reflection

A reflection,
An expression in a
Mirror of thought.

Do you ever catch your reflection in a mirror and step back, surprised by what you see? A reflection, a mirror of thought? This morning I saw myself as if for the first time: enclosed by a coat and scarf , packaged up, sealed into layers of fabric, hands wrestling with bags, books, gloves.

Is this what others see? A furtive glance, a freeze frame image?

Any kisses?

There’s a small old guy who sells the big issue at my tube station… he must be about 60, grey-ish beard, he wears a black pea coat which should belong to an eleven year-old’s school uniform. I swipe my oyster on the reader and walk through the barrier towards the darkness and silent snowfall outside. He shuffles forward slightly as I walk.

‘Biiii shooo?’ he asks, grazing my left side.

I’m nonchalant. Gutted at some news I received two hours earlier, eyes dulling as the life drains out. I know what’s coming next, it’s the same each time. The same wheezing laugh, the hand clutching mine, the child eyes sparkling….

‘A-ny kis-ses?’

I laugh – just like I’ve laughed four hundred and seventy-three times before at the same two words – but today I’m faking it.

‘Not today!’ I sing. My intonation Bridget Jones-like.

He releases my hand and his eyes turn to watch as the station turns into the pavement and I am gone.

Have you ever been to hyde park corner?

a recent text conversation:

me: what would u like2do 2mrw?
him: drink after work? I’ll come to you
me: are you sure? I can meet you halfway…
him: ok, let’s be a bit random, halfway is hyde park corner. no idea what’s there so we’ll play it by ear. outside at 6.15?
me: (carefully) have you ever been to hyde park corner?! assuming not…
him: once, to see the chillis. take your point. could be ‘interesting’. green park?
me: (relieved) fab

(dis)order

funny how (thought) life flits between diametrically opposed states:
(dis)order
(dis)content.
alone
or
crushed
head space
mind space
thoughts careering
or
merely
stock-still.
fox on frozen tarmac
red tinge at its throat.

derrida

Jacques Derrida’s influence on the world took the form of a “quasi-private conversation” in French, through a smoke-screen from behind a mahogany laid desk. His audience of lofty thinkers vomited ideas, chewed the cud of intellectualism, shared fluids – bodily and otherwise – ate Japanese food and laughed at how clever they all were, really. For all this generosity and closeness there’s no life after life after death for these guys.

His monument, his “bench by the road”, exists in cloth-bound monuments to disproved thought. Piled high in dusty stacks.

At least the monument exists.

No one can sit on it and wait for a bus though.