me Eliot he Ezra

I’ve lived in this flat ten years. Never decorated. The walls don’t complain. Though sometimes, out the corner of my eye, I see one of them breathe. Just once. A twitch. Then nothing.

The Boots percolator sits on the counter and coughs — not a purr, but a cat hacking up a fur ball. Stops, starts, then carries on pretending nothing happened. The cough lasts too long, going down the pipes and rattling cupboards two doors away. Still — what comes out is smooth. A litre of Lavazza Rosso. Enough.

Mam says, “I might be 82, but I’m as bright as I was at 72.” I almost answer, “So that must’ve been daft at 72 then,” but I bite it back. Mrs Levy’s voice cuts in: “you’re like a cripple.” Miss Trixie snaps back: “I may be old, but I’m not crippled.” Between cruelty and defiance, Mam stands, insisting she’s still bright.

She hasn’t lived in Rawmarsh for an aeon, not really. But she’s folded into her mother who never left — the coal-fire gestures, the language that leans on itself, the telly speaking into her like scripture. She sits like she always did, set in front of the screen. Rarely blinks. The news projects its shapes onto her eyes. Sometimes her mouth keeps going after she’s fallen asleep — the telly talking through her. I leave the room because it’s easier than arguing with echoes.

Lola waits by the door. She noses for almonds in the cemetery and is satisfied with one. She understands enough. The spring in Hetchell never runs dry; people talk about droughts and rationing like it’s a moral failure, but that water just keeps. I swear sometimes it looks back at me, surface flickering like an eyelid. Blink and it’s gone.

Redhall Lane flashes past on the X98 — back in Leeds. The city slides by in bus-window rectangles. Chatter rises round me, words without marrow. I pull on the headphones but the noise still seeps through, like water through cracks. I think of ear defenders — big orange shells from worksites or ranges. Funny leap: bus gossip to gunfire, same answer — silence.

A Yorkshire man I am: me coat, me boots, me tea. Proverbs hang on the tongue — Eat all, sup all, pay nowt; and if tha does owt fer nowt, do it fer thissen. Life itself is free, though folk try to weigh it, price it, sell it. The sayings come: n’er cast a clout till May is out. Yerve nee clout. Youse soft, nowt proper. Market talk, banter sharp as turnips piled high. Reet proper, bo.

I think on Chaucer — his clerks in the Reeve’s Tale, northern but not ours, sounding more Geordie than Yorkshire. For him, all north was comic, another nation. Yet York then was a centre, not orbiting London. Thee says. Thee and Tha, Dee’s and Da’s. Plain talk, less fancy. Them and Uz. Harrison’s cry — his vowels mocked, turned to armour. Poetry claimed in Leeds tones, not Queen’s. And aye, it’s [ʊz], not [əz]. Our sound, our ground.

The bus lurches and the bloke opposite keeps chewing his words after the bus stops, jaw going like a mouth without sound. Chatter. Empty. I’d rather Mick Aston in his stripey jumper explaining soil, or Stewart Ainsworth laying out a map on the bonnet of a Land Rover. They see the ground as alive, not some TV mouth waving away history with “ritual purposes.” Alive is enough.

The means of egress are numerous. Of course, there is suicide — but that is too sudden. Nothing in me agrees to that vulgar passage into nothingness. If solace is sought, it must be through a long dying, a practice stretched across the span of years. Seventy plus: a whole lifetime of learning how to die, and only at the end, without theft, without haste.

I yawn at another year, knowing it cannot be a repeat of the last, a string of beads trodden in the dust. Something must break the cycle of this living death, else suddenness would tempt me. Change must come from me — always one against many. And depression, my own bastion, is nothing more than a crumbling wall, guarded by drunken fools who do not even know what they defend.

So I walked.

Madrid mornings with coffee, chocolate, cigarettes. Pamplona wind. Eggs and potatoes and cider. The sweat of twenty-five kilometres, the pong of honest labour. While they masked themselves in eau de toilette, I carried the proof of my effort. Roncesvalles — Koreans leaving Seoul to find their soul, snorers in their shock, rustling bags within bags. Snow on the pass, rain in Valcarlos, fire and fatigue. I walked because walking dulled the claws. Long distance steadied the depression, and I wished it could be perpetual.

But I also returned. Bus back to Leeds. Flat, humdrum, heavy with its own fog. And I thought of Snoopy dying while I was away, no chance to hold him, no place to say: don’t be afraid. I sobbed in Mexico and felt the cruelty of geography — goodbye, old mate. I vowed then: do not put the bad on that plane. Leave behind what poisons. Do not carry it into the sky.

There was also dedication, once, twenty-nine April 2016: “To the One I recall loves me. To the One I have hated. To the One I mistrusted. To the One I know now as Brother. To the One I could never leave. To the One I am within, without whom I failed, who will lead me Home.” I thought then I spoke to God. I know now — I spoke to myself.

A mountain of thoughts. Yes. But mountains are not lifted. They are walked, stone by stone, their shape only visible from the ridge. I have built this mountain from fragments: dates, griefs, airports full of the dead, Premier Inn ghosts, sagardo and bocadillo, Evernote entries, poems scrawled, the cold of February mornings. Each layer sediment; each one mine.

Now autumn is here. I feel it first in my fingers — Reynard returns with the chill. And soon, chilblains: red, stinging testaments that blood still flows, that warmth still fights against frost.

So let the record stand: I have raged and I have walked. I have mourned dogs and cursed tabloids. I have refused suddenness, and I have practised dying slowly, deliberately, like craft. And in the mirror, I have found the One who will lead me Home.

Back in the flat, the percolator coughs again. The sound is small and patient. The view to the east blinks sometimes — as if the morning is a thing that can twitch, like an eyelid. Paint wouldn’t add anything. The flat already holds it: Mam’s telly voice, Lola’s nose-prints on the window, the memory of Pamplona wind, the ache of goodbye. Every thread is here, knotted tight, and sometimes a twitch runs through them all — a small surreal shiver — and I laugh into my coffee because what else is there to do?

Either way — it holds all of it. Paint wouldn’t add anything?

I begin with the arithmetic of the day:

seventy-five, thirty-seven point five.

Venlafaxine stacked like coins in the palm,

each one a promise,

each one a chain.

I tell myself — today only seventy-five.

Half the anchor cast away,

half the raft left floating.

It is not surrender, it is tapering,

like stepping down a staircase that appears

only when your foot moves.

The body is wary.

It remembers the heavy foot of the driver —

brake, brake, brake,

every passenger thrown forward like dice.

He does not know what he does.

He is unaware.

And I, too, am a passenger in myself,

jolted by the sudden stops,

holding tight to the bar of my own ribs.

So I walk with Lola,

through stones that outlast stories.

Commonwealth graves,

names half-swallowed by lichen.

And then almonds —

first scattered, then explained.

Not offerings, but a tree.

An almond tree,

its roots drinking from the marrow of the buried,

its fruit dropping like riddles

for squirrels to puzzle,

for dogs to sniff,

for men to taste and wonder.

Bitter, sweet —

the flavour of memory itself.

The Muse once lived here.

I know it because laughter still echoes

against the car park walls,

even painted lines can remember.

Now they call it The Mews —

a trick of letters,

a stable with no horses,

a sky with no hawks.

The Mews has no guano or feathers to bear witness,

only pints sweating in the sun,

only tables nailed into the tarmac

like gravestones for a meadow that never was.

Charmaine glows —

she could sell warmth by the glass,

pouring smiles smoother than stout.

Kerry took longer —

like an ale you think too bitter

until one night it is the only taste you want.

Together they keep the soul of the place,

though Okells has stamped its brand on the sign.

But brands cannot own ghosts,

cannot bottle the Muse.

And so I sit —

pills tapering, buses braking,

cemeteries sprouting almonds,

pubs renaming themselves out of meaning.

The Muse once lived here.

She lives still,

in Lola’s steady eyes,

in the almonds that fall on forgotten graves,

in the guano that never was,

in the brakes that never learn.

I drink with her absence,

I taper with her presence.

The Mews is a car park,

but in my glass it is meadow.

The Muse once lived here,

and I believe —

she will again.

***

ALONE, AFFIXED TO A BRASS LEDGER WEARIN’ THIN

Seventy-five, thirty-seven point five,

coins o’ tablets keepin’ me alive.

Cut ’em down, lad, taper slow,

mind yer head as ye let go.

Brake hard, swayin’ row by row,

driver doesn’t even know.

Jerk an’ jolt, a stop-start track,

like life wi’ meds — two steps, one back.

Almonds drop in graveyard ground,

bitter sweet wi’ bones around.

I chew wi’ dog, I nose the air,

in each small nut, a pilgrim’s prayer.

I were Muse when words could sing,

now it’s Mews wi’ car park ring.

No hawks, no droppin’s, no feathered skies,

just brands that sell where soul once lies.

Telly glow in blinded sight,

never question, never fight.

Mrs Levy, Miss Trixie speak,

I slip away an’ keep me reet.

Nineteen quid, fourteen pence,

stress is high, their care’s pretence.

“Here’s a tenner, case is done.”

Don’t they see? They’ve always won.

All this gristle, stress an’ strive,

for brass that barely keeps alive.

C’est la vie, but stress remains,

ghosts o’ labour in me veins.

Owd man hoyed lads down wi’ chain,

wedged in seams o’ cough an’ pain.

Boy o’ Hanley, blackened face,

buried fast in workin’ place.

Canary sang ’til silence fell,

lungs gave way in dusty hell.

Worth were weighed by bone not breath,

wage were hunger, rest were death.

Pit pony broke, to glue consigned,

knacker’s yard — no peace o’ mind.

Plaques an’ parks above me head,

southern bastards drink instead.

Watter, waattr, wattur said,

two hard T’s like twatter bred.

Youse cloth-eared, ye daft wazack,

brass were nowt an’ still we lack.

Thin stick folk wi’ caps an’ shawl,

mills that loom an’ chimneys tall.

Nowt but glass where soot once grew,

Loiners shoved aside in queue.

Value spun where none were made,

brass or lashes, debts repaid.

System stalls, but memory rhymes,

Yorkshire puddin’ keeps the times.

And so alone, wi’ words I’ve spun,

I stand affixed, me tally done.

On a brass ledger wearin’ thin,

yet still I mark where I have bin.

SERMON FOR TODAY

Brethren, we stand in shadow and in light,

long shadows at door by two o’clock,

stretchin’ like ledger lines across our days.

We count not shillin’s nor pence,

but coughs in owd men’s chests,

songs of canaries that stopped mid-note,

pit ponies bent, then carted to glue.

Value were set where none should be —

on brass, not breath, on bone, not thought.

Worth measured in fingers worn to stumps,

in bairns wedged down seams too narrow for men.

Forgetfulness covered it o’er with parks,

gentrified lawns where southern tongues sip foam.

But ground still shifts, subsides,

cracks remindin’ us what’s buried.

So what is sermon today?

It is this:

Remember the weight o’ graft,

even as brass plates wear thin.

Remember the puddin’, risen in oven,

soft centre holdin’ gravy of memory.

Remember that folk were slaves too —

chains o’ hunger, bonds o’ need,

yet still they sang, still they stood.

Let us not be fooled by polish nor glass,

for shiny shoes leave no soot,

but our land, our blood, our watter

still carries truth.

Eat yer puddin’, lad,

and gi’ thanks that thou art still here to chew it.

Amen.

***

He began the day measuring out his tablets — seventy-five milligrams and thirty-seven point five — holding them in his palm like coins of chemistry. The plan was simple: taper down, steady as breath. Outside, a bus lurched past, driver’s heavy foot slamming the brake, passengers thrown forward in a rhythm he knew too well. Life on the dose felt like that sometimes: two steps, one jolt back.

Later, with the dog at his side, he found almonds scattered in the cemetery grass. Bitter, sweet, both at once — life and death chewed together. He pocketed the moment the way others might pocket coins.

At the pub, he sat in what they called a beer garden, though it was nothing more than a repurposed car park. The place bore the name The Mews, but in his mind it was The Muse — once alive with hawks and feathers, now stripped bare, hawkless, guano-less, soul sold to brands. He thought of the managers, of Charmaine and Kerry, of how long it had taken him to warm to one of them, and of how the brewery name on the glass wasn’t what it once was.

The afternoon sagged into System gristle. £19.14 disputed, clawed back, turned into accusation. Guides, stages, emojis, scripts. He said I will pay on the twenty-ninth, but the drone kept circling, demanding details, apologies, resolutions. Hours wasted, stress mounting, all while his body was adjusting to less venlafaxine. He laughed bitterly: all this for nineteen pounds and fourteen pence. They gave him ten back, called it compensation. He ended with c’est la vie, though the stress still remained.

And then he turned the page. Back in the thick of it, he thought. Back to marrow. Memory surfaced: his father a hoyer, men coughing themselves into coffins too narrow for grown bodies. The Boy of Hanley wedged where only a teenager could fit. Canaries silenced. Pit ponies hauled until they broke, then sold for glue. History buried in parks, covered by gentrification, forgotten except for cracks in the ground.

He muttered words aloud — watter, wattur, waattr — shaping vowels and consonants the way his people had done for centuries. He railed at shiny-shoed bastards with never a smear on their clogs, southerners reclaiming Leeds, Loiners pushed aside. He saw Lowry’s stick figures marching again beneath chimneys, only now the chimneys had turned to glass towers.

It was then that the sermon came to him. Not polished, not droned, but rising like a Yorkshire pudding from hot fat: remember the graft, remember the songs, remember that the working class were slaves too. Brass plates wear thin, but memory still holds. Eat your pudding, lad, and be grateful you’re still here to chew it.

And so the day bent to evening. Shadows stretched long across his door at two o’clock, chasing him back to his flat. The System had stalled, but his words had not. He was still writing, still piecing the mess into voice. Alone, perhaps, but affixed — brass plate, Yorkshire pudding, ledger line — all wearing thin, yet still here.

***

Daniel in Catalonia, 2025, leaving Perpignan, tapering the pills, stiff neck, bad nerves. La Jonquera waiting like a test he didn’t ask to sit. The mountains up there grin, teeth set, old scrub hills buzzing with heat. He mutters sufficiency, forgiveness, a mantra not yet earned.

And then — cut, jump, eleven years back.

Mexico, 2014: loop of fury, blood sweet to a thousand mosquitoes, lens gone, head misshapen. Bus rattling south, five hours of sickness. Lightning balls crashing into earth, rain washing villages into the gorge. He wants to scream, throat taut, stomach coiled, but he just stares.

Back again: Catalonia, scrubland path twisting down to Oix, the same body rebellion. Memory presses through — aquaplaning bus, aquaplaning thoughts. In both places, mountains keep their silence, permanent, unmoved.

And always a dog. Zipolite dog sharing pizza, patient, tender — Snoopy in disguise. Catalonia dog nowhere in sight, but he feels her shadow: Lola, back home, breathing. Companions across time.

Eleven years apart, same road. Storm, sufficiency, fragments. He carries it? 

***