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Spiders, Flies & Similes

I see myself in spiders - and also in first. That probably sounds strange, given that one is a predator and the other it’s prey, but I’m talking about a particular spider and about bluebottle flies in general.  The bluebottles are those big, annoying black and dark blue flies that come inside in the summer, particularly when, like me, you don’t take the rubbish outside often enough. They whizz around your head when you’re eating, or reading, or trying to write, in an attempt to make you get up and spill your wineglass while trying to kill them. The rest of the time they buzz like hell and repeatedly bump their heads off the window pane, wondering why they can’t fly through. That’s when they annoy me the most. That constant buzz buzz, bump bump, buzz buzz. There could be an open window right beside them and they’ll never find it. They’d much rather buzz and bump ‘til they’re dead on the window-ledge or until I get lucky with a newspaper. But there’s another way they annoy me. They annoy
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Invisible Soup

Ten years ago, following a relationship break-up, I found myself literally adrift, living in a tiny twenty foot boat with only 12 feet by 6 feet of living space (roughly 8 square metres) into which was crammed my bed, kitchen, cooker, toilet and shower. It was February and the steel boat had no wood burner. On freezing nights the cabin temperature would be the same as outdoors and I would wake to a ceiling covered in frost or ice. As the sun rose the ice would begin to melt, the water raining desultorally on my face. My only (and sporadic) income up until that point had been from a theatre company operated by my ex-partner and myself. Having broken up, I felt I had no alternative but to part from the company and found myself suddenly with no income whatsoever and in the worst period of winter.  I have always struggled to claim state benefits. The imposed humiliation, bullying and control has always been unbearable to me and I soon clashed angrily with the Jobcentre staff and dropped my
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Boats, Home and the 'In-Between'

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Making a few notes this morning regarding life themes and what I term 'psychogeographical symbols' (i.e. Symbols personal to my own psychology). Boats came up, of course, and I began  annotating the heading - refuge, liminal, transitory etc.  This brought up the idea of the state of moving as liminal - between places and times. It's impossible to travel in space without also travelling in time, albeit one-way. I enjoy (conditions permitting) the moment of travel, the experience of the act of being in motion, transitory between locations. There is, for me, a feeling of interdimensionality, of being stood apart, suspended between the temporal and the spatial.  I often imagine being able to step away from the everyday world, out of reality, into another, very personal, dimension which, in my imagination, is a small, darkened space accessable only by me and apart from the world of everyday reality. There is nothing particularly remarkable within this space, nothing exciting abo
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Trading in a Time of Covid

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Trigger alert : Blatant virtue signalling. Only fair to warn you. The other day I sensibly realised I needed some milk and bread. I had a fiver left on a Tesco e-voucher sent to me by my brother and thought I'd walk up to Tesco in Hackney, brave the queue and buy some. Then my calm, inner self took control of the situation and said 'Fuckit mate - I'm going nuts from lack of stimulus. You need important stuff! Beer! And chocolate!' And just like that, my mission was clear. I hiked the half mile or so up into Hackney from Hackney Marshes by the river and duly queued in Tesco's car park. I didn't have long to wait as the queue was fairly short. Once inside, Covid avoidance measures are essential. Everyone keeps the allotted two metres outside, but inside things are a bit more cavalier and special tactics are required.  Years ago, like most people in the 70's I had a love affair with Kung Fu - when I wasn't at ballet class - and even now, over thirty years l
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Jenny - Character Study (17 Apr 2020)

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Illustration by Maria Wright https://instagram.com/sugar.paper This was a little character note from this morning, intended for my 'Character Bible', but it suddenly turned into a mini-story! (Thank you to my niece, Maria, for the use of the above artwork!) Jenny She was a little taller than I. Tall, slim and jokey and wore a light cotton dress with a tiny floral print.  We were all workmates, not daters, so the atmosphere was light and informal. We had never danced together but, that night, danced as if we always had. We amazed ourselves, laughed, had fun – dodging between the other dancers, waltzing like we could read each other's minds. We were incapable of mistakes. Later, I realised the lead had passed between us every few seconds, one or the other taking it up or relinquishing it - instinctively, as the situation and the movement of the company changed. Later, we laughed about it, each expressing our amazement and surprise, Jenny saying afterwards “I've never danc
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If this Dark were the Ocean

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If this Dark were the Ocean I'd be a Blue Whale diving to the cold embrace of the Architeuthis in the trench Past flailing frogmen gaping from fragile masks, sucking thin air  from thrift shop tanks In my wake the vacant fish flickering in fickle shoals Diving 'til the vibrant crashing shores are left for Silence and pursuing beams give up on all pursuit Until I cruise the grey basement of this numb, frigid sea in search of nameless wounds where Earth brings forth her molten fruit. Copyright Frank Riverman 2015
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