The Journal Issue 07

THE JOURNALIssue 07

H A I K U

Writers Bloc

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Welcome to the seventh issue of The Journal.

This creative writing publication is by Writers Bloc and is thefinal issue for this academic year. Thank you to everyone whohas submitted to The Journal and thanks to everyone who hasbeen reading over the course of this year. I hope you've had asmuch fun reading these writer's work as I have editing them.

There is no Guest Piece for this issue, so instead submissionswere opened up with a specific cal l for haikus. For those thatdon't know haikus are three lines longs and made up of 1 7syl lables, traditional ly fol lowing a 5-7-5 pattern.

I f you submitted but did not manage to get a piece in this issueplease do not give up! The Journal wil l return next year withmore opportunities to get published.

Enjoy.

Andy Cashmore,Editor

Special thanks to Charl ie Dart for haiku i l lustrations.

Ben Norris

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Contents

Ben Norris

Haiku 4

Ben Jackson

Death Throes 5

Jonathan Pearson

Fatal ist 9

Giles Longley-Cook

Haiku - Eden 1 0

Geoff Mills

Echoes 1 1

Lily Blacksell

Date 1 3

Elisha Owen

Haiku 1 4

Amie Pryal

Tom's House 1 5

Giles Longley-Cook

Genocide (What did we say?) 1 6

Amie Pryal

Haiku 1 7

Samuel Parr

The Great Vacancy 1 8

Elisha Owen

A Community Project in New Orleans 20

Ben Jackson

Haiku - Joe Pesci Support Group 21

Britain 22

Ben Norris

High Ku 24

Elena Orde

Walking on Cobwebs

Alana Tomlin

Chat-show (Feature Piece)

25

26

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Street’s monotonybriefly disturbed by pigeon’s

kamikaze fl ight.

Ben Norris

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Death Throes

*Diary entry, unnumbered, anon.*

The plains are the most dangerous. This is the fact that Inua continues to repeat.

I t is difficult to see at al l . So much stretches out from every direction that it

is difficult for the eye to grip whatever it might see. I f there is anything to see.

General ly, there is nothing to see. So overwhelmingly total is this desolation that

we feel l ike intruders on a Great Quiet. The Great Quiet is hot, heavy and dark.

The horizons are lost; the heat haze blurs together with the fog. The horizons

dance away from us. I t is dizzying.

*Recording, item #002 Jackson’s possessions*

0738-0739: This is everything, t-take everything, everything, look. . . .Hmm? She is

dead. She, she- I would l ike a knife. I f it's not-t-t-too much trouble, I know. . . .Who

is the knife for? It’s forL for- I don’t know.


Michael and Koops are trying to remember the dialogue from Some Like it Hot.

They have run out of new ideas.

We have stopped, in the middle of these plains; halted in the Great Quiet.

Being out here makes people more introverted, more tense. The only

conversation comes from Michael and Koops, the two men running together in an

inaudible rush – something that wil l , no doubt, become another performance in

time. How much time, no one asks any more. Michael doesn’t know, neither does

Koops. They would probably tel l me now that it wil l be ready tomorrow. They are

both deranged.

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Koops and Michael are the writers. Or so they would have it. Indeed, they

were the writers when we started, but I wasn’t even with the troupe then.

Gradually, more and more duties started fal l ing to Mr Jackson. Eventual ly, it

was too much for Mr Jackson and it became the duty of everyone to put

together a show.

From the day I arrived, Mr Jackson told me: 'Steal stories. ' He told me:

'Steal them from the steps of any building we come across, whether the walls

sti l l stand or not. Steal them from the pools of l iquid that throb into the Earth and

steam into the sky. Steal them from the wrinkles of the old men who sti l l cl ing to

breath. Steal them from your fel low travellers here, if you must. '

The show needs stories. That means the troupe needs stories. That

means I need stories to survive. And Mr Jackson, and Michael, and Koops, and

all the rest. The Great Quiet doesn’t tel l stories, so while we stand out here all

we have is the scrambled memories of an old fi lm.


0746-0747: I ’m ok now. YesL Huh? No. No. But-but-[loud thump] I ’m sorryL I ’m

sorry [weeping]L


I t is wondrous how science is lost to us. Diagnosing mental health is a farce.

Physical health is simultaneously the most and least important thing. Most

important because well , you die; and if you hold people back, they’l l leave you.

But it is least important because everyone is i l l . Dying. Rotting. I hear the troupe

used to be much more ruthless. When I joined I had a cold. And Inua said to

me, 'two months ago, Mr Jackson would’ve had your throat sl it. ' Like the others.

Now, everyone just has to accept that i l lness wil l spread. You can’t just cut

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infections out – you wouldn’t bel ieve how fast they travel. So now it’s just

another thing everyone shares.

I do remember leaving an old man. We left him in an old town. No one

there any more, of course – no one we noticed, anyway. The old man was

blind, and it was pretty obvious after a while he had no other use. So we left

him. We’d only picked him up the day before. He managed to convince us for a

ful l twenty four hours that he could see, and was healthy. I wonder how many

other travellers he tried that on, stumbling up to them in dust, before he

succeeded in fooling us.

There’s no doctor. Grady has some tools. Sometimes he does makeshift

operations, but there have been too many unpleasant incidents. Inua is ful l of

wisdom. He practical ly defecates wisdom. But his diagnoses have only ever led

to Grady’s unpleasant operations. The one person you can go to if you are il l , is

Leopold. He tries to help. Most of the others never do.


0747-0748:[weeping]

Tell me. What could I do to you'that would hurt you most?

[weeping] What?

What could I do to you'to cause the most suffering? You’re lying in

rags. Your toes are deformed. You have few teeth. You have no one. What

would it take for a man like you to suffer more?

I ’m ready to die now.

*Fragment #036*

'Idiot broads! We’re al l packed and ready to go. And what happens? The

saxophone runs off with a Bible salesman, and the fiddle gets pregnant! I ought

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to fire you! '

'I 'm the manager of the band, not a night watchman! '


0748-0750: Why would I want you to die?

You want me to suffer.

Precisely. It seems like dying is the best option. For you.

[Dul l whine]

Stop that. You sound like a dog.

Kil l me you fucking prick. I want to die, I want to die!

Ben Jackson

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Fatalist

We listen as duck heaves out garrulous

hoots that crack the russet corpses of

brittle digits l ike golf bal ls chipped wildly.

The cat drops prone, head lopped by shoulder crease,

a swell of decapitated fat l ike a

sack of drunken bumblebees lol l ing on

the wet of the grass - evergreen cat piss scents.

Fel ine preens, sound of a knife through carpet,

tongue flattens fur damp as a wound.

The scene: tired from clods of wine in Sunday gravy.

The acoustic barrel of garrulous should be Neolithic

grunts not the pub-crawl gossip of geese and coots.

I told her that and she said 'What the fuck?'

I nod in pale acceptance with winter's morning yawn

through the clouds, off panned puddles of veg,

from the jut of the window shouldering the garden -

the cat and the duck and the bracken.

The crescent gape of sprawled dictionary approves;

intransigent assertions.

I place my head on the block of my palm,

Cat wedges then pounces in periphery.

Jonathan Pearson

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Eden

I walked through EdenThen a man came and told me

To keep off the grass

Giles Longley-Cook

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Echoes

And so up and up and up we went, the air thinning our breath thickening. Our

twenty-fifth, our Silver Anniversary. Her hair was a little si lver now, her walk a

l ittle slower, her speech a little heavier. But sti l l she was she, her, the one I

wanted, the one I married – and yes, sti l l . Sti l l . The one I loved.

The wind bit, snapped at our faces, sky sea spaces opening up before us: a

grey abyss. I reached my arm around her duffled shoulders, pressed my lip up

against her si lk thin cheek: a smile. A kind of smile. A trying to be smile, but not

quite being. We edged closer, closer now, terrain behind, soupy emptiness

ahead. And then. And then she was gone. Lurched forward, dropped plumb line,

swallowed up - feet first - by the mists. A dull thud - maybe a crack, or a smack,

reporting her arrival, her departure. I heard the seagulls squeal their insane

soli loquies to the rush and roil of the shorel ine. Screaming seconds scoured my

world.

****

I felt your smooth skin press against the length of me, and your breath burn my

face. You were there for only a second. You disappeared before I could

respond. That brief charge of heat has passed through chil led days since.

You came to me again, on the bus as I went to work. My cheek was resting

against the cold glass, the rain’s insistent patter hypnotizing, and the humming

vibrations of the bus rocking me into dul l obl ivion. You sidled up and brushed a

hand through my hair, an electric thri l l tickl ing my skull . You whispered soothing

susurrations, caressing the hollow of my ear, echoing with a meaning I could not

grasp. I have replayed it again and again, sought its heat against the bare

backdrop of my days.

And more days I waited, days cold and interminable: your echoes

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resounding around a life scooped empty.

Today I saw your face. I was at the supermarket. I stood at the ti l l staring

towards the aisles and took you as another customer, but then you turned and

looked straight at me. You wore a smile I could not read. What was it exactly? I

was staring at you long after you had disappeared, the cashier cal l ing out at me,

to bring me back to her world. She asked me if I was ok. Yes of course, I said.

Yes. Of course.

I ’ve been feeling strange lately; things have been jolted out of place. The world I

inhabit now seems more like a sickly projection. These days I go through the

motions, fol low a script I must have written in my saner days. But what would it

matter, if, on the tube, I were to take my clothes off, start gnawing on the ear of

the man sat next to me, tel l my boss to go screw his fat face? Sometimes I think

I wil l do these things to see if it wil l , to smash through the numbness of my life.

Tonight you came and stayed a while. I was staring at the television when you

came into the room and sat down beside me. I had been expecting you. We did

not speak, I did not even look at you, but you placed your arm behind my head

and I sank onto your chest. You stroked my hair. You did not tel l me, but I knew

this would be the last time. I understood you perfectly. You’d decided that I had

better go it alone, that these febri le visitations were doing me no good. You’re

right of course. Sever and progress, cut lose and float free - leave me with only

the echoes of that other l ife by which to remember you. I see then, if that is how

it must be. Tonight I shal l sleep alone.

Geoff Mills

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Date

‘ I ’m all out of raisins.

How about a date? It’s

sticky and soft and

covered in dust, how

can you resist? I ’ l l pick

you up at seven.

A small brown brain,

you are always on my

mind. I had an oozing

lobotomy, your love,

my love, has got to me. ’

Shrivel led though, and

ugly, an old man in a

new bar sweet talking

young ladies. His future’s

brown, their future’s

bright, his teeth are

rotten, his l ife air tight.

Lily Blacksell

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The baby monitorcrackles. A cat’s meowin a forgotten drawer.

Elisha Owen

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Tom’s House

A clock strikes in the house.

The kettle whistled its tune hours ago and nobody moved.

Nobody breathes or whispers or mutters.

The smell from hundreds of flowers l ingers in the silence,

drowning the spaces between people with the scent of l i ly and rose.

In your room dust has collected on the empty picture frames that never got fi l led.

Pil lars of music sit untidi ly on a desk never used for its actual purpose,

the brown rings from several mugs stain the wood with varying sizes.

The book borrowed years ago is stashed between piles of old papers.

But I don’t take it back, it is no longer mine.

The carpet sti l l bears the red candle wax from the Ouija board gone awry.

Do you remember asking the dark for a sign,

our breath fluttering the candles so they cast moving shadows on the walls?

I have placed my hands on that wooden board so many times,

made requests to an empty room.

Where was the white-sheet ghost I expected

homage to the images of ghouls from countless Halloweens

spent col lecting candy thrown carelessly into our pumpkin shaped pots?

Where were the whispers and taps that signaled your reply?

When did the clock stop striking the hour?

I think there were tears a few days ago,

but there is no memory on my part of the last thing I said to you.

Sometimes a reminder comes in the face of a passer-by in the street,

in the snippet of a stranger’s voice carried over the crowd,

in the forgotten objects of a room not mine, and not real ly yours,

that nobody comes to claim.

Amie Pryal

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Genocide (What did we say?)

Never again

and again

and again

and again

and again

and again

and again

and again

and again

and again

and again

and again. . .

Giles Longley-Cook

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Wind shakes the tree-topsPull ing leaves from the branches

And thoughts from my mind.

Amie Pryal

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The Great Vacancy

I

We asked him to point us to the desert.

The adhans whispered Prayer is better than sleep,

but the city was loud as it woke.

He asked us why now, of al l times?

Could we not feel the sand, dancing the Awash in the air?

This heat was like the whip on the donkey’s back,

and the roots of the desert were rumbling as it readied itself to exhale.

Do not worry, he confided,

this city is the verrucae on my heel,

and all of us together will not be rubbed away by that great palm ofdust.

But you could see it in the whites of his eyes.

He knew that ten miles out the desert was beating and beating and

he had been feeling, as we all had,

that dreadful urge to go further in, to get away,

to go deeper.

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I I

The dunes are brush-strokes on the horizon and then

as if the tide has come in we are among them.

We travel first in a jeep, then on a camel cal led Ismail ,

and final ly on sandals.

At night I can see the sky’s whole empire,

but down here there is only wind, flowing l ike canvas.

To remind myself what people look like

I explore your face,

a ruined city slowly fi l l ing with sand.

In the morning we arrive

at the Sahara’s womb,

the desert’s wings spread either side.

I cl imb up the dune on bare feet,

with this heat l ike the scimitar on the Black Guard’s back,

and as I begin to pray I rest in this vacancy,

far bigger than the one bottled into Ben Youssef,

where the minarets couldn’t quite sing us to silence

while outside men whispered Hashish as a morning prayer.

Samuel Parr

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A Community Project in New OrleansAfter Candy Chang

A public artist stamps the city’sderel ict bui ldings with pockmarkstickers. She asks each citizen,‘what would you do with this land?’

They emerge like crabsfrom a barrel.Saxophones and Mardis Gras beadsfor permanent markers.

Each word is a wrecking ball .

I wish this was: a houseful l of nymphomaniacswriting their PHDs.A grocery store with free-range eggsand fresh pumpkin pie.A dog-walking garden, vegetable lotsand timed sprinklers.A place to lose car keys.

Centuries of mildewed kissesrise from cracks in the sidewalks.The city’s proud spires twist l ike the riverbend it is tucked in;reading each urgent scrawl.

Sandbags become stepping stonesto reach the cardboard window panes,where there is sti l l room to make an impression.

I wish this was: the world’s biggest sand pit.A planned parenthood centre. Somewhere to rockback and forth in an old wicker chair.A parking lot. A taco stand. My art gal lery.A community centre with a chess club,karate class and pensioner’s bal let.

A place to change my name.

Elisha Owen

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A Fire-fighter shouldrescue babies and broads, but of

course – it’s wiseguys.

Joe Pesci Support GroupThe following should be read in the voice ofJoe Pesci:

Ben Jackson

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Britain

afterAllen Ginsberg

Britain it is you who taught me to ride a bicycle.

Britain why are you embarrassed by your own naked body?

Britain you are beautiful .

Britain would you kil l me if I told you I voted Lib-Dem?

I told my friends I thought Nick Clegg was the most convincing and

compassionate in the first Leaders' Debate, despite the fact that I didn't

watch the first Leaders' Debate.

Britain wil l you kil l me?

Britain why don't you click for me like America cl icks for her poets?

I t is too quiet.

America is too loud.

But it is so far away

it sounds just the same.

Britain I need validation.

Britain leave me alone for one day.

I think of you more than you think of me, I know it.

Britain you don't write me anymore.

You have gotten cynical, Britain.

I t's contagious and now my old college friends ostracise me at reunions.

Britain do you know what time it is?

The clocks on the office wall tel l me what's going on

everywhere but here.

You look stupid in that blazer, now.

Britain you are malleable.

What do you sound like?

You sound like the last person who touched you.

I sound like the last person who touched me.

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Britain stop pretending.

Let's watch a fi lm together, see if we can't work things out.

Britain if you save me just one cinema,

I 'l l save you a seat.

We can buy Nachos if you want but I 'm having a battered sausage.

Britain I miss not caring.

Touch me again. Like you did before you got scared.

Yeah.

Now can we go home?

Britain let’s spoon.

You are the perfect shape.

Cradle me like the Isle of Man,

l ike the Channel, France.

Lace cold feet with warm streams.

Please.

Britain whisper.

I prefer you when you're thinking.

Britain stop thinking that much.

You and I think too much.

You should keep your head screwed on.

Britain imagine how much that would hurt.

Did you learn nothing from my accident?

I prefer you when you're l istening,

Britain when you’re resting.

The sun never set on your arms,

so I know they can stretch to

hold me

Britain

sleep.

Ben Norris

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Writers Bloc

High Ku

A friend, Ku, took drugslast night, then breathed helium

before trampolining

Ben Norris

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Cobwebs

In moonlight

we enter the door by the climbing roses

and pad along shrunken corridors

to find her feeble as a newly hatched bird,

nestled among the downy bedclothes

wrapped like wings around her delicate frame.

I spend the night in the small attic room

the Noah’s Ark poster stretching up the wall .

I find my mum’s school books in the bedside drawer

and trace the handwriting with my finger.

Before fal l ing asleep, I count the gaps in the plaster

where I used to think the spiders hid.

In the morning, she shows me the new sweetie box,

the days of the week raised, l ike nettle stings, on the l id.

She clutches beta blockers in shaking hands

and says they leave her feeling

l ike she’s walking on cobwebs.

I run my big toe along the deep grooves in the doorframe

left by the scrape of her electric wheelchair.

She drinks tea from a Tippy cup

as we look through photo albums,

forehead creased in almost-recognition

at the young woman in hiking boots

as I remind her, too brightly, of my name.

We tip-toe a half breath away from a sob

and she calls old age ‘this nuisance’ again.

My mum follows suit, and asks if she’s ‘having a wobble’

and, with a nod, we are trapped

walking on cobwebs,

playing a word game called

understatement.

Elena Orde

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Writers Bloc

Chat-show Feature Piece

I t's late at night. The television flashes

its neon light into the snow.

A set of twins are on the panel of a chat show,

both wearing black-rimmed Ray-Ban.

One says, I can only get to sleep with the l ight on.

The audience laughs.

The host's ruby lips refuse a smile,

her peach blouse jitters as she adjusts her papers.

I can only sleep with a fi lm on quietly, the other says.

The twins take their glasses off

to sip water from underneath the glitter desktop.

So do you miss being joined together?

A picture montage shows when they were joined

at the shoulder blade and thigh.

The audience clap.

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I miss the tai lor, one replies, who made all our clothes.

He used to measure us with two separate tapes -

mine was yellow.

The twins are invited to spin the prize wheel for the audience.

The audience cheer.

They stand either side of the wheel

leaning on the scaffold with their shoulders without arms.

A tweet flashes on the interactive studio backdrop

Soo inspiring #canIhavethemboth?

Alana Tomlin

The Journal wil l return next year!

You can find al l of the previous issues at

www.uobwritersbloc.wordpress.com

Thank you for writing, submitting and reading.

The Journal Issue 07

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Transcript of The Journal Issue 07