This page displays creative writing exercises which start from a word or idea and then spiral into a thought chain. As I feel these reflect a state of mind infuenced by experience and environment, they show a semi-subconscious side of my experience of St Petersburg.
Taken Away
Inspired, for some reason,by an incident in War and Peace where a drunk young man sits on the ledge of a third floor window and dangles his legs outside while drinking a bottle of spirit for a bet.That was the first line in any case,.
You could have opened the window. I would have sat on the ledge, my legs dangling into the air. You could have slipped the ledge like paper from under me and I would have fallen without flailing. Taken away the shadows so that the light pierced every crevice and corner of my body and I would have observed placidly until the shadows of my soul ceased too. Scrubbed away the light and I would have reversed into the mournful separation of the shadows; stitched myself in their uniform.
You could have grafted out my blood and bones and skin and sinews and grizzle to make me your ice statue. I would have stood it all.
Reflected me into a hundred and one mirrors and talked only to the other women perfected by glass. My identity would remain there where you had displaced it. I wouldn't ask to see it or know where it was kept.
You took yourself away. You're on the other side of a display case with the precious vases and utensils. Their beauty is too remote to enjoy. I'll never feel the staunchless curve of those King's spoons on my tongue or the scent of wild flowers inside the Emperor's vase. The glow of an afternoon breeze won't alter the taste of wine in that emerald lined goblet. I've distorted my face against the glass to get a layer of air closer to you.
I am a Persian cat made all of skin. Then banging against the walls I've bruised my arms and scratched out words and stamped my feet. I can't see a keyhole anywhere in the glass, or even a line. The tiny key would be so eclectically filed in an obscure basement that I would never find it.
Lamps in a Cafe
The chandelier is posing from the ceiling, flaunting its' Some-where, and I am limited by the pressure it creates on the room. It detests me already. It wanted me to bathe in it's beautiful light but I am only bothered and if it asked me ,'Do you mind my being here?,' I would say , 'Of course, I don't mind' but the strained tone of my voice would imply that clearly I do mind and that I want it to go away. The dark would then suffuse the room like continuity of silence and sunlight through an opened blind and my sadness part of that dark.
Roofs
Up down, up down. The iced patterns of the roofs outside mesmerise. I know only too well that you want to watch me here in my lace frock, drained of all colour and frank like the rim around the floor so newly restored and painted a fantastical blank. You will give me the American cigarettes to smoke just so you can survey. You've forgetten, I'm not part of the Opera or the Cabaret.
The gaze begins to scorch andy I don’t want the repressive taste of tobacco in my mouth. A numb nicotine nausea penetrates through my body. I want to throw my disgust, my weakness, all the sins I’ve committed against my own womanhood into the Neva. Let it flow down the roof . Puke them up as if every trespass began in the gut and could be expurged.
The coquettishly displayed pills at the pharmacy will detoxify. I will refuse your cigarette smog and then I’ll shine again with the glory of the sugar-piped Orthodox domes just as it shone when you came across me. Only it will be a long time before the Neva melts.
Le Petit Detail qui tue
C’etait une toile de magnifique et qui brillait dans le soleil vesperal.. ‘T’en attraperas de belles sompteuses mouches avec ces fils fines et droites, comme un tissu de Chanel, qui imitent les rayons de soleil. Pourtant, toi, ma reine, avec tes huit belles jambes, c’est le petit detail qui tue.'
The beam Dream (Free-write from prompt 'The angry Model' after beauty convention)
The angry model was always exquisite, an understanding was implicit in her scarlet painted lips of the cruelty of mankind and the inconsequence of her profession, the fatuous indecence of all those eyes scanning her and not really scanning her but the clothes she was wearing. Her anger was resplendent and dependent on the pendant she wore dangling from each nipple like some Egyptian Queen, whose realms were lean and mean. And whose slaves dangled the fish into the water to capture the little mermaids and bring them back as exquisite and exotic pets for the Egyptian Queen - who could believe that the Nile teemed with such mythic creatures or that a teen could become a beam in the midst of his dream? Yes he became a beam in the old farm house and when he woke up he was still spread up there in the rafters, rather intimate with the other beams. He could watch all that was going on below and see the morning heads of all these people he didn’t know. The old farmer was getting his breakfast, something inane like cornflakes and his wife started shouting at him for something or other, for putting the soap back in the wrong place, then they left and all was quiet. But then it was night and the young girl - that was the girl James knew, the one he’d coo-coo’d across the hall, in secondary school. Well she was with a young man and right there in the kitchen he took off his leather jacket and began eyeing and trying some slick moves or other. He was cheesy with his crocodile skin belt ,that James could tell he wanted to whip out, and the way he was flicking his hair; that was until the girl started licking the chair and quoting from Dickens, discussing poison pens, and the boy was really freaking and picking all the raisins from the bowls, not the nuts and under his breath he was talking of sluts, and how farmers lass’s were mutts. She was purring and hurling obscenities, and James was ashamed to be just part of the amenities, feeling he should intervene., turn up the Avril Lavrigne on the stereo. Then she really turned into a cat, shedding all her excess fat, up she jumped on the beam and James horrified by the dig of her claws fell down onto the leg of that clown. They fell asleep, exhausted from the trauma and shape-changing and such. So in his dressing gown, with a morning frown, that was how the farmer found them, the two boys and their lass piled one on top of each other, the girl clawing the long straight boy and the one on the bottom with a grimace of pain, for they’d lain all night.
Taken Away
Inspired, for some reason,by an incident in War and Peace where a drunk young man sits on the ledge of a third floor window and dangles his legs outside while drinking a bottle of spirit for a bet.That was the first line in any case,.
You could have opened the window. I would have sat on the ledge, my legs dangling into the air. You could have slipped the ledge like paper from under me and I would have fallen without flailing. Taken away the shadows so that the light pierced every crevice and corner of my body and I would have observed placidly until the shadows of my soul ceased too. Scrubbed away the light and I would have reversed into the mournful separation of the shadows; stitched myself in their uniform.
You could have grafted out my blood and bones and skin and sinews and grizzle to make me your ice statue. I would have stood it all.
Reflected me into a hundred and one mirrors and talked only to the other women perfected by glass. My identity would remain there where you had displaced it. I wouldn't ask to see it or know where it was kept.
You took yourself away. You're on the other side of a display case with the precious vases and utensils. Their beauty is too remote to enjoy. I'll never feel the staunchless curve of those King's spoons on my tongue or the scent of wild flowers inside the Emperor's vase. The glow of an afternoon breeze won't alter the taste of wine in that emerald lined goblet. I've distorted my face against the glass to get a layer of air closer to you.
I am a Persian cat made all of skin. Then banging against the walls I've bruised my arms and scratched out words and stamped my feet. I can't see a keyhole anywhere in the glass, or even a line. The tiny key would be so eclectically filed in an obscure basement that I would never find it.
Lamps in a Cafe
The chandelier is posing from the ceiling, flaunting its' Some-where, and I am limited by the pressure it creates on the room. It detests me already. It wanted me to bathe in it's beautiful light but I am only bothered and if it asked me ,'Do you mind my being here?,' I would say , 'Of course, I don't mind' but the strained tone of my voice would imply that clearly I do mind and that I want it to go away. The dark would then suffuse the room like continuity of silence and sunlight through an opened blind and my sadness part of that dark.
Roofs
Up down, up down. The iced patterns of the roofs outside mesmerise. I know only too well that you want to watch me here in my lace frock, drained of all colour and frank like the rim around the floor so newly restored and painted a fantastical blank. You will give me the American cigarettes to smoke just so you can survey. You've forgetten, I'm not part of the Opera or the Cabaret.
The gaze begins to scorch andy I don’t want the repressive taste of tobacco in my mouth. A numb nicotine nausea penetrates through my body. I want to throw my disgust, my weakness, all the sins I’ve committed against my own womanhood into the Neva. Let it flow down the roof . Puke them up as if every trespass began in the gut and could be expurged.
The coquettishly displayed pills at the pharmacy will detoxify. I will refuse your cigarette smog and then I’ll shine again with the glory of the sugar-piped Orthodox domes just as it shone when you came across me. Only it will be a long time before the Neva melts.
Le Petit Detail qui tue
C’etait une toile de magnifique et qui brillait dans le soleil vesperal.. ‘T’en attraperas de belles sompteuses mouches avec ces fils fines et droites, comme un tissu de Chanel, qui imitent les rayons de soleil. Pourtant, toi, ma reine, avec tes huit belles jambes, c’est le petit detail qui tue.'
The beam Dream (Free-write from prompt 'The angry Model' after beauty convention)
The angry model was always exquisite, an understanding was implicit in her scarlet painted lips of the cruelty of mankind and the inconsequence of her profession, the fatuous indecence of all those eyes scanning her and not really scanning her but the clothes she was wearing. Her anger was resplendent and dependent on the pendant she wore dangling from each nipple like some Egyptian Queen, whose realms were lean and mean. And whose slaves dangled the fish into the water to capture the little mermaids and bring them back as exquisite and exotic pets for the Egyptian Queen - who could believe that the Nile teemed with such mythic creatures or that a teen could become a beam in the midst of his dream? Yes he became a beam in the old farm house and when he woke up he was still spread up there in the rafters, rather intimate with the other beams. He could watch all that was going on below and see the morning heads of all these people he didn’t know. The old farmer was getting his breakfast, something inane like cornflakes and his wife started shouting at him for something or other, for putting the soap back in the wrong place, then they left and all was quiet. But then it was night and the young girl - that was the girl James knew, the one he’d coo-coo’d across the hall, in secondary school. Well she was with a young man and right there in the kitchen he took off his leather jacket and began eyeing and trying some slick moves or other. He was cheesy with his crocodile skin belt ,that James could tell he wanted to whip out, and the way he was flicking his hair; that was until the girl started licking the chair and quoting from Dickens, discussing poison pens, and the boy was really freaking and picking all the raisins from the bowls, not the nuts and under his breath he was talking of sluts, and how farmers lass’s were mutts. She was purring and hurling obscenities, and James was ashamed to be just part of the amenities, feeling he should intervene., turn up the Avril Lavrigne on the stereo. Then she really turned into a cat, shedding all her excess fat, up she jumped on the beam and James horrified by the dig of her claws fell down onto the leg of that clown. They fell asleep, exhausted from the trauma and shape-changing and such. So in his dressing gown, with a morning frown, that was how the farmer found them, the two boys and their lass piled one on top of each other, the girl clawing the long straight boy and the one on the bottom with a grimace of pain, for they’d lain all night.
