HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to thank you all from the depths of my heart for all your support here on my blog. I truly, truly appreciate it so much.😊😊

I miss you all, and hope to return to blogging in the New Year if my health conditions improve sufficiently.

I do so hope you are all safe and healthy, and am so looking forward to visiting you again as soon as I possibly can. I am back to hospital in January, so hopefully sometime after then!🙏

In the meantime...have a Magical Holiday and take care, dear friends xxxxxxx

A 90's RAVER at 3am

An abandoned warehouse, beat deafening, coloured lights flashing,

her brain in overdrive.

Departing in her lycra gear, utterly bushed

from eight hours of non-stop raving. Outside

the street lamps are unsteady, dancing crazily.

The sidewalk rolls and ripples beneath her feet.

As usual, she throws up: curry, wine,

and a hash of cocktails slapped on the asphalt.

Why is she leaving alone again? Tears well up.

Tonight, she'd hoped, someone would be her rock.

In the taxi, inching through

the still busy streets of Chelsea,

a torrent of thoughts, mostly unwelcome.

Rebellion takes over.

This is her life!

Eighteen is an age for fun, not for hard work -

that can come later. Much later.

Her parents are wrong.

She is not accountant material.

It really is time she left home.

That place has become a tomb. Suffocating.

She is interred in it, feels like the living dead, yet

fear of the unknown seriously holds her back.

Such a dilemma! Hard boozing

has become her ally.

It delays the the inevitable, makes life easier to endure.

How she envies her brother,

a successful artist, living his life his way

with no strings attached -

in total freedom and with no pressure to prove himself.

How wonderful to be free of parental domination

and be left alone to make his own choices!

She, on the other hand, is made to feel beholden:

the dutiful daughter, expected to follow

in Daddy's footsteps - someone to proudly parade

before envious colleagues. His carbon copy.

But, this morning, there is change in the air.

Today, she will begin

the life she has always longed for.

Today, she will tell them exactly how she feels.

The taxi draws to a halt. The house is lit up

and she's aware they're waiting up. As usual!

Today, she won't accept the lecture with downcast eyes.

The alcohol in her blood empowering her,

she enters by the front door. Their faces

forewarn of what is to come.

She's been dominated by control freaks for too long.

Their eyes are flashing with anger. There is no consideration

for her wishes, her feelings. She observes

the hard faces, fuelled by one-upmanship...

                                                                               for the last ever time.

Four more days of holiday, followed by two hospital appointments, then hopefully back to some semblance of normality!😉

Thank you so much for your patience...and your kind support 😊😊

HEATWAVE

Yellow mustard fields. 

The sun-baked earth

with it's mosaic cracks:

parched, barren, like

my thoughts - overheated.

Brain shorting out. Lazing

with the languor of the idle

below blue sky's great arc,

while white limbs turn red

then brown as last winter's leaf.

This could be idyllic, this choreless 

Sunday: ice lollies in the freezer,

Chardonnay cooling in the fridge -

oh if only I weren't too lethargic

to move - only a lover could rouse my senses!

High above the Swifts reel,

their cries piercing. On unseen thermals,

a Red kite glides then steeply dives -

some poor unsuspecting rodent dies -

and I, heat mellowed, detached, simply observe.

Now increasingly dazed

as sunstroke threatens, cognition

like scrambled egg, 

I drag myself from UV assault

and dive into ice cold pool.

Well, a girl can dream, can't she? 😉

I am taking a couple of weeks' much needed holiday, so will catch up with you all as soon as I possibly can. 😊

Have a great weekend guys  xxx

THE DRYAD'S REPOSE

No path leads to the copse

where the Dryad sleeps.

It has all grown in.

He stands as if carved in stone

in the dappled and shifting shade

beneath His canopy of oak,

attired in ivy's profusion.

Through the dense greenery

odours of moist earth rise.

A snail leaves silver track

over aged roots that penetrate the earth.

I take a forbidden glance:

amid bark gnarled by time

and asymmetrical boughs,

He sleeps on, His form barely discernable

within sacred wood and green leaf.

The small brown nostrils inhale

as He sighs in His slumber,

aware of my presence.

I am the hope he dreams of.

His anguish has drawn me here

to defend His kind with my life.

I chain myself to the living trunk

and defy the screeching saw...

THE COURAGE OF THE PAIN-WRACKED

The courage of the pain-wracked, in spite of the onslaught!

The smile forced for others. A convincing mask.

There is agony behind it, and the dread it will never end,

and the frustration of helplessness, the hopelessness of it.

The anxiety cuts deep, silently crying out for help -

loaded, as it is, with hidden self-pity.

Self-pity? Imbecile! Who cares how much you hurt?!

A red hot sword journeying through the nerves:

Hell's Imp, playing in brain with nervous system, 

prodding with pronged fork, a skilled torturer

inflicting agony upon the cursed Soul

with a glee that knows no bounds, 

supremely skilled in his favourite sport.

The Imp is resolute, there is no anaesthetic.

He has been ignored too long, now his presence is felt.

So the suffering radiates, like a fearful nuclear fallout,

and there is only the primitive tongue to express

such depth of pain. But it hasn't the words,

it is inadequate. Should it be cut out?

And the futile sobbing. So ineffective.

Sustenance, too, is rendered impossible - is stored 

in memory's archive with fellow outdated files,

while watching others tuck in. Starvation beckons.

It has become an obsession, food.

A substance more precious than diamonds.

But how about the eyes of the afflicted, the eyes?

Constantly dulled by the hidden curse

and often moist with tears. And the mirror -

that face in there is the face of a dead woman,

so drawn and pale with hollow cheeks,

a ghostly Seer, whose prophecies

bring such apprehension. A merciless judge

passing sentence upon the innocent:

a life sentence of neverending pain.

Courageous? No. I am scared...so scared.

My humblest apologies, dear friends, for taking so long to visit you all. I am currently awaiting a brain scan. In the meantime, I will visit you all as often as I possibly can. Thank you so, so much for all of your kind support😊

Been missing you all so much xxx

EULOGY

 For Michael Byrne...

I imagined I'd tracked you down

to one of those hellish concentration camps

in Hitler's nineteen-forties Germany. There,

in Nazi uniform, you stood observing

the mass genocide, your expression almost ecstatic.

Ice blue eyes, clear as the spring sky,

would perhaps meet mine. What then?

Would my blonde hair and pale complexion

save me from the inconceivable horror

inflicted upon my non Aryan contemporaries?

I'd assumed you'd be as brutal and inhumane

in real life too and therefore intensely disliked you.

So convincing you were up there on the screen

that I'd accepted as authentic a persona

well rehearsed - but then something else

in your eyes sent shivers of an altogether

different kind down my spine.

I'd inadvertently caught you unawares

before you'd had time to slip

into your chameleonic public image.

And the discovery was intoxicating:

a clean slate with your face on -

a smile so unexpectedly warm

that it took my breath away,

initiating an inexplicable infatuation.

Tell me, does it really matter

that I'm unknown to you, because

isn't absence claimed to be the heart's inspiration?

Observing your every role

has been the perfect antidote

to the isolation of life in lockdown, 

vastly expanding my restricted world.

In the sleepless hours, I think of you

and search the darkness

for your face...😉

THE HOWLING

Trekking over Dartmoor

through air heavy, moisture laden;

passing stone farms, long abandoned, ruinous;

bleak hills, heather clad and darkening

within gathering mist that blurs

the boundary between reality and fiction;

our faces strangely luminous, like

those of ghosts - but somehow not.

Such transfiguring disturbs and hastens

the duo of adventurers onward

toward the great mystery, oft sought,

elusive and otherworldly - yet

simultaneously perceived

on hill top, on river bank;

recognisable only by the howling

other than that of dog or fox:

a blood-curdling, long drawn out cry

that spikes terror through the Soul.

Ominous panting nearby.

We break into a run. Padding footfalls follow.

Mist so dense now. Stumbling into rock,

now prickly gorse that plucks

at our clothing. Blood red eyes within

gigantic black dog shape

looms up out of the gloom.

Desperately trying to out run it,

pulses racing, fear all-consuming.

Hope fading, as it's relentless pursuit

drives us onto narrow path

between treacherous bog pools.

Gutteral howl closer now and we run

even faster, lungs almost bursting.

The path turning dark, liquifying

into black ink, flowing from Sir Arthur's pen

as it skims across the page,

defining our fate...

Mentally beseeching him to deliver us

from the frightful curse 

of his dark imagination.

Only he can lift it.

Baskerville Hall appears before us.

But nearing means distancing

from all we've sought so long.

Pages flutter in sudden breeze. 

The book closes.

Sunlight pierces the gloom.

STUDENT'S LAMENT

From my rented postage stamp with no garden

to call my own except my window box,

I observe the dreary perspective

of colossal concrete tenement -

grey roof tiles, scuffed dun-coloured doors -

and perceive my first symbol of independence

as if between mirrors, forming an extensive

column of shabby replicas

anonymously occupied.

                                              But professors 

own their stately bricks and mortar, 

and the land upon which it stands. 

Such substance makes

my visual observation a peasant's eyeful

that inferiority defines as cruelly taunting - a

pointless squandering of youthful years -

and all for what? 

A futile attempt to ape possessor

                                              of ancestral silver spoon.

                      

FERNS

What is the significance

of aromatic ferns?

That boy and girl have discovered a secret paradise:

rolling around in the earthy scent,

their clothes staining green

from the moist spiky fronds,

seizing stolen moments,

pretending to be grown-ups. My

envious stare meets them head-on,

awakening passions

of a deeply mourned youth.

Emotional backlash. Bees

lead me back to the open road.

Hunger of the Soul

has to be assuaged. Clear sky -

boundless, infinite - isolation's antidote.

Inhaling it's deep blue.

Freed, calmed, lifted - by meditation

on such unbroken expanse. So open.

Probing possibilities, like 

the famous mind of Einstein:

aware of the planet's spinning,

it's suspension in outer space,

mind clinging 

to invisible shooting stars

and ascending like a rocket - the state 

of metamorphosis, Nature's miracle,

that lump-in-the-throat moment

that renders the Soul wholly open.

I am suddenly

catapulted through time:

a retro journey back

to before the Dolorous Stroke -

to the meaning of Fate itself.

Devoid of shade,

sun beating down mercilessly,

as the ether magnifies it's rays.

Here is my Akashic Record,

the Prophet's transformative madness.

Observing myself blunder through youth

and into the mouth of the abyss.

Witnessing a sacrificial burning

and the Phoenix arising from the ash - not I,

yet somehow the same being.

Sudden denial:

the lashing out nothing more

than immature retaliation

for perceived rejections and betrayals

inflicted upon me by other damaged Souls.

What happens to the heart has consequences.

Retracing my steps. The boy and girl

have gone, but the aroma of damp ferns

still permeates the air. Pure rapture

enters my pores, infusing my being

with a startling revelation...

reabsorption of a juvenile self

accelerates emotional evolution.

I am suddenly light, weightless as a feather.

Nothing can harm me now, not even death.

The ferns rustle in a gentle breeze...

HI GUYS

Hi, my dear friends! 

Just wanted to pop by to thank you all so much for your kind wishes. It does truly mean the world to me.😊

I am currently experiencing multiple health issues, and am suffering extreme fatigue...but will return to visit you all as soon as I am able.

Missing you all dreadfully...

Have a good weekend and stay safe and happy xxxx

HOPE

Vainly optimistic I was

believing my life

would be long, eternal even

and dotted with successes

to be proud of

so I'd be worthy in the eyes of someone

and therefore, above all, be loved.

Now, my sole task's to find

some hope to cling to,

such craving for a little more time

to live, a miracle -

because such things 

can happen if we truly believe in them.

And I so, so want to survive.

The arbitrary onslaught

of rogue cells predict my demise:

the ultimate conflict

between tainted flesh and sharp scalpel.

Oh let me be brave and dwell

not on dying, nor on giving up - but on victory,

on finally defeating the enemy within...

I'm going into hospital on Monday to have an operation. I hope to visit you all again soon.

In the meantime...have a great week, my dear friends 😊😊 xxx

THE MIND

A complicated mind

shaped my destiny.

That same mind fed me

the many untruths

that bred my myriad phobias.

Why did I never question them?

When I ventured out into the world

I saw only reflections

of another's paranoia.

Society was a forbidding concept

filled with dangerous pitfalls, so I feared

every shadow, mistrusted every stranger's smile.

Later, within my poetry,

that mind's unfulfilled dreams found expression

in a kind of mournful angst. It also

laced my relationships with a deadly poison:

"Men are the enemy. Never trust them!"

Self fulfilling prophesy. Inward struggle.

Who am I really?

Now, sometimes I question

if it ever was that other mind at all,

but was actually mine all along.

Other times, I wonder if it could be

a genetic anomaly in my psyche

that so warps intuition and fuels

my quest for the inexplicable, the

impossible ideal that other mind

spent a lifetime seeking

yet never ever found.

Have I, indeed, become my mother?

Is it possible that these thoughts

running through my head - these, now,

originated in another mind

that is continuing to influence me

from beyond the grave?

Or is it simply that I am cursed

with the kind of mind that thinks too much? 😉

SUSPICION

Silence gnawed at you. And the terror

of being betrayed: a threatening dark enemy,

the piercing indifferent

destruction of bloody battle sword. After

the glowing sunrise, these were

the emotions that beset you. They filled

my vacant space, and when self-esteem

eluded you, this torment

took it's place. But I

was probably on the beach, just sunbathing

with Anna, no more immoral intent in me

than in the illicit lover

I'd never even imagined. A real lover

may have felt uneasy,

left with haste

when the grotesque malignance of your mistrust -

half victim, half inquisitor, totally

illogical and stuffed with your unexpressed past hurts -

crept relentlessly without hindrance

towards me through the sunlit streets,

through the crowded car park,

tainted my sun oil in it's brown-tinted bottle

and angrily glared at me

with the unjust accusations

that were rapidly becoming the norm.

My double life - the life you have invented

for me inside your head - is comically erotic,

is lived by an effigy wearing my face.

Monstrous allegations and emotional blackmail

have become the story of my life.

And the steps to our front door

have grown into a daunting,

treacherous mountain

that I no longer have the will to climb.

RED FLIP FLOPS

I recall walking out there,

the tide high, the English Channel choppy,

it's southerly winds pushing me back

as if denying access to Hurst Castle -

demonstration of Nature's superior power.

Sudden doubt. 

My last memory 

of my red flip flops, traversing the shingle spit.

I was staring at the distant castle, I guess.

An intrepid explorer full of fervour: me, 

but without my agoraphobic handicap.

Just me and the sharp pebbles, a conscious union -

as if my rapidly disintegrating, unsuitable footwear

represented the will of stone consciousness,

was the monument's entry requirement.

My cut and bruised feet

a symbol of pilgrimage,

a wordless but satisfying communication

with the shingle.

Offering my blood, for the thin tongue

of the spit to devour hungrily.

A sacrifice,

it's significance way beyond my comprehension

at the time, but filed in memory's archive

for later interpretation. It was like

primitive man trying to decipher

modern mathematics.

Impossible.

As I finally achieved the Grail of my quest,

it's mystique brought effective analgesia

to mutilated feet...I was utterly enthralled.

It was well worth the pain.

Perhaps it is merely an old structure to most,

too lost in time to make it relevant today.

But to me it was alive, was crowded

with all those who'd dwelt within it's walls

down the centuries - and, of course,

it's most famous prisoner:

the Cavalier figurehead, Charles I.

Oh how dashing a character,

in white lace and frills - I

watched, spellbound, as he crossed

the courtyard as far as the barred gate

and then vanished into thin air.

Was I spooked?

Far from it.

All I could think of was the excruciating shame

of being in the presence of Royalty

at the very moment my flip flops, much beloved,

finally fell apart! 😉

MYSTIC

I

There is a country cottage,

surrounded by tall pine trees,

that has a small front room

where I came into this world

with a strangled cry -

my first lungful of air. It was

painful, they said, that birth

so reluctantly endured

by as unmaternal a mother

as they come. But

my small white face,

so wrinkly and dimpled,

forged an instant bond

with a doting father

who'd been longing so for a daughter.

What I remember most

is the blinding light

from the window, so white

and prophetic of a lifetime

to come desperately seeking

the light in everything,

the Spirit within:

Mum, Dad and the midwife initially,

but without means to explain it -

well, not in words anyway. Outside

summer lasted for millennia, with clusters

of laburnum blooms. I vividly recall

the heady fragrance and it's sun yellow

mesmerising hue - and the fact

that it was too high to touch

led to ferocious tantrums and

my refusal to be photographed beneath it.

II

I fell in love yesterday,

and was astounded by the transformation.

I appeared radiant, a light

in my eyes gazed back 

from my image

in the bedroom mirror

and a secret smile

danced about my lips.

III

He and I touched hearts, and

through the metaphor - a connected

feeling deep inside - 

I fell pregnant with the sun:

all this light I give to you!

In the silence beyond words

I held his presence -

unknown to him, unknowable

in fact, because

there were just too many light years

stretching the infinity between us.

VOID

A poem for today...

I

The rain's been worse than ever this winter,

the river spewing out onto the floodplain

and into too many front doors. It feels uneasy,

like living with an unexploded time bomb,

too precarious. The canal's banks

are lined with barges, whose owners 

are somewhere else. Even the tow path,

usually packed with joggers, cyclists

and dog walkers, lies silent and deserted.

It's quite eerie here in the drizzly mist. There is

a sense of dereliction. And I wish, like

the summer kayakers, to be elsewhere too.

II

An excess of knocks has left me paranoid -

although some men, it seems,

are drawn to that quirkiness in me,

at least for the short term. Loss

precipitates a descent into desperation - that state

which leads only to the next blunder

involving over-dependency. Emotional intelligence

gives way to fanatically searching 

in the most inappropriate places

for a kind of idyllic love

that could never exist in reality -

until that burning need

inside me drives yet another

substitute away. Mere resemblance

will never be enough. I see that now.

III

I cherish memories of that last summer beside the canal.

Cool shade, beneath trees reflected

in the still water below: another, reversed world.

It seemed our happiness would never end. 

Such joy to be canoing there with you.

We existed in pure bliss. All day the sun

beat down and butterflies fluttered

around us. Rowing requires effort in the heat,

you have to be prepared to sweat.

Now, the canal is too poignant. A memorial to us.

IV

In the dead of night, his arms

never soothe the hurt. The moon

enchants, but only the sun

sustains life. Now, the mornings

are a vanished lover. Cold emptiness,

a Dear Jane note on a pillow. Tears

are a dripping tap. I crave

some permanence, but I know

nothing except the pain: the flood

and it's brutal destruction.

V

I'll think of you when summer returns

and the floods have dried up. I'll be

canoeing on the canal again, only

this time alone. Stopping off

as we always used to, at the pub,

I'll sip white wine and listen

to your favourite song. It'll hurt,

God knows, it will. When you died,

I tried to replace you, to fill again

the void you left. You were, are, my sunlight;

my self-esteem. Without you

I am less than nothing...

But they're all telling me

that I have to go on living, that I

am worth something in my own right.

Oh I know they mean well, but

how can I possibly move on

with such a gaping, weeping hole

where my heart used to be?

HI EVERYONE

Just wanted to convey my most heartfelt thanks for all your kind comments. They are so very much appreciated!😊😊

I am currently dealing with multiple health issues, so am to and from hospital quite a bit.

I hope to visit you all again as soon as I can, as I'm missing you all so much.🙁

Well, have a fabulous weekend everyone...and stay safe and happy xxx

PANDEMIC

ON READING EMILY BRONTE

It began with a copy of Wuthering Heights.

Echoes of intrigue lept out of the pages.

I felt them weave themselves into my being.

Another's creation. But where is she now?

Death cannot erase greatness. It is

her immortality, her irresistibility. Why

not before? Had I lived then, could I

have known her, perhaps better understood?

Imagination. So she first entranced me with those miniscule

booklets: Gondal resurrected in my psyche.

Now, when I move, her pen moves with me.

Just out of sight, she directs my life, ever watchful.

And if, as she claims, Heathcliff truly loves Cathy,

then what kind of love is so obsessive

that it rips both Souls to shreds

and condemns them to eternal unrest?

Or is it my unrest - her words merely evoking

my deepest, most tormented desires?

If, as I suspect, I am Cathy; then I must find him -

he is the prize within the maze of words.

But, why should I read, when living it is more persuasive?

Or long to touch, when feeling without touching

is so unexpected, so exquisite and so rare?

Today, his proximity. Ecstasy is in the air.

VISIONARY

Call me boring, but I'm never predictable

when I sit down to write. What is it 

about that particular activity

that triggers such dramatic transformation?

Weekdays, admittedly, I'm conformity's slave,

with kohl-lined eyes and high heeled shoes -

ostensibly fitting in with society's expectations. You know,

it's taken me twenty years to perfect

this duel identity - the near seamless balance

between civil servant and poetic visionary.

No one has ever known me, not really.

As soon as they think they do, I confound them.

I cannot fully live up to another's ideals,

so I vanish into thin air; feeling my way,

intuitively led, into the Lands Adventurous;

deeper and deeper until my head spins

with a million and one impressions

that condense themselves into my pen.

And I just scribble, scribble; letting them flow

unedited, cascading like a waterfall

of emotions issuing from the memory banks

of the Cosmos itself. Perhaps

I'm a part of that macrocosm - or, maybe,

simply it's messenger. Either way,

I am mere flesh and blood - but inside

something colossal is stirring:

an irresistible call to the Quest

for universal empathic connection.

So sorry everyone, but I'm running late this week...will catch up with you all tomorrow hopefully! Have a super day xxx

SCUM

My apologies, guys - but I simply HAD to vent my fury after seeing this on the TV news...

You conned her out of her savings -

a lifetime of toil erased.

You stole her independence

without a care for the effect

on her sense of dignity.

All you've left her with is fear - of people,

of even leaving her home. A frail

elderly lady of ninety-two.

Oh yes, such easy prey

for you, wasn't she - to

pose as a doctor and inject

into her arm God knows what,

professing it to be a Covid vaccination

and then charge her a fortune for the privilege.

And, furthermore, to have the audacity

to return again and demand extra payment!

Oh you're so cocky, aren't you,

so fiendishly clever...

Ah, but you were caught on camera.

Yes, you - you heartless, worthless scum!

Think your sweatshirt hood pulled up

will protect your cowardly identity?

No chance!

Just think on this...

There is a Universal Judiciary System,

way above the scope of mere CCTV

and earthly Judges and courthouses,

which observes all, is all-knowing -

and it is closing in around you.

Better be afraid, moron, because

there's no escaping the consequences

of your inhuman criminal activities.

They'll rebound on you

as precisely as an echo, only

ten-fold.

And just one more thing, creep,

before I conclude.

A quick check to ask

how you're sleeping at night?

Have you noticed and changes yet

in your dreamlife? No?

Well you will. Believe this, 

you will!

Soon it will begin: the demons

rising up out of the bowels

of your nightmares' darkest recesses.

And they won't ever go away.

They'll pursue you day and night,

will eventually drive you insane.

What, then, of your ill-gotten gains?

What use will they be

when you're locked away

in your lonely, claustrophobic,

padded cell?

VALVE

The replacement valve that saved him 

was crafted from tissue of pig, so

he no longer ate pork. It seemed inappropriate 

to be devouring his benefactor's relatives. 

The heart specialist concurred,

but for a different reason - namely

that less animal fat would mean 

a much healthier cardiac system.

He also developed a strange compulsion

to visit pig farms - to the extent of once 

sneaking into a pigsty and sleeping there overnight,

just to gain an insight into how it feels to be a pig!

Perhaps, one day, he could even learn 

to communicate with them, a bit like

the legendary Doctor Doolittle!

Sometimes he'd sit in front of a mirror

and almost convince himself that his features

we're gradually changing, were becoming

more and more pig-like: his nose snout shaped

and his ears like those of a pig.

And he dared not admit to anyone

that he had an increasing fear

that he'd wake one morning, to discover

he could no longer speak, only grunt - and that

he had trotters instead of hands and feet!

And even worse - what if

the metamorphosis eventually became total?

What then?

He considered his wife and children, his friends.

What would they think?

Would they even realise he was him?

He would have no way of letting them know he was.

And what if he should fall

into the hands of a butcher? Surely

then there would be the horrifying possibility

that his family may inadvertently consume him! 

And still, today, the paranoia continues to escalate...

for there is no escaping

                                       the pig DNA inside him. 😉😉