The Rags

   A drop-cloth pattern, marble slab bearing a brass plate with a doctor’s identification and credentials outside of the surgery.
   They had taught him ABC and then given him a typewriter, he thought

as others passed him in the crowd.

   There was a school boy standing at the end of the mob on the bus with an army surplus khaki knapsack slung over his shoulder.

Like everyone else he was not directly looking at anyone.

From his bag hung a red lace ribbon.

It had been tied there by a girl when in his embrace in the late afternoon

of a day when the air was soft with the vapours of the dew rising

in the out-pouring of late afternoon sunlight.
   The rest of the college students were attending class and they lay there together on the lawn in an incautious air of serenity.

The security guard was asleep in his office behind the mottled glass.

   In the class rooms some students were sneaking a glance at the person in the desk opposite them.

Others concentrated on the expanses between their noses and the sheet of paper and the whiteboard on their desks.

Not really listening.

Replaying, mentally, moments

remembered from the drama

in last night's watched TV shows

rerun in the mind

on the mind screen,

segments and fragments

purely reenacted to amuse

a distracted mind

with the daydream

of a brain, secure

in a completely turned-off state.*

One student read Shakespeare aloud whilst trying to emphasise

at the correct places,

to give the impression that it really had been read

during the holidays, whilst not really understanding a word he was saying, and he went on...

   Another, illustrated the dog-eared page of her note-pad with a pattern consisting of dots, lines and dashes whilst attempting to convince the distracted, apologetic 'others-in-the-class' eyes there in the region where her mouth should be. Her mouth moving into shapes, teacher trying to give the impression to her that she was actually writing on the note-pad.

 Something she guessed the teacher would never look at, her actual non-existent notes.

...Meanwhile, the voice droned on..!

Occasionally,

entering into the day-dream like rumbles of thunder

from the lightning

of an unexpectedly

intruding reality.
They were marooned there on the mossy garden island.

Where no one could see.

Between teaching rooms,

as she finished tying the bow.

His stop came and he left the bus,

the ribbon lifted

by the breeze

from the passing traffic

outside the door.
In the barber-shop

the barber applied

the exact amount of pressure required

to remove the hair follicles

from the back of the neck

without breaking

the skin

with

the razor.

Scraped human skin

particles,

chopped rods of minute hairs, airborne.

Aloft escaping currents, in the sunlight so small they floated by the hair-cut victim's ear lobes.
The fabric that the person

who is receiving

the final touches

of this haircut is wearing

as a shirt

has the inorganic sheen of one

of those synthetic fibers

concocted by chemists

before the development of nylon,

and it is a rare artifact

in the history

of mechanized production

because

nearly every

other garment made from it

was found so abhorrent

to the touch

that any example of it

previously still existent

has long since been ripped into rags at the sheltered workshop

and been sold amongst thousands of bags of rags

to mechanical workshops...

Each of these

rags were also

instantly discarded

and thrown

into the waste

barrel after the mechanic's

initially touching it,

there to fall,

unused.

Reviews

[Winslow Des Totes]

Wow. To the intricacies alone wow. Detailed descriptiveness would be a lacking description! This piece is so incredibly externalized it's almost intoxicating; I felt truly transformed into a new place and time as I was whisked from one vision to the next! Now that I am safely back on land I can say great write and if I were to offer only one criticism it would be the format. I understand that moving to the next line creates a certain texture to a piece but in one of this size perhaps breaking it into several stanzas might make it look more appetizing to others. (I was offered this same advise to my longest writing on here and at first I was against it but honestly it really did make it flow and just out right look more presentable which is the only reason I mention it now.) :D Otherwise; DAMN! Good job! I will put this in my library for futures where I need an escape instead of just replaying last nights TV binge ;) thank you!

[Brett Hernan]

Thanks so much Winslow Des Totes, I am in awe at the depth of your expression to your connection to this piece.
Thanks for your advice, too. It's very important to me that you mentioned the format. It began as a novel type collection of poetry prose, which is all written in blocks of straight lines with minimal punctuation other than full stops and the occasional comma, etc.
I thought that this might be slightly inaccessible to readers, since there's 300 pages.
When presenting it here I have selected momentary details from it and decided, to maximize their impact, to sort out the concepts, so there's space to play with where concepts come from and from what other areas of the human psyche that approach or are kept keep away, by breaking up and spacing, through the impact of giving each three, two... single word. By giving a single word it's own entire sentence space. Breaking the actual sentences into stanzas which create inferences.
I was thinking last night whether I should publish the originally formatted text as well, (as first draft), to give people the option of something more accessible so that they can select their preferred version.
What do you think I should do?
If I have only ever a single response then yours, Winslow was exactly what I dared to subconsciously hope to hear, so you've encouraged me very much. Thank you! Your critique and praise has filled me with delight.
It really was worth going without sleep on the night of my last postings!