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.

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.