It is in the deepest of night that the future feels furthest away.

Darkness
Lord Byron (1816)

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;--a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful--was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge--
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expir'd before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.

in correspondence

the letters we wrote, so many, many words. our lives, day by day, replayed for each other in each other's days. i re-read them now, somewhere and someone else, re-read our promises and plans and wonder where they've gone, if they're waiting around to be claimed again. our loves, our dinner plans and illnesses, the wonderment of watermelons and worms, one christmas after another, autumn following summer around, wagging tails and raising our sails. let's go let's go let's go. there were holidays abroad and home, together and apart. many long silences as we found others and lost them, then another letter would arrive, digital but there nevertheless. pages and pages, i've kept your side of our conversations, i wonder where mine are. you've found another, kept another, so please write and tell me if i'm still bound to cook you breakfast on your ninetieth birthday because when that day arrives, i'm not sure if you'll be looking out your window, waiting to collect your dues.

it's the good, the bad,
the house i furnish,
the crystal clear sea,
the sound i worship,
the rush of the city,
the calm of the Outback,
the film called Life,
where my heart is the soundtrack.

Bliss N Eso -- Eye of the Storm

drink up, dreams

and then she and I shared two bottles of chards between us. The two of you sat with your dark brews and talked of old times, and all I could think about was whether you could see my well-placed lingerie peeking out of my shirt-dress. And four hours later when we were rolling drunk and I'd desperately had four glasses of water and one spew to no avail, you leaned closer and spilled the troubles of men finding women and women not wanting men, I realised that in another life perhaps we could have matched, would have completed one another like cheese completes a chicken parmagiana and a marshmallow completes a hot chocolate. We looked at each other in a way she didn't recognise and we thought maybe, but I leave in over a week though I don't know it yet, and you are searching for someone a bit more different, a bit more, I don't know, less stable maybe, somebody you can lose yourself with because with me you can't get lost if everybody reminds you what you should and should not be doing with me (or more to the point, they don't even know), how are you supposed to be that

and she sat with her vodka lemon lime and bitters and I sat with mine and she waved her hands about her head and said see, you're both dreamers and I'm a realist, and I said yes you need dreams apart from your work life, though she could not understand this, my fifteen-years-long friend, and you and I sat beside each other with thoughts of our respective will-never-be-published novels, and the world will move for us, because as much as you might not know or realise or want to know, my friend, the world does move for dreams. The world feels the power of a real vision, a truth and a goal of a person with a good heart and good mind. And you and I sat at the table with metal chairs and cold air drifting over the land and I thought yes, you know what, maybe I don't want you but I want this

Song.

The lemon floats in his tea as he sips, slowly thinking
And the sun divides his face in two, westward slowly sinking
Youth is wasted on the youth, but where does it all go
The sleepless nights, awake till dawn, if only we had known

He said 'Why can't I be alone,
have a place to call my own?'
Wraps his scarf around his head
and sinks into the ground.

Fighting the good fight, if only they will let you
Being kept in sight, if they don't remember to forget you
Give me your hand darling, we'll pack off, go away
Find it in some distant land and then decide to stay.

He said 'Why can't I be alone,
have a place to call my own?'
Wraps his scarf around his head
and sinks into the ground.

A life, a life, somewhere, a life. See him, there. Him, you, we. A sum total of others, of Oprah, punk rock and pedestrian crossings, of interest rates and sex tapes, the sugar content in Fanta and stem-cell research. All of this, the grey betweens that filled his hours, his cells. Running for trains, piled dishes, offers of upgraded mobile phone deals. Picking the keys off the hook on the way out, throwing bags down on the way in. Everywhere things ended, everywhere people left. Pico Iyer's continent of jet lag. Howard's taxes. Our own inner wars.