10 June 2005

Notes from a blog station


Here I sit and think of words. I want to see the most intensely personal emotions laid out on this screen. I want to show the results to people. A confessional to be read by others who know and respect the deepest feelings a soul is capable of. The next day my PC tells me there have been visitors. Good people who have read, understood, commented and moved on.

I try feeble poetry, short heartbreaking stories, reviews of matters musical and occasional rants on a pet topic. Tonight I see the last of the sun setting as I construct these sentences. A bat swoops in slow lazy circles under the trees catching insects on the wing. Stars wink on as I check grammar, spelling, punctuation and fiddle with vocabulary. Sometimes you settle into the zone. I have moved on now and am making notes for my next piece...

...TV audiences relish a case of multiple killing with morbid fascination. They are torn between the sheer brutality of the crime and the victims’ extreme suffering. Next they marvel at the skill of the forensic detective, absorbing details like thirsty sponges. Twist and turn as he may, the killer will be caught and exposed even by the faintest trace of his ten-year-old saliva. There can be no mistake, there will be no escape.

Yet serial murder is no new phenomenon. In 1888 the Streets of Whitechapel were paced by plodding policemen, always several steps behind the most notorious killer of all time. A warren of gas-lit Victorian streets lined with five-storey slums provided cover which would be unknown in the twenty first century. No CCTV, DNA Profiling or Offenders Register, not even finger-printing. Little surprise that his identity remains a mystery to this day.

His final victim was Mary Jane Kelly. He visited such savage wrath upon this girl that the few surviving photographs of the one hundred and seventeen year-old crime scene could not be shown even to a 2005 audience without explicit warnings. However there would be no more killings and an uneasy return to normality spread across London’s East End.

Soon I will consider what could have happened to bring deafening silence after that atrocity...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

When writing from the heart you most definately get the most intensly personal emotions all the time, I think that's part of settling in the zone.

It's the piece that takes whatever it is from within us and puts it here on screen for all to see, the naked truth of it all...our deepest most secret feelings that we hide from the people we know and lay out here in trust for those we feel part of.

I love your writing Perfect, yours is one of the first place I come to each day, to see what is waiting for us to make us think and feel exactly what you are thinking and feeling :)

Anonymous said...

My brain is on a wander
To places far away
I may be back tomorrow,
Or another day.

I feel I've got to leave
To see the world anew
To wander round in space
And far away from you.

The places I am going are
Just inside my head
Far away, yet oh so near
Nice, but full of dread.

This is just to escape
The feelings that I feel
It's just a method to get away
Or then, may be it's real.

Find your little hiding place
It's out there in the sun
Noone knows quite where you've been
It really is good fun ...

Perfect Virgo said...

Doughgirl - that's a lovely comment, thank you for being such a big part of this. I say things here I would not say to people in real life, I know you do to.

It makes it all worthwhile when someone truly feels there is something worth reading. I have a rather bleak piece ready, also a poem. They will be up soon.

When I read your posts I sense you are using the blog as a kind of therapy. I get great benefit from reading you because you remind me just how hard it is when your life has been forever touched and changed.

P3t3r - welcome. Your verse is a perfect description of sweet escapism. How curious that our first reaction to adversity might be to run. To seek comfort in a better place as far away as possible.

Why do we so often overlook the mind's staggering ability to visit places "Far away, yet oh so near?" Our happiness and our future is within our heads. I must remember that next time I consider flight from sadness.

Wardo said...

Anytime I'm not into it 100%, I don't even try. My brain wanders regularly...I should produce more, but sometimes I just can't. I watch a movie instead.

I think of Steve Prefontaine's famous quote, "to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice your gift." Not that I'm comparing myself to him. I just appreciate a full-out effort, and I get disappointed in myself when things come off half-assed.

-A

Recovery Road London said...

Underneath the gaslamp
Where the air's cold and damp
I'm nasty surprise
I'm a devil in disguise...
O hear my warning
Never turn your back
on the Ripper...

The anonymity of keyboard and monitor.

Perfect Virgo said...

Argus - to write when devoid of inspiration is hopeless. You end up with shameful nonsense that dilutes all your previous efforts.

For a while I tried to write daily but could not sustain it. Now I've dropped to about 3 times a week.

Kenny - chilling words. The Whitechapel murders became an obsession with me some years ago and I hoovered up any book I could get my hands on on the subject.

Watch this space!

Faith - I know you have had a tough emotional time lately. I hope my comments haven't been too personal. If you are feeling numb then you must still be between decisions, on the horns of a dilemma. I hope you find the right way through.

The weekend dawned hot and sunny in the southern UK, so the garden beckons. Have a great one too, Faith.

Perfect Virgo said...

Finnegan - you rekindled my interest in matters Ripper. 'Hands on' means everything. wicked though they are, the murderous dictators are detached from our close experience. A man armed with a knife and a degree of anatomical knowledge is an altogether more realistic proposition.

A shadow stretches tall on the grey brickwork while a young girl laughs drunkenly and straightens her pretty bonnet...

Anonymous said...

All I can say is I always read your blog but can never think of anything as beautiful to post as you write.
Peace,
JJ