DOROTHIA

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'd like you to meet my friend.
Her name is DOROTHIA,
She lives risks and sets trends.
Her Diabetes is type 2,
through diet self-inflicted.
She's Obese, technically morbidly so
and Reclusive - isolation addicted.
She's Older now, she draws a pension,
loves her Tobacco, Hedges and Benson.
She's Hypertensive,
is doing something about it,
but her Inactivity gives
her anxiety no outlet,
so Alcohol is where she turns.
And this is how DOROTHIA learned
all the risks factors for developing dementia.
After diagnosis, here is the message she sent ya:

"All of these causes are within your control,
act now and make changes.
Grow heathily old"


                                                                                                 

All of the above are the controllable risk factors available to avoid developing dementia.

Just a piece of information. I'm not lecturing.
 I wrote it to help me remember for day-job purposes.

While you're here though, please consider becoming a Dementia Friend. This requires nothing more of you other than you than to read some information, watch some videos and apply the awareness you gain to your life. It can make a huge difference to people's lives.

Go here to learn more and become a Dementia Friend.

Thanks. Xxxx

Winter Solstice

History's hurts burst gracelessly and blur
the polished edges of responses
sponsored by maturity.
Blurting half-burped mutterings of
defensive small-talk offerings
in place of confident honesty.
The maw of malicious memories yawns
and looses vapours venomous,
vines around voice until it leaves a croak.
Crone-dry and bladder-wracked,
hoarse retorts crack
thoughtless reports across the
hectares of unspoken battles fought.

Token offerings to false idols prove the dedication to deceit.
Conceit conceals tears long since congealed
into crevasses carved by rictus grin.
Spinning stories cobweb thin
from which a larder fully stocked with
melancholy memories of mockeries suspends,
an endless supply of abuse.

Cogitations crank and the wheel, it turns.
Burn the lights on the longest night,
for tonight we learn and sacrifice
a sorrow
in exchange for wisdom.
Flames devour, smoke billows,
sour tongue converted to
icing sugar ash,
cinnamon cynicism
and not-in-my-name nutmeg.

Feast upon your fears and you will never feel them again.

Yule Be Back

A portal opened in my lounge

sometime in mid-November.

A velvet wrinkle overlapped and

time’s quilt was oddly angled.

Up went the tree!

Up went the lights!

The glorious windows

dressed in party clothes.

Stair rods and banisters

festoons and fragrances

that speak of feasts and warming spices.

Inviting glows and cosy stories

by torchlight.

Outside

conker battles finalise into

en of season skirmishes.

Guys succumbed to elemental distress

and the stench of rotting pumpkin corpses

rang from the town in

jubilant and guttural rowdy shouts

as cold breath caught in

over confident throats.

As a penalty for this

badly ironed chronological coverlet

a fine was set

and the time was taken back.

With bated breath in stasis

the presents waited.

The house waited.

In the missing time a place was found for everything

and having no time to dally in,

everything went to its place.

Reset for rambunctious rabble’s return.

For music and pictures and stories and tea.

For dinosaurs and Harryhausen, Nick Cave and walks by the sea.

Longing for the normal passage of time.

Smooth, wrinkle.

The house waits.