They would raise their arms
they would shout his name
The bodies and faces
whispering and
falling over
What a waste.
Knocking on bedroom doors
He tidied all the papers
stored and stacked it all
and he was happy
The man kept waving
A piece of fabric flapping
nearly to his nipples
frantic messages:
he didn’t know what it was
that the man wanted him to do
What a waste
And the knot was not untied
for all the pulling at it
straining at it
pulled it tighter
The word was not
negligent, neglectful,
or ignorant, thankless
or uncaring
The word was broken
from our heart to our voice
even to the ear that bends to listen:
He hit him again and again
the water that dribbled.
He smelt the smell.
He heard the laughter
broken
Clean hands over the white pages
Laughter sustained by sheer technique
Dribbled down the clean white paper
The writing is fractured
the heart is
The thorn burning
The narrow beams of light are
where we walk in silhouette
Mascaraed eyes
delicate hands
small escapes
Worm and time
the cruel rot
drawn in to her left breast
The day hasn’t exactly gone like it could.
My son threw up
when he heard the priest
and I kissed the spot
on Dad’s forehead
where the oil was thumbed.
It tasted rancid.
Oh Christ, Tony.
Their haloed hats at all angles
His light cotton trousers
Knelt, crawled and bled
Soldiers in the square
in the chalky white street
Face, hand, gown
Thin flesh
Fine stones
Salt veins
Fine lines
pulsed and crawled
The ways were myriad
The destination was always the same
Theatre was the life.
You couldn’t turn it around
You couldn’t for example
make a smaller plate from the pieces
of a broken plate
It was the word.
It wasn’t shameless.
In a mist of sun
in the same haze of sun
A sequence of gestures
The scratch of a match
The breath expelled
The key in the door
The flick of a card
that takes the trick
Oblong bleached shutter
Window pane, the tasseled edge
of one rug, a hint of glimmer
from a cornice, a lazy swirl
of marble
Dream of circling doves
Too soon
the eye of the camera
the dark vee of hair
You only add the years up
when you know it’s over.
From off
I broke it
A long, telling moment
To the shutter, to the haze
of sun and dream of circling doves
excited circles
into the cross-fade
What a waste
they were shameless
and treated you shamefully
is shameful more
or less than shameless?
Not like an artist, not even a man
power undiminished
passive
It was night
The barely moving water
Pressing the young man back
into the rich, buttoned leather
of the banquette
Their mouths were insolent
Cut
enormously pissed
sucking off her face
with nothing but silence, silence
he stares in a puddle impassively
Who is he?
on the edge of the berm at the roadside
A cipher?
useless, animal, useless
A bloody awful party
Black letters
Marooned
Marooned
The small agony
Quite alone
visual non sequitur, sexual
numbed and dumbed
green isolation
if the state of a nation’s soul was shown
in the health and number of its theatres
in the sunshine of amateur enthusiasm
in the novelty of unplanned ‘do it yourself’
Each day they would stop at eleven a.m.
Twanged in the fence
and hung there
We have a right to celebrate
the tragic knowledge
Her drink down his back
that it doesn’t get easier
that it never has been
that it never was
One thousand years of incense
Walnut
He was far too thin
How could they do that to him?
It looked, just for a moment
strange and out of place
A bad thing
It stood, prick-eared
Hoping
It was the end
A piece of fabric winding in a screw
They held their hands to their mouths
And what are you going to do for us?
Said the director.
Pause.
Oh. No, they all said
I’m an observer
Listen: I have a story to tell you
Jars and fat, brown urns filled with dry grasses,
toi toi and splitting, fluffing rods of bull rushes
Little peanut
I am alone
What a waste
and the knot was never untied
all the picking at it
only pulled it tighter
Cigarettes
Teeth and nails
Teeth and nails
None of the spelling was right
but that’s what it said.
Panting and sweating
crossing and re-crossing
over and over
rocking and crying
rocking and crying
desperate
desperately
What if not larger than life
was theatre
after all?
One by one
they could not understand
Silence
A dog
Lines of light and shade cut
Bars of sun and dark shade
Eyes in shadow
Tears in sunlight
To end
For ages
The little boys have expensive old skin
they smell like rubbish in the fields
for he is with me
You don’t take anything, he said,
I give it.
Wire cages
Bare bulbs
Bloody animal
Wet whisper
To find contact
as if he’d been buried
The repressed expiration of smoke.
We had a special time
stones cast long shadows
as if paint spots running
on the pavement
the best light rose from the ground
came in
under the low branches
like a mist
not even a man
many friends
It shouldn’t be here
Words
Lifted arm by arm
Leg by leg
from the wreckage
Struggle for breath
shreds
It appeared it was a very serious situation
A piece of fabric tightening
We stay open until the last person has gone
Wiping and blowing and banging and tipping,
overcome by something he didn’t understand,
and without speaking again
With his arms
and his love.
He said near the end beyond his means
how could he compete as he had lived
with last words?
He said he was.
He is.
He is the present
refused for reasons of economy.
She kept going.
It’s something that can never be explained.
What a waste.
a notice
a fence
a card
a shop window
a cat
a _____
a waste
alone.
And the knot was not untied
We talk to each other
in our solitude
What do you talk about?
Oh, mainly recipes.
A duet of broken lines
because I have broken into
my father’s room
and stolen from his writing.
What have they done?
What have they done to him?
Nothing.
What do you hear?
Nothing.
What do you see?
Nothing.
What do you smell?
Nothing.
And what do you taste?
Nothing.
What do you feel?
Nothing.
Are you all right?
How are you?
What
are you?
Nothing.
Alone.
An arrow here, a shaft of light there,
maybe a broken spear or some tongues of fire.
Teeth and breath
Cut and pieces
The flesh.
A piece of his fabric in the wind
What a waste.
To say no to the gift
when you are it
the gift
the present
He thought back to a time
when his body hadn’t mattered,
when he dragged it around with his soul,
waiting and praying to be granted just one act
of creation.
When you comprehend it
without understanding
refusing communication
Red
Black
Yellow
The writing fractured
because the heart is
and the thorn aflame
the fire races
Dark
Decay
Alone
in the dry
lungs
I wish I had a chisel for your hearts
you men of stone
we know what a king does with nothing
deriving nothing from it
not a grey man
What’s a fool to do?
stand before you
with an embarrassment of empty pockets
This is what a fool does with nothing
in my motley
Another nail in the coffin of theatre.
Ghastly.
What wealth will we bury?
too much
even this
where less
is more
nothing else.
Isolation.
The land that was fat got thinner
even then, it was still the land of our fathers
in many cases it was not
The language we spoke was the same
even our voices
were mistaken for each other’s
belonging by not
belonging
stood together
one flesh
one selvage
Doors were ever open
chairs pushed up to the windows
looking out
Soul not for sale
the fire was out of reach
in many cases
it was not
That’s where I’ve come from, he said.
And look. There is no trace.
Where I walked has disappeared.
Each footprint, every sign of passage,
just fills up behind me.
What have they done?
Nobody would believe me.
That’s where I’m going, he said.
It never gets any closer.
And I can’t see it
and I don’t know what it is.
Repetition, repetition.
Reach for another tissue.
Take turns
carrying.
Gentle tissue
Soft fabric
Sweet selvage
We have to go now.
But they couldn’t get out.
It wasn’t the best of days
fumbling
pressing
gobbling
picking
greed
arched
unseen
in the grease, the wire, the coils
Devoured
Absorbed
the dark brooding of the hills and the dunes,
grey promontories
and the rolling seas around them
and figures like paper doll cutest
hardly visible in the tumbling
monochromatic vision
of an overwhelming nature.
Large and clear cut
marched the letters of his life
I knew it.
I knew it all the time.
a shadow in the shadows,
just waiting until he too
could pass into total darkness.
NO!
Once, I had many friends.
It wasn’t much, he knew.
But it was all that he had to say.
His trousers
rolled
trailing a cigarette from his hand,
walked out
over the sand.
[for my father,
Anthony Frederick Taylor
2/1/1937 – 24/4/2009.
A Piece of Fabric includes 304 lines
from his unpublished novel,
Eric and Friends,
otherwise known as
A Mouthful of Air.
These appear in italics.]
