Drinking the last of the 20th Century. by Neil Stringfellow

Drinking the last of the 20th Century.


The dusty Library building was undergoing a face lift
It had been closed for many months,
Books have a musty smell and buildings need to comply
With the latest government regulations.
Still the pensioners and students
would come with bundles of books,
Tied together with string.
But with librarians on leave, and labouring workmen in there place
with plaster board and gloss paints,
books could not be returned.
Only a sign, chained to the big gates, greeted visitors with the words,
"This Library is temporarily closed due to refurbishment,
It will reopen in Spring 2000."

I filled up my cup with old wars and revolutions
I drank down the last of the 20th century,
I looked to the bottom of the cup
Looking for memory or desire;
No clues or tealeaf readers,
Only ideology leaving a taste to forget.
Would the library ever reopen?






Neil Stringfellow. November 21st, 2005.

Shimmering Strings by Eugene Montini

"

By a shimmering sea at sunset on my own and out of luck, longing suffocates my soul as the sun poisons what is left of my withered soul, a dull whip lash or even a gust of wind and night came like an immaculate bowl over flowing with stars and newness

Suddenly the voice of a violin thin and hungry floated on the black night’s air. Like a stray dogs' howling-It was my companion, it was someone else’s aloneness loose upon the sand

I sought this violin in the night I searched step by pitch black step, tide by tide, star by star. But it faded fell silent then suddenly surged like a flare in the brackish night, it was a pattern of incendiary sound spiral of musical contours and I went on searching for the dark violins life line the source submerged in silence

Finally there it was; a withered bow and its his hungry companion soaring over the lonely night on a solitary scale, a single theme that rung to the sky full of stars and wondering. And I played my violin half asleep held deep in the estuaries of my mind the strings giving birth to desolate cries, the wood worn smooth by the plunging of many fingers and I honoured the smoothness of a perfect instrument perfectly assembled. That hungry violin was like family to me like kin not just because of its sound not just because it raised its howling to the hungry stars; no because it had grown up learning how to befriend lost souls and sing songs to wondering strangers"

Eugene Montini 4 August 2010 A wonderful Kenyan friend