Fragmenting

My mother telephoned to say my aunt has cancer.  Something happened.  A few years ago.  A sorry, sordid little tale.  But she doesn't deserve that.  No one does.  Everything is fragmenting around me.  Even Nobby is fading away.  Enjoy what you can while you can.  Apologies for the incoherence.

I gave this poem to Nobby just after our beautiful neighbour Jo died:

And death shall have no dominion



And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

The Chattering Classes Go On...Well, Chattering

Another gem from the hideously parochial 'British Blogosphere':

The actor put in jail for downloading pornography has had his sentence cut and will be out later today. As Rachel has said just being in possession of things doesn't necessarily mean that you are wicked and vile and I would agree with her here.

http://henrynorthlondon.blogspot.com/2007/11/langham-freed.html

Mr. Langham's release will create an extra place in our prison system for that most dreaded of criminals: the Cyberstalker. Are these people for real? It works like this: without the demand there is less incentive to supply. It's not exactly rocket science and it certainly shouldn't be beyond the intellectual grasp of a former doctor.

The Abuse of the Word 'Abuse'

I was sorting through old usenet posts and I came across some very wise words from an old friend:

And I will say, about this monotonous repetition of the word ABUSE where it doesn't really apply:

-- If I feel I have been abused, it *may* indicate the other party acted abusively; or, it *may* be that I am so identified with my victimhood that I re-cast all problems I have in the present as reenactments of the abuse Iexperienced in the past.

-- Such wolf-crying of abuse is an insult to one's own experiences of abuse earlier in life, and to others' experiences of true abuse as well. It cheapens the truth and allows one to avoid the opportunity to grow out of victimhood here and now.

-- If I subjectively experienced a situation as abusive (eg, ase-d), and I voluntarily came back to it, who is the abuser now? And what evidence does this give of my miraculous recovery? The recovering people I know act very differently.

Oh, and I think I offended someone's patron saint. Oops.

Stepfather

I am merely an object moving through space
Out of place and lacking in grace and you begin
With a disclaimer. You tell me I am essential
But incomplete. You desecrate my disordered dreams
'Your mother is gone. She died in the night'
No one cried and then the great divide arrived
You only die once, after all. You move in on me
You disagree with my methodology. You disapprove
Of my every move. My words are unheard and undeterred
You detach me from all context and you begin,
Slowly and deliberately, to deconstruct me.

In Case..

you didn't know.

Into my thirties I go. My cat is growing old. She is dying. My father is growing old. He is dying. I am growing old. I am not dying. But the future is this great, terrifying, black abyss and I have no desire to step into it.

A nameless fear, a menacing fear. Its cause cannot be identified. I guess that's why they call it free-floating anxiety.