Swinging Light

Oh no, another vision, a glimpse, of what, who knows, I better write it down . . .

A lamp swinging - from . . . for yes surely there must be a from, and so from a ceiling, and it is swinging, not gently but, though not quite wildly, well bordering perhaps on wildly, though not out of control . . . not yet out of control? Well for now anyway not yet, and so, despite all the swinging, always somehow or other, and even almost casually so, held in balance. And holding onto, suspended from this lampshade, are people, very small, the size lets say of toy-soldiers - though I suppose yes it could be that I am belittling them and it is actually the lamp that is enormous - but anyway either way they wouldn't want, however big they are, presumably to fall off.

Sometimes in this room, for surely there's a room, the light, the light from this lamp, shines bright - a high wattage it must be - but sometimes not so bright and other times the light even murky and weak; and naturally there are between these gradations also intervals of darkness, the bulb having gone, given up in a flash, or is it rather the lack of a flash, and so they're all left there, swinging in the darkness. But soon enough, naturally, the bulb is taken out and replaced, the old one thrown out or who knows, maybe kept in some box in an attic by an eccentric hoarder, and anyway on they swing, the lamp and those clinging on.

But why the swinging? Is it that the person who changes the bulb gives it a push or a pull to set it back in motion? - assuming naturally that there is a person. Well it's plausible, maybe probable. Though perhaps there's a window open and so a draft, a wind - we could be up high, though yes we could be low down. Or maybe it - the swinging - and the sustaining of the swinging have something to do with the people - the weight distribution, and as it swings gaining height in whatever direction, those atop and clinging on the other side of the lampshade are tugging against this lurch, and so momentum grows, back and forth and vice versa and so on. Though to be honest I'm out of my depth here, the dynamics of motion, Newton, whoever, and all that . . .

But anyway as the light swings in the room there must be brightenings and darkenings, shadows rearing, the imagination seeing and conjuring all kinds of things, quickly forgetting them as something else rears into view. Regardless of the swinging some corners of the room remain always unseen, blocked. Maybe some people grow desperate, long to jump off, stare and try to calculate, is it possible to jump, where might they land, at what point in the arc of movement to let go, they leap to freedom, to calamity, they don't leap at all . . .

Anyway I think I've done my duty, to some degree anyway. I wrote it down, fleshed it out a bit, it can look after itself now.