Cells of fluff

When did life become
this
sticky-footed-head-melting inveterate marshmallow coma?

What is a when, anyhow,
to one mislaid in the maze?

Countless questions
and barely the concentration span
to acknowledge them.

Who's laughing
at
us
?

Slice splicer

Clutching at shards of a fragmented mind
Trying

to


be



whole

Gem

Are you beginning to feel a little pressured?

Resist it.

What's right will wait for you, patiently.

Jonathan Cainer (2011)

Fielding

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

Rumi

Will I be a Clare... or a De la Mare?

Love of its muted music breathes no sigh,
Thought in her ivory tower gropes in her spinning,
Toss on in vain the whispering trees of Eden,
Last of all words spoken is, Good-bye.

Walter De la Mare

[De la Mare approached death with great serenity. "My days are getting shorter," he told Joyce Grenfell. "But there is more and more magic. More than in all poetry. Everything is increasingly wonderful and beautiful." On June 20th 1956 he wrote to a friend about the midsummer leaf and blossom: "One looks at it partly with amazed delight and partly with anticipatory regret at its transitoriness." The next night, at 2am, the nurse asked if he was comfortable. "Yes, I'm perfectly all right," he replied - then he caught his last breath, gasped and died.]


I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes...
And yet I am, and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And een the dearest - that I loved the best -
Are strange - nay, rather stranger than the rest.

John Clare

["If life had a second edition," wrote Clare, "how I would correct the proofs." He spent the last 22 years of his life in a lunatic asylum in Northampton, forsaken by his former friends and family.]


(Why? Because I fear I know the answer to above question... yet in truth nobody knows. We think we're following in the footsteps of those that went before, but no two paths are identical - even if the feet fall together, the view from inside out can never be recaptured within a later lifetime. We're on our own. Quite, quite alone. (Living before) death: the final frontier.)


Notes from: Albery, N. (1994) (ed) Poem for the Day London: The Natural Death Centre 

It never rains but...

So, 6am. Hurrying from a complete all-nighter at King's to a morning's teaching, you take the wrong Northern Line branch from Kennington and alight back at Waterloo: where you started from.

Tired, grimy, pressed for time, you have over 10 minutes to wait at Elephant & Castle. Priceless moments are scuttling away as it begins to pour down. Impatience descends.

But then you remember.

You sit down. Watch the rain. Feel the air. Be alive.

Beijing comes to mind. You put on this song. Lean back. And remember Ru Da...

'...every poem I wrote ought to be called Happiness'

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver

(Why? Because I am utterly humbled by it. Even more so knowing that it was written by a man preparing to die. It evokes gratitude and clarity of perspective, yet also a certain sadness. In its presence I feel sorry... and prepared to try.)

Pastel felt tip

(I apologise for my excessive use of ellipses, but it's my blog and I'll snip if I want to ;))

This is not love perhaps...
But something written in lighter ink, said in a lower tone:
Something perhaps especially our own...
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas, halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked and notes compared...

A.S.J. Tessimond

(Why? Because it speaks of promise and compromise; an alternative and/or settling for. At first it was refreshing, but later it seemed pitiful. That said, the 'inns', 'islands', 'halts' and 'maps' remind me of special times. I think/fear I will always be on the move; it's comforting to have someone/s content to be inns on those roads.)

Feeling feline

Those even we love most
We sleep within their lives like cats, and rove
Out in the night, and late return and coast

Their souls like furniture.

E.J. Scovell

(Why? Because I know that a sofa and a soul have little in common, yet truly fear that I'm the worst of this ilk of life rover.)

Who indeed

Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable -
a place with
its own harvest?

Kay Ryan

(Why? Because we spend our lives waiting, to some degree or other. Maybe it doesn't define us, but we hope or feel that there is always something or someone yet to come - including future versions of ourselves. I've glimpsed that patience isn't an antidote to waiting, but 'a place with its own harvest'. Learning how, and remembering to, practise it - even at a very basic level - makes my life richer, and me wiser. Patience is a somewhere - possibly the one place where I can picture myself staying put ;))

Scream of consciousness

... blip... blip blip... ... ... blip... blip... .... .... ... blip blip blip blip blip blip blip... ... blip... ... ... ... blip blip blip...

Things that help us see

Spectacles, contact lenses, magnifying glasses, binoculars, the Hubble Space Telescope, satellites, Sat Nav, squinting, drawing closer, backing away, mirrors, honesty, forthrightness, reading, writing, listening, novelty, familiarity, yellow on blue, adequate lighting, limited shade, encouragement, guidance, sincerely constructive criticism, timely advice, time passing, experiences lived, pain, loss, regret, discerning hope, a monocle, large print, audio literature, retrospect, responsibility, really loving, foresight, unjustifiably large sunnies, wide-brimmed hats, parasols, slowing down...

Sprout some armour, damn you

Heart,

You're a closet sweetie, but would you please toughen up?

Feeler of your feelings
             x

The truth hoits

Brain,

I love you, but you're a bastard.

Mortal at your mercy
           x

Victoria Station. Sunday. Sunglassed.

Random on platform 5: Is this the train to Ramsgate?
Random on train to Orpington: Uh, sorry, I don't know.
ROP5: Where's the train going then?
ROTTO: Erm... I'm not sure...
ROP5: Well you shouldn't be on the train if you don't know where it's going!

's I

don't
make me
care about you
care about you
make me
don't

Thank you life

• lying in bed, listening to the rain, knowing that you don't have to go anywhere
• fairy lights
• paper lanterns
• writing with a not-too-sharp not-too-blunt pencil
• Saturday mornings
• 100% distraction
• cinnamon-glazed pecans at a cold Christmas market
• sequins
• the word 'sequin'
• the smell of snow
• the clippy nature of paperclips
• being loved
• loving
• double-chocolate cheesecake and jaggery crème brûlée with a cinnamon-rimmed glass of chai
• storms that clear the air
• finally making that phonecall
• unexpected hope
• marshmallows
• still evenings
• new friends
• old friends
• flickery flames
• geckos hiding behind the chopping board
• the relief of a safely-landed plane
• the first time you're understood speaking a new language
• really hearing someone
• really being listened to
• the pen that flatters your writing
• quenching the thirst with a long slurp of iced water
• journeys
• remembering how remarkable your life is
• long bubble baths on sunbeamy mornings
• newspaper clippings lovingly collected by someone who thinks of you
• blue glass
• a bowl of not-too-spicy not-too-mild dhal
• cut-glass doorknobs in a rainbow of colours
• paper dosai in the shape of party hats
• vegetarian thali with countless bowls of mystery yummyness
• seeing shapes in the stars and creatures in the clouds
• that end-of-term feeling
• Indian sweets that look like jewels and taste like heaven
• Dad's bar
• old photographs
• family jokes
• sunrise over Swansea
• finding time
• having space
• knowing why
• accepting that you don't know why
• early morning at Bracelet Bay
• being well
• food after fasting
• glitter hair clips
• silly sunglasses
• clay pots of curd with jugs of kitul treacle
• cardamom milkshake
• tropical evenings
• breathtaking storms
• sitting, silent and still, on the veranda watching the bats make their evening pilgrimage south
• wicker laundry baskets with lids like hats
• truly comfy clothes
• battered old flip flops that are too well-loved to part with
• swishy skirts that flatter the calves
• the simplicity of postcards
• creatures that you almost can't believe exist, like seahorses, giraffes, starfish and many kinds of reptile
• cocoa-buttering yourself until you smell and feel edible
• light bulbs
• little packs of tissues, lovingly supplied by Ma
• canvas bags with cherries on
• little cardis
• baggy linen trousers
• waking with sunrise
• listening to the morning leaf sweeping
• doing everything that you can
• being patient
• family, and the unlistable love and wonder that they bring
• realising that this, too, shall pass
• seaside train journeys
• semi-outdoor ice-fresh showers on early mornings in the tropics
• having options
• seeing familiar things from illuminating new angles
• lip-puckering lime juice and soda with tinkling ice cubes and a silver jug of sugar syrup
• watching ants at work
• ticking things off a list
• rainbow-coloured fabric in a courtyard filled with palm trees and sunshine
• making peace with oneself
• remembering that there's always more
• first night's sleep in a new home, exhausted from all that packing
• Milo
• music in the morning
• simultaneous dancing and ready-getting
• cocktails at sunset
• maraschino cherries on umbrellas or sparkly creatures
• wooden combs
• unbelievably dirty Colombo feet with soles of ingrained dirt
• books that you think about between reads and cry to reach the end of
• blank slates of days just waiting to be filled
• allowing someone lovely to step inside your thoughts, your frowns, your arms, your world
• painfully spicy papaya salad
• rum that tastes like bubble gum
• stretching, starfish-like, across a whole double bed just for you
• sitting down to fill a diary with all the happenings of recent days
• admitting you were wrong
• making things right
• daring to say, "I'm sorry"
• having "sorry" accepted with good grace
• playing the now-I-hear-you now-I-don't game with constant sounds like fans and tick-tock clocks
• dust motes dancing in sunbeams
• walls of glass blocks like ice cubes
• recognising a bad decision and U-turning just in time
• learning something new
• putting new knowledge to use
• family film night, complete with nibbles and people you love
• morning raindrops, still and silent on the windowpane
• baking with Ma
• whoopie pies with sparkle sugar
• the absence of pain
• donning massive baggy travel trousers and remembering days on retreat
• accidentally grilling tomato soup cake... and feeding it to the birds
• hedgehogs trundling roundly in the darkness
• househunting success
• waving to the world from the window of a train
• getting lost when there's time to do so
• not missing the bus home
• tea-towel chickens
• being bee keeper for a day
• honey on oatcakes care of bees of your acquaintance
• neighbours with lawn mowers on sunny afternoons
• Britain breathing out for the bank holiday weekend
• being missed
• digging your treasures from paper-spaghetti filled boxes, safely shipped from a faraway land
• preparations for the next adventure
• knee-high candy-striped socks on nippy days
• ladybirds
• the first sleep in a freshly-changed bed

!

That normal distribution keeps happening scares me.

Why?

Because.

因为... 所以。

Things that bring/keep together things/people

Velcro, Sellotape, string, twine, zips, rope, chain, Pritt Stick, Superglue, Blu Tack, Star Tack, chewing gum, bubble gum, spit, belts, those little squidgy see-through dots, fuzzy felt, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, elastic bands, cabling, those nasty plastic ties, (neck) ties, dickie bows, sashes, hooks, gravity, glacé icing, marzipan, marshmallow fluff, ledges, non-slip feet, buttons, paperweights, doorstops, locks, ribbon, fear, liking, similarity, difference, duct tape (quack), tin foil, cling film, ice, (cuff) links, laces, buckles, staples, pretty bows, magnetism, magic...