This is not a good place, like those towns that promise you smiles, or enjoyment, Bucklow does none of that. Bucklow is straight as die in promising you zip and keeping to that promise no matter how hard you shake it to stop. Bucklow is a wet dog with a hard won stick and will keep on panting at your feet no matter how many times you were to throw the thing.

Those wet afternoons when pants legs stick and summer is a rumour for those who have lives. To be an adventurer calls, waiting in vain turns into art form if left long, Bucklow could aim higher than its dog shitted horizons if only, if only, if only there were a ladder. Foundations of great journeys have been built on less. Trying to make sense of any of these towns, dots along a highway map,  places that exist only for those who would take part, for those who would stop by. For those who stream by, a place on a map, for them none of this is. And who is to say that they are loser in the exchange?

And would any be worse or better for that movement in ignorance?

Instead of here be dragons were: men who would fuck other men’s wives in fun, spite (within an inch of breath-whether for them or for cocksmanship-go guess) and men whose wives were being fucked with as they spoke-not within an inch-but for much the same reasons-they spread for maliciousness, a lack of will to carry on, whatever. (sexes in difference reveal mirror)

Listening for the breath of new moon, a murmur of talent, smidgeon of truth. Naught but repetitious mumblings from years of taproom floors, gossip rewound though not retightened from yesterday. Memories of fights, petulant frenzies carried over as aeons flaura and fauna.

That I could hold this as new, I know this space will hold others in their charioteer career toward difficulties and meeting with destiny. It holds me now tight in embrace, wolf lair, though not as demanding, I listen and remember other dendrite febrile fond embrace with naked woman, pussy soft as ravens breath outside in open dark night. That has now escaped me, such is Bucklow.

Kill the roots the rest will follow.

To gain a something wondrous thing from our destiny or instead to carry on with surrogacy in tale garden?

Bucklow.

Low caramel hills to the South to contain gentle sundering’s of those such as are ‘comfortable’ in their wealth. To the north, marshes rein in the wetter passions of those needing others to contour their days. The marsh stink in less enlightened times thought to give off ‘effluvia’ or ‘miasma’s’ to affect townsfolk in unattractive ways. Now with land grants slowly being drained for new build land, folks got to love, live somewhere…

Hill, slope, properties continue to rise in price, swimming pools appearing as wealth becomes 4/5th generation, mortgages become things that po’ folk acquire much like rickets and ringworm. The two halves of town are not as defined as this might sound, there are ‘The slopes’ where wealth is obvious, mixing occurs around business and service areas, some folks move up and others move down. There are those who tell you the town stays the same that class doesn’t exist here, but that’s the same folks who support tax reform, punitive law and a public death penalty. We shan’t pay them no mind, others don’t and why should we..?

your visit here is fleeting, in this space we discover the days of those who will tell us their stories, others have already occurred, have been completed, others yet barely begun, but Bucklow will remain. To make your own mark in Bucklo must be to impact somehow, make a space, create in some new way, add to the store of those who have gone before. To complete some internal topography.

Deep background, noise, a rhythmic thumping construction noise. Some will say change for the better, some, change for the worst and of course the truly enlightened will smile, nod into the distance and say nothing ever changes.

These natural boundaries create space for stores, bars, all services that we as people demand in feel need to occur. Supply and demand are the same whichever in whyever of fractal that is small town wherever? Dispassionate franchises that disguise language and customs between culture and race. Fitting to Bucklow and other places where sloth thought has replaced feeling. I write not to disparage but to report, yours the invitation to critique, choose to pass on by or tarry. Also are cheaper imitations of franchises, taking colours and style but yet not taking on form,  trading off originals to avoid creation of their own. Lapdog, all relationship based upon imitation; so near yet so far. Trading neon reds: colour to sell fast food avoid relationship. Symbiosis, such a pretty word, to describe parasitism.

History is old here. The selling of it new. Cards and poster fictions of folks ‘no longer with us’ excepting in costume drama, reconstruction and loose colour filmic demonstration. Bucklow, founded by a sot who could travel no further on a quest for cheap liquors. Founded in remembrance as heroic endeavours to raise cows, children and a ‘decent place to live.’  Admittedly those who follow mavericks swallow mythology and fund imagination to deliver what such bastard children cannot.

Here history is followed in a decent place to live, cynicism an old whore who would deny honest couplings that love can be. Honest decent folk do live here, to follow the dealings of those who would foster our cynicism is to fall into adolescent nihilism, regrettably this is where action too often gathers.

There are crossroads enough here, but none brave to tarry at midnight in exchanging soul for favours, here is home  for talentlack. Hell is deep shit up to lower lips, denizens who spend their time there whispering “don’t make waves.” Bucklow is that made corporeal, plain. Surely inhabitants easily recognise the tone. Perhaps this too deep a background for those whose tales would follow.

My compulsion is to return, to say the goodbyes others made years back, either willingly, in lack or ignorance. Suffice to say that goodbyes unless spoken to or by me are not complete endings.

©neil benbow