back soon. You’d only popped
out for a pint of milk or something
equally mundane. All the same,
that open window bothered you.
A person of precaution,
you were not the sort to leave to chance
an open goal for any passing opportunist.
You double-locked your life:
never left your bag unguarded;
covered the keypad when entering your pin;
never gave your password out to anyone.
But then – but then – you left a window open.
And someone – or something – got in.
It was around 3pm in the afternoon,
you returned without any surprises,
and there in your room a creature stirred,
although you couldn’t see or touch it.
You stopped because you heard –
or thought so – no: could sense
a spirit that you couldn’t put your finger on.
Nor taste, nor smell, nor any other instinct
could explain its presence.
Should you leave the window
open for this strange beast to escape?
You paused, since
that would surely be a waste.
Should you close the window?
To fathom this position, newly-poised,
you had to make a choice.
Only then – only then – you heard a voice.
 

If only I had listened to that voice which was perhaps, in retrospect, a voice of warning. That’s what poets do, after all. In my last post I wrote about hangovers; not from alcohol, but the day after a life-changing experience. For a soppy romantic, the day after that first kiss is bound to be a dizzy one. A running theme of many poems I wrote during this period of misplaced ecstasy was about repeating the same mistake. How many times have I woken up to say: never again? One too many, it seems.

 

Days After

There are three types of illness that plague us –

not on this day but the next. That is,
in those initial hours before a certainty
kicks in. I’m talking the dawning reality,
the morning-after when the day before
vomits an empty book on the bathroom floor.
I’ll spell them out, in case you’re not sure.
The stagnant ache of alcohol that, having coursed
its merry way around your veins,
becomes a stuck thud in your brain.
Or the bitter blow of death, that leaves
a void so visceral and deep inside
it cannot be catharticised.
And then there is that sweetest of hangovers:
I’m talking Love – or Lust, if you will –
the feather in the stomach
that flutters up through heart into mouth,
tempting a kiss from her tongue –
assuming there will be another one.
As I say, there are three types of ill –
Love and Death and Alcohol –
and all require a bitter pill… 
Better swallow it soon,
before the honest afternoon
empties into evening and you
repeat the whole damn cycle again.

 

Eating featured heavily in our relationship. She, the un-named, had had a difficult relationship with food. When we met, however, her appetite was healthy. One of our early ‘dates’ was a picnic (and poetry) in Musselburgh. We spent evenings eating salsa with tortilla chips and drinking red wine on Bruntsfield Links. We ate, and kissed, in Princes Street Gardens in the shadow of St Cuthbert’s Church (I asked if she’d been inside. She said ‘no’ but now I know she lied.) Once, we drank tea from a flask by St Antony’s Chapel. But we never made it to the top of Arthur’s seat, as this poem implies.

 

Picnic

We only made it half way up before

you spread your cloth and opened your flask.
Even so, by then the coffee was cold
and the sandwiches, limp, but we laughed.
You didn’t need to tell me that you
loved me, and I didn’t need to ask.
Above us, those who’d gone to the top
of the hill; above them, ravens karked,
while we tumbled into each other,
crowns intact; remained until the dark
convinced us that, despite that black bird’s
ominous threat, we thought our love would last.

 

When I sent that poem to her, she said there were so many layers. It seems there were also many layers to her duplicity. She claimed there were many types of food she had not eaten, due to a highly restrictive up-bringing, which may have been partly true. I took pleasure in sharing my gastronomical passions with her, and didn’t suspect that, in fact, she was far more familiar with forbidden fruit that she made out. I wrote the following poem after the first time we… oh hell, the romantic in me wants to say, ‘made love.’ Sadly, “had sex” would be more accurate.

 

The Second Breakfast

 

I will give my love an apple without e'er a core
I will give my love a house without e'er a door

 

Your naïveté astonished me.

I fed you flavours many think as ordinary,
although my maverick culinary tricks
threw exotic pairings into the mix.
Introducing you to pan-fried gnocchi
with smoked salmon (yes: you eat it raw) –
you devoured it greedily, asked for more.
And beetroot with ricotta – not a
combination many would think of –
turned the cheese, and our fingers, pink.

You nibbled nervously at mussels,

dragging them tentatively from their shell,
stretching their sinews, holding your nose
against the stench of the sea
(which I’d disguised with fennel, cumin,
citruses: heaping random botanicals in
as if I were distilling an artisan gin.)
Against the grain we drank red wine,
and tins of Guinness for pudding.
Bloated but engorged, our mouths
met… and hungered yet for more.
 
Next day we continued our tantric banquet,
still wet with passion or hunger or both.
There was no need to whet your appetite,
but you rejected the fruit I’d prepared
(was it Galia, Canteloupe or Honeydew?)
and confessed you’d never eaten a pear.
I said: you eat it like an apple without any core.
Its ripeness dribbled down your chin as you sank in.
 
Later, keen to complete your repertoire
of cuisine that was (to you) nouveaux,
you found another pear: an avocado.
I made a simple mustard vinaigrette,
but you took my hand and, smiling, replied,
I’d rather have it, you know, undressed.
I feared, as I cut around its cold stone
heart and held apart the separated halves,
this would conclude our feast.
But no: the soft exotic flesh became
for us a secondary break of fast.

 

There was nothing, at this stage, to make me think that I had been duped by her. My only regret was that we didn’t spend more time together. She was a busy person, with a rich mixture of studying, tutoring, and socialising. She claimed she had, in her spare time, a business to run, and was doing a high-level ballet exam – although I now doubt that either of these were true. They were merely ‘holding devices.’ When not with me, we retained strong communication through email and text. Once, I texted her a list of adjectives, which I later turned into a poem. Oh, poor deluded fool.

 

You Are

 

Funny like that bone that when hit judders

Adorable as a juggernaut when it shudders
Crazy like a pavement covered with cobbles
Wild as an elephant with the collywobbles
Sensitive as a finely ground lens
Talented like a show that never ends
Sexy – or should I call it sensuous
Ridiculous – your laughter is hilarious
Serious as a classical music station
Beautiful beyond temptation
Spirited like an alcoholic liquor
Soft (and strong) as tissue yet far thicker
Exquisite like every taste upon your skin
Tough as a creature that cannot sink nor swim
Melting as the sea that swallows me in
Vulnerable as the little bird within
More than this and wanting less
You are much more than this
Yet so much less
You are
By far

 

This list-poem, although as defrauded as she was fake, reminded me of several songs in which the same harmonic pattern returns in a cycle. For the next poem I included classical songs (from Purcell to Faure) popular classics (‘All The Things You Are’, and ‘Laura’) and pop-song references because, it seemed, this person was equally familiar with a wide range of music. I’m not sure this was true: her claim that she was giving violin-lessons to youngsters charging 60 quid a pop was way off the mark.

 

Repeat ad lib ’til fade

 

                for…

 

In music, they call it the circle

of fifths, where one chord drops
onto another, related, then onto
the next; an endless cycle repeated
as if in perpetuum mobile
until you return to the home key,
the ‘tonic’ – back to the beginning.

It is a familiar progression

of well-tempered, equal temperament,
from Pachelbel’s Canon to Dido’s Lament;
it rises up through increased sharps
to a Total Eclipse of the Heart,
then flats decrease, like deflated ego:
I Will Survive completes the cycle.

There are, naturally, complications
as relative keys progress sequential:
we think of music’s relationships –
whether major, or minor – consequential
and hear in the Just the Way You Are,
Aprés un Rêve, or even, Laura,
the same chords over and over.

 

I’ll say it again: I had no idea I was in the same situation of falling for someone who wasn’t what they seemed. I constantly edited and re-drafted the poetry I wrote at the time, trying different voices, tenses, and narratives. The next poem I decided to leave in first-person, since I felt it carried a universal message of embryonic love; that tricky stage of commitment-versus-reticence. But here’s a confession: the ‘I’ is all about me. As I said last month, you can put your sorrows into a story. Poems, on the other hand, can’t help but be personal.

 

In Her Shell

I picked up a snail from the path.

Daft, I know, but as it squeezed
itself deeper into its shell, I held it,
observing its underneath, thinking
it would show a fleshy, softly beating
reality of what pulsated in its heart.
But no. After a time I thought, oh well,
perhaps it wasn’t meant to be.
I replaced it, knowing my fantasy
was more about what I saw in the shell
than the knowledge of that vulnerability
which prevented her (I assumed a gender)
from sharing her home, her life, her love.
Was I cruel, or naïve, to up-end her?

 

I’ll end with that question.

 

It seemed there was much more to this story than met my eye.

 

 

The Morning After

At the end of a long project, waking up the following day feels like a strange hangover. It’s not so much a sore head as an empty head; more relief than catharsis. Charlotte & The Charlatan began as a poem about the Circus. Rather than just a random bunch of quirky character sketches, I decided to make the title-characters part of a loosely-threaded narrative. They both appear throughout the book, giving clichéd advice, unaware of their own foibles, failures, lies and misdeeds. Although I sketched nearly thirty tales, only 23 ended up in the book – a tiny, hand-stitched, illustrated art-book.

Throughout the process, I tried out the stories on audiences at spoken-word events in Edinburgh, and found that they worked well as performance pieces. People enjoyed their sinister humour. Next, I found background music for some tales, while others were specifically written to fit with music so that they could be choreographed for interpretative dance. My dance-artist was a major inspiration whose positivity pulled me from the darkness that threatened to drag me – and the book – into morbidity.

Another friend suggested recording the tales, with four voices playing various characters. Then video, slideshow, costume, illustration and other collaborations came into play, until the project culminated in a one-off performance exhibition which happened (depending on when you’re reading this) last week. It is not planned that this will happen again, so if you missed it: tough. The book is a limited edition art-book, and the recordings may appear on sound-cloud.

 

So “today” I am struggling with a weird and wonderful hangover. Charlotte and the Charlatan are no more. One of my favourite writers, Elaine Feinstein, said ‘All sorrows are borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.’ Actually, she didn’t say that; she was quoting from Isak Dinesen, the nom-de-plume of the Danish writer, Karen Blixen. In the spirit of Charlotte (not the most trustworthy sage) it doesn’t matter what is said by whom. It’s who you are, not what you do, that defines you.

I am a writer, musician, artist, playwright and poet. This means I am a liar, since ‘art is a lie that helps us to understand the truth.’ (That was pilfered from Adorno.) But at least I’m not a fraud or a thief.

There is no more grief and sorrow in the pages of Charlotte & The Charlatan than in the final story, ‘Invisible Alice.’ It is the tale of the worst possible day after, when The People awake to find that everything they dreamed of is gone, emptiness fills the air, and questions are barely-formed. When I wrote a poem about ‘the morning after’ this time last year, I didn’t imagine that, a year later, I’d be asking ‘Why.’

But thanks to my many true and wonderful friends (not least the beautiful, optimistic Melanie) this weird and surreal little sequence ends with the most conflicted sound we can ever hear: painfully positive, yet positively painful.

We ignore – or stop our ears against it – at our peril.

 

 

 

from Charlotte & The Charlatan

– and other cautionary tales

 

Invisible Alice

Something was awry in Charlotteville. The parks and streets evinced an eerie silence. For weeks there was an absence that a cliché would call deafening; a dearth of noise the local folk considered threatening.

 

            It glistened in the trees like trembling light. Those who listened heard far more than sight. For those who dealt with taste, it left a bitter bite. But if you choose to use your nose, olfactory intelligence told of a sharper sense that could be felt on lips or fingertips, or spied in ice so thick, or felt in furnace (for who can tell what lies beneath the surface) or heard beneath the ground, or in the echo of the dome above (for who can hear, alone, of love.)

 

            It was an emanating absence all could tell with more intelligence than sight or sound or smell or taste or touch. Nor head, nor heart, nor gut, could dare identify an   instinct. Yet everyone in Charlotteville, from low to high, was linked in understanding bordering on visionary: Charlotteville was in a thrall lacunary and nihilist. Some-thing was missing, but nobody knew what it was, or why they missed it.

 

            Tension grew like a major chord against a minor 3^rd  suspension of a melody, heard within a harmony it could not fit (yet nature toyed with it.) The music of the soul sought resolution in a situation that refused to be resolved: the People longed for salve along a tightened string or taut skin of a drum; a sound to solve their longing, or dissolve   a fear that none could sense, yet all could taste and smell and hear.

 

            And some claimed they could see what wasn’t there. For those who thought they had the touch, it wasn’t up to much: a phantom presence that disappeared in thin air like an echo: repeating a noise that existed only in the memory and was, therefore, little more than unreliable imagination.

 

            Utterly deniable.

 

            There was something demonic, something monstrous: a juggernaut of thought, of passion more emotive or of motion uncontrollable that cast a shadow on a void. It employed both light and dark so no-one knew if they were looking though a glass or their reflection or projection of their image they could never see though nor observe where it might lead to.

 

            And as the tension grew and built in a crescendo, people gained an understanding that – ironic – darkness dawned upon them: an epiphany illuminating what was missing. Dismissing their own needs, their foibles and failures and lies and misdeeds, every woman,every man cried out and called for Charlotte and The Charlatan!

 

            But the Charlatan and Charlotte were gone. They called out again, but no sound was heard, nor glimpse construed. The air was imbued with empty wind, and from the ground the dust flew up like powder (was it talcum, chalk or sherbet?) On the wall, a palimpsest of new graffiti sprayed a message none, not one, could forget.

 

            Charlotte and The Charlatan were gone.

 

            Throughout the Principality, the People went from a sense of damp dismay to being drenched in some calamity for which they had no coping strategy or understanding. Those with energy sought high and low, while those of thought, demanding reason, found no wisdom. And those of raw emotion fought the tears of passion, empathy, aggression… all came to naught.

 

            The collective grief flowed through the stages any therapist could prescribe. A landscape painter would describe the scene as a vista: a broad horizon evanescing or inducing endlessness; a dim façade or perpetually rolling fen of melancholy.

 

            Time and space on senseless surge of tide on surf and shifting sand and coastal shelf and pointless blue dissolve of sea and endless sky that sucks the ocean up and yet the wet remains although the dry earth calls and enthrals as all the folk of Charlotteville, every woman, every man called out to Charlotte and The Charlatan:

 

            Why, Why, Why?

 

            A sinking, stabbing, throbbing realisation came to all. Were Charlotte and The Charlatan a figment of their fraudulent imagination? Was this just a reaction: to doubt their existence was foolish or futile, surely? Some thought it was purely a dream, but on waking discovered things were, indeed, exactly as they seem.

 

            In desperation, they gathered together and called out once again to Charlotte and

The Charlatan: 

 

            Why, Why, Why?

 

            But whether they called with the same intent, or even knew what the other – their neighbour – thought or felt or meant, not one could know or sense or say.

 

            Charlotte and The Charlatan were never seen again. Although the pain it caused the folk of Charlotteville,     long after their disappearance or departure would, in nature’s course (or time) reduce or dissipate, there was    but one excuse that would emolliate that wound, or scar,   or trauma (or whatever hurt is meted on a person’s flesh,  or heart, or brain.)

 

            Nothing is certain. No hours of contemplation, moments of passion, nor the steady plod of blood our organs push without cessation just to live, or be, or thrive: only one thing keeps us alive. It’s only one thing we are capable of giving. And only one thing makes our fictional life worth living.

 

            It was at the point the people called out ‘Why, Why, Why?’ that they stopped their senses and forgot – or failed – to listen for a baby’s cry.

Following a Faint Stain

The title poem of Ted Hughes’ early collection, Wodwo is a poem that has stuck with me ever since I read it. Using a mysterious creature, Hughes examines the questions of being and doing, what it is to exist, and how we see ourselves. I’ve cited this poem many times here on this blog, and wrote my own take on the Wodwo in my sequence An Imaginary Menagerie.

Facebook often throws up those funny questionnaires where, after ticking various boxes you discover, for example, which Shakespeare play you are, or what character in literature represents your personality. I came up as Atticus Finch, which was rather pleasing. There are other more serious character-analyses – in particular the enneagram,  and Myers Brigg. My preference for the former may be the reason I have not, until recently, done a Myers Brigg test.

Recently, however, I did one online, and discovered I am an INFJ. I was not surprised, as an enneagram Number 4, that emotions featured high, and intuition is a key factor in decision-making. I’ve mentioned before the introvert/extrovert dilemma as a writer/ performer, and how creative people tend to live in both states simultaneously. But the last category surprised me, even if I was on the cusp.

Apparently this is a rare type of personality. This fits with the Number 4 on the Enneagram, the ‘Creative’ whose self-ideal is of being ‘special.’ The tendency to want to help others more than self is common to both types, and can often cause problems. I know this to my personal detriment. It seems that the ‘Judging’ element sets these sorts of people apart, and although I was shocked to find that I fell on that side – thinking myself strongly perceptive – I can see how this makes sense.

Yet my inability to make decisions, or see things in black and white, would point to the P (Perceiving) element of this pair of letters, not J. I find shopping, whether for groceries, clothes, or train tickets, challenging because the options are overwhelming. Conversely, as a writer I spend a great deal of time observing people and assessing what makes them tick, which I guess is a J trait. My preference for the Enneagram is based on the idea that we can access all nine character-types, and using the ‘triads’ can travel around the circle.

Many of the Cautionary Tales in Charlotte & The Charlatan follow this idea. Head, heart, and gut appear throughout It may be poor literary practice, but I frequently describe things with triplicate adjectives. In my previous post, ‘Hannah and the Shadows’ describes the Jungian concept of the shadow-self (a feature of Myers Brigg) moving through the enneagram triads of cognition (head) emotion (heart) and instinct (gut) – developing Jung's 'archetypes.'. The next tale is an exploration of all nine character types of the enneagram.

Perhaps I am more like this character Thomas than I care to admit.

Having said all that, I still feel I am closer to the INFP than my 'test' came out. Who we are, and how others perceive us,  may be a critical question in our existence. Keep searching, Wodwo.

from Charlotte & The Charlatan

– and other cautionary tales

Unwatchful Thomas

 

Thomas was a people-watcher, but not a Peeping Tom. All day long he watched what made people tick; the expressions on their faces, the places they went.  Before he noticed, he’d spent hours engrossed in observations – avoiding conversations.

It was a form of empathy: he lacked a photographic memory and rarely remembered the people he’d clocked. He looked, smiled internally, then quickly forgot. His only recollection was of what each person might have been thinking. This was pure supposition – he couldn’t have an inkling of what was going on inside another person’s head.

His perception was a thumbnail sketch of a person’s personality from which he formed no judgement. “You can tell so much from people’s faces,” he’d say, then carry on looking for clues construed from first-opinions alone.

In the market-squares, streets and shops he never ceased to look at people’s attitude; their posture at the bus-stop; the way they queued at the till or the bar; their gait in the gardens and parks of Charlotteville. He never thought anything ill, whether they dwelled in the office, or work-site, or factory; nor wherever they stood in society’s hierarchy.

In the kitchen, the Head Chef and Chef-de-Party were in charge. Although one was The Boss, while the other relied on perfectionism, both were well-known for culinary schism. The Commis, the also-ran, washing endless pots and pans knew how detergent could foil the hottest temper by pouring soapy water on oil; making a molehill out of a mountain of plates: this was a character-type to which many could relate.

In supermarkets, shopping malls, and boutiques, there were many who wore their hearts on their sleeves. The Creative, who never donned the latest fashion but dressed with a trend that went well-beyond passion. The ever-helpful who, in the supermarket, reached up to the top-shelf for the shorter shopper, and let the pregnant mother get to the till before her. The high-achiever, while determined to finish her wish-list, never missed a chance to engage in conversation that would complete her ultimate mission.

In Libraries, Museums and Galleries the cerebral types could be seen. The avid reader absorbed informative facts with avaricious intent, while the museum-dweller indulged in artefacts, digesting a menu delightful and eclectic. Meanwhile, the loyal sceptic puzzled over pictures in every gallery. In her head, she knew it was ‘good.’ But in her guts and her heart she questioned: but is it ‘art.’

Thomas spotted the same types all the time, and plotted them on a pie-chart divided into nine. The defensive boss, short-tempered perfectionist, and smooth-talking negotiator; the selfless angel, aloof artistic creator, and list-instigator; the well-read wise owl, obedient art-collector and the epicurean curator.

In every visage, expression or face; from every walk or place or ban, Thomas would form an opinion as only a Watcher of People can. He spent his time without harming a soul, never thinking his strange predilection alarming; nor that others would see his acute observations perturbing, or in any way abusive or disturbing.

Harrowing Hell

Of the darkness in men’s minds

What can you say

That wasn’t marked by history

Or the TV news today

I fear that starting this entry with a Joni Mitchell quote is courting a spark, given her current state of health. Joni has been an inspiration to so many, including me, and I will return to her prophetic words later in this post. But for now, to engage with her spirit and philosophy seems appropriate.

It has been some years since I left the world of organised religion but, as I have indicated many times, I believe the Gospel story has immense resonance in everyone’s life, if they are willing to engage and understand the universal themes contained within this complex story. At the heart of it is a man who, for whatever reason the authorities and his society saw fit, was despised, rejected, persecuted, and eventually put to death after a cruel trial.

There are plenty of scriptural references to ‘light’ and ‘dark’ which suggest that the general human condition is to favour the latter. This, theology suggests, is why people refused to accept Christ’s raison d’être – to seek light in the darkness through love, redemption, forgiveness, and grace. But as the story has progressed through time and centuries this message has been corrupted and distorted.

The early church created a mythology which became, literally, its credo: a statement of ‘beliefs’ that Christianity was supposed to adhere to, and accept as its creed. There are only three sentences in the Nicene Creed that are indeed credible, or believable:

He Suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was Crucified,

dead and buried.

We then get a strange episode whereby Christ ‘descended into hell,’ thus giving rise to an incredibly absurd depiction of ‘The Underworld’ that even Virgil couldn’t get his head around, as Dante points out in his Inferno. But The Church has the idea that Christ ‘harrowed hell’ to redeem all humankind, before rising to ‘new life’ – whatever the hell that is.

Last week, I was challenged by someone who said that she hoped the pilot, who appeared to have purposely crashed his plane, killing all passengers and crew, would ‘rot in hell.’ First, I said that I don’t believe in hell, so her hope was misguided. I next pointed out that the man who did this was already experiencing hell in his own life. I could not condone his actions, but I was not in a position to judge or assess what led him to do such a terrible thing.

Then I was offered another option: that if God exists (another pointless posit in the argument) then he would condemn this person as evil. Well, again, I must say I don’t believe that either. What I do know is that some very complicated states of mind lead people to do terrible things, whether they fly planes into buildings or mountains, or simply fly too close to the sun.

 

People will tell you where they’ve gone

They’ll tell you where to go

But ’til you get there yourself

you never really know

And when they crash, whether into buildings, or mountains, or beautiful foolish arms, we are all at fault for not heeding the alarms that were ringing in the darkness of our lives.

As I move further away from ecclesiology, I come to understand why The Church and its claims are flawed, and yet have so much meaning. Our secular society is missing a trick, given the deeper truths which the Gospel relates. When Christ was abandoned by his friends in the Garden of Gethsemane, it wasn’t because they didn’t love him. It was because they were human, and humans are scared, scarred, and – well, failing to find a third alliteration – wimps.

In my poetry, I have examined the feelings that Christ may have endured in Gethsemane in my sequence Walking on the Water, published here  http://issuu.com/afternyne/docs/issue5 (see p 27). That Christ – and all who suffer – was harrowed by the reality of hell on earth is laid bare as the waters warp (to quote the Shakespeare poem mentioned in my last post.) Spring, at least here in Edinburgh, has been slow to arrive. And although my friends have not abandoned me, I have felt a keen wind.

 

Critics of all expression

Judges in black and white …

Compelled by prescribed standards

Or some ideals we fight

As Joni points out in this masterpiece, ‘Every picture has its shadow… and it has some source of light.’ So I took that line as a starting-point for my next Cautionary Tale, ‘Hannah and the Shadows’ and played with the idea that, despite our strange and corrupt attempt to dwell in the darkness of life, the light – however you perceive it – will bring you out of all darkness, into His powerful Light.

 

 

from Charlotte & The Charlatan – and other cautionary tales

Hannah & The Shadows

Hannah loved the shadows. She dwelt among the deepest, darkest places of the mind. Hiding behind her public persona, Hannah chose to disown a reality that might reveal her personality.

 

            Hannah loved the shadows.

 

            Standing at the brown brink of water it wasn’t the thought of her reflection; she had no predilection to sink or swim. It was the shadow upon the murky surface that pulled her in. And as she waded in by the weir, she didn’t imagine her fear would overwhelm or wash away the darkness: her shadow would stay whatever the time of day.

 

            Hannah loved the shadows.

 

            As the sun set in the trees she saw the elongating shadow like a chimera; ominous and treacherous ephemera hovered over her neglected intellect. And yet she never let the silhouette of setting sun illuminate the prospect of another day. Hannah loved the darkness better than the light, but try as she might she couldn’t deny the source of her shadow was stronger when either the sun or the moon lingered longer.

            She belonged to the darkness. Hannah shunned the sources of light; the darkness addressed her; the forces malignant possessed her, indignant, held her in thrall; the fall of humanity was a calamity Hannah rejoiced in and concelebrated; the designated angels, cherubim and seraphim, standing guard, hard against the garden gate were there for hate and guilt and fault and blame: the same as those who sat in judgement over all their fellow human-kind.

            For it’s in the mind the deepest shadows fall. It’s not the yoke of light enthrals you. It is the truth appals and calls you to illuminate your mental state: Hannah would not, could not, see how others’ truth can illustrate her darkened slate. It was for her to scrape clean or to smudge or trudge the darkness in. It was her truth, within, within, within.

 

            Hannah loved the shadows.

 

            She hid in darkened corridors, bidden by the doors that shut upon her, followed by another and another – but she never dared or bothered to allow herself to push against their closing – supposing she was trapped in tunnels of her choosing, in a maze of multiple emotions, in a crazy labyrinthine dream. Hannah wandered on unseen, hiding an emotional charade, chiding her façade, berating her competing with the self-defeating beating of her heart.

            A dark, foreboding fear prevented her from penetrating deeper, or of finding any exit whether self-perceived or outwardly-revealed. She conceived if any person wore a mask or sword or shield they could transport themselves in thought and word and deed into a life hereafter. But for Hannah, laughter echoed round that outer mansion in a gloomy reverie.

            Held in her own self-defining palindrome, a prophecy macabre was far darker than the shadows Hannah loved. For on that tipping fulcrum; in that swing of pendulum, within the shrinking gyre of hell-fire it was clear it was the shadows that loved Hannah. And Hannah loved the shadows not in any symbiotic mutuality, for in their grave duality lay a buried dependency; it was Hannah’s tendency to dig away at darkness.

 

            Hannah loved the shadows that loved Hannah.

 

            Hannah dug herself into the ground. And, surrounded as the sinking sand dissolved, swallowed by the earth that gave her birth; she wallowed in the peristaltic drag of soil until her turmoil was complete and whole. Whether it was rabbit hole, badger’s sett or foxes lair, it was to her a box that best prepared her for the logic she admired.

            So mired in sin and all things impropriety could pile upon her, Hannah longed for darkness. But as leaf and bark and bole dissolve and rot or turn to ash and dust; as if we must be re-composed with some resolve to prove or, deep inside, improve, that darkness is no darkness as the shadows lengthen… every picture has its shadows…

            Yet if through miracle, superstition, or imagination; or through moral, mythological, or pseudo-philosophical elaboration, clouds of darkness part and drench the fecund ground with light to end what Hannah’s plight – to slight her right to life – had led her into self-interred corporeal hibernation.

            And as the dry earth parted, and Hannah attempted to draw her final breath, it wasn’t Lazarus, Persephone or any resurrection myth, nor was it death that forced her rise from her deep sepulchre and thrive; nor even light that gave her life renewed vitality. It was the shade that shielded her eschewed reality.