Author: jim clayton

the mousetrap

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

I needed a pot to put a cactus in / so I went out to the stack back of the compost bin / a smorgasbord of rubble / a heinous, grievous, Leaning Tower of Trouble / things I couldn’t think what to do with / but wasn’t quite through with / plastic trays and bamboo canes / a wheelbarrow with a flat tyre / rags of gardening attire / a destrung lyre / okay, I’m lying about the lyre / but you get the point / a half-assed recycling point / where the recycling had kinda slowed and slumped / and things just got dumped / until I’d built my very own pottery Shard of Shame / my Babel of Blame / an improvised, bastardised Monument to the Wrecked / and me, the feckless architect / still, a good place to look for a pot / even though it had rained a lot / and everything was soaking wet / I hurried outside to see what I could get

I thought I’d find a chinese cup / maybe I could clean it up / and it might just be exactly the thing / to put a spiny cactus in / so I moved things around some / restacked it on the ground some / until suddenly I found / three dead mice, drowned / their pink corpses bloated and rotten / in a container with no holes at the bottom / and I guessed / that’s where they must have made their nest / and when it rained and rained and did not stop / the container filled right up to the top / and the poor mice drowned / anyway, this is what I found

it was horrible / I felt terrible / if I’d just been a little better behaved / three innocent mice could’ve been saved

there was nothing else for it / I had to do something before the cat saw it / so I tipped out the noxious soup / depositing the tragic group / on the ground / then looked around / and found / the cracked top of a jardiniere / green with mould and beyond repair / and I thought that would make the perfect pottery mausoleum / so I put it on top so the cat wouldn’t see ‘em

I went out to the pile last night / the garden bright with moonlight / stood in the biting air with my hands in my pockets / and saw them, three little ghosts with eyeless sockets / turning their heads to sniff the air / smiling when they sensed me there / ‘never shake thy gory locks at me!’ I cried / screamed / ran back inside / put some (very small) obstacles against the door / what for / I’m not quite sure / and anyway / we’ve still got the cat

(would three ghost mice be scared of that?)

angus the demon

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Angus, the focus of all this Scottie dog memorabilia, is lying on his tummy on a Scottie dog patterned rug. I’m relieved that he IS a Scottie dog, otherwise everything surrounding him – the Scottie dog toy in the white plastic alcove hung with fairy lights; the hundreds of Scottie dog pictures hanging on the walls, some as hyper-colourised 3D versions, where the eyes open and the tongue lolls out as you pass; the Scottie dog tea-towels neatly draped on a rail; the Scottie dog biscuit tin, the Scottie dog cushions, the Scottie dog puzzle half-completed on the table, with (ominously) only the eyes to complete – well, if you walked into a flat like this and found a doberman, you’d probably lose your mind.
‘Don’t go near him,’ says Jean. ‘He bites.’
‘He’s so sweet,’ I say.
‘Only when he’s sleeping,’ says Melanie, Jean’s daughter. ‘He bites me, too.’
‘Oh.’
‘I wonder what he dreams about?’ says Jean, yawning.
‘Biting,’ says Melanie.
I go to put my things down. Angus looks up. He’s so old, his fur has a rubbed, slightly greasy look.
‘Fifteen’ says Jean, anticipating my question.
‘Wow! Fifteen! Well!’ I say – then after a pause, where I can’t actually bring myself to say that he looks good for fifteen, I manage instead: ‘We’ve got a dog.’
‘Oh yeah? What sort?’
‘A lurcher.’
‘How old?’
‘I think she’s about ten.’
‘Ah!’ says Jean. ‘Long-legged dogs don’t live nearly so long.’
‘No. I’ve heard that.’
Angus may have lifted his head, but that’s as much as he’s prepared to do.
‘Angus! GET over here!’ says Melanie.
‘Oh – he’s alright’ I say. Too late. Melanie has already pushed herself clear of the sofa. She reaches down to scoop him up, and immediately his eyes spring open, revealing two black buttons of insanity. He bares his teeth, as thin and brown and horribly curved as the teeth on a deep sea angler fish, and he begins paddling furiously with his paws to turn and tear a lump out of her arm. It’s a horrifying spectacle, like watching someone pick up a scatter cushion and finding it transformed into a demon.
‘Oh no you don’t, you little bastard’ says Melanie, expertly wrestling Angus into a non-biteable position, and then sinking back onto the sofa with him, where she smothers the dog into submission. Eventually he taps out with a paw, Melanie cautiously relaxes her hold, and Angus sits there huffing and gasping and catching his breath, all the while watching me with an expression of the purest hatred.
‘Good boy,’ says Jean.

thanatocoenosis

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

please do NOT allow your carapace
to scratch the glass

thank you

now
gather round
look closely

tell me what you see

yes! excellent!

in fact, we think item A
was a communication device
detailed plotting
of the debris field
suggests the subject died
holding it to its face
mid-stride

Item B is the remains of
a head dress
probably protective
possibly ritual

Item C is a form of manufactured sac
worn on the back
for the conveyance of material
pertaining to the diurnal activities of the creature
too degraded to open now, of course
but careful examination with a tendril ray
has revealed a miscellany
of fascinating objects
organic, synthetic
not yet fully understood

Who can tell me about Item D?

anyone?

in fact, item B is a food wrapper
‘Dorito chips’
an index fossil
with a wide geographic distribution

on a lighter note
we think you’ll agree
the mandible fixed
in the open position like that
does lend the subject
a somewhat vacant aspect

yes?

there are many such fossils
in this biome
if you would like to learn more
follow the protocol, please
hold up your eye

the claw will find you

next stop market street

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All I’ve done is asked Ken to stand up for me. I’ve asked him as gently as possible, making it clear that I need to see for myself exactly what he can and can’t do.
‘Righto’ says Ken, and gets himself ready.
‘I’m not staying here to watch this,’ says his son, Barry. ‘I can’t be doing with all of this.’ And swiping his coat from the back of a chair, he slams out of the room. Barry’s wife, Jean, is equally tense.
‘I’ve told you. He can’t stand. If he could stand, he wouldn’t ‘a pissed himself in the chair. ‘Scuse my language. They’ve sent him home too early. He should never’ve been let out like this. They just don’t give a damn. All they care about is the beds and kicking people out. They don’t give no thought for anybody else.’
Meanwhile, I’ve put Ken’s zimmer frame in front of him and stood to the side, just in case he needs a hand.
‘Okay, then. Right, then,’ says Ken, and stands up.
‘Of course he does it for you,’ she says. ‘He’ll do it for a uniform. But how’s he supposed to manage when there’s no-one here? We’re supposed to be going away on holiday tomorrow. How’s he going to cope then?’
Whilst Jean is talking I’ve discreetly checked the seat of the chair, which doesn’t appear to be damp in any way.
‘Well that’s the next step,’ I tell her. ‘That’s what we need to find out.’
I rest a hand on Ken’s shoulder. ‘How do you feel about a trip to the bathroom?’
‘Oh, yes!’ says Ken. ‘Fine. I’ll give it a go, like. Y’know – I used to be a tram driver before the war. Next stop market street! Hold on very tight…’
‘Just concentrate on what you’re doing,’ says Jean.
‘Righto,’ says Ken.
He starts walking with the frame in the direction of the bathroom. He looks pretty steady, so I go ahead and clear some bags and things out of the way. He makes it there in good time, manages to turn round safely, lower himself onto the toilet, and get himself back up again.
‘That’s great!’ I say. ‘There are a few bits and pieces of equipment that’ll make it even easier, but I think you’re pretty good.’
‘You think so?’ he says. ‘Because I don’t want to be a bother to anyone.’
‘It’s no bother. Come on. Let’s get you back to your chair.’
Whilst I’m helping him back there, Barry comes back in, followed by a waft of smoke.
‘He’s only gone and got him to walk,’ says Jean.
‘Have you?’ says Barry. ‘Who the hell are you? Jesus Christ?’
‘Me? No. I’m his more talented brother.’

postmortem

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I smell the badger before I see it / sprawled flat / on its back / in a bramble thicket / right by my boot

despite my revulsion / I have a compulsion / to witness the scene / so I part the brambles to get a better look

black and white fur laid out to the root / that fine spine / those whorls of ribs / teeth and skull / the whole machine / cruelly broken open / exposed to the rain / raw mortality / measured out in maggots / diptera / coleoptera / devout followers / hotly rolling in the hollow chamber of an eye

and suddenly I don’t want to be there / horribly aware / of the pattern of bones / in my boots / the rooks in the trees / the roots below / and I really have to go / get well away from there / and fill my lungs with cleaner air

alas, poor badgerIMG_1495
go, get you to the sett / tell them / let them eat a thousand worms /
to this favour they must come

 

jean in black

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Stephen is telling me about the dream he had last night. He’s sitting in his chair looking left towards the windows with his eyes tightly shut, his bony fingers laced in his lap, one long leg crossed over the other, the foot gently bouncing up and down, as if he’s judging the weight of the slipper hanging from the toes.
‘I’ve been having these vivid dreams,’ he says. ‘They’re so real it takes me a while to wake up from them. I wondered if it might be the medication.’
‘Possibly. What kind of dreams?’
‘Last night I was floating in a warm, deep sea. And there were all these people splashing about around me, laughing and shouting. Some I knew, some I didn’t. And then I started to sink, down and down and down, not drowning exactly, but not happy about it either. And no-one tried to help me or seemed all that bothered, and everything was getting far away. It was such an odd, lonely feeling. I can’t say it was a nightmare, exactly, but I didn’t like it all that much. And when I woke up, I found I’d … had an accident.’
He opens his eyes at that point and twists his mouth into a one-sided smile, cartoon-like, superficial. I can’t help thinking he’s spent his whole life practising it.
‘The last time I wet the bed must have been seventy years ago, so you can imagine how surprised I was. Still,’ he says, his slipper falling to the floor,’ I’ve put something on the mattress tonight, in case I have the sea dream again.’
I pick his slipper up and hang it back on his foot.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Now – what else do you need to know?’
We go over his medical history, medications, recent admission to hospital.
‘And of course, no sooner have I come out than Jean goes in. We’re like those funny little people on a weather clock.’
‘So why has Jean gone to hospital?’
‘Didn’t they tell you?’ he says, closing his eyes and turning his face to the window again. ‘I fell on her. She was helping me down the stairs and I lost my balance. Broke her arm in three places. And then they found other things wrong with her, too, in that way they have. So all in all it’s been a bit of a disaster.’

* * *

Later on, when I’ve finished all the tests and I’m writing them up, Stephen asks me where I live.
‘Oh really?’ he says. ‘Well it’s a shame Jean isn’t here, because I think I’m right in saying that’s where her grandfather came from. He was a policeman – oh! I’m talking years ago, before the war. I remember her telling me about him. He used to ride around on a motorcycle, like he owned the place. And everyone hated him and his dreadful moustache, which is why they had him killed.’
‘Killed? Really?’
‘Apparently. And they all showed up at the funeral, lining the streets with their heads bowed and their hands in front of them, and all of them thinking the same thing. Glad to be shot of him.’
‘I’ll have to look into that.’
‘It was a long time ago. The old police station’s flats now, apparently. Called Peelers, I think. Funnily enough, that’s where I met Jean. At a funeral. She’s not my first wife. My first wife died unexpectedly.’
Stephen suddenly opens his eyes and stares straight at me.
‘It wasn’t her funeral we met at,’ he says. ‘I don’t want you getting the wrong idea.’
‘No, no,’ I tell him. ‘I didn’t think it could’ve been.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Because I know how it sounds.’
He finds another cartoon smile, then resumes his blind inspection of the window.
‘Yes. Jean looked wonderful in black. She was a shorthand typist, down from Scotland. We got chatting over the cold meat selection, and then shared a cab back to mine. And do you know what I tell people?’
‘No? What do you tell them?’
‘I tell them it was the only one-night stand I ever had, and so far it’s lasted ten years.’

bee more careful

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There’s a sign nailed to one of the old oaks in the wood. Don’t interfere with the wildlife it says, right at the bottom, after a long list of other things you should bear in mind, too, like accepting personal responsibility as the woods are a dangerous place, disposing of dog waste and where the nearest bins are, keeping to the path, not picking the flowers and so on.

Don’t interfere with the wildlife.

Well. It’s a bit late for that.

I can imagine the camera pulling back – a panoramic drone-shot – David Attenborough’s resonant voice describing a landscape scarred by housing estates, roads, a landfill site, and then maybe a jump-cut to an underwater scene, to a bleached reef, a solitary carrier bag floating along upside down, like a jelly fish with handles.

I know what the sign means, though. Don’t sweat the big stuff. (To interfere with a cliche). Do what you can in your own backyard, and maybe if enough follow suit, things’ll work out.

All of which is a run-up to saying I had to apologise to a bee.

I wasn’t concentrating, you see. I was too busy thinking about the sign, and how pointless it was, because the kind of people who’d interfere with wildlife are probably not the kind of people who’d ever read a sign (they’d be much more likely to interfere with it). So I was busy thinking about that, in a self-satisfied way, about how I moved through the landscape with the utmost respect, when I blundered into some purple clover and almost stepped on a foraging bumble bee. The bee buzzed up in that furrily furious way they have, so indignant I could’ve sworn it gave me the finger before lumbering off across the meadow. And even though I said sorry, I was glad there wasn’t a helpline number on the bottom of the sign, because I was sure if there was the bumble bee would’ve straightaway called it (those leg pouches aren’t just for pollen, y’know – mobile phone, sandwiches, tiny little black & yellow thermos, and a book of wildlife poems, because I have the feeling bumble bees are quite old-school), giving a wild but surprisingly accurate description of me to whoever it is operates the switchboard and enforces these things (Ents? Sprites? Not sure).

So maybe two forms of interference, then. Intentional & unintentional. Either way, with the best will in the world, you probably can’t expect to go through life without stepping on the odd bee now and again. I’ll try to do better, and pay more attention in future. And if the bee is reading this, I am very sorry I gave you a fright, and if there’s anything I can do… (Yeah? he says, tapping one of his feet on the floor, two of his hands placed angrily on the cinch between his abdomen and thorax, Well you can stop with all this patronising anthropomorphic crap, for a start….)

sig

aggie’s gift

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Aggie looks like the police photo of a ruined children’s clown finally busted for drugs. All she needs is a handheld name board and number. To the side. Full profile. Washed out, no make-up, hair still out in banded clumps. Dark brown eyes screwed up against the flash. Heavy lower lip rolling out from ill-fitting, tobacco stained dentures.

‘I went up that eye hospital,’ she says. ‘The doctor there, he turns round to me and he says I need an injection. What for, I says. Well, he says, you got that much pressure building up, if you don’t have it done soon your eye’ll pop out. Oh, I says. Yes, he says. I’ll make you an appointment. Well – if you’re that worried you think my eyeball’s gonna explode, why don’t you give me the injection now? I’m here, aren’t I? Oh, he says. Alright. So then he gets out this needle and he jabs me in the eye. Not just once, mind. Four times. Four times! It’s no wonder you give people a bit of a run-up, I says. It might be a little sore he says. Sore? He might as well have scooped my eye out and jumped on it. Anyway, I was on my way back into the waiting room when I saw this little old woman sitting on her own, looking pretty cheesed off. So I went over to her and I give her an orange. Honestly – she was so pleased. It was like I’d given her the world. I said to her, I said It’s just an orange, love. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure someone’ll do the same for me when I’m sitting there as old and hopeless as you.’

looking for salvation on Broken Tree Hill

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

It was a shock to go over Broken Tree Hill this morning and see just how broken it was.

There was litter scattered all around, beer and wine bottles, plastic cups, cigarette papers, cans of every description – Malibu and coke, vodka and ginger beer, diet coke – snack packets of popcorn, crisps, biscuits, and weirdly, some tomatoes; a tube of Lipsyl, two bottle openers (one of them a gift from Halliburton corps, so I’m guessing one of their parents has something to do with the oil business), wet wipes, little grip-seal bags with pictures of marijuana leaves or smiley faces on the front, and on and on in a depressing vista of trash, quite clearly demarcated, though, like the impact lines radiating from a meteor crater. The only upside was the carrier bags that were blowing around, too. At least I had something to clear it all up with.

It was all pretty depressing. It seemed to confirm – in that immediate and overwhelming way that anecdotal evidence sometimes has – that human beings are careless and selfish and self-obsessed, a suicidal species of virus, quite happy to sacrifice the very ground they walk on for the sake of a few hours of pleasure.

I knew I couldn’t affect their attitude. Even if I could snap my fingers, magic them all back here to clear up, I’m sure they’d refuse (once they’d gotten over the crazy trip). Which made me feel doubly mad. The only thing I could do to make me feel better was clean up myself, even though it felt like I was enabling their behaviour, and even though I knew it wouldn’t stop them doing it all again. The world was doomed, and here I was tidying up round the edges.

But even though it was a small gesture, it did make me feel better – very much better, actually. I carried four full shopping bags of trash back up the lane, just as the church bells over the way started to ring. I’m not religious, but it was great to hear them. Because someone had cast those bells, and hung them in a tower, so other people could tug on a rope and sound out a message of hope and solidarity. Because let’s face it – there’s plenty of trash in the world, poor behaviours – evil behaviours, sometimes. And you do what you can to address them, but mostly what you do is look inwards and address them in yourself, and look for the hope there.

Viktor Frankl said: The salvation of Man is through love and in love.

That’s what I aspire to. Cleaning up on Broken Tree Hill might not mean all that much, but it’s a start.

sig

what would mellie say

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‘Phew! I can’t tell you how relieved I am to get that essay out of the way!’ says Rachel, dropping an armful of files and folders on to the desk next to me and then herself into the chair. ‘It took me right back to when I was a student. And not in a good way.’
‘Writing essays?’
‘I just find it so stressful. But there! It’s done. And you know, the other good thing? It reminded me of Mellie’
‘Who’s Mellie?’
‘She was great, in an odd kind of way. I could never quite figure her out, whether she knew she was being odd, or she just was.’
‘It’s hard to know sometimes.’
‘Our first day, the tutor told us to introduce ourselves with our name and then one interesting fact.’
‘I hate that.’
‘Yeah. Me too. I think I said something lame about how I fell off my skateboard and knocked myself out when I was ten. And that was pretty much how it went round the circle till we got to Mellie. After this strange little pause she always did, y’know? It always slightly put you on edge. After one of her little pauses she said, really quietly: I’ve got a dog. And then there was this silence. And then the tutor said, really gently, like he’s encouraging someone terribly shy: And what’s your dog called, Mellie? And she said Jism.’
‘Jism?’
‘I know!’
‘That’s great! Mind you – there’s a teacher at Jess’ school called Mr Chisholm.’
‘Euch! You’d change your name, wouldn’t you?’
‘What to?’
‘I don’t know. Spunkmeyer? Anyway. That’s what Mellie was like. We did this session on diabetes once. An introductory thing, looking at the equipment and stuff, and the tutor held up the blood sugar machine and said What would you tell the patient if you had a reading that just said High? So Mellie put up her hand. Yes. Mellie. What would you say? And Mellie put her head on one side, like she was doing an impression of someone being sympathetic, and she said I’m sorry to have to tell you but you’ve got diabetes?’
‘That’s hilarious.’
‘You just couldn’t figure out if she was being serious or not. The worst thing time was when we were taking the psychiatric module. We had this tutor who was completely insane. I mean – my god! She always looked as if she was on the edge of something – y’know? Her hair out here, her eyes…’. Rachel widens her eyes, twists her mouth and leans towards me. ‘Her hands in her pockets. Anyway, she completley terrified us. And she had this trigger light temper, and anything would throw her into a rage. Anyway, she’d set us some reading to do, some incredibly heavyweight and tedious article about something or other, and we’d all been out that night and no-one had read it. That session we were all sitting in the classroom, and she started asking us questions about the article. And it was obvious really quickly that no-one had read it. So instead of moving on or making some general comment about how disappointed she was or how important it was to keep up with the reading that she set, she started to make this big personal deal, going round the whole room to see who had read it or not. Everyone said no and looked away, because the more people she asked the more furious she got, until I really thought she’d explode. Then she got to Mellie. And what about you? she said to her, fumbling in her pocket like she’s got a knife in there and she’s getting ready to use it. Did you read my article? So Mellie paused like she used to, looking a bit pale and vacant, and then she said Yes, I did. Oh? said the Tutor. I see! Finally! At least one person as the common courtesy to do as I asked. And she was about to move on, but then she stopped, and turned back to Mellie. And what did you find most interesting about my article? she said. And we were all willing her to say something smart. But instead she put her head on the side like she did in diabetes, and she said The bit at the beginning?’
‘What a legend! I wonder what she’s doing now?’
‘Last I heard, she was working in intensive care. Which is something else. I mean – imagine coming out of your coma and seeing Mellie leaning over you with her head on one side. God knows what she’d say…’