Mementos

Mementos is a new page which offers an opportunity for members of Sutton Writers to demonstrate their work on our website. Each Memento will only remain on the website for a limited period. We hope you enjoy reading the articles and that these previews will boost your interest and enthusiasm to come and join us and start writing!

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Brexit vote. Whether you agree or not with the result and any of the politics which has ensued in the following decade, the event has proved a fertile ground for artists and writers. In 2016, our member Christoph John had this poem published in The European newspaper. It now features in Mementos.

After the Circus

(After Henri Rousseau’s Carnival Evening 1886)

The heart is missing from the darkness.

We walk in the twilight of a summer dream, punctured by one shallow lamp,

smoky clouds blown south. Under slick inky skies the beech trees waver,

spiky thin, flesh-poor, fat and foliage worthless now the reaping has ceased.

Beneath our weary feet the debris crinkles, disintegrating the bedraggled harvest.

The carnival is passed. The masks and costumes which adorn us grow heavy.

The fete, the circus, its comforting arms and extravagant feast was warm to our throats.

Sat on their wattle thrones, paper crowns tired in mourning, we saw the king and queen

blessed by the mayor, that bloated old knight, his moustache and authority drooping.

On we walk. Our friends from Gädheim watch, separate, as we pitch to sleep.

Beyond us stands the soothsayer’s burrow, veil pulled, a bastard likeness snorting deception.

What does fortune tell the heart?

Will the sun rise still and the dew wet your stockings?

Will I seek still the dense black aroma of your hair?

Will you whisper still the alien phrases I yearn for?

Will our kisses, once soft, still turn coarse and urgent?

The complacent knight on his charge will forsake our friends.

There is always another dragon to slay in the forest.

The oracle decreed it and so the fool believes in paradise.

The darkness comes after us.