It started innocuously enough; late on Sunday evening the students gathered together for a bonfire. They immolated little straw men. They threw articles of clothing into the coals. They danced around it - drunk - like the primitive rites we imagine delighting our ancestors. It must have looked demonic from above. But I wouldn't know. I missed it, opting instead for a weekend abroad. When I awoke from my personal Bohemian rhapsody, Chelteham welcomed me back with a bang. Explosions in the court yard, Catherine's wheels overhead: and all because of a failed plot to demolish Parliament.
On Tuesday, some teens begged a penny for the Old Guy. Translation: "Will you help us buy explosives and booze?" I laughed, paused, and acquiesced. Fifty pence for the Old Guy. What a charming holiday, I thought. What a nice place. I woke early on the 5th - early by my standards, at least - and heard it again. A bang. And then another. Firecrackers in the alleys, bottle rockets in back yards, and all of them were popping into the foggy haze surrounding Cheltenham. A day to remember, this Guy Fawkes' Day. More than an excuse to watch V for Vendetta and quote T.S. Eliot. It didn't stop. At the first hint of silence, another insurgent took it upon himself to send up some form of screaming, screeching, popping charge.
By midnight the colours around us were as dense as their resulting trails of smoke, and no one wanted it to end. It didn't. The next night, the kitchen window: loud sounds from the lane, and bright lights in the sky. The process repeated throughout the night, from different windows, and again on different nights. For a whole week, we had explosions and colours and celebrations. I looked out my window and saw them. I grabbed my camera and shot them. I wanted to remember my week with fireworks.
And now that I'm sitting here, typing this entry and looking hopefully out the window, I know that I need a life full of lots and lots of fireworks.
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Fall the Fireworks.
6 comments:
I like your poem. It reminds me of when you were a little girl with a far lesser vocabulary. My how far you've come. Your father must be very proud; I am.
xoxo
Mom, that's a "parody" of a T.S. Eliot poem called "The Hollow Men." Click on the link in the story, you'll see.
I'm glad you think T.S. Eliot sounds like a 10-year-old me. That's pretty high praise.
Thanks!
And your grammar's so good! Nice job. Forget you being proud, now I'm proud! I knew you could type without ellipses.
Sorry Timmy Tiger... but that comment aint from me... someone else loves you, too.... but who??
I am about two seconds away from disabling the anonymous commenting feature. Sign your gorram posts already!
may-be if you take an extra second and reread it.. You'll figure it out.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
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