Across the Blackened Stream.
Nigel Williams
Bitter tastes the memories, cyanide steeped within chipped bequeathed porcelain cups.
Sips of hot, sour loathing pass over ugly, vicious broken lips.
Weighty velvet curtains, heavy with regret and thick with dusty pain, absorb the warming light of optimism.
The darkened room of heavy flock and smoke stained laminate tempts thoughts of escape. Dreams of ancient rubber booted feet fording swirling torrents of black silted water. Slashing through grim encrusted fields, the hissing and spitting black mamba guards near shores of shining silver.
Fields cleaved and blackened by the treacherous mounds of shifting slag heaped upon the bones of generations.
Those of silver and of opportunity.
Those of silver that turn their eye towards shores of gold.
We who know our place. Who are we to venture across that blackened stream?
We who follow the path of inevitability, sheep traversing remnants of green hills. We who follow the sick jest of stars aligned to tease and torment, born to surrender hope and soul to the pennies of machines.
“Know your place” are the words of those who seek to suppress the stuttering sparks of aspiration.
Not for me the straight jacket of conformity. Not for me the suffering of age accepted abuse.
One day I’ll step across that blackened stream and rise above the mountains of shifting coal.
The stars may, one clear night, cast their scathing glances at those who reaped the unjust rewards of feudal lords and then, perhaps then, I’ll rush the forbidding torrent and scale the slippery shale to the heights I have always longed.
One day I’ll step across that blackened stream and rise above the mountains of shifting coal.
But failure is bred, coded within the genes of serfs, plotting against my decaying sack of bones.
It was once my place to endure those sticks and stones, to ride with the tide of certainty. But even that final beautiful wave will raise my soul above the tribulations of existence and cast me upon the vacuous shore of eternity.
I’ll bide my time. I’ll contrive against the scheme to which I did not subscribe. I’ll sip the acrid brew and scheme behind the drapes.
One day I’ll step across that blackened stream and rise above the mountains of shifting coal.
Nigel Williams is a 54 year old artist, author and lecturer from Ystradgynlais in Swansea Valley. Married for 26 years with three children and a dog named Zac.
