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Notes:
1. This was written on and off between July 2014 and February 2017
2. I’m not sure why it took so long
There was a woman who lived alone in the woods. She walked through the trees and built herself creatures out of metal scavenged from old coke cans, discarded shopping trolleys, lost penknives, dropped coins, abandoned motorbikes, burnt-out cars, bits of barbed wire, tent poles, gas canisters, hubcaps, forgotten farming machinery, the remnants of barbecues, bicycles fished from the river, sawblades, nails, screws, copper wiring of unknown provenance found splayed out like veins just beneath the surface of the earth.
She poured into them her blood and, when she could, her love, and she watched with delight and no small measure of love as they made their first tentative moves in the palms of her hand, in the cradle of her lap – a flutter of wings, a flexing of claws, the opening and closing of tiny beaks as if speaking unheard words.
But her blood would clot in their valves, scab up their biscuit-tin hearts, and there against her skin, as quickly and as slowly as they had started, they stopped.
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Notes:
1. From August 2014
__________There was a man who was incredibly lonely. Having reached the age of 39 without ever knowing love, he decided to use his talents as a carpenter and carve himself a wife. He worked tirelessly for over a year until one day he looked at what he had made and realised there was nothing more he could do.
“You’re perfect,” he said.
“But you’re not,” she replied. “Frankly, you’re a right old mess.”
And she took the tools from his hands and began to make improvements.
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Notes:
1. From November 2014
2. This was inspired by The Loves Of Lady Purple by Angela Carter (from Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces, published in 1974)
3. And of course by my tremendous loneliness too
There was a woman who lived in the woods. Perhaps I should I tell you she was beautiful, the most beautiful in the world, an earthbound goddess lost among us waiting to be saved? Or that she was hideous, ugly and deformed, beset by disabilities and disfigurements that her pure heart would overcome?
But the truth was that she was plain, like everyone except the few. Plain, and hated for it.
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Notes:
1. I’m not sure when exactly this is from
2. It was taken from a longer piece that didn’t really work and stayed half unwritten for years in a notebook
3. But the latest it would have been written is sometime in 2015
There was a lord who fell in love with a married woman. The lord put out her husband’s eyes, for surely she would not love a man who could not see her beauty, but still love him she did. The lord then cut off her husband’s ears, for surely she would not love a man who did not listen to her, but still love him she did. The lord then cut off her husband’s tongue, for she surely would not love a man who would not tell her he loved her, but still love him she did.
Finally the lord cut out her husband’s heart, for surely she would not love a man who was dead. But still love him she did, now more than ever.
And the lord never did win her love.
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Notes:
1. Written on July 13th, 2013
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