FADE INTO FOCUS, FOCUS INTO FADE SKEWARD IMAGES A NATION IN FLAMES By Nick Armbrister Early Books

FADE INTO FOCUS, FOCUS INTO FADE

SKEWARD IMAGES

A NATION IN FLAMES

                                          By Nick Armbrister

Early Books

https://www.amazon.com/SKEWARD-IMAGES-NATION-FLAMES-Books/dp/1445758520

THE GREY BLACK NIGHT

The grey leaden sky covers the land casting a shadow over this sombre place.

Shadows leap from every tree and boulder until they seem to dance

everywhere you look.

Trees stand in stark silhouette against the sky, the wind makes them sway

and creek like skeletal limbs askew.

This is the gothic night of the beautiful colour of grey.

Grey skies make way for black, darkness starts to colour

the land leaving ghosts and shadows all as one.

Now not even the trees can be seen as everything is coloured black,

the night has come at last…

BOULDER

The massive boulder sits in the lea of the moor; it has been here for a million years

and seen everything that has ever happened.

So many tons of stone made up of all of the elements which make up the very

planet itself.

This piece of stone has been here longer than Man himself and it has seen so many years

come and go, from the harsh cold of winter to the boiling heat of summer, this boulder

has felt them all.

Seasons crack your outer layer with freezing cold and ice, then bake your heart

with the fire of the sun.

You will be here until the weather grinds you down to grains and then the whole

process starts all over again to make a boulder once again.

A COLD WINTER’S MORNING

The air is so clear, you can see for miles.

Clear landscape stands out in stark silhouette

against the icy crystal clear blue sky.

Yellow cold sun stands just above the horizon as the last

of the stars disappear and the moon fades from view.

A cold frost covers the grass making it springy underfoot,

it coats the boughs of the trees glistening silver jewels

before your eyes.

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NO MORE PAIN

For one bullet I wouldn’t be here, my pain is too great and takes me to the end.

If I had a gun, just a small pistol and one shell in the magazine, I’d end my pain and not be here, gone forever more.

No one cares for my pain, my loss, the loss of my life, how fucked up I feel.

I’ve seen people mourn the loss of their soulmate, saw their tears, a sight no one should see, too real. I’ve been there when the call came that a friend was dead,

suicide, the ultimate sin in anyone’s eyes. Just ’cause someone is lost, no one there to save them, to say the right words and to end the pain, to guide and help them.

I went to a party fifteen years ago, for a beer and a laugh. Innocent I wasn’t –

fucked a girl, fat Oldham slapper. What were the chances of getting her pregnant – wanted to end it all then but didn’t have the guts to.

Lost two jobs, my head in bits, what had I done? Massive mental damage, so badly depressed. Years passed, got married to ‘the one’. Buried shit rose to the surface when she pestered me for a kid, not my wish, old wounds opened. It was too much, it all went wrong and we split up after arguments and pain. This was totally not me but why was my actions deceiving my very life, hers too?

My pain caught me, caught her, ruined it all, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be, she was never my soulmate, never ‘the one’. I wonder at the reasons for it all, like an ice storm in the desert, it can happen but it has a hidden meaning, surrealistic right now.

Will I be doomed to do it wrong every time, to live in the past, not the future, to carry this shit around forever, being a martyr for the wrong reasons? No pagan faith can save me, feels like I’m doomed to my grave. Give me one bullet and I’ll be out of this world, no more pain…

OCEAN’S FURY

Ocean’s fury, terrible cost beyond belief, hard to think in this day and age.

A boy in trouble in the sea, out of his depth. His mother tries to save him,

separated by a wave, so close yet so far. She nearly drowned herself and now lives in guilt, she tried so hard, a mother’s loss.

Lifeguard in the water to rescue the boy, doing his job, uses his training.

Mother nature tries to take him, he’s going to die, his strength gone. This is bad,

unreal madness, surreal game in the water. Helicopter overhead, whirlybird saves the diver and gets the boy onboard.

Another man perished that day, on holiday with his wife. He went in to get the boy and failed, picked up by the rescue boat. The price was his life.

Where were the warning signs on this treacherous coastline? Part-time men risk their lives to save some, leaving their jobs to rush to unknown danger.

This time they rescued 3 but 2 died after so much effort and hope. A story is told, tragic it is, in memory for a boy and a hero – now no more.

(In memory of Michael 7, Jack 35.)

TODAY

Today at the church was the service for your brother,

gone before his time and a loss for us all.

How cruel is cancer that claimed his life, one who did so much.

Now only a memory, overcome grief and celebrate

his life as he would want us to.

In a Catholic church, me, Paul and Claire

are asked to take the sacred chalices to the altar – this we do.

I put my pagan faith aside and do it for Gordon.

To look back and to see 200 people all in mourning,

the Hurst and the Franklin family, brought here by

Gordon’s death, so unfair.

To see him buried and to throw earth on his coffin

is to really think, this is real and not a dream.

I see strong men cry and his wife upset –

no words can mend what has been taken away –

my mate’s brother.

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Minutes later she came to the lakeside marked by rocks and pebbles, past the shoreline, the bridge of land to frozen water – ice. It was a lake totally frozen and covered by snow, a huge weird panorama of great beauty. Carefully, she left the tree line and made her way over the rocks and onto the ice. She felt relief, being there, the place where she would die, by her own actions, her own choice. Without pause or hesitation she walked forward, iceward bound. Beneath her feet snow crunched and the ice was less slippery than she had imagined. She scanned around the lake, shore and overhead as she walked. To the middle I’ll go to do my last deed, to die, she thought. Out from the shore she went to her last place on earth, this damned tortured place where her young years had hardly come to blossom. Instead, a black void had taken over, had claimed her, ended her life in this madness she was caught up in. Now it would soon be over and the darkness had another victim to add to the countless others. She remembered all it had taken, her friends, lovers, enemies and strangers sacrificed to a Devil God. Of how some had begged for mercy and had cried for Jesus to save them; when he didn’t they crawled over the floor, animal like, a broken twig, as death took them. Some had fought with warrior spirit to the last breath; only by being outnumbered did they fall. How the list of suffering went on! She was lucky not to have died by their hands, for her escape was by pure luck and her skill. They must have found her tracks but she was too far ahead now to be caught. It didn’t matter now, nothing did.

Snow started to fall from the thick grey clouds, lightly for several minutes, then thicker until a three-dimensional image of moving flakes tricked her vision. Over and over, a surreal scene, she closed her eyes and walked another hundred meters out over the ice until she was three hundred metres out from the shore. She turned in a circle and opened her eyes. Her emotions came then, wave after wave of painful, confusing and dangerous feelings coupled with vivid images – of her lost love, of friends, enemies, her own life, of how this was really the end.

Her mind was splitting apart into a multi-faceted mess a mental collapse, breakdown. The thought tortured her: I’m lost and gone beyond belief. She started to cry as grief welled up from inside her and took over her completely. She let the tears fall, oblivious of everything else, even the snow and the light wind that blew over the exposed lake surface. She fell to her knees, weeping, her sobbing shaking her body.

Was she aware of a noise? Of her own screams?  Or was it a monster coming to claim her? She didn’t know, didn’t care. Onto her side she rolled, turning white by the snowfall, slowly freezing. For an age she stayed like this, lost and awaiting death, her mind closing in and shutting down, her body too. Something pulled her away from the blackness where she was heading, from the image of her love, and she struggled to open her eyes. A phantom shape glided over her, flames seemed to follow it, a jolt as, whatever it was, hit the ice, hard! She shut her eyes and drifted back into the darkness, total blackness, where her dead love beckoned her. Come to me, come to me…

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