PROSE
AND
POETRY
by Andrew O'Donnell

'MIDNIGHT IN AUGUST 2005'
by Andrew O'Donnell

i.m Jean Charles de Menezes

'Burly says if we don't sing then we won't have anything'

- Will Oldham

Wanting to start by slamming the keys
he imagines each letter calling down
to some coseismal core � on those tiny slabs
of dissolvable plastic, a dyable colour �
an unreachable night, this minute:

Last month they shot a man dead on the tube.
I�m having a hard time knowing how
many times a bullet went in, or if it matters.
But in every way, we boil down to wildness, reduce
sadnesses to sadder � questions implode, sound

tracks mute scenes. Where do words go?
Could you rid me of this much imagination,
leave my CrimeWatch re-enactments
at the escalator? The grate of who is this man?
Where did you see him last? Is he the man,

the real man? Is he real? Who did this?
What did this? What Killed This Man?
What died? What fire got launched
in the dying � the dead � the Die of the dying.
What went out of him? Tell me

you never saw it coming. Draw lots
for the update in your head, the want
for nothing.. that today in London nothing
much happened now over to you Zainab.
He Is Not The Man. Not Even Close. Now

the weather. And I'm on the tube.
At the station � a Stockwell morning.
Or afternoon. Evening. And the stain
in my head mirrors the sin in the air,
the air that isn�t there, the man who isn�t

there. Too many answers in that vast question
of a man. The stop. The station �
Too much coiled from body, too much carriage
of heart. Skull. The murals are yet to go
up, the hands are yet to go up. Right

there � and you have to go somewhere.
Somewhere. But where do you go? Who
do you see? Who do you talk to with the dead
in your head with the gangs of ghosts
in the night in your head? They say he was

working here. Living here. And my friend is like
watch yourself.. (These new looks.. these steps �
it�s surreal). They tell us what
he was wearing.. but what I want to know is
what wasn�t he wearing? What gave him

away? What didn�t give him away? What skin
wasn�t he sporting, whose breath wasn�t
he breathing, what train wasn�t
he catching, what language didn�t he know..
enough to know better? I guess

I want to know a lot. They arrested
ten protestors, took them to Bow Magistrates
this week*. Is this news? Or is this just
the weather? They arrested them
because they opened and closed
their mouths about opening and closing

their mouths about something. Ministers
in Parliament say they can�t work
properly because of the noise. They say
they can�t work properly because
of the noise. Because of The Silence.

They won�t let people use loud speakers
outside Parliament anymore. Too much
imagination all round. There could be a bomb
hidden behind a placard, or some other device
or other. They actually said this

to another man** whose spent years
saying something, repeating something
(this I can�t actually repeat within the distance
of where it might be heard). You can read it
in the minutes. They said it to him

in court � Use your imagination. There
could be a bomb behind a placard, a spy
in a sandwich, a prayer in a mug of tea,
a wish, wedged between a bunch of flyers.
Or in a song. Or in the bloody breeze �

There might be a voice between
The voices, a death between the deaths
that is actually worth something
to someone. Or perhaps a voice that went out
of a voice that means something

to someone, or another voice beyond that.
Use your imagination. There Could Be a Bomb
Behind a Placard? All of this, while
he�s obviously a decent man. The �he�
of we, I, you (or anyone?.. while his beatings

come at night when the comrades,
the shouters and doubters are home already.
His nose has been broken more than once
and he�s got comments for the comments
about his face.You think I wanna look

like this? he says) Anyone. I wouldn�t want to look
like anyone right now. What would anyone do?
What would a British Muslim do
with all these gifts through his letterbox?***
Except make a complaint to the police

like anyone would. What would anyone
do when the police, instead of addressing
his complaint, (the complaint like anyone�s).
Instead of doing something about anyone�s
problem � they arrest him and he spends

three weeks in prison. Yeah right,
I wouldn�t like to be anyone right now.
Anything could happen. Probably does �
O this sad nation of people come away
from windows � doors � isolated incidents:

Awkwardtime. At his mosque
they thought he was on holiday.
His family knew he wasn�t. They knew
he was (and wasn�t) in the picture pictured here
as I look out the leaving window thinking

to start by slamming the keys
I find each letter calling down
to skinned words � from those tiny pieces
of dissolving plastic, the naked colour �
a reaching night, beyond this

particular shade � this. Minute......................��.

____________________________

* Ten protestors were arrested on August 1st and 7th for peacefully speaking out against The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. This bill introduces an exclusion zone within a one mile radius of Parliament so that spontaneous protest, within this area, is now a criminal offence.
** Refers to peace protestor, Brian Haw.
*** Taken from an account of a series of events in West London


� Andrew O'Donnell

Reproduced with permission

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'HOTEL'
by Andrew O'Donnell

The whole of the hotel is towering up to the crumbling end of a cigarette. It's hot and blowy there. You are outside for a moment, in a leather coat, standing over a fire, the cigarette bending down to the ground. Separating you from it.

In the hotel the rooms of each floor cluster around small tiled landings. In the middle of each landing are square holes with iron bars across them. These are usually used for drying laundry.

It is too late for any kind of activity now. All the clothes have been dried and put away. Tonight you can look from the third floor right down to the ground floor.

You continue taking the odd swig of vodka from the bottle. The hotel is completely silent. It is about 11pm.

Minutes pass.

You slowly register a voice from one of the rooms. An English voice. It is the guy you met up on the roof. He is reading parts of his book out loud. The volume increases as he settles into a steady reading pace. You listen.

This particular chapter is a precise historical catalogue of terrorist bombings, names of cities, dates, methods by which governments have dealt with each attack, names of journalists, names of different ambassadors and heads of state.

Each paragraph ends with the line �..and if you do; you die.. and all your family dies.. and everyone you�ve ever known ..dies� You can feel how he punches the word �dies� into the air with a fisted cigarette and how the smoke wafts up to the ceiling of his room like an imaginary concertina-shaped lantern that slowly shakes itself out of sight. You are imagining.

You look down, past three floors of grill, through to the bottom of the hotel. You imagine the reception area somewhere off to the right. You imagine Eshem, the big mustachioed Arab, sleeping in his too-small-to-fit-him cot, his feet dangling over the edge.

You take a sip from the bottle, the shape of the landing window breathes itself into the back of your head. You see someone shuffle along to the toilet on Floor 2.

The toilet door closes.

It suddenly seems that everything is in reverse, or maybe not; but the floors take on a gradient. You could be at the bottom or the top. You wouldn�t know either way. The whole hotel is like a drawing by Esher. The wind outside suddenly gasps and inhales the gloom of the hotel. You feel the absence of any sound, any wind, and you feel that you could float, weightless..suspended above the edge of the hole in the landing.

The man in the room keeps intoning his doom-laden chapters. You hear every word, you can imagine them as brittle chips of coal.. pouring from his smoky mouth.

�..And if you do; you die.. and all your family dies.. and everyone you�ve ever known.. dies�

You stand up. Shocked out of the side-order-of-thought that the vodka has shrugged into you. And you shout in the silent hotel, hoping the guy can hear you.

�Not bad.. bit of Hubert Selby Jr.. bit of John Pilger.. not my taste, but..� You fill your mouth with a liberal blast.. �Come on! keep going.. I want to know where it ends, come on, I�m hooked!�

The end of another paragraph. �And if you do; you die..�

He is not listening to you.

The toilet flushes on the floor below. The paragraphs continue unabated.

You walk to the door of your room, unlocking the padlock, opening the door and throwing the keys onto the bed.

It�s all done in one strange movement. You become momentarily amazed by the idea of your doing anything at all.

As a kid

you would

open a cereal box for breakfast,

pour cornflakes into the bowl,

put the box down,

spoon the sugar,

sprinkle the sugar over the cereal,

take the milk,

pour the milk..

And you would be lost in a tiny moment, feeling only a mixture of amazement and exhaustion, staring down at your breakfast from the height of the chair and your six-year-old eyes.

And then the feeling would change. You might feel slightly humbled.. or worried, depending on your mood. Usually just worried, perhaps.

What would the worry be? Not any kind of worry, not something deadly, perhaps just the kind of worry that someone might get from finding a packet of cigarettes in the fridge

or

seeing a broken umbrella

in the middle of a shopping street.

Nothing that couldn�t be changed.

And humble? Why that? You aren�t sure but you can feel that something about that room seemed to suggest a kind of humility,

the kitchen table,

the spoon.

The sound of the radio.

The guy from the roof continues reading.

�And all your family dies.. and everyone you�ve ever known.. dies�

You decide to go outside to the balcony. You flick the light switch on, looking at the keys on your bed, thinking that you have forgotten to bring something with you. That you might need a new t-shirt or shirt.

A few seconds pass. You switch the light off. You ingest the surprise of the newly dark air. You close the door, hearing the gentle scrape of it.

He continues reading.

You walk to the far corner of the landing. You stop, confused, looking for the door. You put the bottle to your lips, glancing up at the patterns on the ceiling.

You swallow.

There is a silent split-second, between his words, where you realize that this is a different hotel. That there is no balcony, no door out to it. That you are not where you thought you were.

� Andrew O'Donnell

Reproduced with permission

---

'TO ROBERT SHAW'
by Andrew O'Donnell

The magic was enduring Westhoughton,
but, high as lights, we find your stone.
Stained with Margharita's we'd hoped.
There is some confusion between here and the Orkneys.
You have made us famous,
our enemies in Ladybridge, assume.
Say that all they will remember you by
is that blood-pill you cracked, and a wailing
stick dragged across the shark's nose.

(While, all this time, Richard Dreyfuss
is stuck in that battered cage on the seabed,
with the last of the oxygen)

� Andrew O'Donnell
Reproduced with permission

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'KIDNAPPED'
by Andrew O'Donnell

When he woke up
from the thrashing bloodiness of his first
sleep he thought of the alien face
that held him captive. Grew to love it. Relinquished
the corridor and up-ended, almost breathless before it.

We stood watching.
There was no terror as he said he had
suspected. There was nothing like that. Someone
took out a camera and he joked about
calling the papers; his son, peeping a head
out of the agony.

� Andrew O'Donnell
Reproduced with permission

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ANDREW'S OTHER INFLUENCES INCLUDE:

LYN LIFSHIN

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ISHIKAWA TAKUBOKU

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JULIO CORTAZAR

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JEAN GENET

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OSAMU DAZAI

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HONG SUNG-DAM

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CAROL ANN DUFFY

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PAUL AUSTER

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MALCOLM LOWRY

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RAY WINSTONE

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PAUL FARLEY

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MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI

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FUJIO TACHIBANA

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FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

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MURASAKI SHIKIBU

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RODDY LUMSDEN

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SEAN PENN

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THE PILLOW BOOK

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LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

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ERIK SATIE

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YUKIO MISHIMA

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THE PIXIES

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WAYNE WANG

Click title to read an interview with Wang on the Onion AV Club site; for BBCi interview with Wang about his film, 'The Centre of the World,' click here or for Wayne Wang's films on DVD on Amazon, click here

PLATO

Click title to visit St Andrews University's study of Plato's life and works; for the 'Exploring Plato's Dialogues' website, click here or for works by Plato on Amazon, click here

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Click title to for full online texts of all Shakespeare's work; to visit Shakespeare.com and generate your own Shakespeare poetry with the Poetry Machine, click here or for works by Plato on Amazon, click here

DAVID MITCHELL

Click title to read interview and excerpts from Mitchell's work on Random House Bold Type website; for a review of Mitchell's novel, 'Ghostwritten' on the Remote Induction site, click here or for books by Mitchell on Amazon, click here

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