Sudden Arrival
The house is quiet
the light is dimmed,
Two candles enough,
peace reigns.
An olden-days night.
The Mac is off.
The slow rhythmic clock,
the heartbeat of home.
An olden-days night.
The Mac is off.
The slow rhythmic clock,
the heartbeat of home.
Silence.
Total silence.
A slow roar.
The rafters creak,
A stirring.
The candles flicker,
detective of some hidden draught …
What approaches?
Silence …
a low rumbling …
Crescendo!
As rain beats against the windows
both east and west facing,
the Wind howls,
surrounds the walls,
a wailing,
a gnashing of teeth,
a storm surge!
Crash!
In the road commotion,
A wheeley bin takes off
and jet-like
stopped dead in its tracks
by a single parked car.
A howl.
Lashing.
Torrents of Rain.
More howling.
A howl.
Lashing.
Torrents of Rain.
More howling.
One candle snuffed,
Another clinging on
for dear life!
Silence.
Total Silence … !
Peace restored.
A torch,
a single searchlight
seeks out travesty.
But all in the garden
is in order.
A chair righted,
the high bush tied back again,
… but soaked in the process.
Hamburg, Cheltenham, Liverpool
Ah good!
You’re all safe.
The searchlight catches
the brilliance of orange
as each of them comes up,
breaks the surface,
… a flurry…
then back down deep
into the winter depths far below.
I pull the French doors to’,
The curtains are drawn.
How extraordinary, that storm!
No warning!
Nature reminding me
of my insignificance
in the greater scheme of things.
Ah, yes!
Let’s relight that candle.
Ah, yes!
Let’s relight that candle.
20 January 2024
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb
Digital Artwork by KTW except for the main image.
A Jotting composed 27 January 2020 on a sudden storm passing very low overhead.
I do not know this place; but it is so similar to Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire in 1980 where I was a police constable. In fact, I think the street may be somewhere in Europe.
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
