This is an attempt at poetising OCD. Went down the automatic writing route with this one as I don't like to dwell too long in what is, after all, a pretty maudlin place. I'd make a terrible Sylvia Plath. Still, even dark things need an outlet, or they tend to fester. And we've been there before.
The whispered hiss suggests just one more check
And I'll be free to go on my way,
Yet I have been here for ages now
Too rooted to leave, compelled to stay.
I'll comply, and how that digusts me,
My uncoupled logic now utterly askance
As my hand grips and forces the handle
'Could be unlocked, there's always the chance'
It hurts, but I have to be certain
And sharp resistance, the pain in my hand
Is surely the confirmation it seeks,
The vengeful endgame the voice had planned.
I'm tired but it's early, I'm haggard and worn,
There's no more to feel but shame and revulsion
As the voice piles in. I am resigned
To check one more time and sate this compulsion.
Saturday, 25 September 2010
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Wisdom, the benefit thereof
I find myself strangely drawn to the invisibility of a readership. You could be reading this long years after my death from extreme old age/mid-coitus as an example of the genius' early warblings or indeed about five minutes after I have published it as an example of what the idiot has decided to witter on about today. It could even, just possibly, be Monday and snowing outside, anything is possible in the crazy world of blog-reading. However, your multiverse potential existences notwithstanding, I do worry about you, are you really prepared for what's out there? I cannot be sure, so I offer, partly in gratitude for your reading me and partly as a sop to my well-disguised heart of gold and oft-misunderstood good nature, such wisdom as my 38 years, 9 months and 28 days has provided.
1) Weeping willow trees that hang over city rivers (like, say, the ones near the former kebab hut in Norwich) are not 'just as good as a rope for swinging the whole way across'
2) Barbed wire in underground caverns is not something a two year old should investigate too closely. Especially in underground caverns, but especially for two year olds.
3) The signs on mountain roads in New Zealand before a bend denote the maximum speed, not the recommended speed. Arguing about this is pointless, accelerating towards a '20' bend to prove your point is even more inane.
4) You can't hide things from your mother, ever. Well, you can't hide anything from mine, so I presume it's a universal constant.
5) When you're on a date with a particularly foxy girlfriend and an even foxier antipodean waitress blatantly flirts with you, take the ambivalence of the fox as a clear sign of the end approaching and get the waitress' number. Remember, networking in a downturn is the way forward.
6) Best days to not be at work - the day after any X-Factor elimination, the day after a celebrity bust-up, the day after you got drunk and called your bosses bosses boss a King Canute in his earshot.
7) At Uni, there are three basic foodgroups, two of them are Kit Kats and Ready Salted Crisps, the other is measured in % by volume.
8) You can't please all the people, all the time. This is a blessing, at least 75% of them are arseholes and don't deserve pleasing.
9) Smoking really is a filthy habit.
10) When they are laughing at you it's time to move on. That, or get into sociopathy.
1) Weeping willow trees that hang over city rivers (like, say, the ones near the former kebab hut in Norwich) are not 'just as good as a rope for swinging the whole way across'
2) Barbed wire in underground caverns is not something a two year old should investigate too closely. Especially in underground caverns, but especially for two year olds.
3) The signs on mountain roads in New Zealand before a bend denote the maximum speed, not the recommended speed. Arguing about this is pointless, accelerating towards a '20' bend to prove your point is even more inane.
4) You can't hide things from your mother, ever. Well, you can't hide anything from mine, so I presume it's a universal constant.
5) When you're on a date with a particularly foxy girlfriend and an even foxier antipodean waitress blatantly flirts with you, take the ambivalence of the fox as a clear sign of the end approaching and get the waitress' number. Remember, networking in a downturn is the way forward.
6) Best days to not be at work - the day after any X-Factor elimination, the day after a celebrity bust-up, the day after you got drunk and called your bosses bosses boss a King Canute in his earshot.
7) At Uni, there are three basic foodgroups, two of them are Kit Kats and Ready Salted Crisps, the other is measured in % by volume.
8) You can't please all the people, all the time. This is a blessing, at least 75% of them are arseholes and don't deserve pleasing.
9) Smoking really is a filthy habit.
10) When they are laughing at you it's time to move on. That, or get into sociopathy.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
The Statue
A new piece of which this is the first draft. It has already come quite a long way from where it started as the kernel of an idea. I'm trying not to overcomplicate it as I want it to convey a fairly simple message.
The scuplture of the lovers locked
In tender embrace endures, after a fashion.
Their features now are indistinct and forms
Blended as mere rumour of their passion.
Their gaze held for the ages was to
Put doubters of true love in their place,
But time has stolen a march on them
For they do not recall each other's face.
The scuplture of the lovers locked
In tender embrace endures, after a fashion.
Their features now are indistinct and forms
Blended as mere rumour of their passion.
Their gaze held for the ages was to
Put doubters of true love in their place,
But time has stolen a march on them
For they do not recall each other's face.
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
In the shadow of giants
The random list I have been mulling today is so much more than a random list in truth. To reach this list, the individual, item, or event has to be of such stellar magnitude as to make superstitious men cower and pray to the gods of yore for delivery. It is not so much a list as an electronic monument, a place for silent contemplation of greatness, the ultimate hangout of the wannabe. For today I will name the coolest things on the planet. I have scoured the past and present and can, with my hand on my heart, declare the following to be freakin awesome on an ice cold level. Cool in the way your father is when you are two, enough to make a quiet English gent weep and announce it to be a 'bloody good show'.
Here let there fall no shadow of the epic fail, here be dragons. Activate jaw-awe as I give you, the Epic Cool!
1) Vince Clarke in his Depeche Mode/Just Can't Get Enough incarnation
2) Being told you look 5 years or more younger than you are
3) Johnny Cash
4) Hobbes, but not Calvin
5) The Summer of 1981
6) Diana Rigg
7) The First Floor Caning Team
8) Loch Ness
9) Any series that Chris Morris was behind
10)Being able to get through a day at work without a single mention of reality TV
That is all.
Here let there fall no shadow of the epic fail, here be dragons. Activate jaw-awe as I give you, the Epic Cool!
1) Vince Clarke in his Depeche Mode/Just Can't Get Enough incarnation
2) Being told you look 5 years or more younger than you are
3) Johnny Cash
4) Hobbes, but not Calvin
5) The Summer of 1981
6) Diana Rigg
7) The First Floor Caning Team
8) Loch Ness
9) Any series that Chris Morris was behind
10)Being able to get through a day at work without a single mention of reality TV
That is all.
Monday, 13 September 2010
A fun little ditty
Thought I'd try something a little tongue-in-cheek, anyone who has played with the silly juice will know a little of the below.
Title - Never Again!
Dull throbbing oscillates and spikes
To painful lucidity, bringing ragged
Focus on hard-earned shame, and
Snowballing horror at the jagged
Picture of long hours stolen.
Denial turns swiftly to revulsion
And all attempts at normal routine
Are met by sudden and total stomach expulsion.
Capitulate to undeserved self-pity
Berating yourself that you swore
Never again to wake like this
On the morning after the night before.
Title - Never Again!
Dull throbbing oscillates and spikes
To painful lucidity, bringing ragged
Focus on hard-earned shame, and
Snowballing horror at the jagged
Picture of long hours stolen.
Denial turns swiftly to revulsion
And all attempts at normal routine
Are met by sudden and total stomach expulsion.
Capitulate to undeserved self-pity
Berating yourself that you swore
Never again to wake like this
On the morning after the night before.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
New piece, Work in Progress!
This needs a fair amount of work - but it occured to me as I was daydreaming the other day - sometimes a simple memory of one you loved brings a moment of real contentment, not for any longing to return to the past, but because in isolation, that past was wonderful, the moment was grand and frankly, it desrves a poem of it's own.
Title - The Thirty Second Smile
To memory there stirs a flash
Of she that went before,
With gentle hands I haven't held
In countless years, and more!
So now she comes and dances here
Herald of forgotten charms?
Ah yes! Look, here comes yester-me
And takes her in his arms.
Such an oddly perfect pair they make
She soft and light, he dark mystery.
Fated, though they did not know,
To Love's sad history.
And now I can merely pause
And for the duration of their show
I'll wear the smile of yesterday,
For my love of long ago!
Title - The Thirty Second Smile
To memory there stirs a flash
Of she that went before,
With gentle hands I haven't held
In countless years, and more!
So now she comes and dances here
Herald of forgotten charms?
Ah yes! Look, here comes yester-me
And takes her in his arms.
Such an oddly perfect pair they make
She soft and light, he dark mystery.
Fated, though they did not know,
To Love's sad history.
And now I can merely pause
And for the duration of their show
I'll wear the smile of yesterday,
For my love of long ago!
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
The screaming hyperbolae of two halves
Last night I found myself listening to Jamie Redknapp. This is not a normal occurance for me, my usual exposure is limited to half a second of him and his wife encouraging me to find 'IT' with Thomas Cook before the magic of the remote weaves its wizardry. However, the Redknapp was waxing lyrical about a game of Association Football in which England had been victorious and I was struck by the seemingly random metahpors he was plucking from thin air. You see, Barry is the water carrier so you can let Gerrard explode and we will win with 4-4-2 because if you look at the recent Champions League winners they have played 4-3-3 and we need to adapt our positions. There was wisdom there, but it was entirely accidental.
It led me to ponder how I could sum up my life in the spirit of the pundits that were, the pundits that are and the pundits that yet may be.
I have come up with the following....
You can't lay paving when the world is looking the other way, it's about giving 110%, and that last 10% has got to be bigger than all that has gone before, it's a whole half on it's own. Play right up till the fat lady blows her whistle and remember to think sideways before you go back, the lateral man catches the worm.
Yeah, massive.
It led me to ponder how I could sum up my life in the spirit of the pundits that were, the pundits that are and the pundits that yet may be.
I have come up with the following....
You can't lay paving when the world is looking the other way, it's about giving 110%, and that last 10% has got to be bigger than all that has gone before, it's a whole half on it's own. Play right up till the fat lady blows her whistle and remember to think sideways before you go back, the lateral man catches the worm.
Yeah, massive.
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