Hugo Williams

the fields beneath (st pancras old church) I make my tour of the garden waiting room where the tall trees wander among the corpses. I might go past the last resting place of Sir John Soane in his stone telephone kiosk, or the wooden bench where the Beatles sat on their “Mad Day Out” July 28th, 1968. The body of J.C. Bach, “The English Bach,” lies somewhere near here, lost to the Railway in 1865. A plaque remembers him as Queen Charlotte’s music tutor, who collaborated with someone and died young. Perhaps Jerry Cruncher got him, or perhaps he survived and is strolling with his friend in the fields beneath. I drag my feet through the backsliding seasons towards a gate in the wall with its timetable of opening hours. the song of the needles Needles have the sudden beauty of a first line. They’re always new and surprising as they burst from their paper covering. They sing as they hit the air. You catch sight of them out of the corner of your eye, glinting softly to themselves as they contemplate their next move. What they’re suggesting is inspired, but a certain sadness attends their description of what is going on. You don’t know whether to look away, or accept what they’re saying. If you’re lucky you’ll feel a pop as one of them enters your fistula and a cool feeling of recognition spreads up through your arm. grand canyon suite Every few minutes someone’s alarm goes off because of a blood clot or a sudden fall in pressure, then the first two notes of Ferde Grofé’s “On the Trail” goes clip-clopping down the Grand Canyon of the ward. Now the first two notes of the song are joined by the same two notes from a neighboring machine, then another two, and another, till the whole hopeless blind herd is clip-clopping off into the sunset.