The Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, were divinities in Greek mythology who presided over human life. Together, the Fates represented the inescapable destiny of humanity.
THE FATES
How carelessly we say
tomorrow or next week
and, with a glib complacency, we speak
of things to come one day,
as though the future waits
for us,
who are mere playthings of The Fates.
Pennine Ink is a British literary magazine featuring poetry and short stories from the UK, USA, Canada and Europe, along with the work of writers from further afield whose written language is English.
Issue Number 43, just out, features my poem, Sons, and a short piece of fiction entitled The Big Guy.
The germ of that story came to me during a visit to Belfast when I purchased a leather jacket from a retro shop in the city. Waiting at the airport a few days later, the rest of the story suddenly fell into place.
No spoilers here. You'll have to read it to work out the link.
THE BIG GUY
Phil fell for the coat the moment he saw it. Luxurious chestnut leather in a style that could only be Italian: Armani perhaps, maybe Gucci. And extra-large, Phil’s own size. He absolutely had to have it.
It hung on a retro-style coat stand beside the maitre-d’s desk right there beside his own battered topcoat.
Phil reached out to stroke the soft leather and knew he was in love.
The bill had been paid, cash as always, and the desk was unattended. It was his last night in Bangkok. On impulse, he grabbed the leather coat, slipped it on and headed for the restaurant’s revolving doors.
Outside, the oriental night was a kaleidoscope of neon: a frantic cacophony of noise and hustle. Phil hailed a passing taxi and ordered the driver to take him to the airport.
Phil levered his bulky frame into the rear seat of the Toyota and replayed the events of the last three weeks: a crazy roller-coaster of wins and losses, but mostly wins and lucrative ones at that.
A natural-born scammer, Phil saw other people’s money as his for the taking and if that left them penniless, well, tough shit, no one said that life was fair.
That elderly couple he’d met in the bar of the St Regis: English, like himself, but alien as Martians. They’d taken to him right away: clearly saw him as a local character, a big guy, full of smiles and ex-pat bonhomie. They were old-school, superior, patronising and greedy: the marks were always greedy when you got down to it. And their greed was the key, that magic key to unlock their wallets, bank accounts, the lot.
He’d scored on that one and no mistake. They’d be lucky, when they discovered just how thoroughly he’d cleaned them out, if they could even afford a weekend in Skegness.
At Suvarnabhumi airport, Phil checked his ticket and admired his profile in a washroom mirror. The richness of the leather looked fabulous and the coat fitted him perfectly. Its former owner must have been a big guy too, broad across the shoulders. It was in great condition, so the punter must have taken care of his clothes. The only flaw was a small tear in the lining of the left side pocket, but that could be sorted when he got back to London.
Checking his watch, Phil, joined the queue at Security. With only a laptop as luggage, he knew he’d be through in no time.
Security was visibly high with groups of Thai military stationed at every turn and uniformed police working the concourse and seating areas with sniffer-dogs.
Slinging his laptop and leather into a waiting tray, Phil, stepped through the metal-detector arch and collected his possessions when they’d passed through the scanner.
He was coming out of Duty Free when two Thai policemen approached him with a black Labrador. Phil relaxed and stood still while one of them walked the animal around him. When the dog abruptly sat down, he was nonplussed. He never touched drugs and certainly wasn’t a terrorist, so what what the hell was this about?
Twenty minutes later, Phil knew the answer. Two small sachets of pure heroin had been retrieved from the lining of the leather coat. They had evidently slipped through a tear in the lining of the left pocket.
Phil was a big guy and the shiny Thai handcuffs felt uncomfortably tight.
“Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory”
Henry Ward Beecher.
KING OF THE HILL
Stone hand upthrown,
he faces west:
sharp-browed, stern-eyed,
tall, statuesque.
Read the inscription at his feet:
A worthy man whose noble deeds
set him among the town’s elite ...
and yet, the epitaph misleads.
A robber-baron in his day,
then changed, by circumstance and luck,
to city elder, feet of clay
well hidden, so no thrown-mud stuck,
he ruled his little fiefdom well
and saw his enemies destroyed
without remorse. Who could foretell
that such a man, one so devoid
of gentleness, with traits like those,
would be immortalised in stone
and, in this hand-hewn granite pose,
transcend mere flesh and blood and bone
to stand now, haughty and austere
upon a lofty plinth that reads
An honest man in every sphere ...
A worthy man whose noble deeds ...
Such sentiments are seldom true:
all’s foolishness, a massive bluff.
Man needs to forge idols anew:
mere gods alone are not enough.
My favourite poet, Philip Larkin, born 9 August 1922, was a writer whose poetic output is distinguished by what former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion described as "a very English, glum accuracy" about emotions, places, and relationships.”
Eventually, in 2017, a long-overdue floor-stone memorial to him was unveiled at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
In a 2003 Poetry Book Society survey, almost two decades after his death, Larkin was named Britain's best-loved poet of the previous 50 years, and in 2008 The Times referred to him as Britain's greatest post-war writer.
It’s difficult to decide which Larkin poem is my favourite because there are so many to choose from. Aubade comes close, as do An Arundel Tomb and MCMXIV, but the one that tends to stick in people’s memory is This Be The Verse with its unforgettable opening line.
Here it is, along with my own poem, This Be The Other Verse, a light-hearted homage to Philip Larkin.
THIS BE THE VERSE
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
&
They carve in stone, engravers do,
Your name with start and finish dates
Then hand it to some cleric who
Abuses boys and masturbates,
Who then invites a bunch of craps
Up to the Abbey in best suits,
For lengthy speeches and back slaps,
Daft eulogies and organ toots.
It fucks you up, this being dead:
But I was fucked up long before.
I left behind so much unsaid
And, still unwritten, poems galore.
But now, turns up a stone that’s like
A library book long overdue.
I sit on my celestial bike
And, gazing down, applaud the view.
Despite technology and a way of life that would surely resemble science fiction to my parents' and grandparents' generation, we nevertheless retain certain links with our distant ancestors: our propensity to wage war, our tribalism, our innate fear of the dark and our efforts to conquer that fear.
Each generation, it seems, plays that same bedtime game with their children: the age-old pastime of creating shadow-animals on a bedroom wall by the light of a bedside lamp.
SHADOWPLAY
The shadow-creatures conjured there
on bedrooms walls, the dove, the hare,
by fathers, mothers, dextrously,
for young children, must surely be
no different from the shadow-beasts
that shamans, tribal-chiefs and priests
made dance, by firelight, on cave walls
while others, crouched in skins and shawls,
knelt silent, in a state of bliss,
enthralled by magic such as this.
