Poetry Club 1

The Saturday Poetry Club

I'll be posting poems and automatic writings every Saturday.
If anyone wants to submit their poem, however simple or elaborate, please feel free to do so in the comments section of this post.
You don't need to leave your name.


Rubbing It In

The silence of a well kept room
only made worse Betty's loneliness.
*****************************************

Savage Family

In the jungle of his playroom
five year old Tommy rode a tiny tiger
his flawless hands squeezing the giant teddy
and riding with the beasts he was fearless.

In the jungle of her kitchen
thirty year old Maudie sat astride her breakfast stool
her parched hands holding her lovers last letter
and weeping she listened to Tommy

In the jungle of his office
thirty five year old Michael gazed at girls
his empty hands tapping out a love song
and lost he sketched wonderful escape plans.

In their jungle house high up on the hills of Wittering
the family nested...
***************************************************************

Birds of a Feather

The boy down the road
the one with the funny legs
skipped
when the girl down the road
the one with the funny arms
waved.
*********************************************

Garden

Nuts on a plate
A flower growing crooked
cracks in the pipe
that's my garden.
***********************************************

Surprise

Suddenly I swallowed a light
it fairly took my breath from me
its crackling sweetness
soothing my rancid throat.
***********************************************

Needs Not Manners

The squirrel without manners or thought
crash landed on the delicate bird table
its contents the squirrels breakfast.
And like a starving man he scooped every nut and seed
and pocketed a few for later in his day.
****************************************************************

Friends

Little Tilly's head left a dent in the ceiling
when big Roger made her laugh.
They spent the afternoon looking up...
*****************************************************************

Clive Stiffjoint Part 2 (Audio)

I'm not a natural story teller, so this short story is a surprise to me.
Part one is here if you wish to look for it.
I'm working on part three.

Writing this has given me a tremendous amount of pleasure and I've taken quite a liking to Clive, I only hope he doesn't go and do something silly like fall in love with me. Because after all, I am not responsible for my characters actions or what they say. Those things are left in the capable hands of my Muse.
Inf act she is with me right now yelling at me to look into my heart and write. I can't do that I say and please will you leave me alone.
She's staring at me, willing and daring me to cry everything out, but I won't because no good ever really comes from allowing others to see the dreadful things which weigh us down.
I'll write more later...

Do Not Eat

I've been perusing me cupboards and here is a list of what I do not have and why.

Tinned Rice Pudding:
It is anathema to me on account of it being too white and not containing bits of lemon peel.
Tinned Soup:
Because it is not soup as I know it. My soup needs a fork because sometimes it has a bits of cabbage in it. The thought of being tied down and having a spoonful of Heinz Tomato Soup dripped onto my lips keeps me awake at night.
Cook-In Sauces:
I bought one in 1985 and fainted when I opened the tin. I swore never again.
Canned Meat:
Because it reminds me of the War. Corned Beef is ok if one closes one's eyes and thinks of England. But canned Ham is unforgivable and full of water.
Instant Custard:
The country's supply of it should be chucked into a landfill site or poured over giggling women in baths who are doing it for charity and to get their picture in the paper. Do not use this product.
Tubed Garlic:
I must chop and mash my garlic otherwise I can't sing in Italian. I eat bucketloads of real garlic. I do not have any friends.
Cake Mixes:
If I see someone in Sainsbury's even LOOKING at these appalling things I tell the manager to evict them from the store. To make a cake is the best thing on earth. I don't trust people who buy Swiss Rolls.

And perhaps the foodstuff that makes me go most mental is

Cheap Sausages:
Pale insipid pinky winkies without any balls. When I see a bad sausage in Sainsbury's I spin round shouting obscenities, I cry out for the in-store butcher to be relocated and I weep for the wretched animal that had to be put to sleep just so people with no class or money can have a fry-up.
A real Woman's sausage is so powerful you have to kill it to eat it. A real sausage lives on your plate, it breathes and looks at you with contempt, it dares you to eat it.
I kill dozens of the blighters every month. And they love me for it. I float them in cider, I prop them up and against some mash, I slice them into a risotto and I squeeze them into a finger roll. And at all times the sausage in question is the best I can afford.
So on your knees you Cumberland Ring you, try and get the better of me you string of Toulouse, get me in a lather if you dare, you pound of big fat Venison bangers.
And melt me with your long lusciousness you violent Frankfurter.

I will at some time post a piece about what goes on in my kitchen.
And it's not all culinary.
Thank You.

Poor Old Girl

I simply MUST have a word.
With all that's occurring in the Horsehound house at the moment it will come as no surprise to you that I am feeling a wee bit overwrought. Indeed I felt so brittle this a.m. that I had to venture into the garden and talk to the birds. They of course dissed me as any sensible bird would, but to be laughed at by one's very own cat was just too much to bear. Yes, on re-entering the house that no good tyke Monty, ignored me plaintive cries and stuck his bonce into a plate of Sardines."Monty my son" I said "Mummy's all alone and in dire need of a cuddle". "Shut up loser" he said "Or I'll scratch your varicose veins".
He loves me really.

On a more upbeat note I do have something to look forward to this week, that being, watching my beloved England taking on the U.S.A on Wednesday. Course it's only a friendly, but I'll still put me footie shirt on and throw missiles at the telly.
I will, as with all England games, lob swear words around me front room, shoot to me size fours any time we come within half a mile of scoring and I'll definitely scream blue murder if we lose. But it makes me happy and keeps me out of the kitchen for ninety minutes.

On my rain splattered agenda today, cooking, doing industrial type things with hammers and putting petroleum jelly under me eyes on account of the rings which are present on account of late nights and early mornings.
I soldier on.

If I get the time I'll be posting some Audio. It's me reading the second part of Clive Stiffjont. I do sound terribly drunk.

What else?
Oh yes, I'm thinking, just thinking mind you, of joining a poetry club either here in Essex or in the bowels of the Smoke so as I can read out loud some of the great poems what I write.
It might be fruitful and it might even make me laugh.
Now that WOULD be worth the train fare...

My Soldiers Are With Me

Someone has asked me how I write my poems.
I can't control my episodes as I call them. Brief blazing patches of time when an almost anarchic creativity sets up camp inside of me. The arty soldiers dressed in cobalt blue and rose storm my otherwise sane buttresses releasing every colourful feeling in my body. Whilst at the same time keeping a vigilant eye on the copious blackness of the other place.
In other words I have an imagination.


Shocking New Love

Mr Pennington heard the first crack and dismissed it as hearing problems
After the second crack he stood stock-still silenced by the thunder of new love
His heart was being handled
set free
Something was squeezing it
just to see how much life was still there
And old blood flooded his face
and steeped in this good red blood
Lonely out of date Mr Pennington wondered 'what'll I do now?'
***********************************************************************

Happy

Up with Monty and the pigeons.
A cold quick breakfast
Hot fast thoughts.
Dressed in red in seconds
Whoosh! I'm Gone!
**********************

Wasted Life

Forgotten Mr Worthy aged 72
spent all day searching for happiness
A dusty diary and all was revealed
Days and days of a loveless life pencilled tidily and without drama
a 2/6 book of misery.
************************

Regrets

When I got lost yesterday
I found a sun lighting up my path
and on it were strewn fragments of past maps and plans
pebbles from untaken holidays
photographs I should have snapped
sex I wanted to have
laughs that should have deafened me
and
love that should have rocked me.
**************************************

Hope

My room with its pallid death drapes
hems me in
this Abaddon, this Gehenna, this hell
But through breaks in the curtains
and through the cracks in my splintered mind
I see light.
************

Prostitute

The legless old lady steeped in heady perfume
weighed down by heavy pearls
twists her mouth into fantastical shapes,
bringing down onto the velvet table her translucent head awash with love dreams.
Clenching knotted fingers she bangs and bangs and bangs till she can bang no more.
Her reddened knuckles standing out like splattered blood against the cool white of her pavement hands.
******

Lone Sparrow

And one lone sparrow isn't being deterred from his natural actions by the blanket of frost which covers the grass in my front garden
His tawny head swoops down
then shoots up
then swoops down again
as he pecks and digs and drills through the ice on his very own lot
his very own plot
within the slab of my snow clothed green

Then a flutter
a sound
so he stops
head darts from here to there
a shake of feathers
a re-adjustment
seconds to sense
then still again

A pale grey pigeon is comfortable on the wall
The sparrow hops and springs
spindly legs taking him to the mossy cloaked bottom of a broken gate post
then off he flies to another lot and another plot to wile his time away.

Mr Timpson

Crewe's blue. And so is Gordon Brown I would imagine.
Last night was possibly one of the worst in the Labour party's history. The once sexy Labour stronghold has been taken in a most violent fashion and now lies in the capable Tory arms of Mr Timpson, see above, whilst Miss Dunwoody lies on her back exhausted.
What a monumental balls-up..

Poor old Gordo, waits umpteen years to get the top job, then messes up big time. After all his errors I didn't think his political life could get any worse.
How wrong I was.

Labour have had their sublime day on the sunlounger with Mr Blair now they're huddling under a well worn blanket on a chilly beach with a miserable old mate. And this mate is going to ruin what's left of their sojourn into the balmy hot world of big time politics. They have to desert him and quick, and then head for the car otherwise they're all going to get cold.

The reverberating clang of Brown's death knell must be ding-donging in his ears as he works out what to do and say next. And I'd bet my best handbag that Labour M.Ps are busily checking and revising their cv's just incase they're out of a job in a couple of years. Or sooner.

The Conservatives however must be licking the lips and getting wet mouthed at the thought of Gordo lying immobilised, outstretched and stunned on the bloodied pavement outside Number Ten. Whilst David Cameron's wife will be wondering how big the kitchen and bedrooms are.

So unless Mr Brown can turn the party's fortunes around he and his cohorts will again be polishing the opposition back benches. Their bums did a good job for eighteen years, now it looks as if the Mrs Mopps of the political world will be doing it all over again.
But I wonder who their supervisor will be?

I also wonder what Cherie Blair is doing?
A jig I shouldn't wonder.

Thanks to Terry for commenting on Monday's post. Methinks a grand man in entering stage right.

Enter Stage Left...

As I sip my pre-dawn tea, my thoughts are on our beleaguered Prime Minister.

I see the dour Scot looking even more dour as, with his mighty shoulders drooping, he imagines the scathing headlines if Labour loses the Nantwich by-election today.
The election, brought about by the untimely death of the bullish blonde babe Gwyneth Dunwoody, couldn't have come at a more inopportune time for Labour. Limping behind in the polls and swallowing a succession of vitriolic attacks by Madam Blair and Mr Prescott, Brown has been left bloodied and rather out of it.
Meanwhile the light of Conservative leader Mr Cameron has gone from strength to strength, from a tiny twinkling fairy light to a massive footie floodlight. All eyes are now upon the old Etonian.
But what about poor old Gordo.
Where did it all go wrong?

I think it all went pear shaped for him after the death of John Smith in May 1994.

He should have fought harder and longer and smiled a lot more, after all he was up against the flair, panache and talents of the ambitious, hungry, star-in-waiting, Mr Tony Blair.
And the consequent crowning of Blair as leader put the big Scot in his place. His place playing second fiddle to Blair. It's rather sad and kind of pathetic that a man of Browns 'towering' intellect was always destined to play understudy to the Larry Olivier of politics, and therefore never winning any accolades, gongs or friends.
But we'll see what he's really made of in the early hours of tomorrow morning when the results start coming in.
If the voters of Nantwich decide to smack Labour in the mouth on account of the ten pence tax thing, then I can only see more and more vultures circling and salivating over the fabulous bushy hair of the handsome understudy.

My tea has gone cold.

Flouncing With A Chain Saw

Tomatoes have sprung up. Well a few half inch seedlings are poking their grubby heads above the dirt. C'mon boys me salads a-waiting...

Planted some small flowers the other day, can't remember what they're called, got them dead cheap, bought them because I wanted to save them from the hell of being left on the shop shelf. They look lost in my garden, but they're huddled together so at least they'll have each other for company.

While I'm talking 'green', put some white flowers, (can't remember the name of those either) in two plastic terracotta pots on my doorstep. They look a bit funny sitting either side of my ghastly white and glass door (God how I hate my door) anyway, there they sit, waiting for the postman, the meter reader and the beanpole of a paper boy.

Will have to do something about almost everything in the garden, I have to say I'm guilty of an awful amount of neglect and I'm now paying the price. I've never been a polish and duster merchant when it comes to gardening, because neat gardens scare me a little bit. Have always preferred to have a bit of the wild stuff. Suffice to say, the weeds have had a field day!

Being small and tender I tend to opt for growing things in pots, I just can't seem to do the digging thing. However I have no such qualms about chainsaws. Love those.

So what did I see just now as I took me bin out. Lots of shrubs planted over a period of ten years, a few wonky bird feeders, a lopsided bird bath sitting behind a flouncy Japanese Maple, a couple of broken fence panels leaning against a couple of sturdy Conifers, a good length of damaged hose pipe lounging under the washing line, my pair of robust taupe suede 'gardening' shoes propped up against the water butt while Jessamy the gnome looks on and laughs.

On my busy agenda today:
Flouncing around in a sun dress and straw hat trying to look capable, the making of some kind of general cake whilst keeping one eye on a beleaguered Gordon Brown at PMQ's, also might chainsaw the tops of a few bushes.
I might also write something.

Whatever you're doing today, do it with all your heart.

The Pussycat, The Fox and The Old Lady

Will be in and out and off and on. All on account of trifling matters.
These piddling matters taking the form of sorting out the boys, sharpening crucial instruments, flouncing items of allure against me lithe and old body, making pastry, writing epic poems of epic proportions, counting me money, and trudging about the loft on me hands and knees looking for chipped ornaments.
Now all those things are worth getting out of bed for but......
At four a.m I was extricating Monty from the lining of the bedroom curtains, his interest in the great outdoors being invoked by the raucous barking of foxes in me back garden. There I was a solitary female clad in a nightie of allure, sweating buckets because I'd left the electric blanket on full power and dreaming a nasty vicious dream about miniature pigs on aeroplanes, when I'm awakened by that no good scallywag ripping me dusty curtains to bits. Bless him.

So being the stupid old crow I am, I robotically and blindly, (because me glasses were in the drawer and the drawer was stuck) got out of bed and carefully removed him from between the lining and magnificent folds of me mustard and mint floral curtains. (£10.99 Oxfam) thus allowing him to clamber up onto the windowsill of me tiny bedroom and stare intensely into the beautiful blackness of a postage stamp garden.
Then I went back to bed.
But not for long.
At just after six, his bottom was in my face.
Being stretched out on top of me, he reminded me of a luxurious draught excluder, only this draught excluder was snoring.
And as I squinted at his hairy arse I wondered about getting a dog...
See you later

Zzzzzzzzzz

A few pre-Ovaltine thoughts.

Red

Red is my favourite colour
its life matches my own.
And to have red touching my skin
is to me
like
warm thick fingers on a good hot hand
spreading out to covet my soul.
*********************************************

For The Duchess

Your package to me
large
undisciplined and very you
Sucking on sweet Mr Ford
reminded me why I like you so bloody much
Here grab this you said
eat it you fainting English Rose
so I did.
******************************************************

For Caesar

The soft hard Swiss
rolls up and over his glorious mountains
going down he
consumes with his long stiff tongue for all his life
her sweetness.
*****************************************************

And finally for the Bed Bugs

Trawl and drag your silly legs
in and out my private areas
nestle and make yourself at home
I'll not be disturbing you tonight.

*****************************************************

Goodnight

The Rise of Clive Stiffjoint part 1

Hello there.

I must just lay a few domestic issues on you.
I bought a ceramic frog and a gnome. The frog is called Bill and the gnome, Jessamy.
Only one tomato seedling has emerged.
I stuck a plastic sunflower in a pot of dirt and gasped as the passing kiddywinks shout "Pathetic!"
On the menu today something with bacon or something.
Oh, by the way, it's the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, for my international readers who may be blissfully unaware of it, it's a competition for half decent singers singing awful songs in outrageous outfits.
I love it.

Now here's a funny little thing I've been playing around with, I'll be posting the next installment quite soon.

Now don't start worrying about me I ain't lost me marbles, well not all of them, it's just that last night something big popped up.
I had a VISITATION.
I was alone as usual, the great one having decided to spend the night with his Satanist chums in The Swan With Two Necks public house on the Albermarle Road, when all of a sudden there he was. A whopping great alien. I kid you not. He appeared just as I was beautyfying meself with a rough brush and a pot of petroleum jelly.
"Oooh I say" I said "And what's your name and from whence do you come?"
"Clive Stiffjoint" he said duly whipping out a large map of the solar system and then stabbing a finger type thingy on a planet.
"Blimey!" I gulped "Are you a fanatical phantasime?"
Well he took umbrage at that and got a bit shirty with me.
"I need to live in Rochford" he said "With you and the others".
"Others?" I asked, scared stiff he was going to liquify me or something.
"Yes others" he said "Others of your kind".

Now, I can assure you that by this time I was dying for a cuppa and an arm around me midriff, because, although I am a woman of the world, I am still mostly unsure about how to deal with strange men. Anyway, all I had for comfort was my moggy Monty and all he was interested in was watching the shimmering light patterns on the wall emanating from this Alien bloke called Clive.

"Well I don't really know how I can assist you with your request" I splattered
"I'm just a housewife who has a giant pussy called Monty and a small Satanic husband called Ralph, I really don't get out an lot dear."
My protestations however fell flat on large ears, and he sat himself down on hubby's dressing-up box making himself himself quite at home. Cocking his great big head to one side, he folded all his arms into an intricate Celtic knot and then propped his suited and booted legs up onto me cheval mirror.
"You are a fine earth woman and I want you as my kickywick as your great poet said".
"Great poet, who's that then sweetie, Pam Ayres?" I choked
"No, 'twas the other genius William Shakespeare, does he reside in Rochford too?"
"Well not now Clive, because he's been gone a long time you know, but he might have popped into the Anne Boleyn Public House on the Rochford Road in about 1613, you know, for a swift half in between writing acts one and two of King Henry The Eighth, I just can't be sure dear"
On that he sprung up onto all his feet and BOWED. Yes, BOWED.
"I will come tomorrow" he said sticking his map into his flaps.
"Oh, lovely" I squeaked and duly collapsed.
To Be Continued...

All Visitors Must Wear A Hard Hat.

I don't do do-it-yourself. I get in a lather. Especially in the bathroom.
My bathroom used to have a ceiling, now, on account of numerous mishaps, bad management and laziness I'm compelled to wear a helmet and rubber trousers on entry.

It all started out normal enough, a bit of a dripping from the radiator, a crack in the ceiling and a succession of cats destroying me best thick linoleum, but what really turned a once pretty spring like washing area into an ugly Armaggedon was Peter the evil Plumber.

One day the cold tap on the sink wouldn't turn, so being a bit of a tom-boy I decided to have a go meself. I tried Vaseline, Olive Oil, WD 40 and Fairy Liquid. Nope, not a hope, so eventually I slapped on me Anti-Wrinkle cream, didn't get it going just made it look smoother.
So I got Peter in.

After a couple of expensive hours he not only managed to bleat on about every conceivable subject under the sun but managed to work up a little sweat drinking tea and demolishing me coconut fancies. He finally, after much munching and moaning replaced my sweet little cold tap with a brute of a tap.
He left considerably richer and fatter while I sat on the edge of the bath poor skinny and fuming.
From that day on things went from bad to badder, because I think Peter not only brought his extreme right wing views along with his spanners, but a tool belt full of evil bad luck too!

But there was one happy clean soul in the Horsehound household.
That soul being the great and brainy Mr Horsehound, who, feeling mightily chuffed with the tap of hate, then decided the crack in the ceiling needed attending to.
Oh, dear, oh deary deary me.

Never in the history of do-it-yourself has one man managed to make such a monumental cock-up. He did try bless him, and every fragrant weekend there he was, up his big ladder with pots of white stuff. Jolly good I thought to meself when he started on the first day, but then as it went into its third semester I began to lose the will to live, cook and wash.

It did not go up or in or stay put or set or dry or whatever it was that was supposed to happen.
It just fell onto his misbegotten head.
I like grey haired men, but not ones who look like horrible workmen. I just don't do sole traders.

Anyway I digress, one day as he was patting on some more white stuff I said "Leave it dear, you've had a go, I'll cover the ceiling with pictures by Michelangelo
With that he limped off his ladder and read a book about Aliens.

The lino is striated and scarred.The taps are stiffening up again. The radiator is waiting for someone to take care of it. And the ceiling is hanging by a thread.

I once had a verdant green spring-like bathroom it's now an oxidzed autumnal skip.
Bit like me.
Rusting but still dripping. But oh, how my new blue curtains hang defiantly.

All Before Seven

Waved to the pigeons on my ariel. Ate a simple breakfast. Jumped up and down because I feel fine. A good start to Friday.
More later...

Later...

Here is something I wrote last night.
I call these out of the blue pieces, my automatic writings. Maybe the spirits of dead poets come inside me, because they long to see their 'work' played out amongst the living. Or maybe I just have a colourful imagination. Whatever it is I love nocturnal visits.

-The delicate Japanese Maple eyes its mighty Conifer neighbours. It decides it's the salad amongst the meat.

***********************************************************************************
-The blackbird with buttercup beak pokes incessantly hoping to dig out a living lunch.

***********************************************************************************
-The tortoiseshell cat next door turns into a great dancer as it leaps from fence to bin to windowsill.
His paws tapping out a choreography with dexterity and panache.

***********************************************************************************

-He throbbed like a giant throbbing machine
dripping greasy oil and water
gushing, he showered her with his grade one juice,
It got her going.

All Before Eight

-It looks as if our dip into the sweet brief summer puddle is coming to an end. I got very wet in the dry.
-Gordon Brown is doing more disastrous turns than a bad hard-up comedian on the seafront at Blackpool.
-Scottish tennis player Andy (I'm not English) Murray is playing Rafael (muscles) Nadal today in the Hamburg Open. Adios Andy.
-Gordon Brown has had a make-over, but no amount of primping will turn this earthworm into a butterfly.
-Alex Ferguson rubs me up the wrong way.
-John Humphrys is my sugar daddy.
-Ant and Dec are Morcambe and Wise without the humour, talent, class or warmth. I wonder if they share the same bed?
-If a biopic is made about Bob Hope, Graham Norton should get the lead. I think he looks like him, especially from the front.
-Alastair Darling is Mr Negative Man. Black and grey with holes in.
-Monty is morphing into a small donkey. He's started walking on the beach and wearing silly hats.
-I was eating porridge this morning whilst applying lipstick, listening to Gordon Brown and looking at my purple knees. Or was it the other way around?
To be continued...

Later...
Saw Brown on t.v. his forced smile and awkward laughter made me feel quite ill. If ever there was a man in the wrong place it is him. Tony Blair swanned out of Downing Street leaving us, the great British nation in the incapable clammy hands of a fake Prime Minister.

The rain hasn't stopped today. Hasn't stopped me laughing, spending or wishing.

Below is a poem I wrote earlier this year for my Pearl Dust blog. I won't insult you by explaining it, suffice to say it tells an all too common story of how true love is unkillable. I hope you like it.
I'll be posting other poems, some of which will be familiar to my regular readers and although I've tinkered with a few, I haven't taken liberties, just edited and made good.

Mrs Roper

Mrs Roper leant against the pillar box
knowing this was her last letter sent
no more the kisses under her name
no more her heart mashed on feint lines
Mrs Roper had had enough.
Raymond's gushing had drowned her
and her tongue was all run dry
her mind was now still and exhausted
her heart was lying with Ted's
beneath the best daisies on Old Ossett Hill

It started plain and simple enough
no frills or loud shouted promises
no split veins wet sticky and rubbed together
no tattoos of grand coiled initials in black
just the sound of silly old hearts
jumping at a love found past 70

The temperatures hit high
as the king and queen creaked the Cha Cha
she in tight emerald green
he in brushed black and gold
the single couple moved briskly after the marrieds had left the floor
in the Halola dancehall behind the car park at Old Ossetts Hill
the powdered lady
the shiny man
whooped like the young and free

But one day at teatime
after a day of sifting through boxes
Mrs Roper sat solid unable even to cry
chapters of her life laid down in tin boxes
done up in envelopes now torn and frayed
she fingered her past with Ted from the railway
and couldn't possibly see Raymond today.

Woman

Woman
are you fat or thin?
Do you drink all the wine
all the time
to forget the pain you're in?
Do you sleep alone and wake alone
then go running round the walls.

Do you press delete
and then retreat
to empty rooms at nine
Do you cradle sodden toys
instead of boys
Then dry them in good sunshine


Woman
are you fat or thin?
Do you eat the cake
to alleviate
your sadness and distrust?

Do you hide in rich red
to lift your head
from the pit you call a home?
Do you want that man
the man who slaughters
instead of the man on your left?


Woman
are you fat or thin?
Do you run the mile
that stupid mile
to shine
and get good health
Or do you pound the streets, your homely streets
to rid yourself of self?

Do you sweat and stretch to remind yourself
to forget the man who killed you
And does your mind erect sweet barricades
for want of something good?

Your heart stands still in shocking white
its song the song of blues
But can you hear your friend your faithful friend
as she steps inside your shoes
she thinks as you and then does for you
without a when, a what or why
then deftly unhooks without rush or victory
his words that crucify.

So woman
my friend
my sister
myself
The simple answer is me too.

Pottering About

By 6 I had fed Monty, gasped at the awful rings under my eyes, made major life altering decisions and hung a sun-catcher in the window.
Have to do something about my hair.
Must get birthday card for M.
Will pop in shops for sundries and fancies. Have to leap aboard a bus though on account of Mr Horsehound taking the car.

The blast of summer weather is settling down, expecting rain by the weekend.
Penned the bare bones of a poem last night, might post it.
Had ideas for garden. Mostly to do with ceramic plant pots, plastic fencing and sliced hoses.
Can't wait to spend £10 in Poundland!

Found a smashing quote about gardens....

"All my hurts
My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk,
A quest of river grapes, a mocking thrush,
A wild rose, a rock loving columbine,
Salve my worst wounds".

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Big Trees, Big Plans and Little Gardens

Peered down through smudgy conservatory windows at tiny daisies.
Looked up at trees and thought 'conifers need doing'.
Got chainsaw out.

Flicked through flaking recipe books.
Stood in living room and stared at new curtains.
G. called. Spoke at length about his big plans. He's very excited. Pleased for him. Took joy in another's happiness. How infectious good things are.

Peered through smudgy windows in every room.
Thought 'all my miniature patio needs is a wash'.
Made a cup of tea and ate a coconut biscuit.
Might plant something bright and yellow to lift me up when I'm down.
Must tidy my little postage stamp of a garden.
Can't bring myself to kill weeds though.
Will buy plastic frogs and gnomes next time I'm in town.

Put Tomato seeds in. Bit late but cross fingers I should have some Roma plums by July.