Volcano 2

Winter & Transcending History

Winter

Frigid twilight descends
Tracing the patterns made by the ice
One the window pane
My finger trace the kaleidoscopic
Patterns cleaved to the glass
A star spreading
Outwards, forever outwards
I step outside
Boots crunch on snow
I am on my way to church
And the ache does not diminish

Transcending History

The landscape remains
Ghostly magical characters,
Transcending history
Alien customs and traditions
Mapped out and restored
Brown bones and rotten teeth
Now an imperial possession
A colonial subject
Viewed from many perspectives
Embracing the mysterious
The amorphous, the unconscious
They wrested out autonomy away
Those paragons of Christian virtue

The Life and Times of Fred Unwin

Back to Fred Unwin...

Like Doug he was served in North Africa and Sicily during the war and, like Doug, he grew up on the 'mean streets' of Cambridge (it's not all college and May Balls, you know and, paradoxically, the war saved them both. After the war Doug, using his experience as a medic became what is now known as a paramedic but was by the less impressive sounding 'ambulance man' in those days. (There weren't a lot of women in the service back then.) Fred Unwin became a psychiatric nurse. (Contrary to popular perception there were quite a few male psychiatric nurses in those days - well, they needed some muscle to keep the nuts in line).

They led parallel lives and yet didn't meet until they were pensioners and they had both lost their wives. Fred Unwin is (I nearly wrote 'was') a locally renowned poet and writer. He wrote an auto-biographical study of psychiatric nursing in the late '50s entitled Dew On My Feet which focused on nurse training at Addenbrookes (yes, my old psychiatric Alma-Mater - S3, S4 and R4).

I am reluctant to go and see him even though Doug has suggested that I accompany him. As I said, I am unwilling to face what he has become. When I last encountered him it was at a poetry reading. He was tall and broad and did not look in the least like an octogenarian. He was part-poet, part-historian. Many of his books were self-published and before anyone cries contemptuously 'Vanity publishing, eh?' might I remind you that my own role-model - Virginia Woolf - owned her own publishing house, partially financed by her husband Leonard Woolf and many other writers - great and not so great - have done the same throughout literary history

He praised my rendition of Dorothy Parker's 'You Might As Well Live' and Philip Larkin's 'This Be the Verse'. (Choices that rather suit my curmudgeonly personality). He purchased a copy of my book and passed on his compliments through Doug. I want to remember him as he was then, not as he is now.

An alternative explanation is that I am a lazy, selfish cow.

Yes, the latter sounds much more plausible.

Looking ever so slightly mad...

More Lyrics...

Farewell Angelina

The bells of the crown

Are being stolen by bandits

I must follow the sound

The triangle tingles

And the trumpet play slow

Farewell Angelina

The sky is on fire

And I must go.



There's no need for anger

There's no need for blame

There's nothing to prove

Ev'rything's still the same

Just a table standing empty

By the edge of the sea

Farewell Angelina

The sky is trembling

And I must leave.



The jacks and queens

Have forsaked the courtyard

Fifty-two gypsies

Now file past the guards

In the space where the deuce

And the ace once ran wild

Farewell Angelina

The sky is folding

I'll see you in a while.



See the cross-eyed pirates sitting

Perched in the sun

Shooting tin cans

With a sawed-off shotgun

And the neighbors they clap

And they cheer with each blast

Farewell Angelina

The sky's changing color

And I must leave fast.



King Kong, little elves

On the rooftoops they dance

Valentino-type tangos

While the make-up man's hands

Shut the eyes of the dead

Not to embarrass anyone

Farewell Angelina

The sky is embarrassed

And I must be gone.



The machine guns are roaring

The puppets heave rocks

The fiends nail time bombs

To the hands of the clocks

Call me any name you like

I will never deny it

Farewell Angelina

The sky is erupting

I must go where it's quiet.

http://joanbaez.lyrics-online.net/Farewell,Angelina.html

Fred Unwin

Doug told me some rather depressing news about the infamous Fred Unwin, , something of a local hero and a friend of Doug's who has been ravaged by age and forced to move into a nursing home, helpless and dependent upon super-efficient but emotionless carers, plumping up his pillows and wiping his brow.

These are all assumptions, of course based on my own experiences of seeing my grandparents in the same position. I saw my maternal great grandmother just before her death when I was nine and, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, it put the fear of the grim reaper into me for years. That pale, skeletal figure on the bed that barely appeared human. They shouldn't have let me see her. But then there are others - those oh so wise child-psychologists who seem to have assumed the right to dictate the way in which every child in the Western world is raised regardless of individual needs - say you should force children to confront the realities of death. It worked for me - too well. I spent years contemplating the ageing process. But then I spent years contemplating the aftermath of what I as a child thought was an inevitability - a nuclear war. Cheerful little brat, wasn't I? It has occurred to me that I might derive a subconscious thrill from fear, rather like people who are addicted to horror movies and claim they hate them. Efexor, however, has removed my worries which, in itself, is worrying.

Hold your breath for the Life and Times of the Great Fred Unwin...

Muses

Muses
Originally uploaded by briekitty.

In Corfu

Sullen Girl

' SULLEN GIRL '
Words & Music: Fiona Apple

Days like this, I don't know what to do with myself
All day -- and all night
I wander the halls along the walls and under my breath
I say to myself
I need fuel -- to take flight --

And there's too much going on
But it's calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion

Is that why they call me a sullen girl -- sullen girl
They don't know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea
But he washed me shore and he took my pearl --
And left an empty shell of me

And there's too much going on
But it's calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion
It's calm under the waves in the blue of my oblivion

Military Bearing

(Continued) And wouldn't that be tragic.
What kind of crime would Andy have to commit in order to wind up inside.
I don't think I'll be applying for a Visiting Order. Except maybe to gloat. And to remind him to avoid dropping the soap in the shower. (And yes, before peeps write in, I know it's a myth).

No, that would be really mean.
But then, did I ever claim to be anything else?

The Evesham Voyager was returned by the repair shop but it still wasn't perfect. They had even managed to do more damage - they had unseated the F12 key. Doug returned it, adopting his haughty military sergeant major manner of old and, yes, he still has it - perfect posture, chest thrust out, you know the stuff. 'We don't want it back in that condition,' he snapped out. (No wonder those National Service boys were so terrified of him: 'Do you believe in God,son, well, you're looking at him!'). Do you ever lose it.

Yes, it appears you do. As some rather tragic news I received today reveals...

Sunshine & Teddy Bear

Sunshine & Teddy Bear
Originally uploaded by Bratcat1000.

View from my bed.

Bleak Shores

I stand on these bleak shores
Behind the stone walls
That guard my inner self
These ice encrusted seas
Like those of Lapland,
Siberia, Mother Russia

And then there is
My own Mother
Where is she?
I look up and there she is
She was the rock,
Standing tall above the tumult

Detached and untouchable
And she did not see
The cold moon
Staring in at me
Through the window
Each night

Of Course I'm not...

I shall let Karma do its work. Cosmic justice. Bitterness is corrosive. Apparently. Oh, my acidic innards! Thoughts of vengeance are taking my mind off a long hot summer watching the seemingly ubiquitous Big Brother and my hellish hayfever. At work they take bets on how many sneezes I can manage in a row - the record so far is thirty four.

The Pseudo-Messiah clearly sees his evasion of a custodial sentence as a victory. He emerged triumphant. I don't think he is aware of how the system works. I don't think he realizes that if he commits any kind of crime within the next five years he is, as they say, going down.

Another battle with authority. This time I am being harassed by a debt collection agency employed by the Student Loan Company. A woman rang and left a message on my answerphone. When I returned the call she spoke to me in a threatening manner and said (and I quote) 'Right then, we'll be at your door.'

I rang back later and complained about the woman's aggressive approach. Another woman who seemed a little more reasonable said 'Well, we are a debt collection agency'. And then suddenly she said 'Are you recording me?'

Me: 'Huh?'

'Are you using a recording device? I heard an echo. You do know it's illegal to record someone without their permission?'

So, there we have it - a company indirectly employed by the government whose staff include a representative of the Kray Twins and a prime candidate for Paranoiacs' Anonymous.

Wonderful! Bureaucracy - gotta love it!

Currently Reading

Nazi2
Originally uploaded by louisemills.

Road To Your Soul

(Lyrics - All About Eve)

Behind me, a caravan weighed down
With bad dreams and ghosts of apologies
There's no room, no room inside
For a hitcher with a suitcase of pride

Before me, a stallion pulls like the moon
Sun through the trees tells me I'll be there soon
The wind cries, 'cause she saw me crying
About the times I find myself lying.

I must have fallen by the wayside
The wheels crack beneath my foolish pride
Give me a sign in your direction
And show me the road to your soul.

Unhitch the wagon 'cause it hinders me
I'll hitch my skirts up and go carelessly,
Barefoot and riding bareback
Wind in my hair, it feels like honesty.

Close the chapter on a journey...
Burn the book and give me sanctuary,
In your arms it feels like...
In your arms it feels like...
It feels like home.

Courtesy of: http://www.goony.nl/aae/lyrics/l_scarlt.htm#nr1 

Another Betrayal

And I don't believe and I never did
That two wrongs make a right
But in a world that's filled with the likes of you
Then I'm putting up a fight
Putting up a fight'
R.E.M.

I saw Keith - a fellow nut, a fellow member of the circuit - on the way back from the my GP's surgery on Monday. We sat on a wall and talked about everyday, mundane things. And I wish, I really do, that we'd left it at that. And then I wouldn't be feeling bitter and disillusioned and betrayed. Somehow, the Pseudo-Messiah worked his way into our conversation. Keith said that he was on his way to see him.

'I didn't realize you were having anything more to do with him.'

He looked perplexed. 'Why on earth would I not want anything more to do with him.'

'But you know what he did to me and you and I are supposed to be friends. How can you choose him over me? After what he did?'

A string of meaningless platitudes spewed from his filthy, traitorous mouth. 'You must forgive..It is the Christian thing to do.' And worst of all, 'What he did wasn't that bad.'

This is when I exploded. 'How do you know? You weren't there.'

He turned away, avoiding my eyes and then I knew. 'You were there, weren't you?' He had seen what had happened and had failed to intervene. And such a coward does not deserve to walk the earth.

It was then that I wished I were able to get my hands on an AK47.

Passivity

WMN
Originally uploaded by rielouise.

Is this how you'd like me to be?

The Performance

Enigmatic
Melodramatic
She strides across the stage
Her stage is her room
The room is the stage

Her chamber
Peppered with papers
Unused
Running around her room
Screaming, fists pounding in her head
Teeth grating in her skull

Hissing:
'He's a monster.'
Onlookers stare so hard
Their eyeballs
Are in danger of dropping out
They are assessing her
Flipping through
Her verbal photograph album

How far did he really go?
Did she exaggerate her childhood traumas
Simply to justify her neuroses?
Did she force the razor deeper into her bones
Was she ever really there?
Or did she manufacture her own past
Making significance out of superficiality

She tells the audience
that she remembers
One minute
She could be
laughing carefree
down by the beach
The next
She is in the midst
Of civil war

Father is the enemy
Mother urging her to
Absent herself
Words captured in shrieks
Let the onlookers in

Listen to Mother, he whispered softly
I inserted myself between them
My that only made him hit her harder
Nobody heard, nobody heard
And yet we live in a ground floor flat
I tried to tug her hand
But she wouldn't come, she wouldn't come
What was wrong with you mother,
Did you enjoy it?

defenseless now
As she was then
But the onlookers see
A fledgling psychopath
Well versed in adversaries psychiatry

In they march
with all the subtlety
of an invading and marauding army

The Wolf at the Door

I have 65p to my name (excluding credit cards and overdraft).

A guy huddling outside the Co-Op wrapped in a blanket said: 'Got any change, love?'

I looked at him and said: 'Mate, change is all I have.'

Doug gave me the thirty pounds I needed to get my computer fixed. Bella the Cat looked at me reproachfully when I left the notes on the bedside table. She knows what is going on. I turned and met her glittering green eyes. 'Yes, I know,' I say. 'But the wolf is at the door. He is growling and snarling and is fiercer than ever before. He is bigger than both of us and, as you are the smallest, you will be the first to be consumed. That's reality and it's brutal. It's razor sharp and that is why I seek almost constant refuge in sleep.'

'You see, Bella, you just don't understand how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning (see girl - and I don't feel like a woman, never have done, never will do - degenerate into self-pitying lump of useless jelly). Hostile faces surround me when I leave my refuge - it's like living in a forest of cacti. People are so rude here. They display no affection, no warmth, 'Gee, you British are so uptight,' a disillusioned American student over here on his gap year once complained to me.

'I'm right with you there, mate.' I should have asked him to pack me in his suitcase when he eventually returned to the good old U.S. of A!