A summer night. Half-lit
stillness where the stars
ought to be.
Clouds curl at the edges,
billow catches fire, and a
small lake of leftover
tidewater sketches ripples
along the edge of the beach.
A pipistrelle hunts over the
treeline.
A kestrel swoops over the
grassland, hovers, shifts
suddenly in the breeze and
drops onto a meal.
An eerie thudding echoes in
from the sea.
The lighthouse refuses to
reply.
Somebody is planting more
wind turbines –
or perhaps flowers.
Giant ones.
Petal sentinels.
Perhaps a welcoming beacon
for container ships, as they
glide in from the sacred
waters of the outer galaxy.
Perhaps my imagination has
waded out to sea with a giant
hammer.
I promised you a sunset –
and a small token of my
humanity.
I’m afraid I can’t give you any
more than that. Not until I
figure out what I have been
waiting for all these years.
It’s not in the clouds tonight.
It’s not in the breeze.
It’s not in this heart.
It’s not in the thudding of
angry seas.
So why does it haunt my
ragged soul? Why is its
name written across my
cheek?
Why do I cradle your smile in
my hands?
I will stand here forever now…
just a breath away from
spaceships and sea monsters.
The full truth of everything
that can’t be written in books. A smile.
A kiss.
A long and badly-timed goodbye.
A small child walking home
across the grassy dunes…
knowing that there is no
home.
There is only the silence…
the whisper…
the distant thudding of the
imagination.
This is my story, my rallying
cry, my farewell sermon from
the shoreline.
I crumble.
The sun burns away my voice.
I write my most enduring
masterpiece in the stillness of
a world without sentences.
About the author, John Hulme
John Hulme is a British writer from the Wirral, a small peninsula near Liverpool in the North of England. Trained in journalism (in which he has a masters degree), John’s first love was storytelling, trying to make sense of the world around him using his offbeat imagination. Since the death of his mother in 2010, John’s work has grown increasingly personal, and has become heavily influenced by Christian mysticism. This has led to the publication of two poetry books, Fragments of the Awesome (2013) and The Wings of Reborn Eagles (2015). A mix of open mike performances, speaking engagements and local community radio appearances has opened up new avenues which John is now eager to pursue. He is hoping to go on a kind of busking road trip fairly soon, provisionally titled Writer seeks gig, being John. Find out more about John on Facebook.