If we must part,
Then let it be like this.
Not heart on heart,
Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;
But touch mine hand and say:
‘Until to-morrow or some other day,
If we must part’.
Words are so weak
When love hath been so strong;
Let silence speak:
‘Life is a little while, and love is long;
A time to sow and reap,
And after harvest a long time to sleep,
But words are weak.’
Would you go for a swim?
It’s too cold. If it were hot, would you go for a swim?
I’m too old. You are not.
If it were hot, really hot, would you strip off your clothes and plunge in?
I would, I would but
I’m old
and it’s cold. But you would?
Oh, I would.
I would …
And once you were in, how long would you stay? Would you stay in all day?
All day?
I’m too old. If it were hot, really hot, you could stay in all day, and all night.
All night, yes.
I would stay in and play
by the light of the moon
all day and all night.
Throw the poor thing back in!
She;s real! Look!
Look at that tail!
Fuck, yes! Just think what we can get for her,
what she must be worth!
But she’s dying! Look at her eyes.
And already the gleam
is fading from her scales!
Those eyes are not the eyes of a human! They are the eyes – and the scales! –
of a fucking fish!
Throw her back in.
If she dies
you’ll get nothing.
Fish die. I’ll sell her frozen.
Find the right scientists
and auction her like the fucking fish she is.
Who do I identify with? Not the one who wants to keep her, sell her, that’s for sure. The other one, who wants to throw her back in, quick, before she dies? Yes, of course. But I identify more closely with the mermaid herself, helpless in the hands of a bully and his spineless sidekick.
Glamour is an old Scots form of the word “grammar” and meant magic, the magic of words. You see this page? It’s empty.
A road …
A narrow road across an open moor.
The road from Ullapool to Balintore.
A rider on a horse, dark hair flying:
horse’s mane, woman’s mane.
Behind them, open ocean, rain-swept isles.
Ahead, low wooded hills, a sandy beach.
A woman on a black horse, black cloak
flying, black hair streaming. Will she reach
the sea in time, the grey North Sea,
the houses of the fishermen and women,
each with its peat fire, its chimney smoke,
its bare back turned to the wind-scoured beach?
A woman on a black horse, black cloak
flying, black hair streaming out,
crying: Make way! Make way! I cannot stop!
Today I must be by dusk in Balintore!
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