...Old Man River... Marked a 'Man's' journey

Art Quote

"Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it."

Duke Ellington


Old Man River

Paul Robeson's lyrics that evolved, reflecting his monumental life, and vision for the past and future are truly a lifetime achievement. This should be a part of every man from each nation's collection of resonating pieces, and a study piece for every child of every nation.


If I had ever met him, then along with Martin Luther King, I would have hugged him... for a long long...Time.

Art Quote
"Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction."
Evelyn Waugh


I was gently being shaken not stirred, like ice cubes in a tumbler, on a train, aged 22, working in London, it was a cold bleak January, and it was a short term placement, since I am not a natural commuter, I find it claustrophobic, and the jostling, and chronic bad manners, where stubborn shiny suited men have no intention of giving up their seat for women with shopping, or children, never ceases to amaze me!

I had a prose book open and with a knife sharpened pencil (my Dad would do this the old fashioned way), I was underlining, and making my observations, an old habit of mine.

Quite surprisingly for the time of the day, the underground train was unfilled. Everyplace we stopped people were warming their hands with their breath or tensed up pulling collars high, every so often a mist would seem to hang between stations, and the windows felt cold despite the heated train.

We drifted through the atrium passages, opening and closing doors, weaving snake-like underneath London, light, then dark, then reading, glimpsing, fixating on advertising billboards, or flash card posters, of what we really needed to feel fulfilled.

It became more warm and the smell of chocolate that had spilt or melted on seats, and the musty smell of sweat and traffic became stifling, as underneath our seats old dusty fan heaters churned to warm us whilst suffocating us with their single speed heat.

There were about 15 or so of us left within the long train, and then a black gent climbed on. He shuffled on and then sat about 12 feet from me. I could see him through the glass partition windows. He was ashen grey, his matt black skin, looked like ebony with a fine layer of dust. His features were softly passive, relaxed, and I imagined in his youth he was a handsome muscular man full of passion and energy.

I thought this, but knew that whatever he may have been, now he was struggling to seat himself.

His overcoat appeared to look pewter grey: waxed, it was I supposed caked in the city's dirt and grime, everything appeared the same chalky colour, from his hands to his small plastic bag of personal affects to his long overcoat, his tight woollen hat, even his face. I wondered if he were a homeless vagrant.

Title: Depth

Artist: Nicholas Sanders, Leicester, England

I whispered '... There but for the grace of God go I...'

But then those beautifully frightening, scorching pain: eyes that looked at me for a moment settled softly, on my gaze.

Eyes that were hauntingly sad, something in me invites those kind of wretched emotions to rear in people, so that they share this moment of specificity with me, when we look at each other. I have seen so many eyes just like his. It is communicable the world over. His eyes were pewter grey, with yellow flecks, and the whites were almost like an Egyptian: bluey-red-veined ... marbled stone.

I smiled over at him; he barely raised any flicker or even the subtlest variation in his skin creases. Like a large boulder, this man for a second reminded me of Paul Robeson in his late fifties.

His breathing appeared heavy, laboured and his body like a walking corpse or cadaver seemed to be so tired, weary, his shoulders stooping as if to pull in the fabric of the universe and drawn it into his own navel, like a man searching for his own umbilical cord to a far remembered whisper of comfort.

He seemed to be wheezing, as if the very effort of breathing was in itself the dung beetles remaining resort for realising it's final push before it was cut down by the vagaries of life again and the boulder rolled over it and even further below it's journeyed climb.

Stanza from 'Not all that glitters is tin'

"Even so, he is aware, any moment, in wry despair
Burning coal eyes glare, coldly, reflected, wide-eyed, fear."

By Sapphire-X



But what made others vacate, was the smell that emanated from his corner. From the second he climbed on, the stench was incommunicable. It was like rotting meat; it made one literally want to 'heave'. I held my breath, I couldn't be discourteous and move and hurt his feelings. My mother's value system was already ingrained into my own ethical standpoint.

In the end there were just 5 of us, myself, he, two Chinese students, who seemed entirely oblivious, and an elderly man who smiled graciously with a kindly face, he had sympathy in his eyes.

Others that were arriving on the train spied him with disgust, revulsion, and then as quickly climbed off or moved through the chambers.

I could not take my eyes off him for two stations, then it become impossible for those climbing on not to remain on, it was central London so it was busy!

He reminded me of finding smudged and blurred with charcoals, a sketch, of him.

A pristine man aged around forty, climbed on the train, exceptionally shiny boots,polished jet; his neck appeared sunburnt, and he looked healthy and outdoorsy. His hair cropped very tight and he gave the impression of polished urbane charm, intermingled with 'Old Spice', and masculinity.

The minute he did, he went over to the man and he touched his arm, he quickly fumbled and then placed something in the man's hand, it looked like a ten pound note, and then he added, "You must get off at Bakerloo, and go straight to the Samaritans, they will know what to do for you! Can you hear me?"

The elderly man nodded, softly, (perhaps he smiled) heavily, his head stooped with the effort, as if a bowling ball was placed on his head. His powerful appearing hand trempled, as it closed tightly around the gift that passed hands. His laboured breathing was a sharp contrast to the energetic powerful man that leant close over him.

Nobless Oblige!

The man, with the ice-mirror shiny boots repeated his statement, and he added, "Go quickly, here you are, this is your stop, we are here. Don't forget ask for the Samaritans."

Then he went and stood by the doors and helped the man shuffle off, leaning out, and when he saw a railway attendant, he shouted out a command. He needs the Samaritans. The railway-man paused and then nodded.

Everyone looked around, surprised and alarmed; this statement broke their mundane self-contained aloofness and threw some of them into disarray.

I watched this man, watch the old man walking, or rather shuffling away. I stretched my neck and also looked over my shoulder to see the poor thing like a sloth, move slowly, edging himself leaning sometimes against the sides of the walls of the underground, and he appeared to be climbing step, laboured step, up the stairs now. Then the train moved on, and everyone appeared to take a long deep breath, of relief, since clearly we (I included) had held our breaths for much of the duration of the journey.

No-one spoke, I think people were genuinely concerned, polite, perhaps even indifferent.

I then heard a voice loud, (in fact TOO LOUD) clear, and easily recognisable, once that voice has been heard once!

"Why did he smell that way? Why did you send him to the Samaritan's? What was the matter with him? Is he going to be all right? I am ever so worried? What do you think?"

He turned to me.

"Thank you for asking!"

I smiled a crooked nervous smile, now everyone was staring at me. (I do this all the time, I ask a question regardless of where I am or how many people surround me, and often to my great embarrassment afterwards, I realise that unconsciously my right hand is up! Where the hell do I think I am in class? I could kick myself, it is a pattern that I have repeated all through my life, much to amusement of those around me happy to appear stupid, but pretty! Myself, I am mortified at my own sheer audacity). When this man spoke it was crisp, to the point, and with a powerful timbre to his voice, authorititative and with excellent controlled breathing. He seemed so self possessed and dynamic.

"That man is in the final stages of dying, he should be in a hospital bed, in Hospice, he is already beyond relief, you have observed a man in the last moment of his life, and if he is not dead within the hour, or matter of hours, he certainly will not see this day's end!"

I replied, "Oh, I understand. Thank you for helping him."

Then...

"By the way, how do you know?"

He smiled slower this time, he walked over to me, stood in front of me, and then he discreetly flicked open his long coat, like all his movements, crisp and efficient; shifting his rucksack, as his shoulders straightened briskly. Hidden, he wore the jacket uniform of the Blues and Royals: a soldier, he added, "... and (a soft hush pause)... I am a trained paramedic".

I nodded and gave him a crooked smile of acceptance, and noticed again his ice-mirror shiny boots.

His dark blonde, greying slightly hair, like a halo, in my mind, I felt a momentary bond with this stranger, so tall above me, I felt immediately child-like. He stayed by me, holding onto the hand rail, until his stop came and then he flicked his forehead, with the back of his fingertips, in an age-old familiar stroke we know to suggest 'adieu' and with a broad grin to rival 'Joel McCrae'; who he reminded me of particularly his profile, he jumped off atheletically, and bounded off up the stairs.

Then I immersed myself into my book of prose, I watched my pencil fall into the side of the door, lost; and when I saw my own tears drop twice on the pages, I shut the book tied my velvet ribbon around it, and climbed off the train, three stops before I was due to.

I walked up the stairs, up into the winter cold sunshine, and I undid my choking silk Hermes scarf, one my mother had given me especially from her own personal collection; I smelt it for a second, it had her perfume, because she took it quickly from her own coat pocket, and draped it over my shoulder, as I sipped tea and watched her feed my brother's Alsatian 'Major', with her own freshly cooked meat for him.

For as I was leaving, she had said hurriedly, "... Beta (child) keep your throat warm, you always get chills, and you don't want to catch your death of cold!

... And took a long deep breath. I walked the remaining 2 miles to my workplace, crying into it, the whole journey.




Cala-Lillies... I am unsure of the source for this beautiful photograph... apologies...