We watch the float-plane tug and churn,
auklike, across the inlet,
and then, airborne,
hear its low drone; we see it turn and chug
up into a wet bank of fog,
and vanish,
my daughter and I,
today like any February day,
grey wake fading on the face of the water.
I put my daughter down
and watch her run along the seawall,
flailing at gulls,
laughing,
the cries of the birds bearing her away
irrevocably into the world,
today like any other day.
Please stop posting YouTube videos on your blogs. I am unable to view them at work. Thanks.
Went to listen to the local orchestra tonight, playing Rachmaninoff’s second concerto and Tchaikovsky’s ‘Manfred’ symphony, an interpretation of Byron’s dramatic poem of the same name. This got me thinking about Byron, and wondering whether the intelligentsia are really sure about his name.
I mean, are they sure his name wasn’t actually just Ron, and he was in the habit of signing all his rambling Romantic tracts “by Ron”?
Seriously, has anyone looked into this?
I bought Kate a little early Valentine’s day something yesterday - a 20oz Ukrainian ring sausage from the European deli. She chid me at first, saying her Ukrainian ring sausage-eating days were behind her, and that she had only ever liked one particular kind of Ukrainian ring sausage, anyway, and that my Ukrainian ring sausage wasn’t it. But this morning I came out of the shower to find her standing in the kitchen with the sausage out on the counter, chomping on a bit of it, and grinning guiltily. The course of true love never did run smooth.
Update: Baby E had Ukrainian ring sausage for lunch and very much enjoyed it. So did I. I’m going to have to buy another one before Wednesday, in order that I can effect my plan of seduction whereby Kate and I each take one end of the Ukrainian ring sausage in our mouth, and eat ’till we meet.
Last night I dreamt that my mouth was like Superman’s Arctic retreat. My teeth were those crystals Superman uses for construction; each tooth being composed of hundreds of lucent crystal needles. A dentist would not have thought the teeth were perfect: some of them jutted at wild angles, some were shorter than others, some thicker; some extended to five or more dimensions, resonating in other spheres. But when it came to the tearing and rending and grinding of flesh, they got the job done.
Sandra, an accountant, stands in the office kitchen, looking at the array of teas, her shoulders sloping despondently, her lips slightly apart, her hair and skin lustreless and sagging, like old upholstery; she pulls a squeaky polystyrene cup from its clingfilm tube, adds a teabag on a string, and runs the faucet on the hot water tank: all this despite her only being 23.
The reason she’s such a wreck is she’s been up all night, dreaming of Paul. She punishes herself with condensed milk and a sugarlump, and stirs the brew with a toothpick. She can’t stop thinking about Paul’s magnificent inky bouffant, his flashing opalescent eyes, his luxuriant sideburns. Paul.
He wants to see her for lunch today. Why? What does Paul see in me, she thinks, dropping the string into the cup (fuck!) Paul. Why do I feel like I’m on the edge of a black hole, spiralling hopelessly into an oblivion called Paul?