THE LEFT VENTRICLE {of the corvid heart} Gambits by D.W.Crockett
(i) a book of writing by daniel crockett, composed late at night on trains
sinister
ventriculus
corvidus
(ii) for more work or to contact Daniel, please visit http:thisrichtapestry.blogspot.com
(iii) for tali spearman, on her birthday, 2008
Gimcrack (i) I’d like to tell you about the hour I spent in the presence of the Gimcrack, a child. I have kept this information confidential for over thirty years, not even telling my wife or associates. Now, upon the nearing of my death, I feel it must be revealed. Keffler House, which stood empty until the Gimcrack arrived to take up residence, was by far the grandest in the village over which it towered. The architecture imposing, gothic and unsubtle. The Gimcrack lived alone in this enormous house. I was called to visit the Gimcrack because that is my job. I am a doctor. The background under which the Gimcrack finds himself wealthier than his adult neighbours, and solitary in his confinement, was not uncommon - orphaned, and left the house and all within it by his lately deceased grandmother. However, the abnormality starts (and would that it ended here!) when it was decided that once reaching the age of ten, the boy would come of age in mind and body, and he should be given title. At this juncture, and having been provided with funds released monthly for his disposal, several adults of the village were paid to help the Gimcrack. The letter that called upon me to visit Gimcrack at the house was concise and did not extend too much detail over the problems that required a doctor. The problems Gimcrack was facing were unknown to me, although I was well prepared for those that often beset orphaned children, the type of which I have dealt with many times over the course of my career. So it was, one morning during the winter of 1958, that I left my home to begin the hour-long journey into the mountain foothills where Gimcrack lived. Unlike the lowland plain and the city where I made my home, the hills were still wild and the mountain people very different to those on the flat. I occasionally was called upon to work out in the villages, for my reputation had soared considerably in the years directly preceding. I had been the recipient of a Haifa-Campbell medal for my services to medicine and mental health, and as such was well regarded. I proceeded therefore to the village of Keffler, the address laid out on the dashboard of my car. On the way I passed many rural scenes, each typical and unsurprising, such as a maid milking a cow on a stool, two ravens on a fencepost, and a grim man riding a horse close in to a hedge. My first surprise, it was great and the first of many, came upon rounding the corner into Keffler. The house loomed massive above the village, an awkward bastion that gave instant impression of might. The giant balustrades that marked either side of the gateway were located in the heart of the village, completely obvious to any and all who ventured there. The village seemed to be composed of a scattering of houses, perhaps fifty at most. To all intents and purposes it was a normal country village apart from the monolith that already, I noticed, was shading part of the main street from the sun with its bulk. Imagine that, I thought! Living in the shade for part of a day simply due to the magnitude of another’s ambition. This was before I grew older, and became more aware that we all live in shade cast by others. The village was surprisingly quiet, for an afternoon of weak winter sun and faint warmth. Two women sat on a bench, their oxblood shawl the only thing in common. The one was young, the other old. I raised a hand in salute as I passed, yet neither seemed to notice, the younger one stared with preoccupation into the distance, the older seemed transfixed on the younger. I passed by them in my car, slowed to a crawl now, confidence dented by their lack of response. It is these small things that can define a day, would that have been the sole contributor!
Split-tongued and sullen An earnest fellow with whom to share a copse, The jackdaw [] [] [] [] Letter from an ignored man Erin Shroud features, everywhere. Erin Shroud is like some gargantuan mastodon of desire – every single person I know wants to be with her. Erin Shroud is the first person to be officially called ‘perfect.’ Erin Shroud has no detractors – how could she? Erin Shroud is fucking magnificence, from the buttons on her coat to the feather in her hair. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t intimately know Erin Shroud, because that time is insignificance itself compared to her. There is no I in Shroud, but there is in Erin. I have thought that a countless thousand times, yet I’ve never had the courage to tell her. Erin Shroud makes no sound when she walks, but in her wake problems are resolved and damage is repaired. Erin Shroud contains everything. She conquers without lifting a finger or opening her mouth. Erin Shroud never frowns, and although she never smiles just looking at her face makes me think of smiling. Erin Shroud is a joy to behold, but she is also a joy to think about. With Erin, nothing ever runs dry. Erin Shroud is a lady, but she is not my lady, because no one can possess her eminence. Erin Shroud invented glory. I wonder what she eats and drinks? Erin Shroud lies back, with a little tinkling laughter. Erin Shroud is the guardian of chance, the gatekeeper of paradise; it is she that holds every key. Who is Erin Shroud? Who could inspire such devotion? Who is this worthy recipient of obsession? Erin Shroud? Why, does it matter? [] [] [] [] Tar Swallows Back again and not diverted To Bognor, or the Pontin’s at Benacre
Glad you found your way across The acres of shingle And Orford Ness
Now teach me how to take wing Because down here I’m drowning in the tar
Amity Despite the good intentions, you cannot shake the feeling of revulsion as the people come pouring in. Although the atmosphere is friendly, warm and wholesome, you give a shudder, drawing your hood around you in a cowl for protection. Why this inability to feel pleasure? Why this lurking dread? You chat with the arrivals, the people, all of them rosy and smiling and on the way to being drunk. You feel drugged with sedatives, the ceaseless chatter of your mind spoiling every conversation and colouring every comment. Why this disgust? Why this feeling of oppression? [] [] [] [] [] [] [] Dinner with a rich lady Let me tell you about eyes and ice. Eyes so perfectly hellish that they reach out with tentacles and snake around your head and neck, seeking an entrance to your brain. Eyes black and bottomless, so obsidian that at their core your mind conjures a hearth, for such blackness in nature is unthinkable. Right at that black core your flames flicker, but you cannot sustain them for long. To do so, to place warmth at that frozen core, is unthinkable and your flames flutter and die. Before you, above and beneath you, is an abyss: a silent, apocalyptic infinity. You realise, not for the first time in your life, that you are utterly, irrevocably lost. Unforgivably, the tendrils that spring from the core find their way into your mind, and the realisation that life cannot revert, that you will never reclaim the soft, warm place that you hanker after, looms. You are hopeful, and your own eyes (pale and weak in their comparison) take on that pathetic, entreating glaze that cannot be masked or quelled. Hopeful for a retreat, hopeful for an escape. And then those unnavigable seas of darkness turn their attention elsewhere. The crisis: the feeling once they have passed away is, if possible, worse than when they wholly bound you. [] [] [] [] [] [] Kipper Garten Never cry on dull days but under storm-clouds Take the knife that split the magpie’s tongue
Middle Ground On the middle ground, this vast (if empty) plateau, you are safe and secure. Better still, you are accepted. You can relate. The ground is warm and soft, and absolutely dull. The vegetation is ankle high, and you could stroll through it all day. In the middle ground, the occasional spot of interest can sometimes be found – something creeping or sliding along at ground level, sometimes an earthworm, sometimes a viper. You can relax. The middle ground and its vegetation is soporific, so you lie down to sleep, never really waking up. With some people, you will always inhabit this middle ground. Then there are the crevasses. In the crevasses, you are always alone, even if others are nearby. The crevasses are dank and unpleasant, and yet everyone stumbles into one now and again. The crevasses make you appreciate the middle ground, understand the need for it. At the base of the crevasses, spindly demons lie. They are your antithesis, your nemeses. Avoid them at all costs. Way up above the middle ground, when the crevasses are tortuous memories and from where the dull pallor of the middle ground is obvious, lies the open sky. Despite the altitude, the air is rich, and there is a great feeling of absolute potential above and around you. Yet although the open sky is right above you, and locating it should be as simple as glancing upward, coming to fly is an inconsistent and arduous process. Yet once reached, who knows the heights to which you can climb? [] [] Tembulence Air, gathered in fitful starts, leaks like tree sap, spotting our greatest wounds with a bosky crust I will grind you, between leather-capped tips scrape up the fragments and re-cast your form I know your combination, like the tree roots know the press of the earth about their lumpen limbs
Upon a high mountain I happened, at long last and after a road fraught with many dangers, upon the cave of an ancient hermit. This prophetic figure had sworn never to emerge into civilization, and I chanced upon him by following the trail of footprints that led upward into the mountains (Not his, of course, for the vow was true, but those of the servant that delivered his food and water each week.) In recent years, great technological momentum had been achieved; therefore the hermit was out of date. As a scientist, I wished to challenge his isolated world view, and my aim for some time (upon first hearing of his period of removal from the world, in fact) had been to scale the mountain and confront the wisdom of the hermit with discourse proving how invalid his perspective had become. I looked forward to our meeting, as the vow of the sage did not extend to silence. As one of the wisest men in the country, a man who had once occupied the very academic chair that I sought (and had been assured that in due time I would sit upon), the hermit had turned away from his position of influence and power. As a senior government adviser, he had fundamentally disagreed with the direction in which the politicians were leading the people. So it was that I sought to challenge his view, for it is only through evolution that our country can progress. Of which country do I speak? That depends on you, the reader, for I can inhabit any space and crawl into any corner. We all, it appears, ‘evolve’ in a similar direction, simply at different rates. This ancient scholar, whose oft-reported speculation I wished to argue against, had publicly claimed that the evolution of our country was by no means a progression. His wisdom, he maintained, was based fundamentally around a theory called the Verit-Apollo idea of natural balance, of which I assume you all know. Calculating the balance between human environment and natural resources (not simply productive resources, but all resources that could be classed as naturally occurring, unforced by humans, neither manufactured or processed) Verit and Apollo ruled that once the human environment outweighed natural resources a point called ‘Development Cessation’ was reached. From this moment forth, according to the fantastically complex equations of the two professors, it was downhill all the way. Frankly, I dismissed the findings of Verit and Apollo as nonsensical pie-in-the-sky. Firstly, their equation was insignificant due to the impossibility of calculation. Second, their conclusion was fraught with inaccuracy. Surely, the way forward for my country was to develop industry and consumption, to keep pace with the West, to dissect and profit from our natural resources in any way possible to serve the populace. It was this that I looked forward to discussing with the hermit. So it was that I followed the little-worn path that lead up through the sandstone outcrops and vagabond plants that, like the man I sought to see, had retreated here into this inhospitable climate to escape the press below. After a long and rocky road, I eventually came to a small rise, over which the ground dropped away into a bowl. As I mounted the rise, the sage appeared suddenly before me, sitting quite upright on a large, smooth boulder. His appearance was quite offsetting, and nothing like the press photographs I had seen or the time when, as a young woman, I had seen this man lecture in public in a great university hall that seemed to stretch into infinity on all sides. In those days, this man of thought and theory had been immaculate, carrying with him a great presence of mind and power. The man that confronted me (or rather, slowly raised his eyes to gaze penetratingly at me but moved not another muscle) was wild and unkempt. Surprisingly, perhaps, this had never occurred to me. I had expected an older version of the man that I had once seen, perhaps with silver hair and bushier eyebrows. The man had a long beard, silver in places but flecked with mud and other substances I could not guess at. The beard crept down his sides and up around his face, obscuring his features but somehow magnifying the force of that stare, and those eyes. They say that the eyes are the only thing that does not age, and in the gaze of that man I caught that same fire, the same piercing surveillance and desire to comprehend, with such ferocity that it robbed me of my poise and I faltered in my step. I had prepared quite a speech for the arrival at the summit of the mount, yet I found the words hard to voice in the presence of the hermit. At last, I mumbled: “Alexander Sharma, I have travelled a long time to speak with you. Will you, esteemed man of wisdom and theory, grant me an audience?” The hermit looked back up at me, from his seated position. “Rare indeed is it for the young to climb this hillside to look upon my ancient face, and hear my outdated view. What is your reason for being here, high up in the mountain and away from the city.” And with this, Sharma flung his arms in an all-encompassing spread as if to say that the city was all around, surrounding us. From my loftier position, I looked down upon a great valley, and to some extent what Sharma said was true. Beneath us, between pockets of smog, a great many buildings soared and fought for eminence. Barely a patch of green or brown could be seen between the endless streets that gradually, as space became squeezed between vice-like fingers, climbed the hillsides.
“Certainly, my visitors are usually not bedecked in such finery.” At this I bristled, for I was wearing my official uniform, bestowed upon me by the central government to recognise my achievements and my position. Along one breast I wore medals for my discoveries and services, and my boots and lower garments betrayed the dust that attempted to inveigle itself everywhere to the extent that they still shone. I was proud of myself, and my pride made me bristle. “So you, Dada Sharma, you prefer the rags of a hermit?” I used his nickname, for few outside close circles of government had known him as ‘Dada.’ To call him as such was a deliberate insult, and a deliberate showing that I was within the circles of power. I noticed his eyes widen at the use of the name. “Relax, relax. I am simply not used to your finery, just as an old man is not used to what the young will wear. I see you carry news for me, it has been some time since news has reached me in my isolation. We should talk for a while, but first, do you understand that you are nothing?” There was no sense of challenge. It was as simple as a request to pass the salt. I did not, and so I left him. [] The effigy “Hear this, the word said by this, the picture.” The effigy begins its procession. We are all in thrall to the effigy, for its procession is never-ending. The highest honour would be to be picked to carry the effigy on a leg of its journey, although the reward is instant death. It is said that the bearers of the effigy, upon their ultimate sacrifice, go at once to meet the woman that the effigy depicts. Those that carry the effigy, and it takes several hundred at once simply to lift its frame and move it on its eternal quest, see inside the mechanism and understand the true secrets of the device. It is understood that exposure to these kill a person, not simply upon seeing them for the first time, but witnessing their might and then being forced to turn your gaze away. This would explain the constant upturned faces of the bearers, and the grim and silent figures that wait for one or other of the straining men and women to fall away from the procession. They are swiftly ended, before the madness can engulf them. Beneath the effigy, who knows what unfolds? The effigy is constantly followed by a procession of people who wait in the hope that they are picked for service. They get used to the chant, understand its intonations and cantatas, and eventually chant along with the bearers. Once they have mastered the chant, they are ‘noticed’ by the figures in black, who elect the bearers. It is a good system, they tell us, for anyone can join at any time. Even the weak, the young and the old are given their chance, but they rarely last long beneath the crushing weight of the effigy. Unfortunately, in my dreams, I wish for the effigy to tilt to one side, and fall to the ground, the frail mechanics robbed of their life and the great fraud exposed for what it is. The power, I hope, would be returned to us. [] [] A narrow country road by midnight Upon turning into a country road that you thought you knew all too well, it being a quick and simple shortcut back to your house from the party at which you had dined and drunk, things take a turn for the less ordinary. The first sign that matters are not quite right is the disconcerting glimpse of a goat’s head, lying at an awkward angle as if chucked, by the side of the road. You see the spectre in perfect clarity, but only for a fraction of a second, so you are left wondering about your own mind. How unfathomable, you consider, doubting your rational ability, until the next sight forces you to slow the car to a crawl. Two cloven feet stand in the middle of the road, severed directly above the hoof, blood staining the sparse remnants of white fur. With a shock, you realise that the fur is the same of that sprouting from the dismembered head that you might have seen. You are not sure whether to stop, but the idea of touching the feet and finding them still warm is repellent. It would mean leaving the security of the car. You decide to continue and drive over the hooves, feeling your back left tyre crush one. The sound is unlike anything you have heard before. As you roll downhill, the road becomes more and more narrow, the vegetation hemming you in until it begins to scrape the bonnet and the wings. Funny, because the road, though narrow, is usually passable. As you descend further into the night, even as the power of the car begins to waver, you know with awful certainty that the hands reaching out for you will grip like a vice.
My life support machine Taking your body as a tree The feet the roots The torso the trunk The arms the boughs The hair the leaves Can I climb you? [] [] The Oxblood Shawl The girl in the first picture is no older than eighteen. The old woman in the second four times that, perhaps more. The two pictures share some characteristics. They are taken looking across a country road, a panoramic view (although a different one in each) behind the solitary female subject. Each woman carries a reddish shawl, casually draped across one shoulder and nestled into an elbow. Their posture is different. The girl stares right at the camera, enthralled. The old woman seems distracted by something behind the camera, and it looks as if she stares away into the distant. Her age is obvious, and yet all the hallmarks of beauty are still there. The girl is clearly beautiful. Even in the grain of the picture her smile is toothsome and radiant. Her hands on hips, she cuts an attractive figure. The pictures are of a very different quality. The first is ancient, the impression of the girl faded. The second is more recent, now. Besides the eyes, the only similarity is the shawl. High up in the sky though, behind each, a lone bird hangs in the air. [] The agapanthus path
Walk the plank with Friedensreich Slowly traipse the agapanthus path And lose sobriety in yew groves, On barrows and in wykes Borrowed syllables, and narcissus My love lay weeping in the marsh Down amongst the toadflax stems Winking flowers as stolen gems And a heron stares unmoving, proud Gun grey chest a burry choit Colour echoed in the clouds Damage marked in her gait As she takes the agapanthus path In the footsteps of Friedensreich Hearken to her keening call Society a well-worn gall
Abandoned now at last to fate
Trevisker Valiance [] [] [] Austral Symphony [] Cursed water
High up in the hedgerows, fanned by an east wind The Tamarisk dances with branches like combs
What gauche sounds they make, This reptilian flock A crescendo, part cheese-grater sharp Part mellifluous They knock, drone on my supine head Caving lesions in And challenging The notion of sweet birdsong For now, do dada Becomes a harsh caw-caw and the boundary between tone and raking claw eroded, splits It’s been three weeks or more Since I dragged you from the well You shed the viscous oil of night Rub the salty rime from ancient eyes And now you flail about As if your folds of flesh Hide a set of air-starved gills And your motion casts a spell That plagues sincere intention And threatens to cast your battery south To snuff the wick with fingers rough And be called below to hell Forever watched by lidless pupils Stretched to pay on racks of bone For you cover decades in a leap And judgement stops the clock
THE LEFT VENTRICLE All words ŠDaniel Crockett 2008 For further work by the author, please visit http://thisrichtapestry.blogspot.com Image copyright expired