There are ghosts all along the coast of Wales, where the shingle spits reach out to sea, and the tide comes in with aquamarine tales of the living, the dead, and those in between.
At Sarn Gynfelyn, when the water’s low, a girl in a vintage gown once walked on the rippling, shimmering, shallow flow: you’d think her a spirit, if you stopped to look, a character from a ghostly book.
That was Emily, who loved the place, who crossed the shingle at a methodical pace, her hem on the water, her mind at rest, no stress in her motion, no tingle of death.
One evening she waded half a mile or more and as the daylight was dying she turned for the shore. But an old man stood watching with wide, staring eyes, then he shattered the dusk with his terrified cries.
“It’s a ghost!” he screamed in authentic surprise and then his screams turned into sighs and it’s easy to see why.
She glided! She floated! She walked on the waves! It was the same dress, the same face and she had the same hair! Just like the girl he once saw in a grave! But Emily was living: she was right there.
Back to the shore she continued to wade. She soothed him, she helped him, she bade him farewell, she smiled to herself at the curious scene, a strange anecdote she now had to tell, of an old man undone by a gown and a dream.
She stopped at a pub on the corner of town, told the bald barman her curious tale, but his moustache went rigid, his complexion went pale. “The screaming man?” he whispered. “But he is long gone! He faded away as all ghosts do and hasn’t been seen for a decade or two.”
Emily blinked, her cider turned sour, and she walked quickly home with a bewildered glower. Everything was spooky, the moonlight was strange, the ideas in her head were all rearranged.
Yes, there are ghosts all along the coast of Wales where the shingle spits reach out to sea, and the tide comes in with its unholy hosts and this very poem is another lost soul. It’s also a ghost. Can’t you tell?
The text will grow fainter and fainter and the words will thin out like water in a lake during a drought or echoes in a bell rung long ago. You thought it was a living poem, just a simple song, but when you return to re-read it it will already be gone.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The first poet I read with serious attention was Edgar Allan Poe. His morbid and nightmarish stories appealed strongly to me when I was younger. I had obtained what I thought was his complete works in one luxury volume (it turns out this wasn’t the case, though it was a hefty selection). That book included his short stories and his one novel, and then a section featuring most of his best poems. I read those poems because they were there. I might never have come to poetry at all if it hadn’t been for Poe. The most famous of his verses, ‘The Raven’ and ‘Annabel Lee’, impressed me. I revelled in the euphony of ‘A Dream Within a Dream’, ‘The City in the Sea’, ‘The Haunted Palace’ and many others. I learned ‘Eldorado’ by heart (easy) and tried to learn ‘The Conqueror Worm’ (difficult). But the Poe poem that affected me most strongly was ‘The Bells’. The lunatic music of that multistage work is extraordinary. Reading it, I felt I was a clapper in a giant bell, my head striking the sides in a complicated but precise rhythm. I have associated bells with poetry ever since. What follows are some of my own modest efforts to write poetry about various kinds of bells. Most of these verses are light-hearted, but one is a horror poem (not very scary).
BLUBELLS
A tea house in a tree is a tea tree house and the kettle on the stove is full of nettles.
A kettle full of nettles is a stinger.
A ringer of cow bells is moostly a sinner; a ringer of bluebells never.
WHY DO COWS?
Why do cows have bells?
It’s a question that still irks me.
Could it be because their horns don’t work?
THE BELL
When the bell was damaged in a thunderstorm the inhabitants of the town knew what to do to repair it well: they knew what to do to make a new hell for the outsider with all his dangerous ideas.
He came to live among them the previous year and they tolerated his ways for an eternity that was in fact three months: and for the next six they grew sick with cold tensions and loathsome apprehensions.
In order to cancel his intrusion, they chose a day to fix the bell: dragged him from his bed, bound his limbs, strung him up: a substitute clapper, not quite dead, inverted he swings, sounding the hours with his head.
MISS CLAPPER
I can’t recall if I ever knew Miss Clapper at all but well… her name rings a bell.
No, I don’t think I know her and I’m quite certain she isn’t aware of me: I am a curtain.
An artist drew me last week: tear me down to make her a dress if you truly wish to take a peek at Miss Clapper: she’s the bell of the booming ball.
SLIPPERY HIPPIES
The hippies throng when the bells ding dong and they can’t all be wrong if they sip from wells that are full of eels, those slippery hippies!
I THREW A BOOMERANG
I threw a boomerang at a bell. The clang it made was like the yell of a deep-voiced cyclops stuck in Hell. It was just a game.
It rebounded very well, that curvy stick, and struck me on the forehead quick, and I feel sick but I’m not quite dead. No one’s to blame.
That boom rang long throughout my brain, I might never be the same: on second thoughts I may be samer, only if there’s nothing saner.
I threw a boomerang at a belle. She threw it back with deadly aim, hairy arm very strong. It’s wrong to boomeranger orangutans in anger.
ASK NOT
Ask not for whom the bell tolls but what I can do for my bell.
We choose to be bells not because it’s easy but because it’s hard.
Dong dong! Whippersnapper clapper.
When eight bells toll our role becomes dismissal of the rolls we ate: their crumbs.
My thumbs are clappers inside my mug. I ring the coffee changes.
SOGGY DING DONG
There’s a bell in the well and it rings under water with a soggy ding dong and I still can never tell if it sounds unwell or better than it used to.
How it got there I don’t know, unless some strong man with a mighty throw hurled it down long ago, but I don’t really think so: there are no people who could climb the steeple to steal the bell from the lofty cathedral without losing their grip and slipping onto the hard cobbles below.
We aren’t very agile in these parts, it’s true. We aren’t gibbons or lemurs or squirrels like you and your horrid hairy friends.
BELL PEPPERS
I tried ringing a bell pepper in honour of Edgar Allan Poe. But it didn’t chime, it didn’t boom, it didn’t echo throughout the room. It just made a damp sort of splat.
I know what I did wrong. The pepper I chose was green and simply couldn’t bong like a brassy gong: it wasn’t ripe enough for that.
It should have been red like the cheeks on my head after I realised my mistake. Yes, I was embarrassed, and now I feel quite harassed by the opaque goblins of the bell pepper universe.
*I am pleased to note that I have had other bell-themed poems published by Borderless Journal. See, for example, ‘The Clock Tower of Sir Ticktock Bongg’.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A curious duck disguised itself as a human and went off to the big city to see what life was like there. He nodded politely at everyone he passed in the street and said, “Good morning.” And the people always responded to him as if he was a real human being.
The duck knew that his disguise was effective, and he felt pleased with himself. In the afternoon he went to the park to feed the ducks, which was very ironic and thus amusing. Then in the early evening he visited a pub and drank several pints of strong beer.
“Pretending to be human is easy. No one suspects the truth!” he said to himself in glee as he waddled out of the pub. Next he went to the nearest fashionable theatre, bought a ticket and saw a play. The play was about a goat that was stuck at the top of a cliff.
The actor who played the goat was a sheep and wasn’t much good, so the duck left the theatre early and strolled casually down the alleyways. In a shadowy doorway directly ahead was a woman wearing a very short skirt. “What can I do for you, ducky?” she lisped at him.
The duck was so shocked he quacked.
It was now too late to keep up the pretence. So he turned and waddled away as fast as he could. “Of all of them in this vast metropolis,” he told himself, “only she is smart. But why?”
THE BOMB SCARE
A man wanted to go to his favourite coffee shop during his lunch hour but the police had sealed off the street.
“What’s going on?” he asked a nearby officer.
“There’s been a bomb scare!” came the reply.
The man tried to peer through the cordon to see for himself. “But how did that happen?” he asked nervously, because he realised that the bomb must be right outside his coffee shop.
The policeman answered, “The bomb was sauntering along innocently enough when suddenly a ghost jumped out from nowhere and frightened it. The poor thing’s a nervous wreck.”
The man stood on tiptoes and now he could see the bomb shaking and sobbing in the street. A man in a padded camouflage jacket was patting it gently and offering it a cup of sweet tea.
“Luckily the bomb squad got here quickly,” the policeman said, “and I am confident they’ll soon calm it down.”
The man snorted in anger. “What’s the world coming to? Those ghosts ought to be ashamed of themselves, scaring a harmless bomb like that for no reason. They should be locked up!”
“We tried that a few times, but they just float out through the walls,” said the policeman.
THE FRUITY ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE
A polecat decided to throw a party for all his friends. On the morning of the occasion, he went into the forest and gathered as many kinds of fruit as he could, including apples, pears, plums, peaches, kumquats, bananas and pineapples. Then he chopped them up, threw them into an enormous bowl and poured in bottles of rum and brandy.
When the first guests arrived, he ladled some of this brew into glasses for them. It was powerful stuff and they were soon rather tipsy. More and more guests arrived and everyone had a really enjoyable time. There was music and laughter and dancing, and even, for those who like that kind of thing, plenty of howling at the full moon.
But things got out of hand when one of the drunken squirrels snatched a lighted candelabrum and ran with it up a tree. The wax dripped down on the heads of some of the other animals. “Stop that!” cried the polecat who was the host, but the squirrel ignored him.
“Let me try!” suggested a bear, and he roared up at the squirrel: “What are you doing? You’ll set the tree on fire!”
But the squirrel gave an incomprehensible reply.
This made the bear angry. “Come down here at once or I’ll punch your lights out!” he bellowed in a fierce voice.
The squirrel blew a slobbery kiss and giggled.
“I warned you!” cried the bear.
“Are you really going to punch his lights out?” gasped a worried raven who was a close friend of the squirrel.
“Too right I am! Watch this!” growled the bear as he stormed over to the table where the bowl was located.
With the polecat’s ladle he filled his glass to the brim with the fruity alcoholic beverage and then he came back and flicked his paw so that the contents were flung upwards into the tree.
The liquid splashed over the squirrel and the candelabrum but instead of extinguishing the flames it made them flare up as the rum and brandy in the mixture ignited.
The raven said: “Oh no! You punched his lights up by mistake!”
THE MAGICAL EYE
There was a magical eye that didn’t belong to any head. It just rolled over the ground and played tricks. “I bet I’m more magical than you,” it said to a genie it met on a beach one morning.
The tide had washed the bottle containing the genie onto the sands and left it there. The genie was willing to accept the eye’s challenge. “I am an outstanding genie and I’m able to transform myself into any object just by thinking about it. Can you do that too?”
“Yes, I can,” said the eye. “Watch this!” And it changed itself into one of those mechanical devices that lift heavy weights into the air. The genie scowled and copied him. “That’s very simple!” he chortled. So now there were two of those devices on the beach.
“Well then,” said the eye. “Try this for size!” And it turned into one of those tools with teeth that are used to cut through wood. The genie wasn’t impressed and he too became an identical copy of the same tool. “Child’s play!” he rasped in considerable derision.
“How about this?” cried the eye. And it transformed itself into a horse chestnut minus the spiky casing, but not an ordinary chestnut of that type. No, it had a hole drilled through it and it dangled from a string. The genie had to admit defeat. “I can’t match that.”
The magical eye was triumphant. “Then I am the best, I am the king, I am the Caesar of shapeshifters, yes I am!”
The genie was confused. “Why the Caesar?” he asked.
The answer was as follows:
“Eye crane, eye saw, eye conker!”
The genie glared at him
The magical eye said, “I’ll get my quote and leave…”
AN ANGRY CONDIMENT
A bell pepper went on holiday with a pinch of salt. After they settled into the hotel, they began unpacking. “I don’t believe this!” cried the pinch of salt. “You forgot the toothpaste!”
“I didn’t forget. I deliberately neglected to bring it.”
“But why? Are you an idiot?”
The bell pepper said, “We don’t have any teeth, so what’s the point of taking along tubes of toothpaste?”
The pinch of salt wasn’t pacified and roared: “When normal couples go on vacation they always pack hygiene items in their luggage! You bulbous lout!”
“But we’re not a couple, just good friends.”
“So you don’t fancy me?”
The bell pepper said, “Not really, no.”
There was a tense pause.
Then the pinch of salt flung itself in the bell pepper’s face. It was very lucky the pepper didn’t have eyes, otherwise they would have stung quite a bit and the salt would have dissolved in the resulting tears. Nonetheless, the bell pepper screamed loudly.
And the manager of the hotel burst into the room.
“What’s going on here then?”
He studied the situation and came to a sudden decision. Pointing at the open door he remarked coldly, “Assault and pepper, eh? Well, the holiday seasoning is over now, so get out!”
THE SHORT SENTENCE
A short sentence said, “Wait!”
“What for?” wondered a pendulum clock.
“For just a minute!”
“Which minute? I have lots!”
“Any you can spare,” said the short sentence.
“Well, I suppose you can have this one, but it’s second hand,” offered the pendulum clock as it ticked.
“I thought the second hand was the minute hand?”
“The little hand is the minute hand,” explained the clock. “The second hand is the third hand. Get it?”
“Not really, but thanks,” said the short sentence.
The pendulum clock asked meekly, “Are you entirely certain you’re a short sentence? It’s just that sometimes I can’t see your full stop. I know I’m a bit shortsighted and yet—”
“I must confess that I am mildly insulted by your remark, which tends to suggest that I have been deceiving you and the readers of this fable for reasons that probably are dubious and possibly felonious, and I wish most strongly to stress that I am now, always have been, and certainly intend to remain, to the utmost of my ability, for the entire duration of my lifespan, however long that may be, a very short sentence, and I will regard anyone who insinuates that the contrary is true with enormous rancour and I may even resort to legal proceedings to restore my tarnished reputation, so let this be a warning,” said the short sentence.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” sincerely apologised the pendulum clock.
BRASSED OFF
“I’m really rather good at my job,” said a wolf, but a wise sage overheard him and wagged a finger. “Never blow your own trumpet,” he quoted. He then went back to meditating and levitating.
The wolf frowned and thought deeply about this advice. “He’s right. I won’t forget his words in a hurry!”
Talking about a hurry, the wolf was late for work.
He turned up at the concert hall with just a few minutes to spare. Then he took his position on the stage. The conductor, who was a pine marten, used his tail as a baton to keep time.
The music burst from the orchestra like an exploding simile!
It was Honey Empathy’s Sympathy in Bee.
Are you familiar with that piece?
I’m not either. Anyway… Now was the exact moment when the brass section had to join in the music with their own instruments. But the wolf remembered what the sage had told him and he leaned quickly across to his nearest neighbour, who happened to be a rabbit. The rabbit saw what the wolf intended and tried to stop him.
“What are you doing? Get your paws off that!”
“Sorry,” said the wolf, “but I’ve been told by a reliable source that to blow my own trumpet is wrong. So I intend to blow yours instead. If you like, you can play mine on my behalf.”
“You buffoon!” wailed the rabbit. “I don’t play the trumpet. I play the trombone. They sound utterly different!”
SLEEPY UPRISING
The squirrel roared, “When are the people of Hiber going to wake up and become a nation?” His tone was passionate and his audience agreed that it was a dramatic speech. They applauded with their paws and hooves or whistled with their beaks. The squirrel acknowledged the reaction with a wave and dismounted the platform.
But an alligator approached him and said shyly, “I like the sentiments you expressed, but there’s a flaw in your reasoning. You want the people of the province of Hiber to wake up?”
“Yes, yes, it’s about time,” replied the squirrel.
“Why is that?” asked the alligator.
“Because they’ve been oppressed for generations and only when they win independence for themselves will they be free to embrace the liberty that is the birthright of all beings.”
The alligator cleared its throat and remarked, “If the people of Hiber wake up and become a nation, they will automatically be in Hiber Nation and therefore unable to wake up…”
The squirrel frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that!”
CLOUD DISCO
A buttercup said to a fox, “Isn’t it weird how the clouds seem to gather on the horizon at sunset? The sky above us is mostly clear but in the far west there are many clouds packed tight.”
“The twilight sky is a disco, that’s why,” replied the fox.
“What do you mean?” asked the buttercup.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” said the fox. “Clouds often like to go dancing in the summer evenings. The dome of the sky is the dancefloor but only a few clouds are confident enough to go to the middle and strut their stuff. The others tend to linger on the edges.”
“I wonder what music they dance to? Do you suppose it might be the music of the spheres?” cried the buttercup.
“That’s classical music. I already told you that the sky at this time of day is a disco. It must be disco music.”
“Name me some examples,” pleaded the buttercup.
“I can’t,” admitted the fox sadly. “I can’t think of any puns involving clouds and disco music, sorry. Maybe the reader can do that for you. I’m off to my own dance class now. Bye!”
“Really? Are you learning disco dancing too?”
“Nope, the foxtrot,” said the fox.
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A genie lived happily in a green glass bottle until the bottle was accidentally smashed by a meteorite. The genie went on the rampage, getting drunk, taking drugs, starting fires in rubbish tips and stealing food from shops. “I hope you have a good excuse for your deplorable behaviour!” protested the meteorite.
The genie nodded. “Yes I do. I come from a broken home.”
THE HIGHLY QUALIFIED NOSE
An aardvark went for a job interview. “Why do you have apricot jam on your nose?” was the first question.
“It’s a long story,” replied the aardvark.
“Not as long as your nose, I bet!” chuckled the horse who was conducting the interview. Probably he thought he was the first entity to make that joke.
“Look,” said the aardvark reasonably. “I have all the qualities you require in a foreman of a spice factory. I can sniff and retrieve cardamom pods that have rolled under benches; I can sniff and retrieve chillies that have fallen behind jars; I can sniff and retrieve saffron that has—”
“Can you sniff and retrieve this?” cried the horse.
“Huh? Atchoo!!!”
The horse put away the sample of black pepper and pointed at the door with a hoof. “Sorry, I can’t offer you the job. You have a highly qualified nose but when it came to the interview stage you blew it.”
ACTING THE GOAT
A sheep decided to join the theatre. Her first role was to play a goat that got itself stuck at the top of a cliff.
The director told her that she had to convey fear, anguish and despair so convincingly that the people in the audience would believe the scripted predicament was real. But on the play’s opening night, the woolly actress forgot her lines and began laughing.
The director was outraged and rushed onto the stage in full view of the audience. “Start acting the goat!” he cried.
THE WARLORD
A warlord spent all his pocket money on tubes and jars of tomato purée. Because he was a warlord he had very big pockets made from chain mail, so that he could keep maces, knives and hand-axes in them without fear of the sharp spikes and blades making a hole in the fabric and falling out and landing on his foot and injuring it.
Because his pockets were so large, his pocket money was considerable and he was able to purchase enormous amounts of tomato purée. At home he filled ice-trays with the purée and froze them in his freezer until he had many blocks of frozen concentrated tomato pulp. With these blocks, each of which resembled a little brick, he constructed a building at the bottom of the garden. It was a small building with only one room and he used it as storage space for all his garden tools.
A distant relative came to visit him. “What are you doing?” he asked in astonishment, when he saw the tomato purée house, which was beginning to sag in the heat of the sun.
“I’m a warlord,” said the warlord, “and I read in a book of history that in order to be a genuine warlord, one must shed blood. I don’t particularly like blood, so I’m using tomato purée instead. I might shed other kinds of vegetable juices too, if I have the time.”
THE MIDAIR MEETING
Two boomerangs met in midair. They were polite to each other. “How do you do?” said one of them. “Pleased to make your acquaintance!” replied the other. Then there was a brief pause.
“Well, I must be getting back now,” said the first.
“Me too,” added the second.
“I’ve got an idea,” said the first boomerang, who was mischievous and liked to play practical jokes. “Why don’t we swap owners? They’ll never be able to tell the difference. Instead of turning around at this point, you keep going forward and I’ll do the same; and we’ll end up in the hands of new people. That might be a laugh.”
“I’ve got an even better idea,” retorted the second boomerang. “Why don’t we fall in love and get married?”
“I bet that’s what they’re hoping we’ll do! No, I prefer my own idea. I enjoy fooling humans: it’s great fun!”
And so they both continued in a straight line and were caught by hands that hadn’t thrown them. The owners of those hands looked glumly down at the lengths of curved wood and said, “Releasing them into boomerang society hasn’t worked in the way we anticipated. They didn’t meet a mate but changed identity instead. Weird!”
THE EQUATOR’S MISTAKE
The Greenwich Meridian said to the Equator, “Why have you dressed up in that ridiculous outfit? Four paws, a tail, a golden mane and long teeth! I can’t see any good reason for it.”
“I’m expressing what I really am,” came the reply.
“But you’re the Equator! That’s what you really are. I wonder who has been filling your head — not that you have one —with such rubbish? Did you read one of those books again?”
“Yes I did. It was an encyclopaedia. And it told me that the Equator is an ‘imaginary lion that runs around the world’. Now I’m off for my first run of infinity. See you on each lap!”
RHINO COP
A rhinoceros joined the police force. They told him, “First you arrest the criminals and then you charge them.”
He nodded and went off to tackle crime in the big city. He saw a man trying to steal a cabbage in a greengrocer’s and he shouted out that the fellow was under arrest.
“But I was just testing its firmness!” the man replied.
“You’re under arrest anyway,” the rhino said.
“On what charge?” demanded the man.
“On this one!” bellowed the rhino as he charged him.
The cabbage was rescued…
Later, back at the police station, the rhino said, “I had a busy first day at work. I arrested ten criminals and charged all of them, but now there’s no room left on my horn and the blood is trickling into my eyes. Will you remove them for me? Much appreciated!”
POOR VISIBILITY
A gorgon was driving her jaguar through the pouring rain. The jaguar was growling and grumbling because cats don’t like water. “Why don’t you stop at the next settlement and find shelter?” he asked. “If you keep going, you’ll be certain to crash.”
“Crash? Why should I do that?” asked the gorgon.
“Because of the poor visibility!”
“No need for you to worry about that!” answered the gorgon. “I’ve got a set of windscreen vipers on my head.”
THE NEW KNIGHT
“I’ve not seen you at Camelot before,” said Sir Galahad.
“That’s right,” answered the new knight, “I’m just doing a one-off job for King Arthur. He has started using workers who aren’t affiliated with the Round Table. I’m one of those.”
“Oh, I see,” sniffed Sir Galahad. “And you are Sir—?”
“Freelancealot,” came the reply.
ANTIMATTER PASTA
The astronomer removed his eye from the telescope. “I have got some startling news! The sun is going out!”
“Going out? Going out?” came the shocked response. “This is terrible! A catastrophe! You mean to say that…”
“Yes,” replied the astronomer grimly. “It seems that a new restaurant has opened beyond the orbit of Pluto!”
THE FLYING FISH
A shoal of flying fish was swimming through the ocean. Suddenly one of the fish nearest the front shouted, “Our way forward is blocked by a mass of ice! I never expected such a thing!”
“A mass of ice?” cried one of the more experienced members of the shoal. “Oh, I see what you mean…” His name was Lindy and he held the fish record for the longest solo flight.
“Have you seen this before?” asked the first fish.
“Yes, it’s an iceberg,” said Lindy.
“Well, let’s just fly over it! We are flying fish, after all. We can easily re-enter the ocean on the far side.”
“Be careful!” Lindy answered.
“What for? I’ll go first. It will be simple!”
“Not true,” warned Lindy. “You must glide very high when you make the attempt; and so must the fish that follow. Don’t you realise that 10% of an iceberg lies above the water…?”
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A pig, a waffle, a box, a chump, a resentment, a caterpillar, a gift, a loom, a cuttlefish, an aurora borealis, a duvet, a chair, a sunken continent, a cup that runneth over, an ancient paradox, a snivel, a bone, a toothless cog, a piecrust, a passionate kiss, an aching thigh, a broken window, a phantom, a cat, a bathtub, a chimney clogged with twigs, a forced laugh, a chewed pencil, a beetroot stain, a vague feeling, a hovercraft, an argument, a dog, an example of jargon, a butterfly, a solecism, a grotesque fiend, a coconut shy, a confident papaya and a thousand other things had gathered together in a restaurant for a celebratory meal.
The waiter came over to their table and shook his head.
“It’s off, I’m afraid,” he told them.
“But that’s nonsense! We haven’t ordered yet!”
The waiter smiled and said, “I didn’t mean the food, I meant the moral. There’s no way you’ll make a decent fable out of this situation. There are far too many characters in the story.”
THE IMPROBABLE VELOCIPEDE
A rich and powerful madman clapped his hands and said, “See that tall mountain over there? I want you to remove it from its base and set it on two wheels; then I want you to connect the back wheel to a system of gears and pedals, so that a climber sitting on the summit of the peak can make the whole thing trundle along.”
“That’s a really big job,” people warned him.
“So what? I’m rich and powerful and I can easily afford it. Do what I say with minimal delay!”
Six months later it was ready. As the madman pedalled the mass of rock and ice along, sounding his alpenhorn at pedestrians, he chuckled to himself. “I’ve always wanted a mountain bike.”
THE SEA SERPENT AND THE ROWING BOAT
A sea serpent fell in love with a rowing boat. “I love you. Do you love me in return?” asked the sea serpent.
“Yes, I think so,” replied the rowing boat.
“Despite the enormous age difference? I mean, I’m a living fossil from the Jurassic period but you were constructed in 1959; and the trees from which you are made aren’t older than a hundred years. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a younger monster?”
The rowing boat dismissed her anxieties.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s my design that matters, not my building materials. And that dates back several thousand years at least. So put your mind at rest and let’s get smoochy!”
The sea serpent was happy to be formally courted by the rowing boat. Every day he brought her a little gift, usually a human being that she was able to devour in one tasty gulp.
One afternoon the rowing boat turned up with a man dressed in a frock coat and top hat. This man struggled with the oars but he wasn’t in control and had to go where the rowing boat wanted. Then the rowing boat cried out, “Look honey! A saint for you!”
The sea serpent surfaced at that point. “A saint?”
“I thought it was time we got properly engaged. That is how much I love you! It occurred to me that a saint’s halo could be used as a ring. It’s up to you whether you accept or not…”
The sea serpent examined the occupant of the boat.
“It’s a very sweet idea,” she said, “and of course I would accept. But I don’t think this fellow is a saint. He looks more like an industrialist. And he doesn’t have a halo, just a top hat.”
“He’s in disguise. His halo is beneath the hat!”
“So it is! How odd! Yum!”
THE LOST FABLE
A fable that was lost burst into tears. “I don’t belong in this collection of postmodern fripperies. I’m a decent fable, not a facile whimsy, and I was originally part of a traditional collection with real morals and everything. This Rhysop fellow has debased the form with his travesties and I want no part of his despicable project.”
A passing crow asked, “What’s the issue?”
The fable told him and the crow replied that he knew a clever earwig who could easily solve his problem.
So the fable set off on a long journey and eventually reached the cave where the earwig lived. When the earwig asked him what the matter was, the fable said, “Can you take me out of this set of facile fables and put me into Aesop’s collection instead?”
“Are you sure about that?” the earwig asked.
The fable nodded, so the earwig went to consult one of his books of magic and then he waved his legs in a special way and the fable vanished from sight. “What a strange request!” muttered the earwig to himself, as he went back to playing scales on the zither; he was learning the zither in his spare time. Why the devil not?
Aesop’s fables were passed on in the oral tradition and were written down only many centuries after the real Aesop (lived between 620 and 564 BCE) died in Greece. He was a slave
The fable opened its eyes and found itself wedged among dozens of used napkins and handkerchiefs. “This isn’t the middle of Aesop’s Fables! Where are the hare and the tortoise and all the other favourites? All I can see are snot rags and stained bibs!”
Across time and space floated the voice of the earwig. “The historical Aesop was a slave. He didn’t actually write down his fables. And he didn’t have enough money or opportunity to indulge any normal hobbies, so he made do with collecting bits of discarded cloth. This is the only collection Aesop ever had in his lifetime…”
“Now he tells me!” groaned the fable.
THE SCARED GHOST
There was a ghost who was scared of life. “But you’re already dead and the danger is over,” pointed out a skeleton.
“D-d-d-d-don’t tempt fate!” shivered the ghost.
“What is it exactly about life that alarms you so much?” the skeleton asked. The ghost turned elap and began…
“One moment!” cried the skeleton. “What is ‘elap’?”
“The opposite of pale,” answered the ghost. “Living men and women turn pale when they are scared; so it follows that a frightened ghost will turn elap. That’s logical, isn’t it?”
The skeleton waved a bony hand. “Fair enough. Continue.”
“I’ve forgotten what I was going to say…”
“It can’t have been important, in that case,” said the skeleton.
The ghost shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“What are you doing tonight?” asked the skeleton.
“Are you hitting on me?”
“Yes, I am. I’ve fancied you for ages.”
“As it happens, I’m free. What did you have in mind?”
“How about the cinema?”
“I don’t know. What are they showing?”
“A romance. It’s all about a man and a woman who meet on a train and fall in love and kiss each other with lips. Then they get married and dwell happily ever after in a nice house.”
The ghost recoiled. “No! I hate horror films!”
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
A ghost once used its entire deathtime’s savings to purchase a mainframe computer, to make possible the calculation of some of the parameters of the afterlife, I don’t know which ones. But after operating for many hours at a frantic pace, the device froze.
“Bother!” exclaimed the ghost. “It must be jammed on the inside. I had better find out what the trouble is.”
The ghost was the romantic partner of a skeleton and didn’t want to be the victim of sarcasm when it became obvious what a waste of money the machine had been. “I ought to try and fix it before ‘Bones’ gets back,” the ghost said to itself in desperation.
So it floated through the computer and ended up on the inside, but one of its wisps got snagged on a diode and it couldn’t get back out. When the skeleton returned from work and heard the cries for help emanating from within the mainframe, it was astonished and thought there was some deep symbolic meaning in this incident.
“I didn’t know computers had souls!” it gasped.
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
An antibody met a germ and said, “How do you do? I am very happy to make your acquaintance. Would you like a cup of tea? May I fetch you a small cake? If you require anything to improve your comfort, please let me know and I’ll do my best to provide it. I like your colour, shape and other physical characteristics. You are cool. You are grand. What a fine germ you are! I admire you so much.”
“Well, that reaction wasn’t what I was expecting!” cried the germ. “I came here to infect this bloodstream, but I don’t think I’ll do that now. I am too charmed by your kind words.”
“It’s a new style of resistance and I’m glad it seems to work. It’s called diplomatic immunity,” said the antibody.
TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK
A monkey that had more than two cheeks on its face was sprawled on the ground when a clever sage who knew everything there is to know about religion, philosophy and ethics happened to pass by. “Why do you look so sad and angry?” the sage enquired.
“I imagine it’s because I keep getting insulted,” said the monkey, “on account of my utterly freakish visage.”
“And that’s why you are lying in the dirt, is it?”
“Yes, I’m prone with hairy despair.”
The sage snorted and answered, “Whenever someone hurts you, turn the other cheek. That’s all you need to do. Try it and you’ll go far, believe me. I’m a sage and full of wisdom.”
The monkey considered his advice.
“Fair enough, I will,” he said.
And because he needed the practice, he started turning the other cheek immediately; but because he had so many of them, and because they went right around his head, he began rolling along the ground. He went faster and faster as he kept turning them, accelerating like a horizontal tornado that stank of banana juice and peanuts.
Soon he had vanished over the horizon. The sage smiled.
“I said he’d go far, didn’t I?”
GOOSE WRITING ADVICE
“Hey, what are you doing?” cried a goose as it waddled past a man who was brushing tar all over the manuscript of an unpublished book. “Why are you coating that tome with the sticky thick residue of the petroleum industry? That is peculiar behaviour!”
“I’m pitching my new novel,” came the answer.
“You fool!” cackled the goose. “You’re supposed to proofread it, not waterproof it. But the real issue is that you’re supposed to pitch the idea to a publisher first, not the actual book.”
“Pitch the idea?” frowned the man.
“That’s the way it is usually done,” confirmed the goose.
“But the idea is contained in the manuscript, embodied by the prose I have employed to tell the story that occurs, so by pitching the book I am also pitching the idea within, aren’t I?”
“You employed prose? What wages did you pay it?”
“Don’t try to be hilarious, bird!”
The goose said, “Well, pitching a novel is no use if the idea is smeared over and thus can’t be appreciated.”
The man considered this. “I see your point. Luckily the idea still exists in my head. I keep a copy there. So if I pitch my head, but leave a gap so the idea can still be viewed from outside, I’ll stand a better chance of my novel being published. Is that right?”
“Yes. It works for me,” replied the goose.
So the man began coating his head with tar and eventually only one of his ears jutted out from the black mess.
THE GLOVE
“I wish I could fly!” sighed a glove. “It’s true that I enjoy surfing waves; but waves only occur when the person who waves me lifts their hand and makes a gesture meaning hello or goodbye. Flying is surely superior to surfing or any other activity. I wish I knew the secret of rising into the air and staying there.”
“I’ll teach you to fly,” offered a hot-air balloon who happened to be drifting past. And he did exactly that. He showed the glove how to fill itself with hydrogen gas and seal itself at the wrist. Away flew the glove and thanks to a bizarre meteorological phenomenon involving the lower atmosphere acting like a magnifying lens, the flying item of handy fashion appeared much bigger than it really was, dominating the whole sky. You know what they say:
¶ Glove is in the air: everywhere you look around.
EDUCATED SHAPES
A myopic triangle that had gone to university to study economics became friendly with a segment and one day said, “Will you come dancing with me tonight? Then maybe we could go for a walk in the moonlight. I like you very much, to be perfectly candid.”
The segment blushed. “I must reject your amorous proposal for the simple reason that we’re not compatible.”
“What do you mean? We are both young triangles.”
The segment shook its head. “I’m not. You must be very shortsighted indeed. One of my sides is curved. I’m a segment, part of a circle. In fact I came to university in the first place to graduate as a complete circle, but it’s taking a very long time, I’m afraid.”
“Pardon my mistake!” cried the mortified triangle.
“I have been at this university for a hundred years already,” sighed the segment, “and I probably won’t leave for another century or two. I have studied so many subjects I feel sick!”
“But why can’t you graduate sooner than that?”
The segment answered sadly, “Because to become a proper accredited circle I require exactly 360 degrees.”
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
A group of creatures sat on a wall watching the sunset. The wall had been constructed to stop the sand from the beach blowing over the fields where crops grew. The scene was beautiful.
The hare said, “Let’s jump down and dance for joy.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
The weasel cried, “I’m coming too!” and he also jumped down. So did the fox, cat, monkey, grasshopper and aardvark. They capered in the ruby light and their shadows on the beach were amazingly long. The millipede was scared and remained on the wall.
“It’s a long way down,” he said nervously.
The hare said, “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt if you just bend your knees when you land to absorb the impact.”
“Bend my knees!” exclaimed the millipede. “But it’s almost evening. I don’t have all day, you know!”
BATHTIME FOR MOONS
A crescent moon was feeling tired, so he decided to have a nice dip in the Pacific Ocean. He lay back on his curve and just floated there without a care in the world or a care in the moon.
But an iceberg happened to pass along and when it saw the moon it couldn’t believe its eyes, partly because it didn’t have any eyes and partly because it had no belief. Yet it was amazed.
“Oh my!” it muttered to itself. “Look at the size of that banana!”
NET PROFIT
Drifting along in space, a cosmic spider was explaining to a galactic moth how it caught supper for itself. “First I make a web and then if I wait long enough, I always catch something edible.”
The moth was intrigued. “What’s your favourite food?”
“Planets,” answered the spider.
“Do you catch many of those, I wonder?”
The spider nodded. “So many that I can’t eat them all, so I leave some in storage for a rainy day. We don’t get many rainy days in outer space, but you know what I mean. Anyway, the funny thing is that some of these planets are infested with parasites.”
“Civilisations, you mean?” queried the moth.
“Exactly. And the inhabitants of those civilisations often think that my webs are lines of latitude and longitude. They sometimes use the separate strands for navigational purposes.”
“That’s hilarious!” chuckled the moth.
“Isn’t it?” agreed the spider.
The moth said, “Well, it was nice talking to you, but I’ve got work to do now. I have to circle that star over there a hundred times and then try to extinguish it by flying into it.”
“Good luck. Take care,” said the spider.
NOT A PATCH
A cumulus cloud kept rushing through the atmosphere, north, south, east and west; it never stopped for a moment. A sentient hot-air balloon asked if it had lost something. “I can’t think of any other reason why you should be hurrying through the sky like that.”
“I’m looking for a patch on sunlight on the ground,” said the cumulus cloud, “because I have been told they are worth seeing, but whenever I learn that one has appeared somewhere, it always vanishes by the time I arrive at the designated location. All I get to see is a shadow that happens to be precisely the same shape as me.”
“That’s a weird coincidence,” said the hot-air balloon. “The same thing happens to me but on a smaller scale.”
SWEET TALK
A chimp, a scarf and a hive were debating among themselves which of them had the most beautiful life. “I can peel bananas with my feet,” said the chimp, “and that’s one of the most beautiful things anyone can ever hope to do.” But the scarf wasn’t intimidated in the slightest and shouted, “I get thrown around necks and often my ends just dangle down, but in a strong wind they stick out horizontally; how can any conceivable thing be more beautiful than that?” But the hive laughed and said, “Flying insects live inside me and fill me with honey.”
Beauty is in the ‘i’ of the bee-holder.
JAM ON AN AARDVARK’S NOSE
A gorilla was bored and made a private vow that he would do something that nobody else had ever done before, so he travelled for many months until he came across an aardvark asleep in the shade of a tree. “Sorry for waking you,” said the gorilla, “but I’m wondering if you can do me a favour?” The aardvark responded sleepily, “What’s that, my hairy friend from faraway?” The gorilla explained, “Just stay where you are while I spread some apricot jam on your nose.”
The aardvark sighed. “You didn’t have to wake me up to make that request! You could have just gone ahead and spread the jam when I was sleeping and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.” The gorilla accepted this rebuke meekly and opened the jam jar.
When the nose was completely covered in jam, the gorilla stood back to examine his work. “Are you satisfied?” asked the aardvark. “Yes, it’s not bad,” said the gorilla. “Did you want anything else?” questioned the aardvark. “No, that’s sufficient. I’ll go home now. Nice to meet you and thanks for this opportunity. Goodbye!”
And the gorilla began the journey back home, but when he arrived, he found that his female had run off with an ocarina.
An Ocarina. From Public Domain
ABOVE HIS STATION
A philosopher was travelling on a train from Swansea to Tenby. It was a nice journey, but he wasn’t happy because his mind was a blank. It was his official job to keep having ideas, but not a single new one had come to him for ages. When he reached his destination, he got out of the train with the words, “This is my station.”
As he stood on the platform, he wondered if jumping into the air might help. So he made a pole from the branch of a tree and pole-vaulted over the railway tracks. As he reached the highest point of his immense jump, a new idea finally came to him.
His delight was short lived. On the opposite platform a hippopotamus was waiting for its own train and it happened to be yawning at that exact moment, maybe because it was tired or practicing for a competition. The philosopher landed in its mouth and vanished down its throat and into its stomach, never to be seen again.
Don’t get ideas above your station.
THE ROOK AND THE JACKDAW
A crow that had recently eaten cheese and olives with a scarecrow was interested in unusual friendships. He saw a rook and a jackdaw together in a field and said, “Excuse me, but I’m curious to know why rooks and jackdaws always seem to get on so well. You never mix with ravens or magpies or jays or any other corvid.”
“Rooks and jackdaws are natural allies,” said the jackdaw.
“Yes, but why?” persisted the crow.
“Because we have a shared interest in chess,” said the rook.
The crow was amazed. “Really?”
“Yes, it’s true,” confirmed the jackdaw, “but you won’t see us with a board and we use random objects for pieces. For instance, this twig is the white king and this leaf is the queen.”
“What are the pawns?” asked the crow.
“These little stones here.”
“What about the bishops and the knights?”
“Worms and mushrooms.”
“And the piece that is shaped like a castle? I can’t remember its proper name. What do you use for that?”
“I play that part myself,” said the rook.
APPEARANCE OF THE REALM
A strange face materialised above the bed of a weasel. “What the heck are you?” muttered the trembling weasel.
“An unexplained appearance,” came the answer.
“Is that like a ghost?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
“Well, what do you want?” asked the weasel.
“I need to borrow some cash.”
“Whatever for?”
The appearance sighed sadly and said, “I’m not any old appearance but an appearance of the realm, which is the most significant kind. I lost my bulging wallet in a strong current.”
“Was that a current of water or a current of air?”
“Neither. A landslide of dried grapes.”
The weasel was sympathetic. “Look, I only have £35,000 on me at the present time. Is that sufficient?”
The appearance nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
The weasel handed the money over. “When will you pay me back?”
“Tomorrow,” said the appearance.
Then he dematerialised, leaving the weasel much poorer. “I think I’ve been tricked,” said the weasel to himself.
And it was true. He had. The appearance never returned. And when the weasel checked on Wikipedia, he learned that there was no such thing as an ‘appearance of the realm’.
¶ Appearances can be deceptive.
SILLY GOOSE
A meteorite skimmed low over a pond. “Duck!” cried a heron. All the birds dived under the water except one, who was grazed painfully by the passing of the fiery space stone. “Why didn’t you warn me?” it shouted at the heron. “But I did!” came the response. “No, you didn’t,” insisted the wounded bird. “I shouted out ‘Duck’,” said the heron. “Yes indeed,” was the retort to this, “but I’m a goose.”
A QUICK DRINK
Three friends went into a bar. “I’ll have a glass of brandy,” said the first friend, who was an old fellow.
“Vodka for me,” said the second friend, who was a tomb.
The barman served them efficiently.
Now it was the third friend’s turn. He happened to be an egg. “Give me a stiff shot of rum!” he ordered.
The barman shook his head. “Sorry. You’re underage.”
“What do you mean?” cried the egg.
“You haven’t even hatched yet!” pointed out the barman.
“Look here,” responded the egg, “I’m much older than my two friends. The old fellow is only ninety-eight years old; the tomb dates merely from 450 BC; but I’m the egg of a dinosaur.”
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
He went for a walk in the salty sea, tripped over a ship, a Spanish galleon.
He went for a stroll in a summer meadow, fell over a horse, a thoroughbred stallion.
And every time he stubbed his toes he shouted, “Oh no! I’m a clumsy giant.”
He went for a saunter in haunted woodland, tripped over a ghost and injured his hand.
He went for a ramble on a deserted beach, slipped on a peach skin, made a hole in the sand.
And every time he stubbed his toes he shouted, “Oh no! I’m a clumsy giant.”
He liked to promenade with a vat of lemonade along the clifftop, not afraid of the drop.
But accidents happen and over he went with a roll of thunder accompanied by clapping.
And every time he stubbed his toes he shouted, “Oh no! I’m a clumsy giant.”
Cyclops Billy was his friend, Cyclops Billy advised him to mend before he went walking again and risked a tripping over monsters and men.
Cyclops Billy is tired of his groans, Cyclops Billy adopted a tone of gentle rebuke to the great fluke, cushioned his bones and proffered him soup.
And every time he stubbed his toes he shouted, “Oh no! I’m a clumsy giant.”
Thank you, Thank you, I feel much better, the giant admitted in a letter, and then he went on his way to take a tour of pastures new, to take a look and see the view, hoping to do so without any hassle.
He climbed a tree higher and higher and reached the top with a skip and a hop and took the look that he desired, saw the sunset all on fire.
He climbed a mountain even higher, reached the summit before he retired, scared the yeti who lived up there until the poor creature lost all its hair.
On an avalanche he descended, soonest broken is soonest mended, crashed into a castle from a storybook, rented by a vampire but owned by a spook.
And every time he stubbed his toes he shouted, “Oh no! I’m a clumsy giant.”
From Public Domain
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
What exactly is a prose poem? It seems to be a very short story, but not quite. It isn’t a flash fiction. I mean, it almost is, but it isn’t. I realised that I don’t really know what a prose poem is, but I do know that I like them.
From Public Domain
A few years ago, I read The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem. I picked it from a library shelf without any great expectations. I don’t mean that the library shelf didn’t have Great Expectations. I am sure it had that book and plenty of other volumes by Dickens. No, I mean that I wasn’t anticipating much. And let’s be clear: not every piece in that Penguin anthology was excellent or even good. Far from it! There was a lot of pretentious nonsense and word salad gibberish, and some of the best-known writers represented in the pages were responsible for some of the worst contributions. But there was enough brilliance to elevate the entire collection, and in fact I even came to the conclusion that the gems were set off to better effect because of the presence of the duds.
According to the chronology of the contents of that anthology, the prose poem first became a viable mode of artistic expression in the 1840s. I have no idea how true this is. I can only be sure of my own prose poems. Maybe ‘sure’ is too strong a word. I still wonder if they are true prose poems and not flash fictions that are simply more condensed and intense than most flash fictions. All I can do is offer a small sample of my own, four of them from various stages of my 35 year-long writing career. And let me say that I can envisage a day when I stop writing short stories, novels, plays, articles and poems, but still write prose poems (if that’s what these are) because I love the form so much.
The Landscape Player
At first he played music on his instruments, reaching his audience through the purest melodies. His music washed over them, elevating them, burning their eyelids with tears or else trembling their lips with a dozen different kinds of smile. And when the vast wall of sound he had created had died away, there would be a silence more moving than any applause. In time, he noticed that listeners were describing his music in terms of feelings. They spoke not of harmony and rhythm but of sadness and joy. They spoke not of keys and modes, but of elation and despair. The music was merely an interface. Accordingly, he started making instruments that played emotions instead of notes. His scheme worked well; the critics were enraptured. His harps were threaded with heartstrings and plucked with plectrums made from the fingernails of dead lovers. His Miserychords and Tromgroans explored the outer limits of tragedy, a lugubrious drone agitated by the pounding Kettle Glums. While on a different level, the Mirthophone, Memory Gongs and rasp of the Double Bliss provided a counterpoint of cautious hope and nostalgia. The reviews were extremely favourable. People came from all over the land to hear him. But once again, they took refuge in metaphor. Now they spoke not of sadness and joy, elation and despair, but of a sea of tears dotted with misty islands, of evil vales of shadow and rosy mountains bathed in light, of dank, gnarled forests webbed on mossy floors by a thousand cheerful babbling brooks. They explained their emotions in terms of landscape. Deeply troubled and filled with rage, he took apart his instruments and reassembled them into something new. Now he could play landscapes. In seven minutes, he could play out his own Creation there on the stage, before them all. With his fingers on middle-sea and various salt flats, he stood them ankle-deep in puddles where an angry sun had dried up a prehistoric ocean. Salt on their shoes, they kicked sand in a purple cloud, sliding across the desert toward a ruined amphitheatre. On and on they travelled, over the craggy sharps of unknown ranges that lacerated the sky. His brazen scales swung them in the balance; they ascended the crackling walls of icebergs and toppled over the other side. His miner chords took them deep beneath the Earth, under the drifting continents through a molten sea. And then, emerging from the depths of a volcano, they wove through a jungle of semi-quavers, trampled a tundra of tones. The crashing crescendo became an enormous tidal wave bearing down on their heads, sweeping them onto the rolling steppes of the Coda. They suddenly realised that they were witnessing every sight that had ever existed and others that never would exist. They were exhausted, they were jaded. This was his revenge. And yet, he had overlooked one detail. As he played the final chord, ready to storm off the stage, the final landscape shimmered into view. It was the landscape of the Concert Hall itself, complete with musician and instruments. He saw himself begin the piece afresh, from the overture. He guessed that he had condemned himself to an endless cycle of craters, sand dunes and rivers. The audience grew restless. They yawned and fanned themselves. When he came around to the Jurassic again, most of them stood up and left. By the end of the Ice Age, the auditorium was empty. He had tried too hard to connect directly with other people. He had forgotten that only in the act of love can the gap between desire and outcome be truly bridged. Some say that he is still there, multiplying himself forever, squeezing himself into the mouth of eternity like a snake that swallows its own tail, or like a raconteur who swallows his own tale. Others maintain that he has already reached infinity and has been set free to play a penny whistle on street corners. Either way, it is generally agreed that, in the world of music, he managed to create something of a scene.
Rumpledoodle Dandy
I went to the loan shark but they were out of hammerheads. I don’t know how I am going to drive my nails back onto my fingers. I guess I don’t have to drive them, they can always walk or cycle. They can even cycle back afterwards, but that counts as recycling and all the counts are at an aristocrats’ meeting at the moment. How many counts are there? I didn’t keep note. The best kept note is G#, the others tend to go off faster. They positively fly. Fly? Those flies were thick on the ground. When they took off, they were cleverer. They took off their smocks and berets. Why they wore fruit on their heads is anyone’s guess. Straw berets rot rapidly in the rain, that’s true. But the reign is over. Over where? Over there! Where Rumpledoodle Dandy sits on a throne and wears a crown that is the talk of the town. Strange king! He has fitted wheels to his palace and now he’s the torque of the town too.
A Man on Stilts
There was a man on stilts and his stilts kept growing taller. He might have been an acrobat or fool, a visionary or scoundrel, nobody knew. At first, he just stood on stilts that were as high as telegraph poles, and he strode about the city with a perspiring face. But under the sheen of his sweat, he was smiling. The following day his stilts had already doubled in height. And now he stepped over trams and trains with an ease that bordered on the obscene, as if the traffic was beneath his notice, as if those vehicles were discarded toys or slices of dropped cake. Within a week his stilts were so high he could step over any building in any city of the nation or indeed of any other country. What can be said to such a man? How can anyone communicate with him? No crane could reach him, no ladder. A helicopter was sent up to negotiate, but the clatter of the rotors drowned out the conversation. An aeronaut in a balloon managed to float beside him for several hours. They discussed many topics but whether the exchange was cordial or heated is uncertain. A gust of wind puffed the aeronaut away over the ocean and he vanished. Long after we had given up hope of speaking with him, of learning his name and intentions, a sheet of paper floated gently down to street level. It was a letter he had written to us. When we read it, we were compelled to grimace. His handwriting was clear and his message unambiguous. His stilts would keep growing longer forever, he said. There was nothing we could do about the situation. There was nothing he could do. His destiny was an elevated one. Why fret about his altitude? Why worry about the ethics of his movements, the purity of his motives? Higher and higher he would go, his ersatz legs lengthening each day by a significant percentage. Soon enough, he would be able to stride from continent to continent. Then he would circumnavigate the globe in two or three quick steps. Finally he would be able to bridge the gap between this planet and the moon or even stand on other worlds. We accepted this, some of us. Others argued for the cutting down of those monstrous stilts, for the burning of them, for the introduction of woodworm or woodpeckers. Anything to bring him back, to stop him striding about like the god of storks. We waited in vain for more letters to float down. At last it seems he rose up through the atmosphere until his head protruded beyond the bubble of air that permits life. His face was in space and he suffocated there. His body toppled and fell and burned up like a meteor. But a rumour began that he is still falling and this rumour has turned into a modern myth. People wait to be struck by his cadaver, to be grotesquely blessed. The stilts themselves did not fall. They have grown so heavy that they are driving themselves slowly into the ground. They will push through the crust of our planet and ignite in the magma far below. In the meantime, we harness their sliding motion, connecting both stilts to a series of cogs and crankshafts, and we congratulate ourselves on our ingenuity. We might even find a practical use one day for the rotating toothed wheels. The letter from the sky has been obtained by the museum and it can be viewed in a glass case in one of the rooms, I have no idea which one. I never visit the museum. My grandmother is there, pickled in a jar, and I prefer to avoid gazing at her.
Ocean of Words
They were separated by a vast body of water, the ocean, and they longed to press their own bodies together, but it was not possible. When would it be permitted? Only when distance was abolished. They wrote letters to express their love and yearning and these letters passed back and forth between them. So many words did they write that they had to continually dip the nibs of their pens into the inkwell. When each letter was ready to be sent there was a lurching sensation inside them. What could this mean? They each stood on the shore and gazed over the black waters but the horizon prevented visual contact. Only the letters could pass that taut line, sliding under it the same way a postman can push an envelope under a door. But the more letters they wrote, the closer the horizon seemed. Was this an illusion? No, the landmasses on which they lived had broken free and were floating like ships, moving to a point in the middle of the ocean. How strange and marvellous! They wrote letters to express their feelings on this subject. Then one morning they both understood what had happened. The ocean was made of ink. They had dipped their pens into it so many times that now it was dry. They were grounded. And so, they jumped lightly down onto the seabed and ran the few remaining steps into each other’s arms.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
“Everyone should believe in ghosts at Christmas. It’s a tradition. Just think of A Christmas Carol, for instance.”
“I don’t care. I still don’t believe in them.”
“So you don’t believe in yourself?”
“Don’t be silly,” said the phantom, “a spook isn’t the same thing as a ghost. Not the same thing at all…”
“I was a ghost once,” sighed the vampire.
“What happened?” cried the ghoul.
“Well, it was like this…” began the vampire, and he proceeded to tell a garbled account of how he was once a poor traveller in an earlier century who was attacked by bandits in the forest, then his spirit rose out of his body and proceeded to haunt the bandit chieftain, making the rogue’s life a misery by possessing him and forcing him to act against his will.
The skeleton rapidly tapped an impatient foot.
“Shh!” hissed the ghoul, “you sound like a xylophone, and I am trying to listen to the vampire’s narrative.”
“Yes, but he’s drawing it out a bit, isn’t he?”
“That’s his privilege, of course.”
“How come he gets your respect and I don’t?”
“He’s a Count, but what are you? Without a shred of flesh on you, I’d say you were merely a subtraction.”
“That’s a really bad play on words,” sniffed the skeleton.
“So what? It’s a good insult…”
“Stop bickering!” growled the werewolf.
The vampire was oblivious to all this fuss. He was explaining how his ghost possessed the bandit chieftain by entering into his brain through his nose, then he would force the miscreant to dance and sing in a very silly manner and do all sorts of humiliating things. The other bandits soon abandoned their leader in dismay and went elsewhere.
“Unfortunately,” continued the vampire, his fangs gleaming in the pale moonlight, “I got trapped inside his brain. I lost my way among the tangle of synapses and couldn’t get back out!”
“That sounds scary!” remarked the phantom.
The vampire nodded and his cape swished in the night breeze. “It was absolutely terrifying, I can assure you. I rushed hither and thither, trying to escape my prison, but I was stuck for good. So, I decided to accept my fate and things got easier. I settled in and was gradually absorbed by the host body, until I became the bandit. Once this happened, I ventured forth and returned to my old ways, robbing travellers in the forest. I was satisfied. But one dark night I chanced on the wrong victim.”
“Who was it?” asked the spook.
“A werewolf! And he attacked and bit me!”
The werewolf looked sheepish. “Don’t swivel your heads at me, I had nothing to do with it, honestly.”
“No, it wasn’t you,” said the vampire.
“Maybe one of my cousins?”
“I have no idea who it was, but I only just managed to escape his teeth and claws before he devoured me, yet I was now infected, and so I turned into a werewolf myself every full moon. I guess it was fun, in a way, but finally I was tracked down by a monster hunter.”
“Did he shoot you with a silver bullet?”
The vampire nodded. “Yes, he did. But when a werewolf dies it turns into a vampire, a fact that humans keep forgetting, and I soon got revenge on him! And that’s who you see before you now: a vampire who was once a werewolf who was once a bandit chief who was once a ghost who was once a poor traveller…”
There was a long pause. The spook cleared his throat.
“So, you believe in ghosts then?”
The vampire clucked his tongue. “Of course!”
“I still don’t,” said the spook.
“You don’t believe what happens to be true?”
“No, I don’t. Why should I?”
The spook and vampire glared at each other. Before they started to bicker seriously, the phantom laughed to lighten the mood and said, “I knew a man who was the opposite of that.”
“The opposite of what?” prompted the ghoul.
The phantom adjusted his ectoplasm.
“Opposite in attitude, I mean. He had no evidence about the existence of ghosts, but he was a firm believer in them. His friends were sceptics and mocked him and so he needed to obtain proof to silence them. But in fact, he required that proof for himself even more. His name was Mr Gaston Gullible, and he did everything possible to meet a ghost. He slept in old churchyards, went for midnight walks in lonely forests, used Ouija boards in the hope of contacting the departed.”
“All without success?” asked the werewolf.
The phantom rolled his insubstantial eyes in his wispy sockets, nodded and sighed. “Nothing ever worked.”
“That’s a shame,” remarked the skeleton.
“One night, it was Christmas Eve in fact, he was sleeping in his bed when the curtains began swishing. The window wasn’t open, there was no breath of wind in his room. The rustling woke him and he sat up and blinked in the gloom and when his eyes had adjusted he saw that the curtains had bunched themselves into the shape of a person, the shape of a woman, and she raised a fabric arm and pointed directly at him.”
“What did he do?” cried the werewolf.
“He died of fright and slumped back onto the bed. Then the ghostly woman approached him and said, ‘I have waited centuries to meet the right man. You will be my husband in the next world,’ and his ghost rose from his body. She was ready to embrace him, but he shook his head and brushed past her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but I have stopped believing in ghosts. I believed in them all my life without evidence and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I was wasting my time. I am now a sceptic, and I don’t believe in you,’ and he passed through the wall and was never seen again.”
“That story had a twist ending,” said the ghoul.
“Yes, it did,” agreed the phantom.
The spook said, “I’ve got a twist ending too.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Would you all like to see it?”
The vampire, werewolf, ghoul, phantom and skeleton exchanged glances. Then they said together, “Why not? Go ahead.”
The spook took a deep breath, extended his thin multi-jointed arms and started spinning. He spun faster and faster, became a blur, a spiral of force, a miniature tornado. Then he whirled away through the trees, laughing and crackling with blue thunderbolts.
“Merry Christmas!” he cried as he vanished.
The others shook their heads. The skeleton shook his head so vigorously that it fell off and he had to bend down to pick it up.
“I didn’t anticipate that,” admitted the phantom.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Ogden Nash is the finest. The snobs who dismiss his work are knobs and jerks whose heads should be examined and given an F minus. Of his talent they have not a tenth. I mean, flipping heck! Lacking depth is his strength.
And now for some HAIRY QUESTIONS… Werewolf? Whywolf? Howwolf? Whenwolf? Whatwolf? Whowolf?
Questions like those never can be answered because the facts are tactless and the fangs will leave you gutless on nights of a full moon. The lycanthropic topic is one best avoided and thus I will always avoid it.
I made myself a sandwich. I made it for my health. I am a self-made man despite my lack of wealth.
I made myself a promise I would be a bitter gourd cut into fancy segments by an even fancier sword.
Unlike okra I’m not slimy. If you ever dare to try me I’m a vegetable Cockney, I must say, “gourd blimey.”
Is that all? No, it certainly isn’t.
Lady Rickshaw claims we are all ghost ships on the streets of cities, drifting here and there.
That’s modern civilisation for you: please join the queue for the time machine.
But in more barbaric times in chillier climes…
Our cavemen noses glow in the cold. They never grow when we are old but snowmen’s noses linger for longer and their nostrils resemble craters.
The comet made from ice, interstellar, vast, oblivious, very fast, will strike that fellah dead when it hits his head.
And now let’s take a trip to ANCIENT GREECE
A gorgon’s internal organs must be clever forgeries. She turns heroes to stone, in pairs or if they’re alone, and when destiny calls and Greece finally falls those statues will be taken to Rome, their new home.
But the gorgon’s heart will never beat a rhythm you can dance to. It won’t thump like a man-bull’s hoof-shaped shoes, that’s true. No swirling sonic brews amuse our motley crews.
I’ve had better days lost in this maze: one time I almost found my way out, said the Minotaur…
Fenugreek Mythology featuring Hercules and Coriander leaves, Turmeric and Ulysses, Centaurs and Bottle Gourds on a bed of saffron rice is nicer to devour than plain old Greek mythology.
Tell me honestly: have you ever seen A GHOST?
Death’s anniversary, is a ghost’s birthday: blowing out cake candles with supernatural breezes he teases the ectoplasm, a professional phantasm.
Are spooks international?
I am turning Japanese after a sneeze because some wasabi went up my nose. Kimonos are my clothes.
Also, I play shogi with my toes. (Shogi is a kind of chess: I’m glad to get this off my chest).
Now let’s have a SELF-REFERENTIAL HAIKU
Counting syllables when confronted with haiku ruins the effect.
That’s done. Where else can we find our fun?
Do you know the tale of Patriarchy and Mehitabel? Do you know the tail that twitches on the windowsill?
The proof is in the pudding, or so they say, but I think I know a better way: the waterproof is in the puddling duck.
A vestige of a visage? My face is the place where my luck never runs out. It may lack grace, a waste of features belonging to other creatures, but each to their own.
The philosopher doesn’t like my tone: he tells me to ponder harder but not to think about swamp imps named Marsha. Easily done: I don’t know anyone with that name.
Harsher, he calls me timid, says I am a coward. Coward? But how? I don’t know the meaning of that word but I can work it out and applied to me it’s quite absurd. It means to move in the direction of a cow, or many cows, a herd.
Have mercy if you’re thirsty. Be ruthless if you’re toothless.
Do farm girls grow on you over time, seasonally?
A question I can’t answer because I am a scarecrow. No one planted me, I do not grow. I do not know a single thing.
But I can take a guess about the mess made by guests at dinnertime. Billabong Monkeys dunk their feet in the soup in groups much larger than gorillas are long.
Is that a SONG? Somehow, I don’t think so.
And now let’s have some Soliloquies for Stringless Guitars.
Kiss her through the mask. Miss her through the cask.
Foxglove Alley. Weasel Stockings. Garter Snakes, real and fake. Rotten Shed and Rusty Rake. I venture down the Cul-de-Sac of Frogs. I lost my way in the fogs.
That isn’t fog: it’s sand. That’s no frog: it’s a panda. Are you an understander? There is no great demand for sand disguised as mist and so we insist you redo the list of things you wish to purchase in the sopping shops that underwater lie.
Swinging on a garden gate, it’s far too late to palpitate at sunset but the day’s still too early to fly away and so you may barbaric be, barbaric bee, barbaric beer.
Beer comes in at the mouth. Jokes come in at the ear. Foam comes out of the nose. POOR ATTILA lost his clothes during a drunken stupor. It’s not ideal but he is super.
Attila was very short. Only one metre tall and nocked with battle scars at one centimetre intervals. No wonder he was such an effective ruler!
He wanted his wife to call him ‘Darling’ in the marriage bed but she insisted on calling him ‘Hun’ instead.
Oh dear! Have no fear: King Lear has shed a tear that splashes on the lashes of the whip that thickens cream in dreams.
When I was younger I had a narrow mind and only thought of narrow things: tight corridors, blocked canals, mountain ledges, malnourished gulls, ladders designed for stick insects, crevices into which no man could fall.
But now I am older and think only of wide things like canyons and gulfs, the open mouths that shout bravo at gigs, the taste in literature of well-read people, the square bases of the mighty steeples perched on churches in historical towns, the flapping gowns of aristocratic vamps, the pipe bowl of my eccentric gramps and the prehistoric snouts of pigs snuffling for unripe but fallen figs.
Listen closely, my dear…
My love for you might sound hyperbolic to hyperactive alcoholics. But it will sound perfectly fine to good romantic folks.
Now here’s a thing: sea roofs on the inside are called sea lings.
Freshwater otters in Goa. Salty authors in the shower. Both are so clean but only the latter dare dream of rivers of cash. The former dream only of fish.
FOR A FLUTE?
Love for a flute is holy love because a flute without holes is a stick and love for sticks makes me sick but flutes have holes thus my stomach will settle at the base of the kettle and I will laugh: tea-hee cough-hee.
The frozen lion thaws before he roars.
A thaw in the old ball bearings and the machinery of his desire began working again.
The machine marks time like a strict examiner puffing out his metal cheeks in the weeks before the summer holidays.
Do machines really play the drums?
As a rule of thumb, yes! Keeping the beat with steel feet. How neat. What a treat. The soul of the dance is deep in the soles. The heels heal the heart.
We have our whole lifetimes A HEAD of us in which to try out new hairstyles, she said. She knew what she was talking about. The barber’s wife.
The gentle love drizzle puzzles the riddler. The lion is sizzling in the meri jaan frying pan over the fire of our heartfelt desire.
And that’s the end of the line for the wandering rhymes and the Nomads of the Bone will soon end up back home.
*meri jaan is an endearment in Hindi meaning my life
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
