Uploads from DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES, tagged splintered

'OLK' TO THE NORF & SUFF (49)

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Tue, 08 May 2012 03:51:53 -0700

Photograph taken at 15:23pm on April 20th 2012 off Yarmouth Road and Beach on the shoreline of Caister-on-sea on the North Sea in the county of Norfolk, England.

Nikon D7000 130mm 1/200s f/4.8 iso200

Nikkor AF-S 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR. UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS

LATITUDE: N 52d 38m 43.97s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 44m 15.20s
ALTITUDE: 4.0m

THE END OF TEARS AND LIES

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:10:34 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

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The sun shines down upon her delicate form, shadows cast across the wooden rails of the bridge which stands so tall and majestic over the blissfully beautiful landscape, like a king surveying it's kingdom far and wide. Once bright eyes that could light up the darkest of days now lifeless and dull. A head full of thoughts that tumble and twirl like leaves in the winds of fate, she contemplates all and everything, and overlooks not a single detail as her pulse races and her eyes gaze down to the lush green valley in the depths of the Earth far below her. Bright and breezy, trails of her pretty dress flowing in the wind as the sun bleaches the life from the forest below. Today seems as good as any to end this charade, to brush aside the harsh realities of a life endured and face the consequences, whatever they might be.

Light sandals removed and placed neatly to the left of her position, tops and tips perfectly aligned exactly as she always liked. Everything in it's place, tidy hands and minds ward away the evils of clutter after all. Bare feet chaffing against the splintered fragments of wood from the aged oak struts that were erected so many decades previously, she carefully places the index finger of her right hand beneath the soft cotton left shoulder and lifts outwards, allowing it to fall and drape midway down her left arm. Next the right, as the dress slides down gracefully past her now naked hips and onto the wood below from which she steps one foot at a time. As naked as the day she was born now, leaving the world as she came into it those years ago. She bends and gathers up the dress in both hands, folding and placing it neatly by her sandals.

Thousands of eyes have adored this spot, lovers youthful with fumbling hands and awkward gaze, couples who have shared a lifetime of love now in the Autumn of their lives, the dreamers and the achievers, the wistful and the morose, the contented and the enchanted, each and all with a place in the scheme of things. Her mind strolls through the avenues of the map of a life endured. She feels strangely numb, devoid of emotion, make up applied with deft precision, blushed cheeks and eyes thick and heavy with mascara, her finest dress hanging over her gaunt frame as she breathes deeply, wiping a single tear that pools in the corner of her left eye for no apparent reason. Sometimes the drugs don't work, sometimes the pain of lonesome nights when all she dreams of is the warm embrace of loving hands, the welcome relief that only the bottom of an empty bottle can bring, the freedom of eternal release, are her only bed fellows. Talk is cheap and therapy not always what it's cracked up to be. No more time for shallow words and idle talk from trained lips who care little for her plight though the thin veneer of caring lingers in deceitful lies as they progress through the motions and protocol in order to cash that monthly cheque and pay their dues. She has been through more therapists than she cares to recall.

A string of professional talkers passing her case file along the corridors of hopelessness, like ex-lovers turning their backs on her plight and walking out of her life. The time for talk is over. Heart pulsing, blood pumping through tired veins she clenches her fists several times before moving towards the wooden rail, and placing her left hand onto the welcoming wood. Nobody will miss her, nobody will care, in truth she died so long ago within, and this charade of a life like the hope it ever was must end here and now. No looking back, no sentimental feelings as she pulls her jaded limbs onto the rail, balancing her weight carefully as she looks straight ahead at the beautiful sky that will be her final memory.

Are there angels in heaven? Is there a heaven at all, for she feels that God so long ago must have packed his bags and headed for greener pastures as her pleas for help fell upon his deaf ears and blind eyes. Will they forgiver her this last act? So easy to judge when you have never tasted life from the pit of the abyss, so simple to see with clarity when your eyes have not travelled life bathed in sorrowful tears. The darkest of nightmares in never ending corridors as black as hell itself, and a will beaten down into submission by the trials and tribulations of life itself.

Soul screaming, heart breaking, tears cascading down those rosy pink cheeks, a smile forms upon her lips as she places her arms gently outwards to her sides and steps softly from her perch. A simple motion, nothing fancy, floating on clouds, on a one way journey to peace and tranquillity at last. She IS an angel. She CAN flies. She feels her release as the air rushes her face. Eyes closed, she places both hands across her chest and welcomes her freedom at long last. Now comes the end of those tears and lies.

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Rewritten on June 19th 2011

Photograph taken on August 19th 2010 in Farningham, Kent, England by the River Darent. Thank you to my friend and photography student, Janine Curties for agreeing to submit to the clumsy ordeal of my photographic endeavours. .

Nikon D700 20mm 1/60s f/5.6 iso200

Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm G ED IF.

WINTER, ALL TOO SOON

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 04:44:18 -0800

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Like a paid assassin in the night, winter came.

I wasn't ready when the seasons changed, and my ageing bones had not yet had their fill of vitamin D from the fleeting sun rays of balmy Summer days that seemed so few and far between. If memory served me right, there were moments of radiance when the bright sun put in a welcome appearance, and Ray and I tried so hard without success to rekindle what started in childhood as brotherly love, a bond of blood and flesh so strong that none could ever break it, nor stand between us, and yet which has ended up so pale a reflection of it's glorious past.

They say you can choose your friends but not your family, and how so true those words seem to me right now as the dark nights descend upon us and the mornings are filled with a layer of frost that falls as a blanket across the sleepy landscape. Didn't the seasons run like clockwork and the summers seem endless when I was an acne ridden adolescent? But then I also recall 'Wagon wheels' being the size as their wooden namesake, which says a lot about my memory and recollections I suppose.

Ray was the man back then. Big brother and role model. And nothing has been diluted from the core of his beliefs and being over the passing years. Stubborn like a mule, headstrong and resolute in believing that what he says is a given, his actions unquestionable, his words irreproachable, if I could just shake him to his senses, knock some common sense into that thick skull of his. And for three and a half short weeks I had just such an opportunity. Failure has been my middle name for so many years I guess. At least I can safely add consistency to my short list of virtues.

I am walking with lengthy strides, cold fingers clammering for warmth within the confines of my jacket pockets, breath like the contrails of a tristar jet way on up at thirty eight thousand feet as it sprints across the ocean blue sky to sumptuous destinations. He'll be home now, distant shores where the air is fresh and the lifestyle so less frenetic than London life. Five thousand miles between us can be crossed within a matter of hours, but the bitterness and acrimony of former brotherly love it seems can never be bridged.

I find an old wooden bench, still damp from the morning frost, peppered with a liberal dousing of pigeon crap and chestnut casings from which squirrels and tiny fingers have prised out the tiny brown jewels within, and plant my derrière for a momentary break. From within my inner jacket pocket I fumble with my right hand for a packet of Nicorette, placing one of the disgusting tasting 4mg gum pieces into my warm mouth. I guess it must be working if I find these little suckers so unpalatable now, though quitting the habit seems to have left my bodily defences naked and ill prepared for the many ailments and virulent bugs that comes as de rigeur with this miserable season.

Two and a half whole months cigarette free. That's seventy eight days, five hours and ten minutes though the euphoria of my limited success was shortlived after reading somewhere on the oracle that is the world wide web that these foul tasting over priced gum pieces are just as capable of giving you mouth cancer as the real thing. And I know which I prefer out of the two! Ray found my determination to quit oh so amusing, puffing on the fat Cuban Havanas he mused that were rolled on a virgin maiden's own thighs that had Laura constantly shepherding him out of the conservatory doors and into the garden. He would gloat from behind the glass, sucking in great lungfuls of carcinogenic before blowing them at me from the other side of the glass. He always was the childish one. Eighteen months older and always the instigator of our childish exploits, me the doting younger brother who looked up to him for guidance and support when the going got tough and the shit hit the proverbial.

And he loved me back then.

All the same, I could murder a real smoke right now and my will power, thus farso steadfast and resolute is being sorely put to the test with the stress I am under right now. I spit the gum piece out of my mouth like a bullet expelled from the barrel of a Glock, the taste reverberating around my mouth, murdering my taste buds, hammering them into submission. The bench is cold, the damp creeping through the material of my trousers and seeping into my rump as I stand and twist my neck round so that my eyes can focus as best they can on the inevitable green and brown stains daubed across the arse of my trousers. Laura's going to love that!

But she won't complain, she never does. Not even against my ill conceived plan hatched over a glass of Chardonnay and a ready meal one night when I thought it a great idea to try and heal the rift between long lost brothers and invite Ray and the family over for a reunion of sorts. Voices on the phone from separate sides of that great big pond, retracing memories, laughing at the times we had as boys, the exploits and camaraderie that forged the bond and defined us so.

We last saw him after mum passed away. The summer of two thousand and two when he and Gemma made the trip first class courtesy of British Airways. He always did everything in style, the entrepreneur of we two, the jet setting, go getter who loved money more than life itself. Still does. He was always mums favourite, and in her final years he played on that favouritism, honing in on her failing health and waning memory to leach money out of her for ventures and folly that existed merely as ideas in his furtive mind. But I never once complained, for I truly believed that what mum did with her money was her own business, and nobody else's.

Damn it!

I slump back onto the wet bench and reach inside my jacket pocket once more to the pack of Benson & Hedges smokes that is there to keep me sane, ripping off the cellophane like an eager child unwrapping his Christmas presents, and pulling back the silver foil cover to allow the aroma of the tobacco out and into the air like an escaping prisoner from maximum security. I bring both hands together and cup them around the cigarette as I strike a Swan Vesta and pull on the filter. How can something so bad for you, taste so damned good?

I laugh at myself, thinking what I must look like to passing eyes that view this little old man, hunched on a wet bench in December, smoking and talking to himself like a vagrant washed up on the rocks of life, a mind warped by too much paint thinners as he lives oblivious in his own little world. Does the pain of losing those close to me find me a wreck of my former self? Am I so lonely that I now view my past life through rose tinted spectacles?

I lift my left arm towards the wisp of sunlight that creeps through the branches of the trees beside me, noting the time on my wristwatch. Eight hours difference to Canada and a new day dawning there right now on that beautiful coastline where Ray has his Condo. It always seemed to me that if ever there was a man who could emerge smelling of roses from a barrel of shit, it was Ray. The Midas touch, whether justly deserved or cunningly won, a lavish lifestyle now forged from the inheritance money he duped from our mother.

It mattered little to me at the time, never the one to argue or take issue, I needed my brother to help me through the loss and grief, I hoped that it would bring us together once more, us against the big bad world. But money changes some folk for the worse I guess, and those five thousand miles, though bridged by awkward silence upon the staggered phone line, and tempered by those three brief weeks together, have never seemed so vast as they do right now.

I rise and flick the dying embers of my cigarette onto the floor, stubbing out the flickering red and yellow light with the toe of my boot, before pulling my jacket collar up around my neck, placing both hands into the pockets and heading off down the pathway once more to where my car is parked. Some things in life will never change I guess, and in many ways I am so lucky a man to have the things I have right now. But I ache within for the past when my big brother watched over me, the days when I looked up to him with love and affection that was reciprocated willingly, rather than penned by female hands once a year come Christmas time. I

I remember the summer when for a brief moment, we two were children again, brothers without the barriers of time and distance between us once more. We laughed again back then, didn't we?

The winter has come, all too soon it seems.

.

Written on December 9th 2011

Photograph taken at 09:34am on December 6th 2011 off New Road and Woolwich Road A206 in Lesnes Abbey Woods, Bexleyheath, Kent, England.

Nikon D7000 48mm 1/13s f/5.6 iso200

Nikkor AF-S 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. UV filter. Manfrotto 055XPro carbon fibre tripod & Manfrotto 327 magnesium pistol grip ball head. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS.

LATITUDE: N 51d 29m 7.76s
LONGITUDE: E 0d 7m 45.74s
ALTITUDE: 0.0m

PROTECTORS

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:17:23 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 11:25am on April 20th 2012 off Kirkley Cliff Road B1532, next to the Claremont pier and the Fun Palace on the shoreline of Lowestoft, on the North Sea in the county of Suffolk, England.

Nikon D7000 20mm 1/1250s f/5.6 iso200

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM. UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS

LATITUDE: N 52d 27m 55.21s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 44m 46.34s
ALTITUDE: 12.0m

CATCH THE WIND

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:26:25 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 17:25pm on September 8th 2012 off Borrowdale Road B5289 on the shoreline of Strandshag Bay on Derwentwater near to the Lakeland market town of Keswick, one of the Northern most in the Lake District, Cumbria, England.

Nikon D7000 195mm 1/1250s f/5.6 iso200

Nikkor AF-S DX 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR. UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS
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LATITUDE: N 54d 35m 20.71s

LONGITUDE: W 3d 8m 17.59s

ALTITUDE: 78.0m

CASCADES

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:37:12 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 11:49am on September 8th 2012 Photograph taken at 12:10am on September 8th 2012 during a stop on the Derwentwater Launches around the lake at the Lodore Falls ferry landing just off the B5280. Located behind the Lodore Falls Hotel near the Grange end of Derwentwater, the waterfall, is formed by the beck from Watendlath Tarn cascading over huge boulders for a distance of some 100 feet.

The Lake District, Cumbria, England.

Sadly I did not take my tripod that day, so hand held shots of the cascading water had to suffice.

The Lake District, Cumbria, England.

Sadly I did not take my tripod that day, so hand held shots of the cascading water had to suffice, holding my breath to keep as still as possible.

Nikon D7000 70mm 1/5s f/22.0 iso200

Nikkor AF-S DX 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR. UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS
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LATITUDE: N 54d 33m 33.12s

LONGITUDE: W 3d 8m 17.81s

ALTITUDE: 108.0m

DERWENT WATER

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 09:42:11 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 11:50am on September 2nd 2012 beside the docking bays of Keswick Launches, located on the lake shore of Derwentwater near to the Lakeland market town of Keswick, one of the Northern most in the Lake District, Cumbria, England.

Nikon D7000 20mm 1/500s f/5.6 iso200

Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5-5.6 DX EC HSM. UV filter.

DEBRIS (7) - SPLINTERED A-PEEL

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:43:26 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 06:08am on April 14th 2011 oposite Sea Road on the shoreline of Camber Sands, camber near Rye in East Sussex, England.

Nikon D7000 28mm 1/60s f/4.0 iso200

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED IF . UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS

LATITUDE: N 50d 55m 58.78s
LONGITUDE: E 0d 47m 43.56s
ALTITUDE: 8.0m

SPLINTERED MEMORIES (7) Colour version

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:54:46 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 07:54am on April 20th 2011 off Victoria Road and Market Cross Parade on the sea front at Aldeburgh, on the North Sea in the county of Suffolk, England.

Nikon D7000 20mm 1/250s f/8.0 iso200

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM. UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS

LATITUDE: N 52d 9m 22.80s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 36m 14.72s
ALTITUDE: 7.0m

SPLINTERED MEMORIES (6)

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 01:35:09 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 07:50am on April 20th 2011 off Victoria Road and Market Cross Parade on the sea front at Aldeburgh, on the North Sea in the county of Suffolk, England.

Nikon D7000 20mm 1/100s f/9.0 iso200

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM. UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS

LATITUDE: N 52d 9m 22.93s
LONGITUDE: E 1d 36m 15.67s
ALTITUDE: 7.0m

SPLINTERED MEMORIES (3)

nobody@flickr.com (DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:27:57 -0700

DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES posted a photo:

Photograph taken at 07:54am on April 20th 2011 off Victoria Road and Market Cross Parade on the sea front at Aldeburgh, on the North Sea in the county of Suffolk, England.

Nikon D7000 20mm 1/200s f/8.0 iso200

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM. UV filter. Nikon GP-1 GPS

LATITUDE: N 52d 9m 22.78s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 36m 14.50s

ALTITUDE: 7.0m