'THE MOAT'

Do kids toys give you the heebie-jeebies sometimes? If so, do not read this late at night.

"Take a torch!" they yelled

"And mind how you step!"

As if I needed any reminding,

How many times had I schlepped,

That faltering Duracell

In my bone-tight grasp, the

Bulb barely blinding

The grasshoppers, the slugs or

The Hungry Caterpillars.

 

"Alright! Alright!" came my retort,

Barely caught in the air

Between the blazing light

Of the dining room

And the gloom of winter like a cloak

That wrapped around me tight,

A silken lining of unadulterated night

Slipping over my head, shoulders knees and toes,

Knees and toes.

 

I suppose I was a little,

How to put it,

Fortified. Yes...

That starless night

As I plunged down the lane,

Left following right,

Humming a trill,

From where? Who can guess,

"Jack and Jill went up the hill".

 

Until...

Until something stopped me dead.

In the pale and futile glow,

On the path just ahead... malevolently so,

Was a plastic horse. Cherry-poppy red,

With a shining mane, and glossy wheels.

The kind of toy you'd find in Hamley's

If not Heal's for your fine little Lady,

Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes.

 

I stood, just froze. And then, ever so slowly,

edged my way over the sleat bitten ground

to stand right in front of this thing I had found.

This alien piece of ungodly tack.

So deliberately placed in the pathway like that.

A sickly sneer on it's preposterous face,

"Come off it!" I snorted, disgraced with myself.

Remembering the children who play by the moat -

Ring a ring 'o roses, Gruff billy goats.

 

I booted the horse, with an almighty kick.

Serve the kids right, I thought

Leaving their toys for people to trip.

I continued my walk.

Skirting the lip of the moat so familiar by day,

So treacherous by night. A monsterous black maw

Like the mouth of a beast,

Road to no place, gullet of Hell.

Down will come baby, cradle and all.

 

"Please!...Help us...Please!!"

The curdling shriek cut through bitter air,

My hair standing upright, like snakes ill at ease...

"Where? Where are you?"

My voice petrified, caught in my throat.  

The voice had come from below,

From down in the moat.

 

"Hello? Where are you?!" I repeated,

Louder this time.

But no sound returned, only the wine

Of the wind as it billowed through tall naked trees...

I sunk to the ground, on hands and on knees

As the branches around collided and cracked

I'll tell you this, I was now ill at ease.

My face inched over the mud parapet,

The same phrase repeated "Where are you?" I said.

 

A Child's voice, perhaps eight or nine,

Whispered so softly my neck had to strain

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

All the King's horses and all the King's men..."

Silence.

 

It took them three days to find my body.

 

 

WERE YOU AN EMO?

I don't think I have ever claimed to be an Emo. That is to say, someone who lived by and intended to die young by the lyrics of certain self-pitying musicians or poets, whose core problem with life was that they did not grow up in broken homes, were properly financially supported, loved by their parents and as a result had nothing to wreak their creative rebellion and adolescent agression on. Except their romantically attached, comfortably off, adoring mothers and fathers of course.

Having said that, I did find this poem earlier when I was cleaning out my childhood room. On the one hand, it smacks of a sex-starved and confused younger Me, but on the other, as if in amber, it captures the exact way I felt when I first headed off to London for University. Which is why I thought I would share it with you.


Tap go my feet as they
Take my body hostage
Down the sunwash street,
Surrounded by the soothing azure
Of those tall air conditioned cathedrals of modernity.
Each has their own air supply,
Infused with the zesty aroma of Italian coffee. Rich,
The new nicotine...new sex?
Percolated ambition, without the side effects.

But I am homeward bound, on the range,
Where the heart is.
And as I make my descent all I can
Do is regard the cold, grey, petrified flesh
Which lines the walls of the Underground
And think how strange
That something so cold and hard could be so stimulating.
Grey matter, electric signals coursing through in every direction.
The pattering of my feet echoing their goodbye.

Then, I am ripped away, propelled at 100 Miles Per Hour
My senses drowned in scalding-hot nothing from the train buffet
And as I near my destination my chest
Is deprived of the excitement and noise which
Once filled it to the brim.
Like a bass line fading into the distance.
How can my heart be in two places at once?
The hum-drum of home leaves vital organs numb.
London is a shock back to life.

The silence is so deafening, I think my eardrums will explode
Shattering this body as it lies curled up
In the void.
Itching for my social fix, clawing through
The dulcet tones of a family dinner
My conscience turns to mush and sticks to my skull.
The food is delicious, but it is a play.
Its taste coaxes the mind to succumb to passion on a plate,
I am suspicious, for it brings no real joy
To cure my heart's ache.

Looking out, I can see distant lights shining in the rain,
Glowing like the rides at a funfair
The far away promise of unleashed ecstasy
While here I slowly bleed,
Victim of the journey home.
And even still your blood and bone
They watch, unaware that a bag has been pulled
Over your face,
Suffocating in the mellow Oxfordshire air.

Eating at my urban lungs like cyanide gas.

 

 

11.25 ON A TUESDAY

That was the time, more or less, when my immediate boss (friend and confidant, and all-round lovely thing - that's genuine. She truly is.) called me from the small meeting room in the corner of our open plan office, "Pete...can we have a word with you please?”

The sentence hung like a particularly thick and foreboding cloud over the whole office, where the mid morning patter had already slowed to a diligent silence.

I could tell everyone in the agency at that precise moment had their ears pricked like a mob of meerkats, although nobody reacted as I rose from my seat. I grabbed a pen and paper as I went, partly because I had no idea why I was being summoned and might therefore need to take copious notes, and also because my brain had already sensed that this was not going to be a pleasant chat and I would therefore need something to bite on. Hard.

I entered calmly and sat down, and was immediately preambled to by a man who resembled a piece of cardboard wearing glasses and an M&S jumper. His very harmless appearance and back-office demeanour, coupled with a voice which might have lent itself very well to a lecture on the finer points of Microsoft Excel ('you are formulae invited to attend!!') set my nerves on edge.

He proceeded to inform me that my company were changing, growing, and with growth came the need to look at our structure and make the tough financial decisions which all companies have to make during their life cycle, and despite your years of service, your position is being looked at carefully and we'd like to thank you personally... yada yada yada. It's your funeral mate, pack your bag and leave your key. The scene was set. I was done here.

Of course, my initial reaction was to imagine myself giving this guy a righteous de-balling, New York boardroom styley - "Are you outta your mind pal?! I work here for two years and I gotta hear it from some goddamn schmuck I aint never seen before that I'm being kicked down the back stairs? Have you got your brain AND your calculator stuck up your ass? You consultants are goddamn vultures! See you in court buddy." Cut. I am not Danny Devito getting shafted and I do not harbour a superiority complex. I am no Goodfella.

Nor, as it happens, did I blame the hired abacus with specs and a cardie. If the decision had been made upstairs, someone had to deliver the news to the sucker getting the push. We all have to make a living, and this was his. Don't get me wrong, I was a complete virgin when it came to being made redundant, I had no clue. Neither can I properly explain the feeling I got next, but it was probably the best reaction to bad news I've ever had.

As my boss looked on, practically in tears, I was suddenly swept with a sudden flood of serenity. I can't describe it as anything other than a feeling of relief. I remember thinking "It's just a job. I still have a home which I am lucky enough to own, and someone who I am lucky enough to share my whole life with, who I will be able to tell about this horrible experience over a bottle of wine and a home-cooked dinner." I was baffled as to why these people had to make things so formal, as if they were about to administer a lethal injection. I was not a dead man walking. A light touch affair over a few Margaritas would have been by far the best way of breaking this news to me - it would have put my latent redundancy in its proper context. Nobody is going to die. There is more to life than a job. Perhaps even better jobs are waiting just around the corner.

At this point, now that I have set a bit of a scene for you, I would like to say I have come to the crux of the issue I needed to write about. For it was with this unforeseen departure (for now) from the heady world of advertising that I decided I would fulfil a long term promise to myself and begin to write. I have had the opportunity many times; I have written social media for pet food and alcohol brands, I have published newsletters and internal communications, I have enjoyed every minute of it but it has never been from me or what I would have written. I have never held the auspicious titles of Copywriter or Journalist or Novelist. These have been but dreams until this point. Maybe they will always be dreams, but I can still be just 'a Writer', hence this shiny new blog. Ta-dah!

What I want to say to you is, whatever your job title or whatever role you are seen by others to fulfil, don't ever be afraid to give yourself a new title if it fits. We (especially in the advertising world it seems) all too often furnish our self-belief around words like 'Manager' or 'Director' because these are truthfully important positions for our employers to give us, but which do not give a title to what it is we are actually great at doing. What it is we truly enjoy. How it is we help others to do what they do, better. In my old job, I would far rather have been less of a Creative Services Manager, and more of a Here To Help Support Our Talented People Do Great Work By Ensuring Everyone Is Friendly, Respectful And Realistic With Them.

The truth of the matter is, I have always known that I wanted to use the written word to connect with the World, and to document my perceptions of life as I hurtle chaotically through it. If it becomes a career one day, great. If it remains a hobby, that's more than OK by me. Either way, I hope that this blog creates a starter for ten, and if people happen to read it, in some way manage to find a little inspiration in it or even decide to share it with others, then it will have been wholly worthwhile. If you are reading this first post of what I guarantee will be many, I thank you.

Hopefully this will have helped clarify how important it is to be clear about one's own identity as a source of personal and professional strength - you really can't beat it. I hope that you did not go through losing your job to make you realise this. I now know better than anyone that professionalism and solvency are to be cherished in these harsh economic times.

And for those of you who are unlucky enough to be members of Club Unemployed, please say Hi and be ever so nice to one of your newest members...

This is a photograph I took after my close shave with Mr. Devito on that Tuesday morning. This has always been my favourite view in London, and it made me feel in touch with the progress of the World, the promise of new things beginning at the same time as old doors were being shut behind me. Important to realise these things when somebody drops a bombshell on you in my opinion.