Now,
decorate the sky
with its own abstract expressions.
A Completely Conventional Sequel
In the summer of 2019, I finished one harbour novel and ended up falling pretty much straight into an idea for a second. With The Floating Harbour complete after several years, and The Ballad Of Stokes Croft begat-begun-begotten, I started composing a tale of two parallel stories, in harbours dist’ removed in space ‘n time, that I took to referring to as Egypt & Industry.
A young man at work on the industrial, Brunel dock in Bristol of the 1840s.
A girl who walks along the Nile’s banks beneath the shade of an expanding Karnak.
Ten days beyond a city sunrise.
Through walks ‘n talks ‘n poetrose, as words merge-turn-transition, the co-protagonists protagonise…
Another Novel Serialised
A follow up ‘n follow on to The Floating Harbour, the second in a (maybe) harbour trilogy, and another for the Bristol Series – it’s a strange one but I love it dearly. As with all my writing, it is going to be freely available here, and I shall be releasing it serially, a chapter at a time.
Egypt & Industry has been the working title, because the real one is too long for the regular writing of (Its acronym in’t much better: FOTABTFOTN). So, without much further ado about nothing, I shall introduce to you:
Floating On The Avon
By The Floodplains Of The Nile
By William Altoft
We live
in a tide-swept inlet,
floating, flung.
In such a world, why cling to
collections of poems?
– Izumi Shikibu
Coffined thoughts around me,
in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words.
Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, mooneycrowned.
And I heard the voice of that Egyptian highpriest.
In painted chambers loaded with tilebooks.
– James Joyce, Ulysses
These sage scribes…
Departing life has made their names forgotten;
writings alone make them remembered.
– Hieratic Papyri
A-comin’ shortly…
william altoft 