A Thought For The Day

NADIA

She's Russian and I teach her English twice weekly. She is from a town that translated into English means "November." I took this shot towards the end of our lesson, when she was telling me what she was up to for the rest of the day.

Trees

TORSO

Storm

Early Moon

Out Of Nowhere

where you been?

Afternoon Clouds

ANOTHER CHAPTER.......

SERGIO

When I talk with him it's like I'm there, on the shores of the med, outside the bar he used to manage in portugal, smoking a cigarette and listening to his stories that are all delivered with a strong lisp. A lisp due to a bad front tooth that he keeps telling me he's going to have pulled one of these days, when he's got the spare cash. That's why he's kinda hiding in the picture, wanting to smile but not for me to see the tooth, although I've seen the tooth many times.

He tell's me his dream, to go back home and feel accepted as a gay man, have a child, find a partner who knows what they want, feel more complete.

Back home he was taunted and made fun of for being gay and looking wierd, but like he tell's me: "I'm not wierd man I'm just me. I'm just another man. Get over it."

So he came to Brighton in England where being gay is as openly accepted as anything else.

"The gay people in britian are too aggresive, for years they have moaned about equality and then they get it and what do they want to do with it, they want to be seperate from the rest, treated differently, like the whole gay pride thing man, look at me I'm gay and I'm different and it's okay now, wheres the equality in this? If it's so openly accepted now and theres no problems there shouldn't be a need for festivals. I'm gay, and some festival doesn't mean a fuck to me man. Yes it's more accepted here in britian now but look what I have to do as a foreigner to stay here."

To me, a british national his english is good, I have no problem understanding him. But to most brits he still sounds very much from another country. Therefore the kind of work he picks up is mostly low paid and manual. He is currently working in a small hotel where he is anything the general manager wants him to be, all for five pounds an hour: Breakfast cook, barman, room service, porter, waiter, glass collector, dishwasher, the list goes on. "I don't mind though really," he tell's me. "It's all experience for me, and I know one day I will go back home and will have become a different man, the kind of man that can live with just about anything."

HEART!

sign

"THE SOUND OF THE COFFIN NAILS." A SHORT PIECE.


He sat across from me in the staff canteen, out of breath, pale and wheezing.
"Are you okay?" I asked. His eyelids fluttered like grey butterfly wings, almost transparent to my own eyes.
"I'll be okay," he replied. But I wasn't convinced.
I drank some of my coffee, and he slurpped on some water, a little of the usual colour was visible in his lips, but not much.

His name was Collins. He'd only just returned back, two weeks ago, from a nine week lay-off due to a second heart-by-pass. Collins was thirty nine with almost white hair. They'd told him that he needed to lose about two stones in weight, myself and the rest of the staff were still waiting for him to make a start. They'd also advised Collins to maybe find an occupation less demanding, less involved.

Before the ambulance came for him he'd been a man with blazing eyes and an unstoppable mouth, a man to sort problems and call shots, a man eternally excavating for the truth. Returned he was now sluggish and heavy but still insistant that everything was okay, and that he'd be right as rain in no time. But everyone could see, I could see, he needed a change. The doc's were right.

Grady the boss took him back because of a long and loyal shared history, but Grady knew, he had his doubts.
Collins wiped his big head with a big white paper napkin, his eyes bugged and searching. He found a fork and shovelled some of the canteen chow into his mouth, pork something with rice.
"Maybe you shouldn't eat that man," I suggested carefully. "Maybe try the rice dish with salad."
But Collins, just like his former self was having none of it.
"Can't eat that shit man, I can't eat fucking salad, I ain't no bunny rabbit, I'm a meat eater, the way I was intended to be."
He worked at the big fatty lumps of orange coloured pork. I shook my head but he did not see me do this.

They'd trimmed his hours and we all knew why, so did Collins but he didn't dispute it. We thought he might at first but then we soon realised that he simply felt lucky to be back at work, on the job, doing the only thing he knew how to do.
Collins didn't want change, this was obvious. We all knew, even Grady, that if he carried on here he would for sure die. Grady knew this better than any of us that's why he'd trimmed the hours. But every morning at seven Collins showed up, struggled into his uniform and went about the job. Much slower, holding his chest and shaking his head and popping pills constantly, but doing the work with a stubborn grace I and the others couldn't quite comprehend.

I finished my coffee and Collins slid his licked clean plate away from his big front. He popped three pills with some orange juice and held a hand on his heart and winced. I could feel his pain too, his face told me the complete truth.
"Hey collins man why don't you just give it up? There's easier work than this shit man."
When the pain had passed his eyes slowly opened like a sleepy toads.
"Too old, been doing this too long, what else would I do anyway?" he replied with his eyes blazing like the old days. He continued to stare at me, I felt like his eyes were searching my own now for a direction in-which he should go in. But I didn't know where Collins should go, I didn't know what other work he should find, I only was sure he shouldn't be doing the kind of work he was doing.

After a good deal of time he took his gaze off me and got up. As he slowly shuffled off the works end of lunch bell sounded for the return back. I looked down at my fingers, at the dirt and wear and scars, and knew I would not be returning tomorrow, or ever again.

WITHIN THE DREAM

North East South and West

COMPETITION

Between

THE WILL TO LIVE

FAMILY

THE DECISION

SOUL-MATES

LATE AGAIN

HARMONY

REMEMBRANCE

STEEPLE

JOURNEY

RESSURECTION

13TH FLOOR

BETWEEN WHAT'S HAPPENED AND WHAT COMES NEXT

BEEN AND GONE

JUSTIN'S FINGERS

THE SALESMAN

A salesman for forty years
and a raw deal at the end
but he's not bitter,
he just let it float away
like a bottle on the tide and
sometimes he's too quiet
and doesn't say that much,
his silence speaking stories I suppose
his lips could never get a hold of,
I catch him staring off his eyes painting
the horizon and even when he's
absent he is always there
in me, in my son, a voice upon the clouds I
hear now and again,
my Father.