GUEST POST, MARION MICHELL 5 TEXTLINGS

SUPINELY SUBLIMELY 
A BOOKLING BY MARION MICHELL
http://palewellpress.co.uk/Palewell-Publications.html#Supine-Sublime

TEXTLING #86

pic from amazon.co.uk

Had a run-in with time and lay in the car, stiff as a bell’s tongue, and just as mute. Pain in aspiration stage – still hoping I’ll hurl myself against walls, eager to chime.

After a blurry episode give looking another go. Burgess Park is not itself right now: tiny, lifeless, the green of grass and foliage moulded in the same garish tones. Clouds, birds, a plastic sun, tacked on a smudge of blue. We too minuscule and stuck mid-move in a scale-model some architect should have improved.

Bed, at long last. Limbs scattered like mikado sticks; palms so painful they seem large as cities. Must have crashed across the continent, one hand throbbing in Rejkavik, the other limp in the Aegean Sea. Each crumple in my sheet a mountain ridge or carved out canyon, nuzzling the gash of me. A chore to breathe.

Days shivering in sleety weather zones. I pine for hot. PEMalaise me not!

TEXTLING #84

by duane michals from pinterest

That moment in an old film when a double (diluted by light) departs the body of a character who just died and drifts out of view. As often as mind has room I fume a failproof lookalike who strolls about town. Oh, the places she has seen! Priceless when fancy factualises for a wisp of time. A caper on my scooter – first in a year, or two. Almost called out – look at me! – like a child riding her bike without stabilisers on. Hung a while on armchair at the bookshop twenty doors from mine, tried a little conversation. Turns out a semblance of normality is quite a strain.

In a matter of minutes home and supine again. Slept in clothes that night, entwined with spectre. Days later the idea of a repeat seems preposterous, but: elsedom was achieved, momentarily. Blue plaque please?

TEXTLING #63

by element flowers manchester

My elderly mom, out grocery shopping, is mugged not far from home. In bright light she is thrown to the ground and robbed of purse, vitality, and wobbly confidence. I, useless as a bowling pin, do not rush to her side, not by road, river, runway, sky. Tremulous voices steer a course, measured mouthfuls, the telephone astride my chest like a luckless charm. In time she rights herself, retraces daily routes to shops, dad’s grave, fast walks through empty fields, with fierce intent.

A friend of mine, severely ill, whose spirit rises every morning while she can but lie, does not share her mother’s dying hours, nor attend the funeral. Her grief, of which she cannot speak, her devastation, remain unbounded by communal rituals. Processing is inner, remembrance alone.

Not being there when we need to be, want to be, is felt, by us, no matter what the circumstances, as failed fidelity, incurring a debt of love.

TEXTLING #49

from dreamstime.com

A friend rings just as day breaks, greatly distressed. Where are the sails to set, the rams to slay, the crones to cast a soothing spell? The telephone sports a rodent’s tail. You have nothing to share but a two-step on ear-clock, and a piddling drip-feed of sympathy. Your heart jumps up the nearest tree. Leaves you a paper effigy.

TEXTLING #47

from mmn.com

Not even 6 am and you’ve done a day’s spilling: first a glass of water on the rug, then a steaming mug of coffee over the bedstead. Your early bird vitality vouchers must have expired. You think the pint-sized delta in search of an ocean pretty (until it’s sunken), later picture an array of perfectly curved mirror panes with rounded edges (dimensions variable), laid out on a gallery floor; and, suspended from the ceiling, a circling flock of files and folders, wings wide, bulging with letters from the DWP. The splotches of Machu Picchu Ground on pillows, sheet, duvet, fail to fire up the muse once more. Brown! Mattress! Soaked! Depending how tired you are you start remedial action right away or try a snooze while stains seep. You like their smell. In the evening you snort your sleeve. 

Trepidelation
from

SUPINESUBLIME 
MARION MICHELLS WORDPRESS BLOGLING

https://supinesublime.wordpress.com/

My House of Howls
from

MARION MICHELLS ARTLINGS & SELECTED WORK

http://www.marionmichell.com/page14.htm