Cathedral notes
I
So I get on the train
Bleecker drugstore dragonflies in my hair
pot pourri passion on my cheeks
heart glowing on my sleeve
(Your cardigan, moth-holed, and $125 limited
edition Levis).
Can’t account for this
gnawing dread, insidious
fear of failing. I feel them
sit in judgement upon me.
Thinking about rain-kinked
dogs and spectral budgies on
the line. Browning May
blossom sinks from track-side trees.
In the real world railings are
rusting and half-term kids
swap ring-tones. Back here
I consider the cathedral.
II
Reluctant. Steps take me up here.
Delaying tactics. Duck into
HMV and moan about the
price of Disco Kandi. Remonstrate.
No materialism today please.
Tempted by Matta’s and
tamarind paste.
Pigeons part like autumn leaves
before my feet. Step over boxes
of iceberg lettuce stranded in
the middle of the street.
Call out to Alan
looking in the window
of News from Nowhere.
‘See that book?’
‘I get slagged off in it.’
Onward past lingering students,
cigarettes, gum and mobile phones.
Shops give way to Georgian
fanlights, buddleia rooted in
gutters and gratings.
Curse this coat and cardigan
as the rain clears and
heat rises from the cobbles.
Chandeliers silhouetted in upstairs rooms.
Then, looming behind
a lock-up garage, the massive
tower. More solid that reality.
III
The wind is cold and strong,
the silence strident in this
high, lonely place.
In St James’s Cemetery
knotweed infests the graves.
A film lies unravelled in the
tussocked grass.
Wondering what might
have been on it, milky
celluloid beyond redemption,
letting the wind cool my body.
Inside, past the calls for donations
and fairtrade displays, the space
is sterile. Floodlit. Workmen
drop slabs that echo like thunder.
The stained glass crazy, kaleidoscopic,
whites out as you turn
towards the sun, over-exposed
like Jonny’s picture of ground
zero. A headache threatens. Tea
and food call. I keep to the
shadows, afraid lest my pagan
soul be exposed for all to
see. Unworthy to enter the
Chapel of the Holy Spirit. Flinch as
the brass bell rings out clear and
pure, the sound immortal. People
stare at me with my notebook.
Scribbling. Realising I can’t
read my own writing. Virtue
is good and vice bad.
See, that’s chastity. The salamander
is the only creature that can
live through fire – to be
chaste in life you have to
withstand fire. Turn thoughts away
look unwillingly at the altar. Feel
my stomach drop. Crushed
by the enormity of the space
above. Want to flee
to the sanctuary of the open
sky. Rain and birds. One more
echoing thud resonates
through ribcage and
vault. Time to leave. Hoping
that this space will
germinate words, will root
and grow fat now it’s
inside me.
Page(s) 8-11
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