I had it totally fixed in my head that my posting day at seasonal_spuffy was today that I didn’t think to double-check. So inevitably it turns out to have been yesterday. Dammit. I wouldn’t have been ready to post, on account of all that’s been going on in my life, but I am kicking myself big time.
Thanks to the wonderful ruuger‘s willingness to share I am going to post the next part here. However if a mod would like this deleted I will understand perfectly. The rest will be posted in my own LJ over the next few days…
The story so far…
Dawn has followed Spike in one of her characteristically well-thought-out plans, only to discover he has something precious and secret he’s not prepared to share….
Part 2
Alone in what for the sake of argument he would call his room, Spike sank onto the bed and took out his precious box. Lovingly he lifted out the papers, one by one. They were yellow, most of them, with a brownish colour to the ink, and the writing was that beautiful copperplate which was once beaten into all children. The first he looked at brought a twisted grin – “effulgent”? What sort of pillock wrote that? Cecily had done the right thing, if possibly for the wrong reasons.
He moved on. Older poems, all equally painful.
O here thy hands let fall the gather’d flower,
Might break thro’ clouded memories once again
On thy lost self. O come to me
And flash into a frolic of song.
I wish for you, a gleam as of the moon,
When first she peers along the tremulous deep,
Flees wavering o’er thy face, and chases away
That shadow and your hesitance of love
Burst from a swimming fleece of winter gray,
I know your heart is secret giv’n to me
And robes me in his day from head to feet —
“Cecily!” and I was folded in thine arms.1
Self-indulgent, fantasising crap. He couldn’t even remember the girl’s face now, and all he felt was thanks for her rejection, brutal as it had been. The agony of what he’d done might stay with him, but the memories of a century with the dark enchantress were there too, and worth holding on to.
Under the oldest sheets were one or two more recent. Writing hadn’t exactly been a big priority in the century of blood and mayhem, but in the lulls he’d needed something to do that wasn’t playing at sodding tea parties.
Dark love has entered my hands,
Ascended through my arms,
In my heart the tree of dark love has grown
Wood staking through my heart
The branches grow out of me, like arms.2
Just as derivative. Bugger it all, why had he ever bothered? Dru never read them – she’d just laughed, and with bloody good reason.
The last thing he took from the box was a small, modern pad of paper and a cheap ballpoint pen. He felt furtive even handling the things, but opened the booklet and stared at what was written inside. It was still recognisably copperplate script, after all these years. He might write rubbish, but at least it looked good.
He gripped the pen between his fingers and his lower lip between his teeth.
The curve of her lips, the glint of her eye,
The twist of her hips, make me want to fly,
One vicious movement and another ball of paper hit the wall.
I have seen gold shimmer, rich and bright,
I have seen the moon stand, goddess of the night,
I have seen the rich red blood pulse in a vein
Pulsing vein? Bloody hell, no.
As dawn started to stain the black of the sky the pile of crumpled papers threatened to block the door and the pad was empty. Spike paced back and forth, not exactly a challenge in his cramped little room, his hands clenching and unclenching. This was just sodding ridiculous. Ninety years ago it hadn’t been this hard. A hundred and thirty years ago the words had flowed from his pen as easily as the ink they were written in. Now, when he had something, someone, really worth writing about, nothing worked. Trite cliché followed overblown image, hackneyed simile fought for space with empty metaphor. Sad, pathetic junk, all of it.
He gripped the doorpost in his fists and slammed his head repeatedly into it.
“What’s up, deadboy? Need any help with that? I can so offer my services.”
“Shut up, Harris. Since when would I need help from a pathetic poof like you?” He scrabbled to collect the scraps and balls of paper into his arms. “Push off. Need some privacy here.”
“Get the evil undead. My home, bleach-head, my rules. Feel free to smash your brains out any time, but keep the mess off the paintwork, right?” Satisfied with his easy victory, Xander moved on to the kitchen, stretching and yawning, intent on coffee and food.
Spike crushed the heap of paper into the waste bin. Enough was enough. He crammed the little box under his mattress. The Muse was on walkabout today. Who was he kidding? The Muse had been on walkabout all century. And the last. And the one before. Useless, pathetic git that he was, it was about time he dropped the whole stupid idea of writing poetry altogether.
Sleep was a good way of avoiding his utter, talentless uselessness. Scowling, he hurled himself down. Soon he was as still as all the other dead.
1 Bastardised from “Demeter and Persephone”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2 Shamelessly plagiarised (by Spike) from “A Girl” by Ezra Pound.
To be continued
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/138837.html
