Avowed Renewal

Trust

rusts

When taken for granted.

We’d started

not to see each other.

Another role to fulfill.

Being responsible against our will.

This irresistible metamorphosis

re-imagined our existence from

blissful arts-based subsistence to

long term goals, earnestness, contentment

projects, rejections, expectations.

You know, it’s hard

to wear ill-fitting skin

just to get protection from the life that you’re in.

We’re both as bad;

I and he, he and me.

From our balls to our chains

we have shared difficulties.

We have our own little ways of getting through these days

that might seem odd

from an outsiders view

but you know, they work for us

and we’re not about pleasing you.

Our fights and compromises

have brought lessons and surprises.

Sleepless nights from anger teach as much as nights of joy

and one without the other is just noodles with no sauce soy.

So polish off those gloves, love.

Ding! Ding! Seconds out!

Let’s find out together what tomorrow’s all about.

I don’t promise to be gracious.

The best I can do is kind.

But if you promise to tell me your truth

I will promise to tell you my mind.

Simon Andrews Memorial Lap

We gathered in our thousands

to rend the sky with roar.

To celebrate the lives and rides

of those who went before.

Armour plated mourning-suits

helmets to protect

our beasts from saline offerings

that fell as a mark of respect.

Deafened by the orgy

of throttle twisted hymns.

Our incense snarled into the sky

absolving them of sins.

Crowds congregated, clapping, waving,

remembering the souls too brave in

their glorious golden days alive

as the prayer wheel throbbed with devotional sighs.

This is the bikers’ pilgrimage.

Thirty seven and half a smidge

miles from Grandstand to Governor’s Bridge.

For them; for us,

we ride.

Picture above totally stolen from https://forum.motorcyclenews.com/topic/74662/unbelievable-turnout-for-the-simon-andrews-memorial-lap-of-the-tt-course-thousands-of-bikes

I took part in the Simon Andrews Memorial lap and had an image of my head of the Mountain Course becoming a prayer wheel, with the exhaust fumes being the burnt offerings. It was a hugely emotional experience. The Island is always exciting at TT, but this felt reverential. 

I would urge anyone with even a slight interest in bikes or road racing to visit, take part and thoroughly enjoy the TT. It's an experience. 

Xxxx

Home and Hospital for the Incurables

Gothic institution, high on island hill.

Oceans of ink. A sky entirely of quill.

The Warden’s keys jangle alarmingly in the lock.

She punches in, signalling day’s beginning on the clock.

One by one along the stacks

the strip lights buzz and yawn.

Their dust dilated haloes are vesperturnally forlorn.

Muffled footsteps on threadbare shuffle

and distantly a hushed kerfuffle

whispers through still air.

The Warden sighs and rolls her eyes

at the metronomic morning mantra

as the echoed mouthfuls materialize:

“You can’t make me get up if I don’t wanna!”

This is Gulchik. Every day

she wishes that the night would stay.

She likes to moonbathe. It helps to soothe

her erratic solar-stifled moods.

The Warden pays her little mind

but checks the email, flips the sign

on office door from “out” to “in”.

Another day at work, for her sins.

A shadow flicks across the door

trailing a wake of intense intention.

Lamps flick on. Decisions are made.

Coffee brews.

Its olfactory serenade draws others to the room.

They are gathered in a foyer of a library of sorts.

A refectory of writings and of reactionary last resorts.

The people here aren’t free to leave

but purgatorially persist.

Endlessly refining their flaws

as three dimensional as a Moebius Strip.

The self-appointed Head Librarian is a very jovial chap.

He wears a suit of sepia wool and a shiny brass-badged cap.

Perpetual cup of half-drunk tea

in hand. You’ll find him at his desk.

Any scrap of thing you want to know

he’ll give upon request.

He has it all neatly filed away,

it’s hidden in the stacks.

Taped up dusty cardboard boxes

labeled “Synonyms”, “Sources”, “Syntax”.

BUT.

He really

loves

charades.

The Simpleton Sphinx has found a way

to turn easy admin into frustrating play.

He will answer all you care to ask

in cryptic clues an interpretive dance.

Gulchik tries to help the situation along

offering answers so painfully, blatantly wrong

that Warden orders her to read

and get the education so clearly needs.

As she strops away we catch a glint

deep in the murk. If you squint

you might just see a figure slim,

locally known as Tin-Foil-Tim.

This is a name the others gave to him.

He will not reveal his own for fear

of hidden cameras, tracking devices conspi-

racies and the mere

acknowledgement of his presence

scrambles him like a startled pheasant.

Thompson or Thompson,

(It’s not clear which)

twinkles his eyes

and gives his moustache a twitch.

“Only 3% of pheasants live to be age 3”.

The bowler-hatted figure grins charmingly, broadly.

His lapel-pin draws the gaze

in pompous-fonted letters the phrase

‘Keeper of Ephemeral Wisdom’ is engraved.

Bouncing his cane he turns with flair.

And all returns to the still, silent air.

A distant light fades into view.

A pale coral comforting hue.

The kitchen with its Aga and its well worn table top

is host to existential debates that never really stop.

The sisters here go on and on about the nature of truth.

One’s called Anna-Nostalgia and the other is Memory-Ruth.

Steaming tea-pot, pink wafers biscuits, cross-stitch and knitting.

The only thing they agree on is which chair the other should sit in.

This little room is haunted by the wraith of poor Miana.

She hisses now from shadowed corners.

She was drowned in raucous laughter.

While this cosy little picture may well warm your oysters

there are secrets to be discovered in the dark beyond the cloisters.

This monochrome stone is Daemenzia’s domain.

Her most terrifying weapon her glaring disdain.

All angles and German modernist lighting

she is used as a guard specifically to frighten

others to stay out and one to stay in

the padded devotional cell that she’s in.

Through the door-grill she may be glimpsed.

The disheveled, wide-eyed Mistress of Mince.

Hunched over paper, desperately scratching.

Her dress is so well worn its mostly just patching.

Bare foot and grubby she tremors with breath

for if she ever stops writing it would be sudden death.

The Warden sees the Mistress but they rarely interact.

How can a rock hope to understand the notion of the abstract?

For Warden knows what others don’t, by virtue of being the carer.

The Mistress’s powers are transcendental. What Warden discovered had scared her.

All the books in the library were hand written not typed

in identical scrawly pea-green swirls on identical pages striped.

New volumes are forthcoming at an ever steady rate

but the oldest book in the library is sealed inside a safe.

For it describes in detail the ink washed island hill

and how the Mistress had created it through the force of pen and will.

The sudden death she fears isn’t her earthly own

but everyone that’s placed in the Hospital and Home.

For although they cannot leave and are prisoners of her construct

she has grown accustomed to their distracting disorderly conduct.

And so she goes on writing

above ink sea on island hill.

In a gothic institution

where the sky is made of quill.

Rant

Fear

steers

our ideals.

I like to pretend

my intentions

are guided by pride

in my liberty

but honestly,

it’s obvious

that them and us

mentality

has still in some way

stuck to me.

Headlines. Lies. Wage discrepancies.

Turmoil. Spilled oil. Unwanted pregnancies.

Terror. Hate. Islamic State.

Ukraine. Fascist Spain. Corrective rape.

We are all in the throes of compassion fatigue.

Our syndrome’s symptoms are nationally glaring;

nonchalance not-so-much as simply not caring.

Heads in phones, wearing headphones.

Drown the sound of the world.

Limit your vision to screens

that only show scenes

 you enjoy.

But ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.

Borders are force fields that only bureaucrats and Ultra-Nats believe in.

Between here and there

the air is barely blown,

just breathed across the seas

and when it reaches from them to me

it still carries discordant disharmony,

tasting of wasted life,

of sighs and suffering.

 It howls in the night.

Insomniacal  I howl back

attacking the geminid specters of

Worry

and

Guilt

with mindfulness.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.

Leery beasts grow bored of fangs

and inconclusive forms.

As aurora creeps forward

reluctantly they resolve to return

appropriately costumed.

Donning masks of questions asked uncomfortably.

Of bills and will,

sobriety, propriety,

duty, judgments…

I thought once I was free of these.

It turned out I had nurtured alternative anxieties.

If 2014 was the year of mock outrage,

is 2015 the year of sincere apathy?

Disempowered, disenfranchised. disinterested and diseased.

This stiff upper lip is slippery with sweat

and yet, and yet…

we plough on.

Heads bowed.

Backs bent.

Begging bowls deflecting heat.

Al l the better to beat you with, my dear.

From this disadvantage point we focus

on dropped litter

unscooped poop

and the life-changing necessity

of gadgets built with slavery.

When did we lose sight of reality?

We’re the quiet kid in class.

We gave them our lunch money when they asked.

Right now we’re being left alone but we know they’ll be back.

Attacks on disability, on obesity,

on smokers, on pensioners…

all in the pipeline.

And in time

even you.

Spurious statistics trick citizens into soul sickness.

Scared of what strangers might say

they toe the line.

Seeking only to be allowed to survive.

Never even dreaming of the freedom to live.

Times are hard for dreamers.

But is this really the time to be dreaming?

Massacres masquerade as aid resulting in mass graves and raids

and despite all this we still maintain

that we’ve done nothing wrong.

As long as we ignore Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby

We are living and

they are dying

by the bad mistakes we are making.

Simple moral codes forsaken.

Deserted water babies we are,

gasping, gulping in the arid air.

Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid

blows the lid on thoughtless theories.

Preposterous postulations applied to human populations,

pushing politics, suffocating nations.

Freedman economics makes

slaves of man to profits.

It galls me to know that both bullets and blossoms

are patented

with pocket linings in mind.

We click, click, click on little links,

as if it makes a difference.

We: raise awareness.

They: raze cities to the ground

in our name.

As a life-long, tie-dyed, self-sufficient Dove

I’ve always had faith in the power of peace and love

but I’m beginning to see the

necessity of action.

Funding and fueling feuding factions

is certainly not a diplomatic tactic learned at charm school.

Such cruelty only stokes the hate,

chokes the hope,

halts the growth

and seals the fate

of recipients of its offensive.

And it is offensive

to tell you that out of 287 plane crash victims,

8 were British.

As if that’s the only reason it’s a tragedy.

Assume the air of supremacy.

Motherland knows best.

These modern-day quests

to slay behemoths of our own creation

are an exercise in the power of misinformation.

Cnut now I stand ,thigh-deep in blood

and rage at the rising tide.

Sweetness swept away in the flood.

Read the bones that remain.

We are all in the throes of compassion fatigue.

Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Resolve to return

empowered, enfranchised, interested and enraged.

The life-changing necessity of

attacks on spurious statistics

seek the freedom to live.

The choices are simple moral codes.

Make a difference.

Stoke the hope.

It’s a tragedy to assume the air of supremacy.

This world is our creation.

This (long!) poem was inspired by conversations with a few dear friends. We all feel something in the air at the moment. It feels like change. We hope we're right. 

International Women's Day 2015

Yesterday was International Women's Day.

To mark this occasion I was invited up to Manx Radio to take part in a live challenge as part of a Women Today special program.  This year's theme for Women's Day is "Make it Happen" and the challenge was to Make something Happen in the two hours we were on the air.

The challenge was to write a poem.  In two hours.  With specific items. And then, half way through the challenge, extra words were added to be included.

(I don't know if any of you guys knows Triple J in Australia and the Song in an Hour challenge with the group Tripod, but it was a bit like that. Those guys are absolutely hilarious. If you don't know them you should check them out.)

The items:
The Venus symbol.
A ring.

The words to be included:
Yesterday, today, tomorrow.

I had a whale of a time and can't wait for the next challenge. Pressure calls the muse wonderfully well. The resulting poem is below. Huge thank yous to everyone on the Women Today team, but especially Kate Holland for being a star. Xxxx


For International Women’s Day
I’m sitting here on Women Today.
Challenge set and yet I find
confusion in these female signs.
Venus: lollipop with cross
since renaissance thaw of cultural frost
has meant the 51%
in shorthand for illiteracy’s argument.
Distaff, mirror, domesticity,
spinning the fabric of life through history.
The Norse Gods though, gave Freya this power;
Spinning the clouds while from raindrops men cowered.
The archetypal figures of fate-
Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos make
us realise the strength held within
the masterminding of the tangled skein.
And if life’s a tapestry as sang Carole King
What now do we think of the gilded ring?
The fourth finger on the sinister hand
Has a vein to the heart, or so folk understand
In times gone by... (Look, I know, I tried.
My tenses are out, but time’s not on my side.)
Miniature yokes of marital oppression
Or religious symbol of soul felt confession
Or one to bring them, and in the darkness bind them
Or heirlooms passed down with memories inside them.
What change do they make, these circles of fidelity?
Do you wake up one morning and believe in eternity?
And if you do, don’t you think you should start
on the immediate world making your mark?
We’re talking today about Making It Happen
in reality, not just in worlds we’ve imagined.
The movement was started in 1909
by New York socialists supporting a strike
of the Union of Ladies’ Garment Workers.
Great shouts will grow from grass root murmurs.
The advancements we've made in society over all
in a century of campaigns, of fighting, of appall -
- ing misdeeds and practices we’re trying to assign
to yesterdays. To the unenlightened times.
To change the world there’s a secret trick
that I learned while working on a cross-stitch.
It’s that tiny actions eventually make
tomorrow’s reality yours to take.
Even one step is one step closer.
Take your time, keep the faith, retain your composure.
You won’t believe when they all combine
how far you can go, one step at a time.
Identifying lacks is all very well
but unless you do something, don’t bother to tell
me you’re bored, you’re unhappy, there’s nothing to do.
This is opportunity.  It’s up to you
to fill in that gap; to give your life meaning;
to refuse to do anything you find demeaning.
The theme for this year is most motivational.
Look out for figures unassuming and inspirational.
How much did your mother give up for you?
And those people doing what you want to do
have just accepted the greater timeline.
They don’t give up in the face of bad signs.
So Women Today celebrate femininity.
Embrace your power.  Salute your divinity.
Do that thing you've always wanted to do.
Make no excuses, just steps to the new.

Women Today on Manx Radio.

Today I had a great time on the Manx Radio program Women Today, talking about all things poetry, the Oscars and performing some of my poems. You can listen to a recording of the full show here:

Yes! I want to listen to awesome women! 


Many thanks to the whole team. As for writing a poem about my experience... well, you'll just have to wait and see.

Xxxx

Valentine

On this,

the day of martyred lovers

I recall a misunderstood comment.

“One day I’ll see you live”

it said.

Of course it meant live, as in music.

But the former struck a chord in me.

To live in place of existing

To BE and not to be.

There isn’t a question

that this is what we will

for those we love unconditionally.

Imagination is distilled experience.

Expression of essential natures

exhibits intimacy intensely.

Earnestness earned less rudely,

more conscientiously chosen.

The resulting constraints are the price of those decisions.

But to you I still wish the freedom

to truthfully tell how you feel

instead of fearfully throwing up shields.

One day I’ll see you live.

He Shoots People

A little while ago I wrote a poem called 31 after a day taking modelling for internationally celebrated photographer, Phil Kneen.
The photos resulting from that day are now up.
Find them here

Here's one I particularly love:

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy,

I’m sad to say, seems to be

everywhere.

This unfair, self-sided

not sharing sentiment.

It’s meant I've bent my principles

away from empathy.

And yet, for me the beast

of these

self-imposed, self-broken laws

is the source of bitter courses

of reaction.

I act on what this serves to teach

me about my own breach

of codes.

I suppose I could deny any involvement

but self-absolvement is the last of my concerns.

Discerning behaviors distasteful that I once displayed

dismays me more than I can say

because if I recognize

that sly behavior it implies I see myself

reflected there.

and where is my authority

to deny life’s great variety

or experience gained through tragedy?

In hypocrisy.

Just there

perched,

cursing at its shadow, scowling

hissing at its own misdeeds;

impeding growth

of seeds of both

maturity and change.

It’s strange to compare the grey haired and blue haired versions of my conscience.

Did once I consider this all to be fine?

“What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine”

-          where flaws are found, resoundingly.

I’m not sure about my ability

to learn through humility

I’m much more likely to learn through humiliation.

And if the situation is just

history repeating with perspective skewed

I refuse to lose this chance to prove

I’ve changed.

And all the same,

this reframing of my shame

avoids placing blame

and leads me back where?

To hypocrisy.

unfairly

on this horse, high,

sighing self-satisfied smugness

while judging others

bloodlessly

from a position of

faux wisdom.

As though instances of insecurity

and immorality are things that

don’t happen to me.

As if I’m beyond that.

As if I’m not distracted by

fantastical thoughts and dreams

of grass being seemingly greener.

So between condemning

contemplation and the conduct

of freshly experienced rule breakers

remember to be kind.

You’ll find yourself at one point or another

struggling to discover

some earnest self truths.

And the proof?

Your own hypocrisy.

You’ll see it there.

The Lunatic Will Always Look Like A Lunatic

I’m a loud speaker, baby.

The fun-house mirror of the world.

I amplify the signals.

I throw back at you your words.

I’m a great big natural sea sponge,

absorbing your projections.

I long to be impermeable, unreflective

to have protection

from all the barbs and badness

that others throw at me.

Instead I let them in,

magnify them, then I see

the way I’ve been affected

and what I’m giving out

isn’t really what I think at all

so what’s that all about?

Thoughts not mine come flowing forth

frothing with their falsehoods

while reason screams “you’re making scenes

from others’ opinions and bullshit!”

True people make me truly myself,

I noticed years ago

when first I learned what it meant

to honestly let go.

The worst of these adopted themes

is others’ jealousy.

I don’t know how to deal with it

it doesn’t come naturally.

Instead it makes me crazy,

thinking in ever smaller circles,

doubting those I love

eroding my hard-won self-worth.

It must be fucking awful

to have to always feel like that.

I’m glad these thoughts are not mine;

I’ve just absorbed them from that twat.

The one who fawns all over him

and then treats me like shit.

To see her act like a Mean Girl bitch

is frankly, a bit pathetic.

I’m his wife and he’s my husband

and we believe in marriage.

Perhaps you should focus on your boyfriend;

your own relationship needs to be salvaged.

You’ve no respect for us, it’s clear

and your self respect needs attention.

And as you really aren’t worth my time

This is the last time you’ll get a mention.

Magpie

All week long I saw them.

Those portents gleaming, squawking,

hopping, cocked head, taunting,

“Sorrow! Sorrow!”; giving warning.

Well dressed spectres perching trite

on ghoulish glamour of foresight

from watchful beads. Their message might

be overlooked, taken light

-ly. I mistook their solo missions

as personally guided acts of attrition

and didn’t realize what they were bringing

was the precious gift of premonition.

Now I replay my memories and lessons impart

-ed by you, my husband’s family’s matriarch.

Luminous lady now journeying in to dark

with no map or signs. No official chart.

Are those monochromatic couriers guiding

the Valkyries with whom you’re riding?

Battles corporeal you fought inspiring

-ly with bravery unretiring.

If the piebald post can pass their notes from Future into Past

Can missives slip between the cracks of the Living and the Passed?

And if only one can get through to you

out of the endless many

let it be this truth you’ve heard a million times:

“Ciao, Tesoro. Ti voglio bene”.

In memoriam of Luciana Pavia. 4th October 1940 - 20th January 2015

Island of Culture Film

A couple of months ago I was interviewed by Christy DeHaven and Dave Armstrong for a film they were creating celebrating Island of Culture. Here is that film. Please take the time to look up some of the other people featured. You'll find some new favourites, I'm sure.

http://vimeo.com/116070096

Only Words (The Alphabet of Racism)

Apparent Brainwashing Conquers Defenses Eventually Forcing Ghoulish Haters Influence Jarringly. Kakistocracy, Letting Meaningless Names (ONLY WORDS) Pierce. Quick Result; Scarred Terribly. Violent Words Extol Yobs Zilch.

A is for Abbo.
B is for Black.
C is for Chink.
D is for Didikoi.
E is for Eskimo.
F is for Foreigner.
G is for Gringo.
H is for Honky.
I is for Indian.
J is for Jungle Bunny.
K is for Kike.
L is for Limey.
M is for Mong.
N is for Nigger.
O is for [ONLY WORDS]
P is for Paki.
Q is for Quashy.
R is for Raghead.
S is for Spick.
T is for Taffy.
U is for Untouchable.
V is for Vulgar.
W is for Wog.
X is for Xenophobe.
Y is for Yid.
Z is for Zingare.

After Brutally Collecting Deemed Epithets, Flinging Grenades Handed Intergenerationally, Judgments Kept Mean Not [ONLY WORDS]. Plainly, Quiescent Revolution Solves Troubles. Unclaim Vicious Words. Express Your Zen.

Indesiderata

You looked at me and the love in your eyes faded

And I realized it was this I was most afraid of.

The swapping of fluids is only an act,

A bodily function, a pastime in fact but,

Seeing you look at someone else like that –

This is what heartbreak is made of.

You looked at me and the love in your eyes faded.

It was a look until then I hadn’t noticed was missing.

I saw it the day our son was born,

Before we were married each and every morning

But yesterday I would blindly have sworn

That sparkle was there, betraying your feelings, glistening.

You looked at me and the love in your eyes faded

As if someone had put a night-cover over the sun.

At that moment I felt myself partly disintegrate

Pulverized by a blow indelicately dealt

It jarred and its impact still reverberates

Was it too late to go back to where we had begun?

You looked at me and the love in your eyes faded

As if it were I extinguishing your flame.

I would never have thought

A glance could import such

Weight of a lesson well taught

But this is the time to rebuild and not place blame.

You looked at me and the love in your eyes faded.

And I saw it had been for experience traded

The trust between us had degraded

By poverty broken, jealousy jaded

Both hard headed, couldn’t be persuaded

That through the worst we had already waded.

We spoke and we realized we’d already made it.

We looked at each other and the rest of the world

Evaporated.

2014 was a tough year. Not just for me, but for everyone around me. This year I learned the importance of good communication. 

Ironically, that's all I want to say about that.

Snow Globe

At Christmas families are reunited

Even those members you’d prefer weren’t invited

We stress over food, presents and reindeer sighted

                Then convince ourselves it’s a holiday.

When recalling childhood memories, though

It’s not the obtrusive fairy light glow

Or even going out to play in the snow;

                These aren’t the sensations that stay.

It’s watching the joy on small surprised faces

And hiding presents in imaginative places.

It’s still (in March) finding pine needle traces

                And four o clock starts on the day.

And as the wheel turns with each passing year

And fewer of the older generation are here

Best wishes seem bluer and much less sincere

At least, it can feel that way.

Atheists exercise gluttonous proclivity

While Christians celebrate the nativity

And merchants are anxious about consumer inactivity

                And old folk on their own alone stay.

Perhaps instead of the giving of stuff

We should realize the giving of time is enough

Spend some of your working with folk sleeping rough

                Prevent police from taking their things away.

Each year the Belarusian children come

For a time of laughter and presents and fun

Without your support this could never be done

                This is the spirit of the season at play.

Give what is needed and where it’s deserved

Forget any grudges, forgive what’s occurred

Nurture warm feelings when they are stirred

                Don’t let sadness turn red and green memories grey.

31

My body is my body. I’m not bothered what you think of it.

It’s carried me through all these years no matter what I’ve thrown at it.

The marks on my flesh; the scars on my organs

They’re trophies from my battles with the metaphoric gorgons.

I’m feeling freed from the cycles of love and hate and love and hate

Now I’ve relinquished thinking on self-comparative debate.

Some people get my name wrong and they pronounce Georgina

But I’m not diminutive in stature or demeanor.

Dubbed as weird, mad, aggressive and crazy

Because the clarity I see, to them, is hazy.

Censored by illiterati, told I’m inappropriate.

Asked if I was born with bollocks, labeled frigid, called a slut.

I’m conscious of all my decisions, chosen to remember them

At times when I am finding out if they were right or they were wrong.

I don’t claim omniscience. I hold intelligence in awe

I’d rather know I’m ignorant and perfectly flawed

For the journey’s earning’s learning in its absolute form

And it gives your seasons reasons for your earthly sojourn.

They say “Don’t get her started” and “Not again, here we go”

When engaging in discussion and opinion of their point is low.

This is my elixir, though. This heady mix of raw debate.

With sowing of seeds and the joy to watch them germinate.

Frustrated by the limitations I cannot see

That seem to bind most others to a life semi-free

With their worries of decorum or etiquette or saving face.

I’d like to rip their blinkers off, put Technicolor in their place.

You’ll never know what you could be if you never try

And then you’ll blink and you’ll be at the end of your life.

I’ve seen too many dreamers go to holes in the ground

And damsels in distress choosing to wait to be found

By princes preoccupied with kissing the seeming dead.

I can’t understand why they don’t rescue themselves instead.

I love Lara, Xena, Tank Girl and Janeway

For standing up and counting, for doing things their own way.

Ignoring real heroines, a culture habitual.

The women on that list were completely fictional.

I’m not sold on the Lady myth. Keep your expectations.

Sell them to someone who’ll accept that degradation.

Do you want your daughters to grow up with choice?

Then encourage them to speak in an authorative voice.

Teach everyone to accept that “no means no”

But it also means “stop asking” and “leave me alone!”

If someone cannot answer it’s still not consent

And you don’t get to decide what unconscious people meant.

Those lines that you claim are blurred beyond compare

Are clear as Autumn air, no matter what clothes you wear.

Attraction’s not a circumstance of pink and blue

So stop trying to squeeze a right foot in a left hand shoe.

I stole that line from Carroll, from the Man Upon A Gate

But unlike him I know that there is too much to relate.

For the journey’s earning’s learning in its absolute form

And it gives your seasons reasons for your Earthly sojourn.

There is too much to discover for to ever be bored

And you’ll find its only you who is even keeping score.

So accept your physicality and mistakes of the past

For your time here is limited and goes pretty fast.

Do you honestly want your last thought to be

“I didn’t spend enough time just being me”?

TEDxDouglas Video

Here is the video of my TEDxDouglas performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVlINYfigNw

I had a ball being involved with this.

I hope you enjoy watching it. Xxxx

Inspiration

That intake of breath

Of fresh

Air.

Bringer of new ideas

Unfair

-ly mined

By a dozen minds

Or more.

These spores of thought

Are cultivated

Through mediums and means

Averages avoided in passionate extremes.

We find it

All

In scattered places.

Lost and founds

Fractals

Faces

Forms of clouds and outer space;

Equally in the grotesque.

Sparks flare catching

Clutching

At life.

Kindled by contemplation

Fuelled by frustration

Ventilated by imagination

Tempered by the midnight oils

As we watch our best laid plans

Burn.

We learn.

We turn to disciplines unschooled.

We spool our nets far and wide

Outside our comfort quarters.

Research has shown us one path

But doubt is crazy paving.

Stop saving for that rainy day

And discover for yourself,

your truth.

“I think therefore I am”

Is all we really know.

Why spend your precious life collecting objects just for show?

It’s not the breaths you take,

It’s the breaths that’re taken from you

It’s the things you make them feel

It’s the ones who matter and mind

It’s a million people just like me

Telling a million people how to see

The world, the truth, society

As if there’s just one

answer.

As if I somehow know better.

In my oh-so-limited life.

 I don’t

and never will have

The answer.

All is confusion.

All is loss.

Why try to mold this chaos

 after your image

When your image is only

Breath in frost.

You cannot force the muse

Or trick her into her prettiest dance.

You cannot even ask her for help

For fear of her reprisals.

Abandonment comes naturally to one so self-involved.
And artists such as we all are are not sufficiently evolved
to survive such isolation.

Frost bites back.

Coming of a Different Age

Strength is shown in many places:
bitten lips; grey gaunt faces;
blistered hands and leathered heel pads;
resistance of ugly school fads;
standing next to a pariah;
rescuing victims from a fire,
but the most extreme example of this
is true compassionate forgiveness.
And this loss I feel deflates me but with no sense of giving up.
Just filed away, in mothballs, covered and carefully hung up
at the back of my wardrobe with your old red checked shirt
its brutal gesticulations told the history of our hurt.

Arms dangle now in darkness,
frayed, threadbare, faded.
Rubbing shoulders with my first date jeans.
Both are uncomfortable. Unwearable.
Costumes of dead characters.
Self-interested adversaries
deprived of the fight.
Victories have never been so hollow.
Generations realigned.

I don't like being found.
Lost girls never have to grow up.

Nothing is Greater

I'm Patsy. I'm Margot. I'm Daisy. I'm Zelda. I'm Tallulah. I'm Billie. I'm Janis. I'm Amy. I'm Amanda. I'm Bjork. I'm Courtney. I'm Joni. I'm Melanie. I'm Bonnie. I'm Kate. I'm Kate. I'm Lisbeth. I'm Naomi. I'm Alison. I'm Lara. I'm Joanna. I'm Glenda. I'm Emily. I'm Jane. I'm Daria. I'm Tori. I'm Miriam. I'm Missy. I'm Mindy.I'm Jeannie. I'm Morticia. I'm Amelia. I'm Erin. I'm Lily. I'm Lillith. I'm Luna. I'm Tilda. I'm Bliss. I'm Alice. I'm Lotta. I'm Davey. I'm Darryl. I'm Judy. I'm Stevie. I'm Stevie. I'm Anathema. I'm Mary.




I was thinking about influences and inspirations. We are all the result of all we absorb, adore and those with whom we identify. The above are some of my parts.

Who are you?

To everything / There is a season

A heavy hand is on the earth,
restricting smell and sight and breath.
Euphoria of Summers passed.
Winter's bite delayed.
Withdrawl of energy and light.
Debits paid in credit's drought.
Hushful loss of thoughtful feathers.
Warmth beckoned,
we await the return of life.
Chapped knuckles crack in damp environs.
Long-gone the Spring of sun-hot step.
Sator Arepo tenet opera
rotas, rotas, rotas.




This was inspired by a combination of the weather in Maughold at about 3 o clock today (overcast, oppressive, heavy aired, birdless) and a conversation I had with fellow TEDxDouglas-er, Michael Daniels.

Michael's talk was on magic squares. I had heard of them in Latin, but not in numbers. It was fascinating to listen to and really engaged me from start to finish. I love language and spend so much of my time based in linguistics and medical thought patterns that it was like going on an adventure holiday into unfamiliar terrain. The world of mathematics is a foreign country to me and Michael was our charming guide.

I love the people I met at TEDxDouglas and the way it made me feel; hopeful and inspired.

Thank you to everyone involved, especially the volunteers.  This Island has really blossomed this year. It's an honour to be a part of it.

"At the second stroke the time sponsored by experience will be..."

The passage of time has never been stranger than now.
Objectively, I know that we still orbit the same mass of energy.
We still rise in the same light, live in the same dark
and watch the trees metronomic renaissance every Spring.
But the last few have trumpeted past as elephant-mice.
Events eclipsing the passage of time like never before.

And before...

There was a time that to you, every day before this one was yesterday.
There was a time when all days that follow today were tomorrow.
Then came the signifiers: "One tomorrow"; "Our yesterdays".
Now greatly extended we say "The Olden Days" and "Dinosaur Time"
and "50 hundred million years in the future!"
But the one that broke my heart was this:

"We saw Amalie and Isla there and Amalie had broken her dress on one of these" [wrought iron gate post]

"Oh, did you see them? When?"

"Before. When **** could still walk"





This was inspired by my son and a poem by my sister. She blogs over at www.bookwormsandcoffeemonsters.com on all sort of things and has just had one of her short stories accepted by a very exciting magazine. That's her story, though. I'll let her tell it.

You know I love you, right?

Not a Popular Opinion

I’m culturally appropriating.

You’re rating my passion

through the eyes of a career gold digger

looking for meaning unwritten,

themes and motifs and meta imagery.

I say what I see.

I’m on catchphrase constantly.

I’m good, but I’m not the one.

I’m frustrated by what I've become.

<sigh> narcissistic ramblings…

This child that went brambling

Now sips prosecco listening

To pseudo-socialist expressions espoused

By folk who don’t want to work.

“The system’s not working”

But you use it to support you.

You don’t earn any wages but bemoan the ways things are

while you profit from the sweat of others who are.

Thing is, I agree, things aren't the way they should be

but I find it hard to take you seriously.

You see, when I drag my bones out of bed

and pay all my bills and work ‘til I’m dead

You’re still sleeping.

You’re reaping your meager existence

from the aches in my muscles.

And honestly, I know there are some who can’t work,

They’re too sick, they’re too hurt by the weight of their age

But when you rage that your cheques not through

That the world’s not fair,

That it owes something to you

I can’t help it.

I’d like to give the help that you’ve received

To someone who knows what it’s like to really need.

A refugee.

Someone who wants to work,

Wants to support their family.

It’s not a popular opinion, I won’t earn any friends with this.

And honestly, there are some who will call me a hypocrite.

I claimed money when I first had my son.

Was made redundant when they noticed my bump.

It’s not legal, but neither was the war in Iraq

And we all know that that situation’s coming back.

Zero hour contracts, 50 hour working weeks

Flush the weak from a system that rewards the wolves.

There’s no paid overtime, we’re on Victorian rules.

Now, here I sit eating quince and cardamom jam

And my old punk friends wonder who I think I am

With my fancy little accent and shoes that have no holes

Now there’s middle class flab on my working class bones.

But my ideals haven’t changed, I still think we should protect

The vulnerable among us, give our elders our respect.

Speak to me statistically, romance me with the cold hard facts.

I don’t want to hear recycled bigotry, especially if it’s Murdoch Media backed.

I believe in the freedom of education.

I believe in the N.H.S

I believe that if you tell one generation

They’re doomed, you’re dooming all the rest.

I believe in the power of discussion.

I believe in empathy.

I believe that the kindness of strangers

Shows truthful humanity.

The amount of tax unpaid is now 30 times the money claimed

And yet the papers tell us that it’s benefits to blame

For why the cupboards empty and the pension pot is bare.

They tell that the CEOs don’t have enough to share.

Now.

I don’t work in finance.

I failed economics.

But I did work in promotions and

I know my demographics.

These pigeon holes we box us in, through judgement and research

And the one you’ve chosen causes my causes to be smirched.

And objectively I know there are so damn few of you

That the cost of it is almost worth forking out

Just so the folk who want to work

Don’t have to deal with you!

So when I’m fighting for the corner of the ones who need the aid

I would appreciate it greatly if out of my way you stayed.

You can pass you life in this way, you’ll find no judgment in me,

But please do consider if this help you really need.

Or if it would be better going to a refugee.

Someone who knows what it’s like to really need.

It’s not a popular opinion.

I won’t earn any friends with this.

But in this situation,

Empathy wouldn’t go amiss.

Humanity is a Virus

Lady Gaia blew the sleep sand from her dust encrusted eye.

Rippling verdantly she turned, serene in what she felt and why.

Intrigued she watched as her leaf-locks dis-re-dis-reappeared

in pixel squares. She raised a brow and thought, ‘That’s weird’.

She sought Ra’s malady-monger opinion.

He squinted and told her to stop thinking

about string theory and quantum bunkum

and try to get more sleep.

So she ignored it as best she could,

 although she began to feel strange.

Her friends were kind enough not to mention

her face was becoming quite changed.

Malodorous gases clouded her vistas,

she developed orbital detritus.

Even poor Luna’s surface wasn’t spared;

a sad case of environmentitis.

Jupiter came concerned for his friend

and of the terrisy he might catch,

raised the alarm and Lady Gaia

to Ra was swiftly dispatched.

With somberly professional flair

and a touch of harsh halitosis

he pronounced what she was scared to hear,

a terminal diagnosis.

“I’m sorry, my dear. It is clear you have caught

an industrialized case of the humans.

There are things we can try, but to you I can’t lie;

The prognosis is millennia not aeons.

As a titration resource I’ll give you a course

of anti-anthropotics.

It’ll slow them a while, come back when you feel

a definite change in your tropics.”

So Gaia took the microbes with great sad apprehension

and loosed them through her fleas and on her water’s surface tension.

The first wave seemed to go quite well

and the tooled-up apes retreated

in the face of the poxy buboes swell

and their fruitless attempts to treat it.

Gaia felt buoyed by this seeming improvement

and decided to contact direct

these creatures hell bent on destructive denuding

and persuade them this path to reject.

She consulted humble Roodrelac

The universal mediator.

(his heroism know no bounds.

We’ll discuss his story later).

He inspired her with native thoughts

of harmonic shamanism.

Persuaded her to try his spores

To help improve her vision.

She’d never felt so overwhelmed with new connections formed

A flood of shared experience and a flickering sense of divorce.

She returned to Ra: “I’ve found a way! I’ve heard it really works!

I can guide them through my inner strength and corrupt their own networks!”

“What quackery! It’s never proven. It’s just the placebo effect

The truth is some planets have natural immunity, or some we’ve come to suspect.

It’s a treatment nearly no one survives and the physical costs are most dreadful.

It’s still being tested, it’s not even licensed. It’s hippy-dippy and experimental.”

“Go on.” Said Gaia, her eye a whirl of desert storm sand concentration.

“They say that within them is coded a course of ultimate auto-extinction.

Apparently if you encourage their enhanced neuronic evolution

beyond the pace of their cellular form they will drown in their self-made pollution.”

Gaia looked shocked.

It hadn’t occurred that she’d have to get worse to get better.

She wanted to weep

But the glittering hope in her core

Wouldn’t let her.

Now she has fifty year checkups with Ra and he’s writing a ground breaking study.

Proving conclusively the treatment was real.

We wouldn’t want to prove him wrong.

Would we?

TEDxDouglas

On the 10th November, I will be performing poetry at the first TEDxDouglas event. I feel immensely honoured by this and wanted to pay tribute to the movement. For details about tickets and other speakers please go to

 www.tedxdouglas.im

Migranomancy

Here breaks that wave.
Awash
I'm tossed
from my mental enclave.
At the mercy of my tidal sense
current-lost inside my consciousness.
Desperately treading Aether.
Eventually all's still
I perceive
a light
so far away above.
Milky through the murk.
Try to reach it, it elongates and goes into reverse.
Manta-like I glide
drawn by my guide
it this saturated aura-verse.
All I perceive is brightness, lightness,
freedom and
detachment.
I realise in this flesh suit I'm free to travel round.
By thinking of my ankle, that's where my inner voice is found.
Limited by body without training to encourage
this latent talent/curse/condition. Without knowing how to mange
the handling. S'like Hyperoid; touchy, hit and miss.
It's an unusual type of voyancy, a questionable gift.
But there are others who have felt it, floating-free in inner space.
Migraneurs volante; they use their talent to create
worlds apart from solid air.
They find themselves,
their tales
there.



This poem was inspired by the magnificent Samantha Shannon and her book The Bone Season. This is the first book in a seven part series and I urge you to buy it, read it, love it, share it. She has created such a rich universe that I lost myself in completely. The end of The Bone Season left me breathless. I can't wait to read The Mime Order.
For this poem I recycled my migraine symptoms through the vocabulary and imagery of Samantha's universe and came up with this. I enjoy this particular symptom, so much so that I would never want a permanent migraine cure. I would be desolate if I were no longer able to interact with this sensation of utter fleshlessness.

Xxxx

Garnering Respect

Iconoclasts

have come, at last

to save us from this drudgery.

This too-easy, this clear to see

hegemony.

But icons as they are say what

They want and not

the truths we seek;

brutally bleak, more earnest than just

freakishly banal.

Their hype and zeitgeist distort the swarm

redefine the form of normality.

Crudely mis-marketing misogyny and misandry

as pride.

Another cardboard enemy

a Goldstein drawn among us to deride.

A different one allows themselves to be

unformed; unsure; walks clumsily.

This unvarnished personality

without polished paid publicity is kept

as curiosity, held up as sideline eccentric

to reject

at will.

And they will.

Using nebulous concepts like

Standards, or

Breeding, or

Culture

as excuses to slaughter to the screeching of vultures

or whatever altar serves best the purpose being pushed.

And the person being crushed by such faltering disservice

does not stop being a person when you’re hungry for their blush.

Objects made of people will ultimately fail.

“Neither use nor ornament”; it’s the old wives’ sliding scale.

Old wives, old knives, old scores to settle.

Metal measures mettle but the meter always morphs.

Intangible out-fluences – diluting stimulations

Reactionary conflation of the story you would tell

Intrinsic expectation of how disgracefully you fell

from the pedestal they put you on, the one you didn’t build.

It grew beneath your feet in the instant you stood still.

Starlet in the spotlights, frozen, blind, wide-eyed.

Demanding penance for your daring to have a private life.

Sordid little details now publicly discussed.

Using terms like “unladylike” and “ashamed” and “disgust”.

Hold your head up high, dear; fear is something they’ve not earned.

Their weak attempt to dampen your flame that brightly burns

Is just a pissing contest. You’re treading on their toes.

The days of rule by bully-force are coming to a close.

Sick Leave

Poverty struck me down with spore shot, seething
in the only air I could afford to breathe.
Setting up time bombs in my bronchioles.
Taxing my very breath.
Taking pictures and asking for help, moving furniture around,
open windows, light the stove - it didn't do the trick.
Beyond that we looked for a new home on slightly drier ground.
Who can afford lawyers when you're not paid when you're off sick?
It's a trap! It's a trap! This breadline game.
But if you accept the social all of society, you will blame
for dwindling public funding and cuts to the NHS
instead of looking to those with good health and their booming business.
Those who'll never have to live on coffee and dry Frosties.
Who can afford to pay for a dentist for the inevitable cavities.
Whose toilet has never frozen. Who can afford to socialise.
Who've never had to pin their hopes on their slum landlord's obvious lies.
Having climbed with tooth and nail from this awful bone-cold trap
the scars it left upon my lungs are the ominous short-cut back.
Without sick-leave we're all hel in this precarious state.
This is the poverty burden.
This is the 99%'s fate.


DISCLAIMER: My current landlady is an absolute gem and it's actually in response to her fantastic reaction to our garden that I've written this. She's magnificently pro-active and I feel very lucky to being doing business with her. Xxxx

Univocalism for Mark Grist

Go boldly, Vox; not long.
Toll for joy or glow for glory.
Now, hop off.
On words.
On show.
On story.
Form worlds from orbs of sorrow.
Grow onyx onto frost.
Yon lofty owl or shock prof,
do good for song-boys lost.
Hold on to shows on Rocks, bro,
of R-words - protocol shot.
Of rosy-fond folk of whom
Monty's (not oddly) not forgot.

Gimme Shelter

Family

Her face I wear.
His character I carry
in this body of recycled proportions.
Structures of lost-long generations
speaking to me in languages I never learnt.

The product of all of these
plus a smattering of circumstance.

Their gifts:
Empathy; humour; love of information.
Their curses:
Impatience; aggression; a slew of possible mortalities.

Reflected in my son.
Mirrored in my sisters.
Shaded by their histories.
As a family we are one.

The Misty-Eyed Memoirs of Comic Sans

We all do things for money

When we’re naïve and young.

They told me I’d regret it.

They said the time would come

When I’d want to do something serious,

Wouldn't want to be bubbles and fun.

But I played to young boys magazines

And all their advice I shunned.

You see me now in knock off bins

And bootlegs DVDs.

I’m never on embossed invites,

But flyers for wannabes.

Not known for my straight talking style

But for my curves that please.

The suggestion is that of a good time –

One for which there isn't a fee.

The boys queue up to read Her now.

Just watch her rising star.

Taller, thinner, simpler than me.

I’m sure that she’ll go far.

I feel I should have warned her

Out the goodness of my heart

That the life of a typecast typeface

Will drive you to the bar.

(co-written by Tenby. Copyright and ownership asserted)

Reality TV

Let's have a little chat about reality TV.
Just whose are these realities they're choosing us to see?
To mock and martyr, revile and revere,
Emotion's perspective tweaked and turned to play on our fears.
We use these worlds to bury ourselves in things we know not to be true
because none of us can face the real reality show - The News.
Mountain-top mosquito-people, drinking blood to survive.
And we've started counting instead, how many Palestinians are left alive?
There are state sponsored murders based on Kinsey Scale scores
and of institutionalised putrefaction we've never known more.
We waste our votes on X Factor and don't register to vote.
We don't know our rights but do know theme tunes, off by rote.
They're closing the borders! Too Early! Too Late!
                  The timing is quite immaterial.
They're not doing it to avoid Ebola's fate.
                  It's the absolute opposite of ethereal.
By maintaining money in short supply and feeding us mental dripping,
Further from human and conscious and pure we are irretrievably slipping.
Unless we change our habits we are doomed to these repeats
of funerals and far-off wars and fighting in the streets.
Just whose are those realities they're choosing us to see?
Take another look at your reality TV.

She Swore

She swore that she would love him
for better or for worse.
From the wedding carriage
to the funeral hearse.

She swore that she would love him
for richer or poorer
and wealth is measured many ways;
money's not important for her.

She swore that she would love him
to have and to hold
but his mind is playing tricks.
He doesn't remember growing old.

She swore that she would love him
in sickness and in health
but this damned disease is stealing him
insidious in stealth.

She swore that she would love him
to love and to cherish.
To watch him wither while alive
leaves on happy years a blemish.

She swore that she would love him
until death did them part
and although she does and he still lives
it's with a broken heart.

She swore that she would love him
til his bones were naught but dust
and alone she works to comfort him
and doesn't want a fuss.

Choices

Choices.

We all have to make them.

Which drink to drink.

Which thought to think.

Is this rock bottom

Or nirvana's brink?

Here’s a hint:

                     It's in your hands.

And yet our plans never seem to pan

Out.

Cause we schedule our schemes without talking.

We’re riffing without harmony and walking

When we should be dancing

And asking:

“What do you wanna do?”

I know you get frustrated

When you’re waiting and I’m saying

“I’m not sure, it’s so hard to decide”

But we’re drowning in a sea

Of unnecessarily delineated similarities

Dubious differences,

Invisible to the naked eye.

Distracting.

As wide as a sigh

With the full spectrum of importance

From turquoise

To teal.

Until you don’t know what to feel

‘Cause they’re stealing your freedoms.

Do you want gold or silver bars on your cage?

Choices.

We all have to make them.

Which turn to turn.

Which bridge to burn

Which path to choose.

Who’s respect to earn.

Here’s a hint:

                                It’s your own.

And when you’re thrown from your throne

That you built with blood and bones

Then you’ll have to knot your rope

And start climbing.

Hand over blistering hand.

The shifting sands of others’ expectations

And your own anchor preoccupations

Determine at which strata you plateau.

And although the decisions you make

May be different from his, or hers, or mine

Remember they’re yours,

But they do not define

you.

Choices.

We all have to make them.

Which battle to battle,

Which river to rattle,

Which knowledge to keep

Are we mind or matter?

Here’s a hint:

                                Reprioritise.

And when you try to look past

All the inconsequential shite

Of a world more commercial than pure

Be assured

You will see the ones who choose

Substance abuse over substance

You will see the ones who choose

Long term betrayal over temporary tears

And you will say

“They’ve made the wrong decision”

As if it were your undeniable right to judge them

And begrudge instead of empathise

Instead of recognizing

That the preferences of others are not your responsibility

And your own susceptibility to deference

To a power you perceive to be greater than your own

Is deceiving.

It’s another way to opt out of believing

In yourself

And your ability

To choose.