Footsteps In The Fog

Given that for most people, sight is the predominant sense, it's perhaps not surprising that this week's theme of   footsteps  has evoked primarily a visual response, with the metaphorical a close second. But I'm much more intrigued by the audible possibilities inherent in the idea, especially as we are now entering the season of mists and mellow spookiness, and my local supermarket is already well stocked with pumpkins and pumpkin-carving kits, ghoul masks, festoons of spiders-web and tubs of trick-or-treat sweets. (Oh, capitalism! Don't we love you.) 

Isn't the sound of footsteps way more intriguing as a stimulus to the imagination than the mere sight of them? 

Close your eyes. What do you hear? Whose footsteps could they be? What are they like? Where are they coming from? Where are they going to? Why have they stopped? And what do they want with you? 

With the scene suitably set, it's straight to the poem after this busy Saturday (and Blackpool were absolutely rubbish away at Mansfield by the way). Are you sitting uncomfortably? I don't know what this is about., a distempered sort of piece, definitely league three stuff. I wanted atmosphere, I wanted to name-check the London of Eliot and Dickens, I wanted vixens, I wanted a murder mystery. Well three out of four is not bad...but has it been worth it, after all?  

Beneath My Window

Outside my dingy Soho rooms, winter fog

curls and slides like a stealthy brindled fox, 

pauses, peering in, malingering at that gap

I always leave no matter what. I lie awake 

past midnight languid in uncurtained dark,

feeling its cool play over my face, listening.

Old Eliot surely would have understood,

even older Dickens too, who liked to pad

along these narrow alleyways following

at distance the clatter of clogs on cobbles,

keenly observing London's nocturnal lowlife

in its habitat, but never in such a peasouper.

I hear stilettos stab unsteadily up the street,

they pause beneath my window. I recognise

that walk. In case you're wondering if I'm

lying lonely up here, holding a torch for you,

hoping you'll ring the bell, sorry to disappoint.

Go to hell with you tonight, dipsy Demoiselle.

Wander away down the Lane if you will. Piss

if you must in someone else's porch. Softer

footfalls stop, a voice mutters. You utter that

scornful laugh I know so well and totter off

to earth, to sleep, to sober up. Soon vixens

rule the gutters. Street lamps sputter, Silence.

...and did I say that Blackpool were rubbish today? Onwards.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)