Playing Dice With Words

Washed, ready for beddybize
cleansed
but deep down, a sooty stop-out

Praying, head bent and sorry
beseeching
but down deep, unrepentant really

Masterminded, words, chess and water
learning
but deep and buried
jovial patting-of-backs partying soul sister

Solitary, night star gazing slug saving
serene
but down deeper, burnt with reckless day star exposure

Holding a gentle old hand
comforting
but under a loose ring of gold, wrath

Singing, miming
make believing drama queen
but inside a screaming bopper who hires invisible dancers

Woman, cake goddess and sink scrubber
pink for girl, blue for boy
but under perfect icing and puddles of disinfectant
a gollywogs lullaby and out-of-bounds vagina

Transparent, bleeding obvious
heart warming buddy
but beneath the halo boiling seething foam

Dignified, stately
knows when and how to speak
but crouching under a tight tongue a guttersnipe

Ladylike, gloves and high panties
knees clamped
but below the lacquered head
a sailor's vocabulary



Gosh that felt good.
Goodnight all.

What To Do At Easter. Poem

Overdo everything my friends.
I intend to.

A glass of wine to unzip the tongue
chew chocolate till my teeth zing.

Wear red at twelve
and turn up the volume as the sheets get rattled.

Use expletives
then
as the singers swell
turn down the volume
and let the sleepy fairies come.

And as the fairies drop nothing but goodness upon my shining silver hair
I'll mumble something about The Lamb of God
and what he did for us.

And then on the Sunday
I'll suffer my way up to heaven
on sticky buns and roast New Zealand Lamb.

Then I'll push the cat over.

Angela Through a Smudged Looking Glass

I'm in reflective mode and that isn't always a good sign with me.
But I won't stamp on my natural feelings, I'll just go with the flow or rather lose myself in the torrent and see where I wash up!
I'll write about what's going on in this troubled head of mine, I'll get it all laid down in black on white and then laugh at my middle aged ramblings. Being stroppy after 50 is not a pretty sight, I thought I'd seen the last of that when my final pimple burst in 1972. But no, I still get swallowed up with insecurities and fears, still manage to mess up every single thing I lay my gnarled hands on and still manage to piss off those that love me most. And I still get spots as well.
Life's a mean old cow sometimes.

The thing about being a 'writer' is that it gives you a way to express your feelings, a life jacket if you like, even a safety net in which to crawl, my writing buoy has saved me on many occasion, often turning to the blackest ink at two in the morning and the reddest felt tip pen at two in the afternoon.
Yes indeedy, penning it all out is a great relief.

So what calamity has brought me into my untidy office?
I'm not really sure.
Or am I?

It might be the after effects of doing half a days work on Monday, (yes I've got a little job) or it might be my empty heart and capacious mouth that yearn to be filled with tenderness and tongues. Of course it might just be hormones. But since I passed 50 I've felt strangely alive, not for me the signs of inbalance and or madness, I don't want to go trekking in Tibet neither do I want a young lover.
I prefer England and old men.

I'm not witnessing drastic alterations in my body either, in fact my body is almost as good today as it was at thirty. I don't see much decay. Of course my skin looks a bit thinner and my bulbous boobs are heading south but overall I could still pass for a gal much younger than my 52 years. And that's a comfort.
The physical changes that are occurring are something I can deal with and so they are not responsible for my bouts of depression.
So what is?
Could it be the start of the menopause?

Recently I've hungered for more of everything.
I not only want to burn my candle at both ends but I want to chew on it and swallow its hot liquid too, I need to feel the dripping wax scorch my lips.
Poetic huh?
I've felt like I could do things which previously scared me, not for me are afternoon tea dances in safe clothes, I want to drown in gin wearing my ruffled knickers.

Does gentle sweet love have a part to play in this messy pantomine?
Don't know. Don't know anything about love, never felt it, had it given to me in bucketloads by one young man. Now his long standing juvenile love is in the shadows.
Placed there by me.

But I desperately want to dance around dewy flowers with something clasped in my hands and heart, a grown up love.

Some women have a knack of whizzing through the housework, I unfortunately don't. I suppose it's because my mind always seems to be somewhere else.
That 'somewhere else' is anywhere other than here.

Place I'd like to visit:
Italy

Places I'd like to visit again:
Paris
Canterbury
Glastonbury

On the agenda today:
The Ghost and Mrs Muir
Floors
Grocery list
Making some sort of cake
Checking of tomato plants
Going gooey.
Being silly.
Laughing at myself.

Thanks again to the Duchess for her comment on 'Independence Day'.
By the way Duch, 'Bombay Mix' is not a drink, it's a savoury snack made of dried lentils, nuts and spices.
It is a seriously moreish munch!

Anyone Got A Bird They Don't Want?

The conservatory, or, as I prefer to call it, my giant window box, is coming on a treat. The glass is proving a bugger to clean though, likewise the flooring, but I've had an awful lot of fun stacking a bookshelf with ceramic birdies accrued over twenty years.
Now all I need is someone to sit in there with!

I've positioned a chair in the window box, so that, when I'm bringing myself to a nice rolling boil on a warm day, I'll be able to watch the kitchen telly. I should, I know, do things with wires and extension thingies to enable me to watch the telly actually IN the conservatory, but I'm such an idiot when it comes to electrical things that tomorrow I'm going to have to join in with the hoorah Henrys at Royal Ascot from a distance of twenty feet!

What else?
Oh yes, I need a small table in the giant window box for my pots of tea so....I was on my hands and knees in the loft a little while ago looking for an old skinny legged table, you know one of those awful things from a nest of tables. Anyway I found the little horror, dusty, chipped and out of sorts laying with its wonky legs stuck in the air, on top of an old Fortnum and Mason food hamper! The aforementioned table is now wedged between two disgraceful old plastic garden chairs which have been made better by the addition of odd old cushions and cat hairs.
Home Sweet Home.
(The hamper is now home to frail bathroom towels)

I'm still searching cupboards and drawers for beautiful essential ceramic budgies to add to the already over stocked conservatory.
'Don't overdo it' cried Monsieur Horsehound last night.
'What? I laughed, as I seriously injured him with an old chicken (See pic above)

Glued to the tip of my conk is a scrap of paper which reads:
GOTTA GET MORE BIRDS!
Gotta Fly......

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...
*****************************************************************

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...

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