~Bitter Verse~

men... not men

2009-05-18T09:48:00.002Z

no, I wouldn't

get involved with me

I wouldn't

would you if you could

if you had a deathwish

I would

perhaps in a lifetime

of a million lifetimes

were you a man

I would

but would you

if you could

if you might

...

die?

a Vulcan responds

2005-09-01T15:21:00.000Z

When future's child recalls
that Earthen hum --
Come, he says,
to the Contrivances, come,
that we may
reflect on its magnificences.

If our luck is out,
then so thus
inconvenienced,
yet not before
I and eye have
all that is to be
experienced.

A Borg Drone writes a poem

2005-09-01T15:14:00.000Z

When the silent, scented prey
Upon the sullen hill advances,
The stagnant, sodden clay
Upon the Foothill dances,

A Clone upon the clay
In this fair scene then glances,
And sees in it the stay
Of fantastic coincidences.

- a poem by the Binary Adjunct of Unimatrix Forty Two
"It is futile to resist this pull towards individuality, Captain."

white man's burden

2005-04-08T16:15:00.000Z

veinless.........slender........
....and white......in the headlights
of the car
stalled at a red light
your hands flutter
....like bloodless butterflies
in the Indian Summer

as you animatedly
hold forth
on
.....racisme
..............environment
..fuel shortage

the....s
..........m
............o
...........g
rises
palely loitering
in the vicinity of the auto-bound

Time Trapeze (1987)

2005-04-08T16:04:00.000Z

(found this in an old exercise book)

Time, future, existence have all blended
into a yawning black hole
waiting to engulf me if
I so much as slipped on the tightrope
of sanity and faith
that I have trod thus far.
At times a freezing wind of uncertainty
Brushes past, leaving me
oscillating dangerously
People who enter my life use the stone bridge
a distance away - unreachable for me now -
and do not seem to fear this chasm.
Or else,
perhaps, it is not there.

agent orange

2005-04-08T04:39:00.000Z

the yellow-green Orange
has grown distinctly
plumper and more grosse
since I first placed it on my plate.
Misshapen,
absurdly named,
it sits patiently
waiting to be peeled and devoured
before it grows more gross.

school dinner

2005-04-06T17:10:00.000Z

the soup is but dishwater with red paint
the bread but porous tile
we suffer those who serve us, their aprons stained
with their leaking impecunious smiles

an excerpt

2005-04-04T21:02:00.000Z

Where the moon on the wane
'pon a Dark Peak of the plain
Marks the way to T'ghain,
The peak shall split clean in two.

If the snake pass its shoulders
The crescent axe of boulders
Makes the day fall colder
And neath green turns to blue.

- translated from the Book of the Green Isle
Annals of the Sunai clan of Ondits

(from the Fantasy novel I'm working on.)

Cornelius asks for favour, wilt give it him?

2005-04-02T20:07:00.000Z

Man assimilating and outpouring
images tinged with dreams.
I assimilate a few to put aside
for moments of scorching self-pity.
Meanwhile, sleep and coffee,
the never-reconciled two,
are all I wake for
and that you listen uninterrupting
all I ask for.
How further to degenerate?
Can I help feeling
I was destined for things higher?
Why, then, do I stay?
Frozen by a blizzard-like indifference
I tell myself better days will come.
Pipe dreams are these,
fed through senses
to a chafing soul.
The unseen, unquiet throng
seated outside the circle of light
is stirring, restless.
You know they do not listen.
You read on

catullus divine

2005-04-01T19:56:00.000Z

There is, basically,
this one difference between
lower and higher forms of intelligent life
no curiosity to low curiosity
against an almost savage hunger for knowledge
those who dig out a space in their heads
with a question mark
a lacunae for information to fit into
and those who are forever sated.

As for me, love,
I am hungry, yes,
but morbidly lazy
no hunting for me.
Information?
Absolutely glutted, darling
absolutely glutted.
As someone who, like,
translates Rilke on the run,
I could prove how the word angst
could not have had
in Catullus time
even a glimmer
of its present meaning
Its, like, absolutely
post-Schopenhauer, you know.

But, I do have this
huge hole in my brain,
like, dug it out with a
fat, post-lapsarian question mark
...ah, ha ha!

bite me

2005-04-01T15:34:00.000Z

"Bite me," I commanded
He looked up, startled,
and he ran.
Left lying, I reflected,
"Tch tch... he's no man."

So I ventured forth
and caught a Rake
and caught him hard as I can.
"Marry me," I commanded.
He turned, frightened,
and he ran.
Oh how I laughed and said
"Tch tch... he's no man."

Tall he was and handsome.
He saw me and he pounced
as was his plan.
"Love me," he commanded,
I was terribly put out
And so I ran,
and ran, far away from that man.

Pumblechook

2005-04-01T13:50:00.000Z

Pumblechook
I trembled and shook
as your podgy hands strayed
whiskey breath, gold teeth
diamond buttons, unsubtle smile
these defy
the fine
clothes you wear
body like a truck but beautiful
to me
Pumblechook
is that pocketbook
in your satin waistcoat
come closer still
so I can kill
you
Pumblechook
feel the blade
its thrust
a pause
then you just
tremble and shake
Pumblechook
and die

death dealer

2005-03-30T22:59:00.002Z

the maiden is now a mother
life giver
death dealer
breaking out of the cage
of her mistakes
her body
her life
her lifeless body
throw down your swords
you are outnumbered
every woman a mother
every unspoken word
a double-edged sword
the foetus in a test tube
stirs and cries feebly
feels its death nearing

posted via IM

death is the maiden

2005-03-30T22:44:00.000Z

death calls the maiden
promises of a forgiving embrace
the cool oblivion
a painless forever after
darker than the black
black garden jardin noir
Artaud cries out in wonder
behold the woman in yellow
samurai sword aloft
promising death
and yet is death herself
in disguise

that Thing immortal

2005-02-05T19:14:00.000Z

pizazz and pizza
pasta and panache
will I stuff my gaping, gawping mouth with
to force the silence out the alimentary way
so no words
mere words
may escape

then with coins and cunning
diabolical devilry and deadly deeds
will I shop and acquire
that which I do not require
lest I give or do or make
a Thing
of beauty
or even worse
something lasting
and these hands be caught casting
in a mold immortal
the Thing
that no mortal can make
nor material things eclipse

if only these hands
were free

me moanin' ol' soul

2005-02-05T19:12:00.000Z

and I am old
very old
wearing the bottoms of my trousers rolled
the lid on my tin-headed soul
broken and cold
into which blows
the sad and lonely wind
moaning
oh cold, cold, old, old, old...

Tinsel Verse

2005-02-05T19:09:00.000Z

glittering tinsel rubs off in my hands
as I write with this
my mortal pen
for my mortal thoughts
its brief destiny
to weave an immortal one
perhaps

in a small town in Asia

2005-01-21T22:04:00.000Z

as the rich men’s children play
cricket with toy store bat and ball
the washerwoman’s son
all of six years old
wrestles with a garden hose
twice as thick as his arm

whoops of victory
wails of dismay
snatches of film songs
burst out from the throats of
the cricket-players

the washerwoman’s son
punctuates their cacophony
with animal-like groans
as he pulls the garden hose
around the park
an expression of bewilderment
on his face
he does not know
what makes him cry out
running down the lane
next to the park
where the rich men’s children play

~autumn~

2005-01-21T21:28:00.000Z

Joy - you think you have found it.
But - you worry - will it last?
Like leaves on a tree,
that grow, glow,
and then…
fall.

But,
remember,
More will appear,
to take their place.
Much is yet to happen.

And
Autumn
never lasts
beyond winter.
And what is winter,
but a lonely snowflake
dragging its feet to spring.

Wordless Women

2005-01-21T21:12:00.000Z

If it be like the music of the spheres,
Why does it not banish all our cares?
If it be what makes this Earth go round,
Why then gravity’s rainbow shall never be found.
For an immortal symphony does surround,
And seek to universally all confound,
Should a woman choose to cease her sound.
So I confess I had not the correct simile,
And will now, by your leave, expound
On why a woman, wordless, does astound.

I had but one simile that I now call a blunder
For wordless woman, which was silent thunder
But, alas, a mistake it was to so call her moment
Though different from mine, but far more insistent,
More distant and so more precious than words,
That no webmaker can weave nor lips draw forward.
That singular virtue which is not to speak one’s mind
That she must do, she must not speak, so as to find
That wisdom is best when of the silent kind.

(About 8 years ago, in response to the rather misogynistic lines
of a metaphysical poet ---- whose name escapes me, it has been so long
------ I wrote this short rebuttal. The offending lines were as follows:
“I have but one simile, and that’s a blunder
For wordless woman, which is silent thunder.”)

reap a reverie

2005-01-21T18:32:00.000Z

the soil,
of your subconscious,
when dug up,
can yield many treasures,
many broken dreams,
which were embedded,
scattered,
as they fell.
to this,
add -
the loam of calm,
the minerals of solitude.
and so reap,
the rewards
of your reverie.

Ballad O' Th' Belligerent Scholar

2005-01-20T19:18:00.000Z

Once in a cafecauchemar I saw
A vision, a scholar, I do not know
That beckoned and gesticulated so
It made me surface out o' my coffee cup.

There sat he, a book upon his face
Heart beating in particle accelerates
His eyes turned within him he sees
Head twisted a hundred and eighty degrees

His index finger upright issued forth
Terminological excreta, or rather “growth
Upon a scholar’s mind”. Thus opened wide
It accumulated what mine would not abide.

Bleary-eyed and shaking could I
Out of the corner of mine eyes espie
The words gush forth and solidify
Upon reams – mine were not half as high.

Then followed a night so desperate
As never I spent in such a hyper-state
Digging into dusty tomes ill-read
Mirroring my shadow comrade.

And I thought that day would never come
That my life would end with the rising sun
That the sand would wipe out my footprints
If I were to give up, get up and run.

So persisted I with an unsteady hand
While nicotine stained a quiet band
Across fading intimations of accolades
Barely real, retreating inwards.

In the East I could see
Through the porthole of perception
On imagination’s wine dark sea
Sun-leaked hyperboles of deception.

Thus did the day I thought would never come
Shatter my personas one by one
Till I could hide my pitiful Id no more
And rose to drag the carcase to the shore.

“Well then”, sizzled an acid-soaked voice
“Is the battle lost? Does the world rejoice?”
Turning my head a hundred and eighty degrees
I sought my shadow as a soul would its release.

There sat he still, formulae in hand,
A reflection, barely real, in the door pane
He sipped his test tube and began:
“Tell me, when you laugh – is there pain?”

“Does it seem the world will cease to be?
If not smothered by the wine dark sea?”
I began to fall into bits in reply
And my brains rolled past his inward eye.

“I see”, quoth he, though I did not,
“Know then – You!
That all your fancies are true!
And your head has begun to rot!”

Morphine Nights

2005-01-19T21:41:00.000Z

The ceiling melts, swirls and trembles like jelly
A distant throb like a sleeping monster’s belly
Lurks at the edge of the darkened room
As the night uncurls in the hospital womb.

A rather large insect has entered the ward
It trembles with rage at being ignored
It shakes the dew off its foot-high wings
Its body is acrawl with noisome things.

Slowly it approaches my bed quite silent
When suddenly it is arrested by the scent
Of fumes lazily rising from my skin
- from the antibiotic wetsuit I’m in.

The insect is gone but what have we here?
Half the room has begun to disappear
And lies open instead to the sky and weather
A wild wide grassland gone mauve with heather.

But not quite empty nor as bleak as it seems
For now I notice it, it does fairly teem
With stumbling giant and shadowy beasts
Camouflaged in the clothes of the recently deceased.
All ponderously heading, lurching and staggering
In the direction where I lie immobile, shuddering…

(The above is as witnessed by yours truly,
after my spinal surgery, a year ago.)

W...h...i...t...e

2005-01-19T18:47:00.000Z

White the noise the wheelchair makes
But in the nebulous time it takes
To rise and walk to seat and sit
I have already forgotten it.

White the chalky oval pill
When upon my lips it will
Anticipating forgotten bliss
Dissolve itself into a kiss.

White the sheets upon the bed
White the dressing upon my head
Now stained with a runnel of red
As I spilled when I should have bled.

But whiter far by leaps and bounds
As you could tell by how I sound
Is the light behind the blaze of pain
When it strikes, and then strikes again.

(a hospital poem, like "Morphine Nights"
does it reek of the surgery too?)

a song of the cotton fields

2005-01-18T21:50:00.000Z

When you lean into the wind
And make it smell so sweet
When you look up at the Sky
It steal the color o’ yore eyes
But I be done watchin’ you, sister
I be done watchin’.

Love done long gone, sister
It done long gone

When I be walkin by
You aint holdin my hand
When I be talkin’ o’ us
You aint listening; don’ understand;
Well, I be done talkin’ you, sister,
I be done talkin’.

Love done long gone, sister
It done long gone.

When the cotton be bloomin’
Out upon the heath,
The fields be done with harvest
And all us brothers be drawin’ breath.
Then I be done waitin’ on you, sister,
I be done waitin’.

My love done long gone, sister
Love done long gone.

Wandering in Bethlehem

2005-01-18T18:30:00.000Z

(a song, written in response to the scores of Holy Grail-obsessed
pseudo-scholarly publications flooding the market)

Walking down
Walking down cold mud-sodden streets
The stones talk
And the walls weep

A trickle of Faith
And a handful of silver for when we meet

I'm seeking you
Am I learning something new
I'm wandering
Wandering in Bethlehem

Under the ruined doorway
A woman takes shelter from the sleet
As the Raindrops tremble on her skin
I wait till she looks up to see

A slow desire
And a handful of silver for when we meet

I need you
And I am feeling something new
I'm wandering
Wandering in Bethlehem

He lies still on the cobbled street
I kiss his cold wet cheek
As I would a brother greet
I let the stones drop from my fist

A mist of anger
And a handful of silver for when we meet

Oh Teacher
Where is your light and your staff
My heart is cold and my eyes have seen enough
Take me by the hand
And let me feel your love

I’m still
Wandering
Wandering in Bethlehem

From a Train Window

2004-12-26T20:00:00.000Z

Where the more pedestrian of your worries are soothed
you realise with a start,
the greater danger you never reckoned.

Just outside your cramped compartment,
past the rusty grille,
you can see, dissolving past,
overturned carriages freshly removed from the tracks.

This is where the accident happened,
besmirching a Constable landscape
with a mile of special bulletin footage.

Jardin Noir

2004-12-12T19:53:00.000Z

Spin the eddies of the sky inside these black petals.
Shadows have covered the earth that bears us.
Open a pathway to the plough amongst your stars.
Enlighten us, escort us with your host,
Silver legions, on the mortal course
Which we strive towards at the core of night.

- Antonin Artaud
Premier Poemes (1913 - 1923)

une poeme

2004-12-11T19:47:00.000Z

tant de gens
tant de temps
tourmentant
pourquoi
si peu que ce soit
arrive à leur vie
ils ne pensent jamais
de la quelquechose arriver à leur vie
tant de gens
tant de temps
devastant en lutte
pour quelques disputes
sans importance
ils ne pensent jamais que
cette vie cet existence
est absolument sans importance

sorting

2004-11-28T15:54:00.000Z

old files
old lines
old feelings
old dust
all dust
now just dust...

...sorting through the detritus of five years of documents, papers, files and folders
...stumbling through a landscape of broken dreams.

Writing.Com: My Portfolio @ Writing.Com

2004-11-28T15:17:00.000Z

Writing.Com: My Portfolio @ Writing.Com

It's been a year since I've been on here.
216 Portfolio views.
4 Reviews.
An average of 4.4 out of 5 rating.
What does it mean?

fear

2004-06-01T09:19:00.000Z

-by Sara Teasdale

I am afraid, oh I am so afraid!
The cold black fear is clutching me to-night
As long ago when they would take the light
And leave the little child who would have prayed,
Frozen and sleepless at the thought of death.
My heart that beats too fast will rest too soon;
I shall not know if it be night or noon, --
Yet shall I struggle in the dark for breath?
Will no one fight the Terror for my sake,
The heavy darkness that no dawn will break?
How can they leave me in that dark alone,
Who loved the joy of light and warmth so much,
And thrilled so with the sense of sound and touch, --
How can they shut me underneath a stone?

waxing theatrical

2004-05-20T07:09:00.000Z

what makes something theatrical
asks the fresh-faced young director
of the ring of eager faces
writers all,
waiting for those pearls to fall
Blood Wedding, she says,
Lorca, she says,
the moon speaks
or is it a drag queen?
outside the club neons up the night
what are the expectations of p l a c e?
where are?
what are?
h o u s e
its a domestic drama
i s l a n d
we are lost
relate relate relate
to their environment
lest we find to our cost
our characters are lost
adrift in a forest of good advice
the path to the heart forgotten
here the mind will only speak
not feel, everything is nice
it is all very nice

grovely, grovely, grovely and all grovely

2004-04-25T07:26:00.000Z

a village... near Witton, Salisbury
sleepy, forgotten, the usual adjectives spewed here
on Grovely road leading to Grovely Wood
on the 29th of May
people swear they saw
a grey host among them
an ancient party
tattered and withered
faint in the daylight
feeble voiced in the morning air
but as present as
the bluebells in the forest
that bend slightly as they pass
making their way to the old Pub
the Royal Oak
its stout low rooms filling up quick
everyone far too ale-merry to notice
their very special guests
and when they go to town, all,
their faint-hued comrades go with them,
and Salisbury Cathedral will ring
with the cries of
"Grovely, grovely, grovely and all grovely"
the ancient King's treaty honoured once more
thereafter much ale will flow
and the shimmering grey host depart
back across the high meadows,
the bluebell-dotted fields,
along the Permissive Bridlepath,
brushing lightly past
dandelions, cowslips and buttercups,
all bending slightly as if in a breeze
on a still day,
and on beyond the glade,
until, far from the dirt road,
on the other side of the field
of yellow rapeseed blooms,
a grey company gathers,
making merry at the maintaining
of the magna carta of the faerie world

the weather project

2004-03-06T17:00:00.000Z

the indoor sun
a monochromatic monster's ball
hanging in space
and we hang beside it
a reflection in a mirrored ceiling

the mist of the sun
sneaks in from the turbine hall
clings to the air of the cafe
lending it a mystery
that coffee and cream tea
don't usually inspire

the people come and go
talking of all the talk about weather
some gaze at the sun from the bridge
some lie on the ground forming silly shapes
some contemplate emptiness
some stay stupefied into silence
all bathed
in saffron and black
here black being a colour too

the restless
disturbing the symmetry
with flashes of chromomanic photography
as clumps of mist threaten towards clouds

and the people
all and every one of them
far more fascinated
by their own distant reflection
and idiotic posturings
and corporeal banality
than the tremendous engineering feat
glowing above them

break: an observation

2004-03-04T20:22:00.000Z

the heightened adolescent sensibility
perceives every strange and new sensation
or imaginary phenomenon
or anything out of their everyday ordinariness
as special
and concerned
with their destiny
and theirs alone

for artists

2004-03-04T20:09:00.000Z

here is
to match your drawn sketches
my weaker prose
and flimsy verse
in which I too attempt
a likeness of this life I live

nothing(ness)

2004-03-04T18:15:00.000Z

is it the darkness?
- I don't know

well, is it going anywhere?
- no, I just know nothing is happening

no words
no dreams
nothing to say
an emptiness sprouts and grows
carried around by loudmouthed loudvoiced ghouls

like a song segue-ing to another
leaving emotions raked up
hanging in the air

I don't want the sounds
I can't stand the silence

... sayings ...

2004-03-04T07:36:00.000Z

...worthy of note.

Silence alone is great; all else is weakness.
- Alfred de Vigny, La Mort Du loup (1864)

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
- R.L.Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque (1881)

Now the sirens have a still more fatal weapon
than their song,
namely, their silence...
Some might possibly have escaped
from their singing;
but from their silence,
certainly never.
- Franz Kafka, Parables

All things are artificial, for Nature is the art of God.
-Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (1642)

Glimpses of an Ancient Bad Relationship - VI

2004-03-03T23:54:00.000Z

VI.

So.
Now I know
that it is possible
to have loved
and learn to hate.

To have hated
and learned to love.
There are no barriers
between the two.

And what barriers there were,
were broken down,
devastated, terminated,
leaving behind
a welcome vulnerability.

Yes,
the wound was deep,
for regret struck hard,
and will never heal,
festering
in the blistering sun
of tomorrows yet to come.

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

(NOTE: No, it did heal, and has,
and in reading my verse diary circa 1995, nothing is more clear to me
than the benefits and wisdom of ending a relationship
that was toxic to the core, from the day that it began)

Glimpses of an Ancient Bad Relationship - V

2004-03-03T22:21:00.000Z

V.

What mad impulse
or carry-me-away enthusiasm
could possibly
have led me to it?
Now I know I never should have.

The feather is in your cap,
and the chip, on your shoulder.
And I'm left thinking
about the point of it all.

"Our roads divide here", you said.
How did they ever become one?

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

(NOTE: based on my verse diary circa 1995)

Glimpses of an Ancient Bad Relationship - IV

2004-03-03T20:05:00.000Z

IV.

Why did you come into my life?
Treading on the carpet of my dreams
with your muddy feet?
I didn't need you
or your advice.
Your voice in my ear
assaults my senses.
The sight of you
makes me wish
I were blind.
The touch of your hand
makes me feel unclean.

Yet
you wrench my waking mind
and torture me.

What would all this mean to you?
Would it bite through your enforced amnesia?
Chew through your concrete consciousness?
Make you shiver on a summer night?
And sweat on a winter night?
Would it make you feel the way I feel?
And if it did, would I be writing this?
If you felt anything at all...

How I wish these words were arrows
that I could shoot
that would go
unerringly
straight to your heart
and help me
seed out
the evil there.
* * * * * * * * *
(NOTE: verse diary circa 1995)

Glimpses of an Ancient Bad Relationship - III

2004-03-03T19:23:00.000Z

III.

Dependancy has wreaked its wrath on me.
The aftermath flows
down this glass pen
to the paper.

Dependant to redundant,
no that will not be I.
Yes,
an accomplice escaped,
one who could have been the one.

It was as they say in the magazines,
the ones I always laughed at
and called them a never-neverland.
For, all the anger and pain later,
I am now inclined to concede
that never-neverland exists,
and they are selling tickets
at the next turnstile.

* * * * * * * * * * *

(NOTE: verse diary circa 1995)

Glimpses of an Ancient Bad Relationship - II

2004-03-03T10:13:00.000Z

II.

Knowing what one knows about him
who one wishes to know no longer,
it should have been easy to pretend
he no longer defiled the same space as I.

Yet
I imagine his filthy leer
grazing every carelessly revealed
brown thigh or arm,
as one eyes fresh meat
within hand’s reach
and there for the taking.

I imagine him
imagining his manhood
to be a self-powered tactical weapon,
a heat seeking missile
seeking to nestle
in submissive folds of flesh.

I imagine him
imagining his position
as that of a feudal lord
in his fiefdom
surveying the servile and submissive
native women he may have at will.

* * * * * * * * * * *

(NOTE: Verse diary circa 1995.)

Glimpses of an Ancient Bad Relationship - I

2004-03-03T08:11:00.000Z

I.

Yes, a headache.
Pain. You understand pain?
No, I see that you do not.
Not in this strange new context.
Pain? In the body of another?
No, surely it is all in my mind.
And so your hands find
their habitual holds on my flesh,
as I lie curled up in misery,
wishing I had some medicine for it.
Slowly your body encroaches upon my space,
nudging my unresisting body away only to slink closer.
And I am so lost
in the bliss of this headache that
I scarcely notice your weight
beginning to push me down.

* * * * * * * * * * *

(that was in 1995, reading my old verse diaries of it,
I am so glad that it was over soon, and more completely over
than the word "ended" can ever signify)

m.i.g.r.a.i.n.e

2004-03-02T18:00:00.000Z

loud sounds
set my nerves on fire
my eyes
are pinpoints of pain
this is the hell
that no Lucifer can acquire
so what of mortal me
amen

hand me my bitters, Frida Kahlo

2004-03-02T09:32:00.000Z

Eat yer heart out Frida Kahlo
I've got thee beat hollow
Got a titanium metal backbone
Locked harder than any stone.

So leave yer miserly scribblings
and scratchings aside
Tis not as if t'was somewhat
ye had to hide.

Ye keep moanin and wringing so
The filthy linen all on show
T'was almost as if you had
Something to lose or as bad.

When what in that copper southern sun
Had thee to lose by way of fun
that was worth the losing nor as much
as missing the life of a homely nonesuch.

So stop showing off thy pitiful art
with thy broken back in every bit part
Tis not touching neither is't wise
For no tears spring from anybody's eyes.

So shave off thy monstrous caterpillar brow
And shake thy dirty linen over the cash cow
Hide thy disability, for tis but passing
No one wants to know that tis so harassing.

Pull thy nightmare back under thy sleeve
Like me go into hiding and then grieve
Look as sleek and well fed in thy kit
That all may assume thou art fighting fit.

insomniac thoughts

2004-03-01T18:48:00.000Z

Not sleeping,
Though there isn’t much to stay awake for.
Learning to like my own company,
Getting to know myself.
Not the long searching scorching introspection
But more a looking in from the outside.

... a prose interval ...

2004-03-01T09:32:00.000Z

Snow. In London. Never heard of nor seen. To me it just means I can no longer hobble out the front door to the nearby shops now, not until the ice has melted.

I havent made a film for almost a year now, unless you count the re-edits and messing about with the one I shot early last year. a low budgeted junk job. for the first time I had not enjoyed a shoot, even though I had got to go to a new location and had the potential to explore a new culture. no, I was much too focussed on being here, with him. focussed on London and a life together. so the long hours-long phonecalls from him left me sleepless and distracted and the blue sea and blazing white walls of the coastal town looked pale and listless in my eyes.

and now... here I am... in London. Except for the moments I am with him, all looks pale and listless to me. including my future in this field.

I havent mentioned, have I? I doubt I'll be able to get up to my old tricks again. no more leaping about in a tiny catamaran on the open sea trying to get a shot of an uncontacted tribe, no more running about in a steaming jungle tracking a shy tiger with my camera and no more clambering about in high altitude mesas with two cameras slung around my shoulder.

Even getting out of bed is an achievement these days. I'm not saying I dont want to. I lie awake from 6am staring at the sunlight advancing on the ceiling waiting for my husband to wake up and get me up. no, its just that my back wont support me getting up and neither will my left arm. I broke both, this winter, driving around in the wilds of Arizona.

Now I live with two Titanium metal pins stapling my vertebrae together, a hard tight brace around my torso, an occasional sling around my left arm, and godknowshowmany disability aids and objects. I'm not complaining, its all quite an adventure - and thats not the narcotic painkiller talking - it really is, a whole new point of view.

As the song goes - "Consider things, from a different point of view"...