Spring

...The pale flecks of early morning Sun and floating dandelions that come in through the window leave trails of last night dancing on your skin. You lie there, looking intently into my eyes - unblinking, pensive, still - as if contemplating your own life or death.
           So close to me, that I can breathe in the cool air you exhale - we are one: born again as a new being, Love's Little Lamb. So close, yet the past still lingers on our lips, through our shivering bones. From the moment when you kissed the tip of my nose, soft, like a petal falling on my skin, from a cherry-blossom tree in the Springtime garden, I had never tasted a fruit so sweet.
          But only one day without you and I feel its coarse acidity burning through my heart.

         Spring time's upon us
        Spring time's here
        Time to grow our Love
        It's that time of year

The Sun has gone behind the clouds, my heart weeps blood. Still - I hear your whispers in the wind, faintly howling against the happy little tune of endearing Love.


 Image via: http://th01.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2011/135/d/f/dandelion_seeds_by_jollyoldgeezer-d3gdzd7.jpg

Copyright © JRFB 2013

Ariera

I find myself lying still in this lattice of thorns, the prickly tethers of what feels like worn rope press into my thick skin. I cannot feel my limbs, only the mass of my torso – I feel taller than before, as if some magical sculptor has stretched me thin, elongating my spine and flesh. The sky flickers – golden yellow fireworks! Oh, but they fail to melt back into the prior gloom, silent and comforting with its masking grimace of unknowingness. This 'Sun' shifts about tentatively, like a glowing ball on a rope swing, suspended above a jungle of apes, threateningly swiping with their great arms. The tapping of faraway footsteps pulses through me and my spiny bed. Perhaps it is some god, coming to rescue me from this dark doom? I shall call out to them – never have I felt more relieved to be in so light a presence when in this crushing black cave of disorientated souls.

My words seem to be muffled by a doughy matter smothering my mouth and airways.

Oh god, what is happening? My sad life will end prematurely after all. Yet, I can still follow my scattered thoughts, disturbed by this awful happening. Perhaps, if I endure my suffering and retain my mind, I can find a way of esca--

My thoughts, ubiquitous and brimming with fear are cut short by the instant dimming of the bright Sun above – a shadow of ill-fate steals my worst notions of terror from my screaming psyche and clasps its dark, deathly fingers (surprisingly fat and fleshy) around my soft frame. My curved chest tightens, my innards twist in the compression, but still am I unable to emit a scream of ashen agony from this inexplicable torture!

‘Ariera*! I have been looking forward to devouring your feathery flesh all day!’ booms a voice, piercing and peeling the air of silence.

Even before panic can diffuse into my veiny body, I immediately feel a sharp stinging on the crown of my head; the shadow’s claws have sunken into my case, like a farmer digging his spade into the hard ground during winter’s defiant months of chill. My head, rife with pain, throbs with heat. The stinging persists and stretches further down my body, my skin, peeling away, leaving my newly exposed flesh raw, white and burning.

I have no teeth to clench together, no eyes to squeeze shut, no hope to desperately cling to. Yet my external senses remain intact, and pulse the excruciating soreness through my nerves which glow threateningly from the sickening pain of this affliction.

Just after a thousand pinpricks stab at my mutilated exterior, inverted and bare, a foul feeling of moist ensnarement rasps through me; doughy bile in my spongy stomach arises; it pulps inside me, for it is unable to surface. Sharp knives rip into my flesh, scraping at my neck, my chest, my pelvis, until I feel a sudden lightness in the midst of this chilling disfigurement of my shredded body. My top half, now mashed into puréed carnage, has been ripped from me by the jaws of a monster!

I cannot resist, I cannot refute. All I can do is lie here, rolling away from the blood-thirsty chambers of an atrocious demon.







…and so is the fate of a banana.

* Ariera is the Latin name for the English word banana (a long, crescent shaped fruit that grows in bunches and has a soft, pulpy texture and yellow external skin when ripe)

Copyright © JRFB 2012

What are you afraid of?

Demons and monsters? Dark secrets from the corners of your mind leaking out into deathly exposure? Judgement?

Writing is almost too sacred for me to work on regularly. I mean, I adore exhaling my thoughts and imaginations through words with infinite interpretations, I really do, but when it comes down to the actual willingness to do it, I often find myself apprehensive. I think it has something to do with the trepidation of coming out with something horrifying, in the sense that I am ashamed to have written such crap and that if read by other human eyes they are sure to reach desperately for the holy water.

I want to develop my writing skills. Unfortunately, I am prone to start with promising ideas and then give up after only a few lines of creativity, not allowing enough time for the ol’ steam train to get moving. This is probably due to laziness and lack of concentration, so I will need to find a way to stick with things, I guess.

Also, a common feature of my writing style is abstract thoughts and first person narrative, but not generally containing a plot. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the deity Virginia Woolf disagrees with the idea that ‘to provide a plot, to provide comedy, tragedy, love interest’[1] is required to create a story, depicted exquisitely in her masterpiece Mrs Dalloway.

Indeed, I intend to use my knowledge of describing and bringing to life the emotions of the speaker (or should I say my own emotions, as I have lazily not bothered to create characters) and devise a plot in a free indirect narrative for my own satisfaction. I will just write whatever drifts in and out of my mind, reflecting this narrative style and hope for the best. I can always edit and remove the ‘fat’ of globular nonsense when I finally lose steam and force myself to come to an abrupt and exasperated finish to my story.


Wish me luck!



Jaguar

---

[1] V Woolf 'The Common Reader' via http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c/chapter1.html#chapter1

Skydark

The clouds painted with hints of heaven cast deep, sinister shadows on the beating surf below, slapping at the rocks with the aquatic wrath of a god. The soft arms of nirvana, where glinting gates of gold peep out, allow the Sky god to offer himself as a host, and to dramatize the celestial love from above. The ridges of the nebulae turn from blue to pink as the Sun closes her weary eyes and drifts along to the edge of darkness, shepherding oranges and reds into her sacred field of sleep.

 As my dark pools are torn from the fantastic realm above, I see fields of rusted fronds fluttering in the wind. Strands of cobwebbed hair determined to distract my vision cannot mar this delight: the silver spray from the waves; the pink bonfire of beaming divinity; the teasing light from across the bay. The latter entices my interests with its bitter brightness – a sparkling jewel amongst the lurid colours of sunset. My heart urges me to edge nearer to this furtive radiance and so my legs amble over rocks encrusted with crackling salt crystals, and spiked grasses bleached blue by the Earth’s malice, until the night engulfs my clouded mind and the swirls hanging above.

Chills lace my body as dribbles of icy water seep into my sink; the light draws me closer still. I find myself at the end of the shore.

Before me – nothing but the dark perils of a wintry sea, behind me – the echoes of rusted tufts of deathly shrubs, melting and fragmenting into the curling wind. Below, the hungry waves kiss my feet, waiting for the final plunge; above, the light screams for me, bellowing my name.

The yellow glare penetrates my shivering bones, extracting my soul, my will. So brilliant, so intense – I must join you at the core. My essence, slipped from my hollow shell skips from the shore onto each swirling wave, like the gold flecks from the fountain above, dancing in the bubbling sea.

*

Closer and closer our hearts collide. I release a howl, you discharge a sigh. The rain ceases; the wind croaks; our spirit surges; we are one.

Copyright © JRFB 2012 

My gift to you

The best thing about life? You don't have to be miserable, if it suits you better. To see the world through rose petaled specs is more rewarding than defiling the gift of being alive.
Time is limited on this side of paradise, so I would advise overlooking the strenuous 'ache' of beingness and appreciating the ardent flames of life!

Copyright © JRFB 2012

Life: an entity we can all enjoy

Life is something precious. I feel that we sometimes forget this, overlook it,or focus solely on what isn't going right. Life can be guided and misguided; shaped and re-shaped; lit up and distinguished. My Life is something which I have learnt to value very much. Although I am fortunate enough to have never experienced a mishap which would alter my way of living for the rest of my existence, it is this reason that I feel blessed to breathe the fresh breeze every day, to feel the pulse of the Earth under my toes.

 Of course there are those days where all rational thinking about the sanctity of Life is lost, and I much rather would stay enclosed, stuffed between the bed and the duvet, blocking the Sun and all other sources of vitality from my clouded mind. I have appropriately called them my 'Dark Days'. They occur approximately once a fortnight, and everything seems to crumble to lonesome, fragile dust and self-pity (and loathing). I seem to forget that this moment is fleeting and I will soon return to my headquarters of optimism, golden hope and a genuine adoration for the spiritual connection between Light and Life that I feel when everything is running smoothly.

Life is exquisite, differential, purposeful; but only if you allow it to be.

Every day, having been roused from the bed of dreams where my soul is allowed to explore beyond the 'limitations' of Life, I seek to discover an intention for my waking, a reason for my rupture of sweet slumbers. I discovered this: each day is different, therefore each day there is something different to live for.

I did not have to look far, for I did not even leave the house; gazing at the burning Sun, inhaling an air of light, darkness, joy and sorrow, I realised. The slight tittering and fluttering of morning birds, ecstatically soaring around the sky, seemed to burst into lurid colours: deep greens and browns surrounded the light, bursting like works of fires, shattering into burning shards of feathery glass. There; the smell of recently mowed grass, sharp and sweet like an exotic fruit juices invaded my nostrils, overcoming any doubt of whether to turn of the light and retreat back into sweet sleep. 

This beauty, this euphoria, these sensations which Life provokes within, surely make vitality Victor in this battle - a skirmish between dreams and reality day and night, light and death. Yet, on both sides, the adversaries seem to drift together, blurring any such boundaries between them. In short, there is no distinction. Life is what you want it to be; it may indeed be lived through Death, or Imagination or Midnight Hours.

Each day I try to perceive Life as something new, a Friend, a Lover, a Stranger - all are equally as satisfying a seach other. All are unique. 

I adore Life and its changeability.This is the beauty of Nature, of the Soul.

Copyright © JRFB 2012