At Noon

There at noon
in the still of the clock
as the bells ring out an iron tune
from the air
holding it's breath
at noon

with hands together
the hour goes on forever
in furnaces of sun
through silent streets
along which
no feet run
and no songs are sung
at noon

where the keystone of the arch
hangs heavy with the past
in the shadow of the church
through the light of old stained glass
the midday minutes pass
as slowly as a hearse
at noon

'See-More' She Said

The early morning mist is slowly lifting. I have a feeling that by this afternoon the sky will be clear and blue, like only it can be, down here in the south of France, and the sun will be shining as if it were spring.
I took a walk out around the village at about 8:30am, and went to buy myself a loaf of rye bread from Madeline. The quality of her bread varies from mediocre to awful. Her cakes are generally not so good, and her biscuits are often worse.
As usual, the village was deserted apart from the inbred woman and her blind husband, who always take a walk together to the patisserie every morning. Judging by the look of his wife, I have a feeling that he was always blind. But there is obviously much love between them, as they walk silently arm in arm together through the narrow, misty, medieval streets of Simorre.
It's like a deserted film set here. All the actors have played out their parts and exited the stage long ago. You can catch the odd glimpse of broken silhouettes behind shuttered and curtained windows, but more often than not, you're more likely to meet a rag-eared cat or a stray wandering dog than a human being.
Occasionally a car will pass you, but they always appear to be driver-less. Impossible, I know, but that's how it seems.
Nobody talks about the crashing stock market here and there are no Iranian missiles overhead. Most conversations revolve around memories and past events.
The future is a stranger here, an unknown outsider, who is rumoured to be coming, but never arrives.
I would love to have seen Simorre in it's heyday. I imagine that the covered market square once bustled and hummed with activity and life, but now it stands empty, and the ancient oak timbers that hold up it's creaking terracotta tiled roof are as worn and as weathered as the decaying timber hull of a shipwreck.
My time here, in this town that stands outside of time, is almost over.
I didn't really 'see-more' here, but I certainly felt more and thought more than I have for a little while.
Soon I'll be gone, off to meet the future, because if I wait here for it to come, I'll be waiting forever...

The Facts

I am staying in France at the moment.
Sophie and Tosco have "Kennel Cough".
The Pauls are here.
Geraldine's new house needs lots of work done to it.
I have never watched and episode of "Desperate Housewives" or "Sex In The City".
If I leave a cup of hot tea on the kitchen table in the morning by the time the evening comes around it will be cold.
I am 35 years old and have a 28" waist.
I smoke, on average, between 25 and 40 cigarettes a day.
I have hurt some people and healed others.
I have three pairs of decent pants.
My feet are size ten and a half.
My eyes are brown.
Sometimes I'm happy and sometimes I'm sad.
I would like to have a family of my own.
The Chinese want to pay me to teach their children.
Tequilla makes me temporarily sane.
******** tried kill himself and bled all over our new carpet when I was five years old.
I would like to be a writer so I write things down.
I have a small caramel coloured mole on my scrotum.
I was born and one day I'll die.
I am a rat.
This will be the year of the rat.
I have done bad things but I'm not a bad man.
Andy died when he fell from a hotel complex in Portugal when he was 17.
Nobody knows if he jumped or if he was pushed.
Dannyl died on a railway track when he was 18.
Nobody knows if he jumped or if he was pushed.
Vival opens at 9am.
25 lucky strike lights cost six euros.
On the wall hangs a mirror.
I get paid a hundred euros a day.
People love me more when they know I'm leaving.
When I was six I got run over but left hospital before the nurses brought the ice cream round.
I have eight fingers, two thumbs and ten toes.
My beard is patchy and I have a big nose but I get enough oxygen to keep me alive.
Bound with black ribbon, beneath red wrapping paper, inside a handmade leather pouch is a Malachite pendant.
I found a dying lacewing and placed it in a patch of sunlight on December 31st.
I have a bruise the colour and shape of a blackberry above my left knee.
I am single.
The little asian guy who stole my debit card in Hong Kong stuck to my arm like a smiling limpet.
When the sun shines I tend to feel better.
Simmore is beautiful and true love is forever.