The Magician, Her Hat, Tea Leaves, And The Shadow of Byker Wall

A post about the reading of tea leaves.  This is the fourth and final post of short pieces that were written in Writers' Cafe sessions this week.

Personally I don't believe in the power of the tea.  I believe in the power of the reader of the tea.  Not to read the tea of course.  But to see into a situation and form ideas and pictures based on that situation and upon human psychological skills to instinctively see or cognitively analyse and comment based on what's in a person's head rather than what's left in their tea cup.  I believe the same about other methods of divination and analysis too, from palmistry to tarot to numerology and the roll of dice.  Feel free to disagree and ascribe power to lines and cards and leaves or to a mystical, prophetic guide who places the leaves and cards in the right order for a situation.

I've been to a place sometimes and we've drawn cards to represent our lives.  Everyone goes "Wow!" at the interpretations given.  The next week we're there again.  We draw different cards.  Everyone goes "Wow!" again.

Have all of our lives changed so drastically in the course of a week?  I don't think so.

Divination, I believe, teaches us of ourselves.  It can be useful - or it can be dangerous.  Sometimes it's just a bit of fun.  And on occasion, a rarity, it can be a writing prompt.

So it was at the Writers' Cafe.  Each of us had our tea leaves read.  With mint tea because the leaves were more varied than those of the tea tea in the cafe.  The woman who runs the group read us.

Here's my cup.  I ask you.  What do you see?  A friend just saw a cup that needed cleaning.  Another friend saw Jesus - but she is a Carmelite lay sister so she sees Jesus in many things.

Our group leader saw a magician with a wand.  She decided that the magician had lost her hat.  She said other things too but as a writing prompt the magician appealed.  Can you see too?

Here's the writing, the same words as were freely written in not many minutes at the end of our session.  I gave myself a D minus for it.  People seemed to like it though.  That, I suppose, is magic.

Byker, for those who don't know, is a district in Newcastle Upon Tyne.  A children's programme was set there but not filmed there.

Byker has a wall.  The wall contains 620 flats and homes and encloses the Byker Wall estate.  The whole place is architecturally famous and is now Grade II listed.  Fame doesn't imply beauty of course.  Some very ugly places are listed.

Some will speak of the estate in terms that say "Abandon hope all ye who enter" and imply that just walking into that estate will lead to a consequence somewhere between losing your possessions and losing your life.  Others speak of the estate in terms that say "I really like it here.  There's an amazing community and loads of artists."  I find I have friends there.  It's not a rich estate.  The millionaires live in other parts of the city.  And it's had its problems.  Every impoverished city estate does.  We were told when moving to the city, "Don't, whatever you do, move to Byker."  We were taught to fear a dangerous ghetto behind the Wall.  It must be admitted that crime levels in Byker are higher than those where I currently live.  The crime map for that area has more than twice as many reported crimes as the map for this area.  But most people of course are just getting on with their lives.  And there are loads of good people in the area too.  Yes, including artists.  Including friends.

It took me six years to enter the estate.  And at that moment I fell in love.

The magician lost her hat.
But somewhere, under the shadow of Byker Wall,
Her magic will be returned to her.
In the Wall is life.  In the wall is death.
In the Wall the elemental gods play together.

Under green wood and rainbow rooftops,
Among addictions and artists,
Within the underclass and dispossessed -
The purest of humanity.
Above Tyne waters returning to ocean,
Full-felt, full-flung source of Poseidon's blessings.

Through sacred seclusion, close community,
The magician will not find her old hat.
But she'll weave, spin, breathe a hat
Fine enough that the original may be gladly forgotten.

Replaced, reborn under Byker Wall,
The magician will learn to speak.
In the new beginning was her Word.

The Remains of the Life. Mister Cohen's Attic

This is the second of four short pieces written quickly in writers' groups this week.  This one finished in a completely different place than I thought it would.  It was all going so well.  Until that sudden change of direction that took it into a place I didn't particularly want to be.  You will see what I mean.

The line structure is as it is for one reason only:  I was writing on the right-hand third of a sheet of paper having filled the left-hand two thirds with the poem I posted yesterday.

Tomorrow I'll post the first of two pieces from the writers' group the following day.  The prompt given for that related to the origin stories of different types of tea.  I didn't stay within that box.  At the Writers' Cafe we're very good at leaving boxes behind and just seeing where the words carry us.  Every time there's something produced that leaves me in awe.

After the auction of the house
Of the late Mister Cohen
I found his forgotten family waste
In the loft of my new home.

Three torn cookery books.
A broken framed, scratched photo
Portrait of an unknown soldier.
Worthless antiques.
A pair of porcelain potties.
Souvenirs of holidays in Taunton.
Silver plate spoons.  Half a set.
Tarnished beyond hope.
Moth-eaten wedding dress,
Once white, once born of love.

He left me newspapers:
Bundled.  1960s Daily Mails.
A Victorian taxidermy display
Of birds.  Decayed, under broken glass.

And in the locked chest
I had to break, forced by chisel
I found my prize.

Coins.  Stamps.
And a collection of Herr Cohen's love letters.
Each one from the Fuhrer himself.
Each one sealed with his kiss.

The Came From Darkness - Creatures In The Attic

I've enjoyed being with creative people in different groups this week.  On both Tuesday and Wednesday morning I was able to attend The Writers' Cafe.  Both occasions were a joy.  It's great to meet with the people there; to chat and to write.  It's great to be among people who are enthusiastic for the process of writing and who encourage each other in that process.  It's great to get feedback.  And it's great to hear the wide range of work we come up with, quickly written, from the various writing prompts.

Each session is themed and during our time together we will write from one or two prompts.  This week has given me four short pieces of writing.  Today I'm going to post the first of these.  Our topic was attics.  This remained the theme for the second piece.  I have homework to write about a cellar and a discovered place.  My confession is that I haven't done my homework yet even though the idea for what I will writer was already there in my head on Tuesday in the group.

Today I've spent the day with my little autistic theatre group.  Those people are great.  The radio play I've written there is complete with the exception of sorting out the files for sound effects and background music.  I've found it all but haven't been disciplined enough to download and convert it all.  Some more homework.

Here then is the first little piece from The Writers' Cafe this week.  In many ways it's the weakest of the four.  It needs more detail and perhaps one day it'll get it.  For now though here are the words, as free written in the session.  They're in 5-7-5 syllable structure, like haiku but not true traditional haiku themes or image structure.

Image from here.

They came from darkness.

Grinning yellow teeth; grey eyes.

Whispered sour nothings.

They came from darkness.

Slow descent of attic stairs,

Torn clothes, dead scarred chests.

They came from darkness.

Fingers: Beckoning.  "Join us.

Cursed, But not alone."

They came from darkness.

With one flick of loft light switch

They vanished from sight.

Glaring, naked bulb

Shone through my fierce fear haunting

Revealed only dust.

Later, I upstairs

Explored the memory space.

Boxes of other lives.

In the light, safety.

I smiled.  Relieved.  Began to laugh.

Then, they laughed with me.

The light dimmed to black.

Hands.  Breath.  My body held.  Squeezed.

They came from darkness.

The Lament of Asherah, Creation Goddess, Bride of Yahweh

A lament from Asherah, bride of Yahweh.  Free-written in a writing group in a Newcastle cafe on June 13th.  Do any of you wish to follow her call?

Image saved from https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/381046818447394805/

I am the forgotten one.
I am the one who walks in the fields;
Leaving behind her the trails of trees,
Creating the life-springs, homes for my birds,
The smile sanctuaries of squirrels and sloths.
I am the springer of springs,
The overflow of life in a thousand rivers
And a billion glasses of iconic crystal clarity.

I am the forgotten one.
I am the obscurity who once was worshipped.
Where people sheltered under my shade protection
They now strike me down in rain-forest deaths.
I am still here: Earth protector, restorer,
The pattern for the turning of worlds.

I am the forgotten one.
I am your Asherah, the rejected goddess,
The impulse of compassion lingering in the
Religions of men.  Monotonal without my feminine.
I'm Diana, Luna, I ride the fire as Hecate,
Waltz as Demeter, and I sprinkle wisdom dew
Each morning, longing to hear again the name
Of Astarte or Isis on the lips of the bold.

I am the forgotten one.
I am the one whose altars were destroyed in hate
By those who replaced my free spirit
With a god they could only present as jealous.
The religious slaughtered me through time and space
Breaking themselves apart in the killing
I wept for the sons of men but they beheld
Only a manly touch in the spreading of rainbows.


I am the forgotten one.
I wait for you, my child, my lover
To embrace my joy, cherish your footprints
And rest again under the holy greenwood tree.

My Transgender Coming Out Story - A Tale of Difficulties and Deep Joy

So this is me.  Or one version of me.  A selfie taken a few days ago in a moment of deep joy and contentment at the top of a hill not too many miles from home.  I share it because it's where my story is right now, four years after coming out as a transgender woman.  There I am.  Just me.  In what is one of the stranger pictures.  You won't see many selfies of a transgender woman in a post about being transgender that look quite like this one.  Welcome to my reality.  I like it.  Especially when I'm being a little more crazy or weird than usual.

I just read an article about what one person has learned coming out as a non-binary trans person at the age of 43. After 100 days they say they did everything too fast. Their experiences are those of one person.  It is their truth.

My experiences and truth are also those of one person. They're bound to be a little different because I'm a woman, pure and simple, and about as far from non-binary as any woman gets. The article got me thinking about my own transgender life and the way I came out to the world and began to live publicly as a woman.

Here's a little of my experience. Just one woman trying to navigate her way into her truth. I've free written what follows and haven't edited at all.  Any mistakes are my own.

I came out to myself in a way I couldn't ever deny again at the age of 43. 43 years to get to that point. From then on things moved quickly.

2 weeks on: I dressed solely in women's clothes. Except when preaching. Not publicly in skirts and dresses. Not yet. But solely in woman's clothes I'd bought for myself via the miracle of very cheap charity shops. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Everything was a matter of experimentation and sometimes I got it very wrong and nobody told me quickly enough before I had a chance to inflict my lack of dress sense on the world.

4 weeks on: I had told pretty much everyone that I was now Clare. The church leaders panicked about how to tell everyone and that delayed legal changes and the whole process. Most people were okay about it. Some people rejected me. Some people told me at length how staggeringly wonderful they were to not totally reject me. Gee, thanks!

8 weeks on: Having sorted things out with the church and had a ten day holiday as Clare (during which time my transition was officially announced to the congregation) I got round to legally changing my name. Much paperwork. Some people change their name quite often. They must love paperwork.

I was that (appearing to the world) 40 something man in a frock. Dark shadows of stubble. No make up. No hair removal. Hair that I'd cut short a few weeks before coming out. Totally, completely obvious. I was yet to meet anyone from Tyne Trans (as was). I had asked the GP to refer me to the gender dysphoria service – 27 days after coming out to myself, half of which was waiting for the appointment! - but my first appointment wasn't until three and a half months after signing that deed poll. To all intents and purposes anyone who saw me in the street would have clocked me as a cross dressing man not as a woman determined to be herself.

And sometimes, unsurprisingly, the world made things bloody difficult. Bloody difficult. Transphobia is real. If I had phoned the police every time I experienced it I would have been phoning a lot. Every. Single. Day. At times it was horrible. Truly horrible. And I was one of the more fortunate ones. Others have suffered a hell of a lot more than me after coming out. Every one of them is amazing for getting through that hell. When people quote the suicide and attempted suicide rate for transgender people I can only wonder why it isn't higher. For the record, in the UK nearly half of all transgender people have attempted suicide.

Four years have passed since I came out and demanded to be called Clare and she. Woe to anyone who deliberately calls me he or protests that they don't see an issue with it if I get misgendered or who tells me it's too hard to remember that I'm female and so would like to be addressed as female. Fortunately that doesn't happen much now – and most people I see never knew me as he. Yes, pretty much my entire life, excepting family, is filled with people I didn't know four years ago.

I've learned a lot in those four years.

Would I do it again? Come out like that?

You bet I would. Except I'd have done it quicker.

And I wouldn't allow a religion to delay anything. I truly wish I'd come out to the church in the middle of a sermon I preached. It was very tempting indeed and I wish I'd done it. After coming out I was told that it would be "inappropriate" for me to preach or lead anything in case "anyone is ever worried." All the confusion. All the having to meet with diocesan pastoral advisors and so on. Just so I could be banned and yet find that the congregation itself was supportive. Yeah, I wish I hadn't let the panicking of the CofE delay me for one second.

If I knew now what I knew then I wouldn't have been so afraid. And to be honest I spent the entirety of those 8 weeks in a state in which my great joy at accepting myself was mixed with an immense amount of terror. Some days I didn't know whether I could do it and without my immediate family and the support of another church - Northern Lights MCC - I might have taken longer about the whole thing.

If I knew now, there would have been less fear. And I would have reached that deed poll milestone quicker.

I have regrets. I shouldn't. Because what's the point? I might as well regret not coming out when I was at college – and I was thinking only this morning of a couple of times the truth was very close to the surface in my mind and how things could have been different if I'd only chosen to speak one sentence differently. I might as well regret my A level choices or giving up the violin when I was nine or anything else that I can't change. Maybe they're not regrets. And each one led in some way to my life being as it is.

But I'd certainly change some parts of the coming out process if I had the chance. Not just the CofE thing.

I regret not telling my online world en masse rather than having to pluck up courage - through terror, always through terror - to tell people one at a time. I'm grateful my mum accidentally outed me to some people, after which I just said "To hell with it" and told the rest.

I regret that my Facebook account is not the one I had under my old name. There were many years of history on that old account and I wish I'd kept it back than and closed this one. The account is still there. With no friends. My old name isn't even friends with my new name.

I regret how defensive I've been about the whole trans thing and how much of that arose from fear and an expectation, borne of 43 years of self rejection and self hatred, that many people who reject and hate me too. I guess most people who come out can got through an over-defensive time arising from that same fear. Bear with us, we get over it – just don't expect us to ever give way to prejudice. We won't.

But these regrets and others are only little compared to the satisfaction and life-changing wonder of coming out at all, of acceptance. It's not just that I'm happier as Clare, more content, and so on. My life has been completely changed in many ways that wouldn't have been possible probably had I not done this. Or if possible, very unlikely.

I have met so many amazing people I wouldn't have met otherwise - including many of you. I've been so blessed. And I meet many more amazing people every time I uncover a little more of myself – this transgender, autistic, creative, weirdly spiritual, nature loving woman.

I've done amazing things too. In my own way. And being Clare has allowed me to start to work through other aspects of my life and being and slowly begin to heal and allow myself to be me.

Without coming out I don't think I'd have been able to accept being autistic. I don't think I'd be exploring creativity as I am. I wouldn't have encountered Broadacre House, wouldn't have completely transformed my faith and spiritual life - and I don't think I'd ever have found the freedom to leave church and start to find my own path again.

Yes. It's been bloody difficult. And there have been lots of difficult things in the past four years. Autism - yeah, that's been tougher than being transgender in very many ways. I've cried. Lots. I've been rejected by some. I've been labelled an abomination by my own church pastor (not the CofE or MCC one). My mental health, while generally much improved, continues to be a minefield just as it always has.

But it's been worth it.

Fabulously, profoundly, superbly worth it.

And I look forward to my future as Clare, as the person I'm discovering myself to be. I am excited for my future. Excited to meet more amazing people and do more amazing (for me) things. Excited because there always seems to be a new surprise when you allow the surprises and give them permission to bring change.

I'm typing all this in my bedroom. Nearly everything in here isn't just something I didn't own before coming out. It's something I wouldn't have considered owning at all. Not just the obvious clothes. But soft toys, my books, the purple Buddha on the wall, that whisk over there that doubles as a head massager (buying it was hilarious), precious things from autism conferences, poetry books, writing books, the meditation material on the bed, precious items from Manchester, even a series of books called Skulduggery Pleasant. I wouldn't have read those if I hadn't come out.  I look at this room and know that my life is almost infinitely better for coming out.

My life is very much not as I would have expected it to be. And the changes just keep happening.  There are more on the way that I know about.  And there will be more surprises too.

I give thanks for Clare.

In ten days time I will give thanks again. For it will be the fourth anniversary of the night I looked at myself in a mirror, fully dressed as myself without guilt for the first time in my life, and greeted myself as Clare for the first time. Welcomed myself into the world.

NaPoWriMo Day 20: The Atari Relationship. Or How You Destroyed Me

National Poetry Writing Month Day 20 - Written on Day 21.

I'm catching up a day.  It'll take a lot if I'm going to catch up on all the other days I missed.  The day 20 prompt was to write a poem incorporating the vocabulary or imagery of a game.

Because that was challenging enough already I challenged myself more.  I chose a game that I have never played.  I chose a game for which I don't know the rules.

Why didn't I just stick to something I know well like chess?  Or say that Sudoku isn't a puzzle - it's a brain game?  No, not me.  I have to pick on a game I don't know.  A game containing lots of vocabulary that almost nobody would understand if I incorporated it.  Do you know about semeai, tesuji and miai?  Perhaps you do if you happen to know how to play Go.

I wrote something though.  Based on the one word - apart from Go - that I know from the game of Go.  That word is atari - a position in which your stone or group has one remaining move.  You have to take it but after that you will be captured.  If you're in atari you've lost - or at least lost that part of the game.

Picture taken from a BBC report here about an AI program beating the European Go champion.  That only happened last year - compare that with how long ago it was the AIs started beating grand masters at chess.

The game of Go does appeal to me in many ways.  There's no luck involved.  The rules are very simple.  The tactics are highly complex.  It seems a very elegant game, a lot more so than chess.  Perhaps one day I'll learn it.  Perhaps too one day I'll return to chess.  I was never great at chess but I was okay and for a while improved quickly in my use of forks, skewers and such skills.

Atari

You said it was just a game.
Told me we'd just play together
In black and white simplicity.

We danced apart, eyed each other
Our lines not yet intersecting.
Eventually, inevitably, we met.
Lives colliding on points as
Possible turned to impossible.
I didn't see your truth. Only your beauty,
The way your flame lit every room.

Your smile near satanic, you showed false eyes.
Laughed hideously as I was forced
To climb that first ladder, pushed aside
Into a corner where you broke a piece from me.

I built walls. You cut them down.
I sought escape. You captured me.
You pushed, squeezed, attacked,
Never sacrificed the smallest territory.
I kept wanting to believe your promises.
Wouldn't leave the game. Couldn't leave go.

It's almost over now. Knife to my throat.
Gun to my heart. Just one move to make.
I want to run. There is no field left.
Not even a hole to hide, cowering alone.
One move. Between survival and annihilation.
One last stone to place. All options gone.
Liberty stolen. Manipulated, massacred me.

You look at me and grin, softly coax me
And even now I want to believe.
You love me. You just want to play.
I place the stone. Plead with you to stop.
You, triumphantly howling, make your move.
The ground of battle reverberates hollow.
As you break me one final time.

NaPoWriMo Day 21: The Man Who Met Bob Down The Old Yard

It's day twenty-one of National Poetry Writing Month.

A quickish effort this morning in haiku metre, finished just in time to get to a doctor's appointment about my mental health.

The poem is about something my dad used to say.  If he ever said it.  I know we believed he said it.  Here's a photo of my dad taken forty years ago on the occasion our car ate him.

My dad used to say

“I met Bob down the old yard,

Ya know.” Every night.

My brother and I

Listened to that mystery.

We'd make up stories.

Bob became great guru,

Enlightening the people:

Crawley's peacemaker.

Or he was monster.

Boogieman haunting our dreams,

Spoken in hushed tones.

Sometimes he was normal.

Just a co-worker, mechanic,

Technical wizard.

What of the old yard?

Hidden in unknown places

Dad never showed us.

Far too dangerous:

It's where shady deals happened

Smuggling screws, solder.

The forgotten field

Where old machines go to rust

Sharing their stories.

The killing field

Where students who failed exams

Were all executed.

Years later. We asked him.

Who's Bob? Where is that old yard?

Why did you meet there?

A blank expression.

There was no Bob. No old yard.

No dinnertime news.

Self deluded feat:

Though we heard his words each night

We invented them.

Now, perpetrating

A deliberate delusion,

I've led you astray.

There were no stories

No wild child imaginings.

We just laughed at Bob.

Countless meals at table,

Half-listening to parents

We'd made up the words.

Or was dad lying?

Bill Walker was invented.

Too. Then I met him.

NaPoWriMo Day 11 - The Shaman and the Jackdaws

A response to a prompt given on day eleven of National Poetry Writing Month.

For various reasons and various excuses I'm not keeping up well with the month.

I am not telling you how much or how little of this happened to me.  I will just say that my Twitter name, Seren Ravenlight, is there for a reason.

Picture by Claudia Wascher, taken from here.

In speaking, the shaman revealed my gift:

A raven guide. Ride Morrigan's warrior waves,

Find Freya, feast in her harshest heavenlies.

Walk in your goddess vulnerability, barefoot on glass shards.

The medicine woman smiled, endorsed my gift,

Held me in her cold, naked embrace,

Pierced my depths with sharp sawn fingers,

Bid me to dream-sight through eternal darkness.

Then, shaking her robes, she left me.

Presently I slept, heard heaven's laughter

As if God rebuked my false-lived treachery.

Heaven, near destitute, was missing a raven.

Near despair, I was granted only jackdaws.

Watching, all sides surrounded. Waiting,

Bowed heads, lifted wings. I lay uncovered,

Flesh, bone, sinew, heart, each poison pierced

By corvid sight, all disordered secrets laid bare.

A bell. A silent voice commanded respect.

The seven turned away. The three walked on me.

Claws tearing flesh, a blood soaked cleansing.

Each talon ripped my marrow sin, my stained glass sorrows.

The one wrapped its wings, enveloped my penis,

Protecting my sex, singing spirit's acceptance.

The four pierced palms and feet, crucified me,

Granted free life through my Christly death.

And the two pecked our my eyes, swallowed short sightedness

Before shredding my coarse, arrogant mind.

NaPoWriMo Day 7 - Two Poems About Witnessing Swarms

Two poems for National Poetry Writing Month, day seven.

Both based loosely on the same prompt - taken by the prompt author from a blog she kept for a year which is massively worth looking at if you want some interesting writing prompts to work with.  There are 365 of them which is enough to keep anyone busy for a while.

One poem is autobiography.  Apart from some changes.  I am very fortunate in that I don't have to worry so much about the near future.  Very fortunate that I know I'll have food next week without relying on the wonderful work done by food banks.  Fortunate that my cash isn't going to run out.  Others receiving a similar result and possibly going through some of the same difficulties I encounter may not be so fortunate.  I'm screwed by the system.  They are well passed being screwed and into a realm where adequate words are hard to find.

The tribunal was real though, as was the result.  Apologies for the language in it - it's all from the heart.

The other poem is not autobiography.

The two photographs were taken December 2016 in Manchester's Northern Quarter.

Day 7. Witnessing a swarm.

In this case, the swarm of thoughts in my head after a benefits tribunal this morning. (Kind of - I'm far less worried than these lines would suggest.) It's not great writing. It's a swarm. Dumped almost verbatim.

Christ, what am I going to do?

What the hell were they thinking?

Why didn't they listen?

I'm an idiot, couldn't explain.

Couldn't get my words out -

Just nodded my head in understanding

When I didn't have a bloody clue

What any of them were on about.

I couldn't process it, needed it written.

And they kept talking, words, I think.

English words. But not to my brain

Could have been Spanish, or alien invader.

Or the nonsense of some failed Pentecostal tongue.

I wouldn't have known. And they think I did.

I know I'm not alone among

The recently dispossessed masses,

The despairing disabled, their support stolen.

But how the hell is that thought

Going to help me when my cash runs out?

Oh God, help me, perhaps only you can.

And posh people say to use a food bank.

Tell me it's some idyllic panacea,

Luxury living, permanent five star cruise.

Be humble enough to be a charity case.

“Pop along there woman. You'll be fine.”

And I would. I got no pride to lose

I'd be gladly grateful for the help.

But didn't they listen when I told them

My head explodes and implodes

Simultaneously, whenever I think about food.

And twelve times a day besides.

Didn't understand when I tried to express

How solidly screwed I can be

In a hundred different ways.

If only some of them matched up

With the holes in my D.I.Y. life project.

So they cast me out on my ass

Disabled. But not quite enough.

Can we impeach the whole bloody government

For this? For the rest too?

I didn't vote for them. And Mistress May, dominatrix,

Sits there talking of protecting the vulnerable

While taking more cash, more bloody influence

For the greed of her Satanic comrades.

Our leader, claiming Christianity as her inspiration

Watches as the great Sermon on The Mount

Is trampled, torn, burned, and forgotten.

As for the likes of us blessed poor,

We can't tear and burn Parliament.

We can't even be sure of our next meal.

This was the day the Tories fucked me over.

Christ, what am I going to do?

Day 7b:  Witness To The Swarm

Screaming.

Get 'em off me

They're everywhere

Can't        breathe

Jackie! Get in here.

No.           Don't.

Stay away

It hurts.

They hurt.

Noises

As glass bottles

Shatter on the floor

As I hear her flail

Arms on shelves

Legs beating

Into furniture.

Strangled shouts

Three points past panic

Why couldn't you

Have closed the window?

You've             killed me.

Door unlocked. I walked in. Her fear was real. The object of her fear too. A queen wasp on bathroom window. Low, mean buzzing. She pushed me out. Told me it was for my own good. Told me one of us should live. I returned as soon as I could. Rolled up newspaper in hand. Smashed the bastard as hard as I could.

In relieved realisation she fell to the floor, knee cut on the glass.

Until she ceased to weep I held her.

NaPoWriMo Day 5b: Tank On A Hill. Market Lavington, Wiltshire

The official National Poetry Writing Month prompt for day five was to write a poem based in the natural world.  Preferable a part of it that the writer has experienced often.  An idea formed in my head for this.  A view that I saw many times throughout my childhood and my adult life too.  There was a lot of natural - and cultivated - material in that view.

But my mind's eye focused on one point in that view.  And the idea had to change.

The Tank

Cross Lavington valley

Eyes lifted to plain's edge.

Borderland of war games.

Again, our laughter: Full-groan

At an old familiar joke.

“I can see a tank, can you?”

We were safe in humour,

Knitting our family with

Threads of shared stories.

Thirty well-lived years of

Custard crumble, garden golf,

Of smiles poured from that first teapot.

Of a choice of two unchanged

Walks to village store past

Recollections of the Noddy house,

Comments of kingfishers and

Staring again at the bubbling kettle

And then the child angel in the graveyard.

All a little older. But still the same.

Then, the death of the favoured uncle.

The world shivered, became less safe

Without his smiled acceptance.

That was the year they removed

The water tank from the hill.

The joke passed away too into memory.

Only the angel remains now.

Watcher over that which was lost.

There's truth in the above.  Also a bit of fiction and a bit of truth bending.  Much still remains - the favoured aunt is there and if I manage to visit there will probably be custard and crumble.  The bubbling kettle will still be there too and the walks into the village from her home on the hill.  For anyone wondering, there's a YouTube video of the bubbling kettle, posted by lavingtoncurator.  Posted therefore by the favoured uncle.  Or possibly the favoured aunt.  You may not be excited by this.

As for the Noddy House, that was demolished in 1984.  The favoured uncle wrote something about it here:  https://marketlavingtonmuseum.wordpress.com/tag/tudor/  I entered it once as a child when it was empty and probably not long before it was demolished.

The child angel is in St. Mary's churchyard in Market Lavington.  On many visits to the village photographs would be taken with the angel.  Here, last year, are my two soft toy friends enjoying the angel's company.

NaPoWriMo Day 5 - They Danced, They Died. Hallelujah! I'm No Dancer.

For day five of National Poetry Writing month one of the prompts was based around a tragedy that took place in Boston in 1925.  The ceiling of a dance club collapsed and forty-four people died.  I wrote a not very good poem before getting out this morning in which someone is pleased to see God's will being done.  Reading later I found that there were preachers who had said such things - just as there are preachers after every tragedy talking about God's will.  It's awful that some have such a view of a God who is meant to be love.

And then I happened upon a long hymn.  And realised it is in a book that still adorns my shelves.  I wrote this before rushing out of the house to go and write some more:

In my Catholic days I was a big fan of Saint Louis-Marie Grignon de Monfort, author of True Devotion to Mary, Secret of the Rosary, and many other works. I made the act of total consecration according to his way of doing things. I hold very different beliefs now but still have his complete works on my shelves, books that are a part of my history.

I wrote the following lines this morning and then looked up to see if anyone actually said things like this. There were Christians of the day denouncing jazz. Of course there were, and evangelicalism and fundamentalism were on the rise in the US. The papers and tracts called “The Fundamentals” from where we get the word fundamentalism were published the previous decade. In my fundamentalist Protestant days I owned them too.

I quickly found a hymn by Louis-Marie, reproduced on a Catholic forum I used to be an part of. No, you can't have my forum name! Here's the penultimate verse of his poetry:

God often severely punishes
Dancers with sudden death,
In a moment vomiting
Their accursed souls.
From balls and games,
Suddenly they fall into hell.

The full thirty-eight verse song can be found at http://forums.avemariaradio.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=159277

Yeah, I'm God obsessed. Give me another ten years and I might have worked the scars of my versions of faith out of my flesh.

I'm not sure Louis-Marie would be very impressed by the music and dance events held at St. Dominic's RC Church centre in Newcastle. I'm not impressed by these lines. Head struggling again so I've constrained myself to 5 syllable lines for no apparent reason!

Today I will dance

With King David's joy.

Yahweh has spoken.

My God has judged them.

They will dance no more

To vulgarity of jazz.

Love of the Charleston

Sent them all to hell

Crushed by sinfulness.

God damned the Pickwick.

Judgement on evil:

Swift, sure, certainty.

And I watched, laughing

As he completed

Purifying work.

Forty-four lay crushed

Their unrolled stockings

Testified to guilt.

Erotically

They writhed. Bodies

Serpent contorted.

Righteousness triumphs.

Their flesh is broken

As hearts never were.

God granted them grace

Warned them fair by fire.

They wouldn't listen.

Three months to turn back

From their speakeasy

To God's easy speech.

Their fault. Their deaths, just

Like the club ceiling,

Are on their own heads.

I never entered

What man could resist

Dancing straight to Hell?

Fallen to foul sex

Short skirts can only

Be temptation.

One step through the door

One sight of woman,

Her flesh uncovered

Would surely wrest me

From the bosom

Of my sweet Mary.

Jesus has spoken.

Please, will you listen?

He calls you to life.

Live in repentance:

His holiness makes

America great again.

My Tranquility, Overthrown by a Piercing Shout and a Recipe

It's the second day of National Poetry Writing Month.  A poem a day for a month.  I am dreading it!

I'm still ill.  Yesterday I couldn't focus on reading a prompt at all, let alone writing a poem.  Today I've made an attempt.  The official prompt was simply to write something inspired by a recipe.  Marie, who runs the Writers' Cafe here is also producing prompts for every day of the month but today I chose the official one.  Mainly because my processing skills weren't up to the unofficial prompt.

Writing very quickly this came out.  I'd apologise for the horrible word but we really did have this recipe and my mum cooked it frequently.  Those biscuits were gorgeous.  Just a shame about the name.

I have searched for a picture of the biscuits.  There were none.  Here instead is a picture of a cake cooked by my mum.  This one went a little bit wrong.  I think too of the time she used self raising flour instead of icing sugar.  And the memorable occasion when turmeric was replaced in a recipe by the same quantity of a hot chilli.

You too would not forget

If your tranquility was overthrown

By a piercing shout of

“Get the nignogs out of the oven.”

Nineteen eighty-one

Brixton was rioting

And deep-down we knew

It was wrong

To mould a dozen nignogs

Into acceptable form.

Baking them until their

Skin was crisp.

That's what the book called them.

Though we laughed at the name

We never thought to change

What was printed, black and white.

Didn't think it racist.

Not properly. It's just a name.

We thought we were free

From the ugly stains of hate.

And we were. Mostly.

At least, partly.

When it came to nignogs,

All we cared about

Was the way that crisp shell

Would break into softly hidden joys.

Sugary oats, magically transmogrified

Into biscuits: Pale, not black beauties.

And our own sensory satisfaction

Purged what we knew of justice.

Until the shout.

My mother on the doorstep

Deeply held in agreeable conversation

With a family from our street.

Immigrants from South London estates.

From shock to shouting to shame.

To a change of name.

To an intentionally mislaid recipe book.

To flapjack friendships.

I am told that my own voice always comes through in my writing.  It's a compliment.  But it got me thinking about my voice.  I look at other people's poetry and I confess I sometimes compare.  I shouldn't, but I do.  They have so many interesting turns of phrase, use long words and imagery that I'm sure is rich.  I struggle with all of those.  As a writer but also as a listener.

I think it's because of the form my autism takes.  Verbal processing can be very hard work for me.  If you say something I have to put a lot of mental energy into understanding you.  And the more complicated it is the harder it is.

In addition, though I know autistic people are meant to be extremely visual people, in many ways I'm not.  We're all meant to be savants who can see a complex scene and draw it from memory.  We're meant to see all our thoughts and have an inner life of pictures.  That's the stereotype and there are autistic people for whom it's true.  I'm not one of them.  In other ways though I'm a bit stereotypical.  I'm not good at metaphor (unless I invent it) so if someone else uses metaphor it takes me time to work out that I'm not meant to be taking them literally.  I can be the same with idiom.  When the metaphor or idiom is unfamiliar it will take me a lot longer.

What that means in practice for performance poetry is that I very often can't keep up.  I just can't and it's possibly not a skill I will ever learn.  Use combinations of long words and I'm lost.  Use fantastic imagery and I'm lost.

If someone reads out their work I can still be trying to process the first line for meaning when they've finished their third line.  Their work might be worthy of a dozen literary awards.  But I'll have missed it.  I hate it that I miss so much of what people read.  Hate it that even if they repeated their performance I'd still miss it.  Unless I had the words before me and had been able to prepare in advance by reading it myself over and over again.

All of which means that part of what is "my voice" is a result of lacking in verbal processing skills.  My voice is simple.  It's often conversational.  It can be playful.  And it will never contain the word "terpsichorean" instead of "dancer".  In short, my written voice is often my spoken voice.  It is me and I don't know how to be another.  Nor do I want to.  Except somehow I'll have to of course when crafting these characters for the eventual novel or perhaps for future excursions into acting.

I write as I would speak it.  I write almost so I can speak it.  I did the same when preaching.  If I'd been ill and presented a fully written sermon to someone else to read out it would have sounded rubbish.  But when I read it the words became a lively language and people felt them.  I wonder if that'll be the case with poems too.

I can imagine the above in my voice.

But what if strangers read it?  What then?

Eyes That Follow You Round A Room - A Poem And A Prose Piece

A day for feeling mentally a little wrecked and I'm proud of myself because I made it to the Writers' Cafe this morning and managed not to walk out even though I was feeling totally nauseous with anxiety and for a while could hardly process verbal inputs among the noises from other parts of the cafe.  And the wallpaper?  Oh God the wallpaper.  I find it difficult on the best of days.  Today it came alive and at times engulfed my whole existence.

Our theme this morning was "Eyes That Follow You Round A Room" based on art work, John Berger and our own thoughts.  I wanted to get out of that place.  Instead I managed to write a few words.  The poem below.  And I had an idea, the first fruits of which are below in prose.  One scene out of what could be a larger tale.  I just free wrote it and the scene was not quite the one I'd had in my mind when I began.

The wall of wallpaper.  Someone CHOSE this paper.

The Joy of Painting

Alone unpainted.

Forced to bear my existence

Among silenced lives.

The don't speak to me.

Except to say their contentment

Is found on canvas.

In paint there's no pain.

Even the eyes of The Scream

Are calmer than my own.

Without words they call:

Join us.  Stretch yourself.  Bare flesh

and blood is your paint.

No walking future.

A blade is the artist's brush

Releasing my life.

In death I'll be preserved.

Freed into quiet.  Lifted high.

Held, framed on a wall.

The Faceless One

Having forced open the French window it was still difficult to climb inside, across a large desk and into Doctor Wilson's study.  On the way I knocked my knee hard into the window ledge, placed my hand down painfully onto something jagged, and knocked something heavy to the floor.  When it landed on the floor the thud sounded to me more like the chiming of the clock in St. Matthew's church down in the village square and I held myself motionless, hardly daring to breathe.  No lights were turned on though and I could hear nothing beyond the ambience of the night.

Once in the study I turned on my flashlight and found that the jagged item had been a crystal of some variety, purple and sharp.  I removed my glove to check my hand and was relieved to see that there was no blood.  Nevertheless I wiped down the crystal carefully.  The thud had been caused by a large paperweight.  I was only slightly shocked to see that the resin contained two human ears and a tongue.  I placed it carefully back on the desk hoping that I'd put it roughly where it had been before.  It wasn't what I had come for and it wouldn't do anyone any good were I to remove it.

I turned and scanned the study with my flashlight until the beam hit the bookcases on the other side of the room.  Somewhere among them was my prize.  I began to tiptoe towards the books, worried that each step would cause an almighty creak in the floorboards and the doctor would wake and discover me.  I didn't want to consider whether I might be able to talk my way out of the situation.  I doubted I could.

As I crept past a green leather sofa in the centre of the room I heard a squelching noise behind me.  Faint.  But definitely present.  I swung round and shone my light in the direction of the sound.  Nothing.  I was alone.  I scanned the room with the beam a few more times to make sure before turning back to my goal.  Two more steps.  The noise again.  I turned.  Was everything the same?  I thought so.  Something was making that noise though and my heart beat faster.  I knew I was beginning to sweat and hoped beyond hope that I could find the book and escape.  The doctor's study would be the worst place for a full blown panic attack.

I took deep breaths.  Willed myself to relax.  Told myself I was alone.  And then, I am almost ashamed to admit it, I crossed myself and said a prayer before heading with greater speed to the bookcases.  The squelch squelch began again and I tried to ignore it.  There's nothing there.  Nothing there.  Nothing there.  I tried to convince myself but in that situation I was the queen of sceptics.

I shone my flashlight across each shelf of books in turn.  Books of anatomy and physics were scattered among volumes of stage magic and actual magic and books of stories and poems by writers so obscure their names didn't even ring vague bells in my mind.  All the time the squelching.  Louder.  Closer.  Or was I imagining it?

I cursed my luck as I didn't find what I was seeking until the final shelf.  A precious book.  At least it was precious to me.  Because it had been mine.  I hadn't bought this book in a shop.  I had hand crafted each page, making the paper and the binding myself.  And I'd filled it with the results of my own researches.  Ten years of work distilled into one journal.  Stolen by Doctor Wilson.  The theft had taken place the previous year and it had taken this long to discover the perpetrator.  I hoped he hadn't been able to decode too many of my ciphered scratchings and drawings.

I hastily took the book and placed it into my bag.  Turning I saw a hint of movement on the dark floor.  The squelching stopped.  I shone my flashlight at the movement and there, in the middle of the floor, I saw two eyes.  Just eyes.  The eyeballs and connecting tissue that would normally hold an eye to a head.  No head.  No face.  No eyelids.  Just eyes.  Staring up at me.

I realised in that moment that the eyes had been following me round the room.  I realised too that Doctor Wilson's experiments had progressed further than I feared.  If he could remove a person's eyes and they could continue to live apart he had followed his science to a level I hadn't dreamed.  Perhaps I could help.  Rescue these instruments of vision.  Perhaps even one day locate the face they had been cut from and restore them.  Maybe I could find a way to communicate with an eye and it would help me find its true home.

Without a further thought I picked up the two eyes and placed them in my bag with my journal.  Thought could wait until I was standing in a place safer than the doctor's study.  I climbed back across the desk and out of the window, sliding it closed behind me.

And then I ran, putting as much distance as I could between myself and the night.

In A Time Of Illness The Blank Page Laughs At Me

Still ill.  I managed to get out on Friday and had a good time.  Then I sank again.  Yesterday was pretty rubbish.  I couldn't write a thing.  Today is looking like it won't be that much better.  By last night I was feverish for the first time in quite a while.  Mostly if I'm feeling rough and take my temperature the thermometer informs me that I am below average.  If I reach 36.5C it's a rarity.  If I hit that benchmark 36.8C it's front page news.  Last night I was way above that.  A proper fever.  Woo hoo!

I'm hoping to be able to write today.  I have a talk to write and the second half of that fortune cookie story.  And I was hoping to write a poem for a performance workshop today.  As it turns out I almost certainly won't be there and that's a sadness for me.

But there is this.  Written just now.  And published slightly later than I normally post these things.  Going away and then getting ill has stolen away any current hope of writing my posts a few days in advance.  I guess I'll get it back.  Just not today.

Blank page image from here.

Through black, blear eyes
I stare at an empty page.
It taunts me, jeers, tells me I am rubbish
For not being able to hold a pen
And make meaningful marks.
Each line shouting too loud
That it's not worthwhile me trying;
That nothing I could possibly say
Would be sufficient.
Each line a blank whiteness
An infinite possibility
And I do not have the guts to limit it
To my possibility, my vision and voice.
The page remains empty.
I look down upon it
More lost than an insignificance
In an ocean of dead calms and fire storms.
I cannot do it, cannot bring myself
To make the first mark
Scar skin with surgeon scalpel precision
I condemn myself too
Belittle myself because yesterday
This page remained just a page
A wilderness snow out in a sixty pence pad
Bought on a desperate day when
The word and sanity went hand in hand.
Today I am not a writer, not fit to be wordsmith
Today I am frightened, fogged, and anxiety asks
Whether I will ever be able to write again
Whether it's unrealistic to walk the artist's path
Whether this day is a sign I should quit.
The page abuses me, breaks heart and mind
Tells me I would only spoil its perfection
With the addition of inky contrasts.
And yet ... and yet?
The page is filled, the words written, almost outside volition.
Dark frustrated pen scratches but they are life
At least, life as I must live it today.
No less worthwhile than any other day.
The page was wrong and this scrawl not be Chaucerian
But it is my truth, undeniably embraced.

On Commonwealth Day Britain Became The Ruler Of Nothing

A free written Facebook status update, morning of March 14th.  (Pi Day)

On Commonwealth Day

We celebrate how Britain

Took over half the world.

A coincidence?

On that day we passed a law

To cut ourselves off.

We fled from Europe.

Ran from our integration

In shared community.

Do we still believe

We have a God given right

To independence?

Does Westminster dream

Of our Empire past? The years

When we ruled the waves.

Hard Brexit or soft?

Let's hope it's a Kind Brexit,

Rich in compassion

For three million

Who now live in fear of us

And our Parliament.

On Commonwealth Day

I sigh to live in a land

Where wealth won't be shared.

Cry for broken dreams

Of full cooperation

With our neighbour states.

On Commonwealth Day

Britain decides to rule again.

Without free kindness.

On Commonwealth Day

The world is afraid of us

And I am ashamed.

March 14th. Morning. After the House of Lords gave up trying to amend the bill in Parliament so it would protect the three million EU citizens currently living in the UK. The Law will now be passed without those protections and the process of our leaving the EU will probably be triggered this week. This is Brexit. We had a vote. But how many of those who voted for leaving the EU wanted to be unkind about it? Hard or soft, I believe most Brexit voters want to be kind. Our government seems not to want kindness and only to railroad through their own monolithic idea of what form Brexit should take.

People didn't vote for that.

We've heard a lot about the three million. What of the one million? The UK citizens living in the EU. Does their future depend on how we choose to treat the EU citizens living here? Should they be living in fear too that their sunny life in Spain might be replaced with a flat in Scunthorpe?