Friday 31 December 2010

a gift

Past pale dawned stocking laughter, the family gathers once more on our bed.  Oranges and apples and chocolate-coins tumble and a little baby looks up in adoration at our milky-breasted eldest.  He twists.

A Villa tooth-brush and matching rosy-apple sweets fall into the hands of our son.  He is happy.

The present spinning, and by turns we venture through Christmas together, gathered at the foot of our bed.

it's my party ...












so, this is christmas ...

The radio plays on my journey through rime-frosted trees.  A heart beats in time to the wolverine heat, and do we believe in Father Christmas? I wonder.

So here it comes, tumbling down in orange-peeled, candle-wax .. the crib filled and donkeys lowing.  I watch the flickering lights fill a Methodist chapel and rise on the sweep of a carolled wave.  Skewered fruit and a sash of crimson-licked blood to gird this world. And we wonder.

He is here with us.  Smiling and alive.  Could it really be any other, this Christmas day?  There are no parcels to unwrap, for He is all.

The flight in mist to another place.  Fire consuming the Norfolk balm, where a flotsam heart hangs still and bloodless from the wall. Are these faces I see in the bleached driftwood of a wind-whip walk the length of the sands?

So, this is Christmas ...

Wednesday 22 December 2010

isn't it swell ....

Past cracking flags and the grey swell of a Thames morning.  We venture up some stairs in search.  Yet everyone has gone ... there is nothing here but breaking waves and the flap of coloured cloth.  We sit quietly at the back and watch the ghosts weave.  Is it they who have become grey, or we?

Remembering endless journeys on a swaying train.  Once I was young and scared and bold.  Stepping out upon the adventure and the grind and the smoke and the endless, endless howling of empty legal words.

Masked rooms and dancing processions.  Words dancing.  Scratching 'cash from chaos' on the back of a strange buttered swan in yet another anonymous City hotel.  Making fortune cookies from a pile of paper.

And a beautiful, grey-eyed lone wolf pads softly from one side of the screen to the other.

The world becalmed.  Past cracking flags and the grey swell of a Thames morning.

Sunday 19 December 2010

clearing in the mist ....






stories from the apocalypse - two wolves

Did we squirm and twist past flying text and the howl of winter-driven maelstrom?

Did we???

Waking fierce to the night and crying out, in red.  Watch the blizzard swirl, and there she pads.  Lupine and grey-eyed, blinking in the early morning sun.  His dream in the ancient brittle-boned, the maned-wolf Canidae.  Following her trail.

Canis lupis and the pelt is raised in hot-blood, embraced and clawing the frosty forest ground.  Alive once more.  We watch the two wolves pass from sight.  Entwined and dancing through the thick pine musk of a wintery needled floor.

The blizzard swirls once more, whipping our snow-blind eyes.  And all is sweet surrender as they enfold in white.  Alone, together.

hands





a glimpse of sunshine ...

A short glimpse of sunshine to brighten a cold winter morning.

My daughter brings her two sons through to our bedroom.  I haul eldest aboard, and he waits expectantly for the first biscuit of the day.  Each morning for the last three weeks it's been the same ritual.  The muffled footsteps of a sleep-suited toddler, the warming comfort of a hot mug of tea and then the book.   "My Grandpa is AMAZING!"

We've read it together these past three weeks until we both know it by heart.  He even knows the page on which to find the tiny mouse.  "Eeek, eeek!", and the second biscuit of the day is consumed.

And then Twitch arrives.  He's smiling, he's moving ... he's alive. Had you asked me a month ago if he would see Christmas, then I would shake my head sadly.  Yet he is very much here - a glimpse of sunshine on a thin, wintery morning.

Saturday 30 October 2010

Returning home

I hold him in my hands and rock him to sleep, a spine curved now relaxed.  We are safe here in dreams.  I sway from side to side and sing a low Northern lullaby.  And tears of joy form.

I hold him in my arms, and he fits.  My daughter scoops up his drugs from the young nurse and we return home.

"I can sort it,"  she says.

And she does.  She reaches for a pad of paper and a pencil, and fifteen minutes later she's sorted a Drug Programme, administered five separate medications and is feeding him.  Immense.

I am in the hospital with my daughter, a chattering TV screen sequined and dancing on a Saturday night.  My daughter danced once.  I want her so dearly to dance again.

He fits, once more.  The nurse comes and times him home.  Eyes rolling and shrieks, then he's back with us.

Twitch

Tuesday 12 October 2010

the twitch texts - vol. 4

my daughter

Looks like twitch might be let out today!  Yeah! Just got to see the expert n discuss a plan of action.  What are the odds?

my daughter

The vampires are out to get him.  They want his blood!

my friend, Ric

Hi.  Just wanted to see how it's going. Ric

my daughter

Twitch successfully registered.  Just picking up little lamper now and then home.  G is already there.

my daughter

Well twitch has had a week of being at home and has been doing really well until the doctors decided to mess with his medication.  He has started fitting again.  Just got to see how they want to change his medicine.

my daughter

I think they got bored with us here.  Off to addenbrookes on mon if they have a bed for us.

my daughter

Well twitch is so excited about going to addenbrookes that he is trying to beat his record number of fits in a day.  So far we are on 12 and his record is 14.  Lets hope the extra meds kick in soon.

my daugher

Looks like the doctors really like the pictures twitch draws with his brain.  Addenbrookes want to see them 2 so another eeg it is.  They also dont think he is enough of a druggie so more medication as well.  At least he wont need to dabble with drugs when he is older, he will already have the tee shirt!

my daughter

What a performer.  Sleep, fits and awake time on the eeg.  What a good boy!

my daughter

The hospital have a new tactic.  Turn twitch luminous!  His medicine is bright yellow and stains everything it touches, clothes and skin.  Twitch has a lovely shade of lipstick at the minute.