Octavius in October
by Alias26
My knowledge is like an old shell broken on the beach
by time’s waves, sharp around the edges, dull
and dimmed where once a purple-pink swirl
of glinting shine reflected the white-blue
froth of the water, the depths of the ocean.
Unsteady steps are made with scarred gnarled
skin-cracked bare feet across the threshold of the sullied
house, to pavements scraping rough admonishment
over the glass of smashed car-windows, wavering,
blood-dripped baby steps shuffling sideways, crab-like.
At the road’s end dew-cold grass cools the injured
limb-ends and crushed green leaves release their fresh
scent upwards and I climb upwards past factory,
mill and farm until trees thicken, breeze eases,
sky darkens and the absence of my fellow man becomes
a blessing as the peace of foxes’ scurry and deer’s leap,
of bat’s quick beat and spider’s silken fall fill my
eyes then fill my mind like the shooting white
shards of sun that light my way through the
copses’ corpses’ living decay and through I break
out to the hill and to the top
where my broken shell
seems long forgot.
Alias26: My name is clearly not Alias26 but for now, for the purposes of writing, that is what I will be known as. I have my reasons and someday I will reveal them but a name’s not so important. I was born in England of Italian, Irish, American and Polish immigrant stock. It was a good starting point. My first home was an apartment in a crumbling old dilapidated mansion; my mother would push me in my pram around the misty lake and read to me. From there we moved to a caravan on a gypsy site. A life of contrasts is a full one. Twenty more homes before I was sixteen- one with a swimming pool and some where we’d sleep three to a cold hard single bed. Trouble found me from an early age or perhaps I had a knack for finding trouble. Schools kicked me out and there were fights and thefts a-plenty. It was the normal English childhood for a certain type of English kid. I left home on my sixteenth birthday. Twenty more homes followed before I was twenty-one but the trouble wouldn’t abate so I decided to clear out and find something better. For some years I travelled across scores of countries, settled in some that seemed like home- Spain, Israel, Hungary, America and Egypt. To my considerable surprise the trouble kept on following me, uprooting me. Eventually I returned to England where I fell in love. That’s when the real trouble began. The kick sent me scurrying and hiding under bridges for a while until I could recuperate, resuscitate myself. The last few years I’ve spent most of my energy on trying to keep out of trouble. So far, so good. There’s been a lot of turmoil and only one thing has remained constant- writing. It has saved me, raised me up, pulled me away from the darkened places and given me a reason. Although I love to write I have written mainly for survival. And now the reams of paper I carry with me have grown heavy, my back is weary of the weight. Hence the existence of this website and whatsoever may fellow.
