The Bear and Barnacle

On one of the benches overlooking the beach, black-clad arm fallen and long, white fingers brushing the sand, a man lies comatose. Gaunt, framed by nearly eighteenth-century clothes and sea-salted black hair, his face would look twenties-young (and his style the gothic of an over-meticulous modern histrionic) if it weren’t so haggardly drawn, the shadows under the eyes so deep and dark. It’s a striking incongruity, although, when he first appeared, he looked a seventy with little strange about it. The forbidding, heavy-clothed, over-buttoned outfit hangs on him rather, although it isn’t cut for a heavy man.

He has a nearly foot-long piece of pale wood holstered to one thigh--smoothly carved, well-worn, and just slightly rosy, with a few remaining flecks of walnut-stain lingering in its few deep groves--and a collection of intriguing little textured vials to the other. A few men with more respect for value and their own curiosity than dignity or possession have, since his unceremonious appearance on the bench, tried to handle or even make off with one or the other. All ran away quickly in pain and astonishment, clutching hideously blistered hands. One tried gloves, to no avail, and one paused to land a retributive backhanded blow.

The only relief of blackness on him are the odd and varied stains on his bony hands, and the spectacularly attractive mess of blood, bruised swelling, and bone-white cravat at his throat. He looks like a vampire victim, were the vampire diseased and the body stirred to a froth of outraged rejection. From the twin wounds, rather large to have been from a human mouth, emerge a slow, exhausted trickle of almost clear fluid. His skin is cold, his heart beats, perhaps, once a minute, and his breath, while regular and continuous, is so slowly even as to be invisible too all but the most interested observer. Peeking from under the cravat is the edge of a note, its handwriting crabbed, annoyed, and painstakingly legible.

( To_you_who_have_chosen_to_concern_yourself )

And, upside down at the bottom of the paper, in a quite different hand, less irritated than morose,

“Riddle
Though in theory I’m always behind you,
Your shadow, to prop and remind you,
And you may, as you roam,
Wish to make me your home,
Do not dwell on me much: I may blind you.”

And, folded into a hidden pocket, just showing since the departure of the disgruntled tough, is a sheet of heavy paper, so full of linen fiber as to feel nearly cloth, much and madly scribbled on.

---

“Leave me alone,” he says. “Sod off, I’m dead,” he says. “Reports of my demise have been grievously understated,” he says. “Of course I’m sure, stop wittering,” he snaps. Unreliable bratstard. Wait till he realizes he started waking up on his birthday =.=

With slight reference to previous topic, since Minerva pointed out to me that the one led rather naturally into the other. Warning for brief disturbing content.

December 1944

“Certainly it’s poetic,” says Minerva. “A great many things are poetic. That doesn’t make them true.”

“In some people’s minds it does,” Tom says, and lays out the cards. “Inverted nine of swords again, mind you.”

“There’s a ten in – what, sixty-five? – ten in sixty-five chance of any given card showing in this spread. About one to seven. One in thirteen if you were to count inversions.”

“As we are.” He picks up each card as Minerva tallies it on the great curling sweep of parchment, his long white hands curving capably over the deck.

( That still isn't bad odds. )

The walls are decked in harvest leaves, mellow-bright gourds on the tables, nuts and dried fruits scattered in glass bowls. One table is loaded with mead, cider, wines, and sake, fruit and loam-tinged, another cozily cluttered with cups, dry tea and strainers, and an enormous, bubbling carafe of water. He steps out for a moment, leaving the others setting out plates of frosted gingerbread and pfeffernuesse, glowing-ripe fruit and cheese, pulling tables into a loose circle.

The largest tree in the area is an oak, and at this moment, a glorious vibrance. No Flagon tree-forest, spreading forever and smelling of holiness and spiced sap, but it will do. What he hangs on it, a cluster of dark berries and bright red on a small wreath of supple birch branches wrapped, for the first time, with coppery-bronze ribbons along with the gold, has no precise meaning, wasn't crafted for the look, and his prayer, as he secures it on a branch and rests his hand on it, is no paean or plea.

He opens his heart to the year, and to the gold.

And then, at an easy pace, he moves back to the restaurant, and hangs the sign up on the door.

POETRY EXCHANGE
Tell your favorite
Ad-lib your own
Play off each other
Be absurd
No holds barred

The Joker loved poetry. Not flowing, flowery stuff, no…rhymes, limericks, children’s sing-songy things. He chuckled to himself, remembering how CRAZY he used to make Batsy, when mid-conflict he would just start chanting them off.

( Not the usual fighting words )

"Poetry." Blaise wove long, slender fingers around one knee. They were dripping silver, rubies, and small bones, one ring showing a rat ducking back low, snarling and ready to attack. "How very... Pottery, eh?"

"I know!" Draco was practically neighing. "Poetry! He's so amusing. I swear, I laughed so hard I got a nosebleed."

"That's because your wiring is shit, love."

"My wiring's the best, thank you very much. It's because Potter is a work of great and shining stupidity, that's why." Draco flopped back into the vintage beanbag and fumbled for his drink.

"Yes, that too." Blaise smiled beningly, allowing his lenses to widen a fraction.

***

The picture in front of him is... well, bleak. Sad old LEDs, sooty like ancient oil lamps. How on earth could Potter ever find beauty in that? How pretend he was listening to the poetry of binary entities, flashing away their lonely, cyclopic signals, their off on off like a last, wheezing SOS? "Save Our Souls."

Oh bons dieux, now he's starting to sound like Potter.

With an angry grunt, Blaise switches off the computer.

He might have to kill to port.

"Inspirations are a fundamental particle of the universe. It is harder to describe them than it is to describe their effect, which is to create ideas - or more accurately, sudden insights - in the human brain. Inspirations can pass through absolutely anything and the human or near-human brain contains a receptor which can be fired up by the passage of one. Not for nothing do we say 'I was struck by an idea.' Some people also originate inspirations in other people. Everyone knows of someone who is not only brilliant in themselves but also generates ideas in others around them. Given the universes love of opposites, that means that there are also people who are an 'ideas sink'. People who, humdrum in themselves, cause humdrumity in others."* Rincewinds idea's receptor is extremely small. An inspiration trying to hit it is like an archer trying to shoot a cherry of a persons head at seventy-five meters, in the dark, wearing a blindfold in a typhoon. Nevertheless, given the sheer number of inspirations sleeting through the universe, one is bound to strike dead on sooner or later. This is one of those rare occasions.

( Highkoos by Rincewind )

The new topic for the month is Poetry!

Tell us your favourite poem or write one for us! Recite a sonnet or compose a silly limerick! Or tell us what you think about poetry in general!


Responses to this topic, as usual, get posted to the community by your character. Please use the appropriate tags, including the new one of "poetry". Posts can be memories or used to push along new plots in Margate for your character or simply be conversations with someone/everyone in the pub. As long as they have something to do with poetry, they're good to go!