S ackings …

Dancing in circles around and around - only one sole circle actually.
Dancing in circles around and around sinking in the ground.

The sheep's chant and dance is kind of hypnotical.

Suddenly a dirty pick-up truck with a raised ramp and a fenced cargo bed enters the yard of Brompton Castle, honking loudly.

HONK! HONK!

»Oh, look«, Hildegard shouts out, »it's Farmer Farnsworth and his boys, Fenton and Frampton.«

»Finally«, Claude Sideburns remarks.

And while the Farmer and his sons are chasing one sheep after the other from the dancing circle up the ramp to the loading area of the pick-up with their eager shepherd dogs from the middle of the muddy circle in the yard a black sheep rises slowly.

Its' bleating is a deep, bassy sound - and it is carrying a sign.

»Hey!«

Gilbert the butler has opened one of the windows now that Farmer Farnsworth has closed the fence around the cargo bed again and is heading back to the pick-up's driver's seat.

»Don't forget the black one, Friedward!«

Farmer Farnsworth is turning around to Brompton Castle and looking at the sheep with the sign that is approaching the building and the library windows with strange little side-steps.

»Not one of mine«, the Farmer shouts. »Never seen that beast before.«

And in kind of a hurry he jumps into the truck, slams the door shut and drives away quickly.

»That is kind of peculiar«, the llama says rubbing its' chin against one of the windowsills.

Red eyes are looking at me from a curly, woolen face as I am returning the sheep's look.

»What does the sign say?« Nigel asks.

»The sign says«, Kylie reads,

»READ THE SIGNS !!!«

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Today is Tuesday, the 28th of February 2023.

S ackcloths …

»Do you hear the sheep sing?«

What?

We are turning around to Hildegard, the cook and housekeeper, all four of us at the same time.

What did she just say?

She is looking out of the window, and we are following her direction of view while she is singing a kind of a bumpy song.

»Do you hear the sheep sing?
Singing the song of angry beasts?
It is the music of the animals
Who will not be slaves again!«

And indeed I can hear a bleating sound coming from the yard outside.

What's that rhythm? A waltz?

I cannot believe my eyes. The group of sheep outside - let's call them a flock - has risen to their hind-legs, forming a circle, front-legs put around the shoulders of their next-to sheep. They are swaying from one side to the other, almost dancing and chanting,

»Not be slaves again! Not be slaves again! Not be slaves again!«

Claude Sideburns, the man we used to call Burnside and Professor, jumps out of his chair.

»What is that nonsense?« He cries out. »Not in my backyard! Didn't I tell you? Not in my backyard!«

»It's your front yard, Master Claude«, Gilbert the butler remarks. »They are singing and dancing in your front yard.«

»And no-one will believe that«, Claude Sideburns sighs, hiding his face in the palm of his hand.

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Today is Friday, the 24th of February 2023.

Dancing Sheep

 

Two-thousand-eighteen Shades Of Bromford - Part 238

Today is Wednesday, the 22nd of February 2023

After a long and wild night the mouse

took off its' mask and turned out to be a hamster.

What else could you expect on Ash Wednesday?

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"In The NightSide Of Bromford"

Divided we stand in the light of a frozen sun
Cursing the gods we have become

We steal the fire from a sacred heart
And bleed the wine unholy
We fall in love with the serpent's song
And fear nothing

In the nightside of Bromford
We're born again dead
Forever we are
Forever we've been
Forever we'll be crucified to a dream
In the nightside of Bromford

Deranged, we're tearing away the petals of desire
Learning the mathematics of evil by heart

We deceive ourselves to start a war
Within the realm of senses
And descend to the circle number four
Where we are nothing

In the nightside of Bromford
We're born again dead
Forever we are
Forever we've been
Forever we'll be crucified to a dream
In the nightside of Bromford

A bandoneds …

 

Regularity should bring some kind of flow into my life.
I want some order or the peace of a guideline.
Let's call it a schedule.

I am looking for some order in all the chaos.
And I don't know which of my characters I want to admit that.

Kylie is following my gaze or even my stare at the treasure map on its' wooden stand.

»If Claude Sideburns is not a real professor of archaeology«, she speaks out her and my thoughts, »does that have to mean that the treasure map is not real?«

The llama puts its' snout on my shoulder from behind me.

»I have never heard of a place or island called Greenolion.«

»But that we never heard of a place or island called Greenolion«, Kylie says, »does that have to mean that it is does not real?«

Nigel puts his chin on my other shoulder from behind me.

»Didn't we say Greenolion was a sunken continent?«

The green treasure map seams to glow and twink at me and it seams to be singing in a faint voice.

»Bored of the life in the City of Gold
He'd left and let nobody know.
Gone were the towers he had known from a child,
Alone with the dream of a life
He travelled the wide open road,
The blinkered arcade,
In search of another to share in his life.
Nowhere.
Everyone looked so strange to him.

They've got no horns and they've got no tail
They don't even know of our existence.
Am I wrong to believe in a City of Gold
That lies in the deep distance, he cried

And wept as they led him away to a cage...«

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Today is Saturday, the 18th of February 2023.

Greenolion

G abardines …

 

»Does a penthouse have an attic?«

Voices inside my head, echoes of things that we said.

Hidden words speaking to me from an unknown direction.

»Bored of the life in the City of Gold

He'd left and let nobody know.

Gone were the towers he had known from a child,

Alone with the dream of a life

He travelled the wide open road,

The blinkered arcade,

In search of another to share in his life.

Nowhere.

Everyone looked so strange to him.

They've got no horns and they've got no tail

They don't even know of our existence.

Am I wrong to believe in a City of Gold

That lies in the deep distance, he cried«

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Today is Thursday, the 16th of February 2023.

Beast with no horns and no tail.

Two-thousand-eighteen Shades Of Bromford - Part 237

 Today is Tuesday, the 14th of February 2023.

Never surrender.

Never give up.

Said the mice to the wild boars.

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"Road Movie To Bromford"

We're in a road movie to Bromford
Can't drive out the way we drove in
So sneak out this glass of Bourbon
And we'll go

We were once so close to Heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest
Of the damned

Time won't find the lost
It'll sweep up our skeleton bones
So take the wheel and I will take the pedals

We're in a road movie to Bromford
Can't drive out the way we drove in
So sneak out this glass of Bourbon
And we'll go

Two-thousand-eighteen Shades Of Bromford - Part 236

Today is Monday, the 6th of February 2023.

Wild boar
and nothing more...

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"Gates Of Bromford"

Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides
Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun
Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when ′neath the trees of Bromford

The lamppost stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached
To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail
Though it shadows metal badge
All and all can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow
No sound ever comes from the Gates of Bromford

The savage soldier sticks his head in sand
And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who′s gone deaf
But still remains
Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tattooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Bromford

With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Sidesaddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Bromford

Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings
There are no kings inside the Gates of Bromford


The motorcycle black madonna
Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Bromford

The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot
While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince
Discuss what's real and what is not
It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Bromford

The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Bromford

At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what′s true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Bromford

E ar-drums …

 

Time flies.

You may know a dragonfly, and maybe fireflies as well.

But you have ever seen a donkey fly?

»Off! Off! Away! Away!«

While my companions try to console Claude Sideburns because he never was a real professor for archaeology his housekeeper Hildegrad is trying to scare away the sheep from the windowsill with a broom she brought in from the hallway.

All this is giving me a headache.

But from time to time I take a look at the green treasure map on the wooden stand between the two windows at the outside wall.

»Llama?« I ask the animal quietly. »Where again did you find that treasure-map?«

»In the attic«, the animal answers.

Time really flies, doesn't it? When did we first talk about all those treasure maps in the messy living-room? It was April 2022, wasn't it?

»The attic of the apartment building on 666, Whitaker Lane, in Bromford, the friendly town by the bay and seaside?«

The llama nods while eating scones without cream.

»Does a penthouse have an attic?«

»It had one for a short time when I found all those treasure maps«, the llama says with a mischievous grin.

»Stop looking like that«, I say. »And don't talk about Bruno.«

»You almost ruined the secret message, didn't you?«

»Almost«, I agree.

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Today is Wednesday, the 1st of February 2023.

Timeflies