Resolution Number 1 (Thanks to Spandau Ballet's Chant Number 1)

It is the last day of the holiday. It is the first day of a new tidier life. Today the study is to be attacked with venom, after I have been to the post office and taxed the car if I can find the documents that is. Already you say you can see me mid afternoon reading an old letter or an old poem; more likely to have abandoned the sorting regime for a numerical indexed computer base model; all my life soon to be on the mac air flash memory is the dream. But first a car, for without a car there is no work, and without work there is no disposable income (as the Americans say) to buy the aforesaid computer.

Sound of Music

Insecurity and insincerity stand side by side at the gatepost
The CD player's drawer will not open
Another nail in the mid life, late life, riseable crisis coffin
It doesn't amount to much does it
The result of a technical fault, combined with low blood sugar

Does anyone really believe or are they just words, for how long should the endurance be measured to satisfy the title of believer, thus to be endowed with the moniker of an altogether satisfactory chap
Not at all to my satisfaction, no news yet from the car insurance
A dull wet mist to look out on
Yet the beat from Jim Moray might beat me back to life, as might reading Alexandra Harris's book Romantic Moderns

A longer poem (or not)

It is a time of year when a working man such as myself finds the luxury of a few hours in which to play. This year I also had the unexpected surprise of youtube advising me that I was now privileged to be able to upload videos lasting longer than 15 minutes in length. The result is a recording of poetry written earlier in the year whilst I was working on secondment in Devon, returning home to Lincolnshire only at weekends. I specifically didn't title any of the poems at the time of writing with the intention that they would be at some time in the future be connected together. It is not a seamless integration but I hope it does move some way towards that longer poem that my tutor Mahendra Solanki said I ought to try and write.

Devon Revisited

The 729th Re-evaluation

Laughter, yes I remember laughter
& certainly vivacious
I could have taken her, there and then
& many, many times after
Even now
The sap occasionally rises

One wonders
With matters such as this
Whether time ought to be counted
In seconds and minutes
Or in days and weeks
Months and years

Whether events
Ought to be recollected
As full on factual truth
Or laid out, made more favourable
As a fictional representation

No doubt we are at a distance
Which may cloud objectivity
Yet I peruse, as darkness falls
Surely it is worthwhile to probe
The sources of our dreams
The meanings of our deviations

Happy Christmas

Only later did I read of his love of YKB

Instead I wrapped presents
Read a poem by Derek Jarman
…fucking, fucking, fucking

I came with nothing
I was given nothing;
given nothing, but
the tongue-tied gift of love

A clear September night
on a quiet hilltop
sat, counting the stars
with tear filled eyes
blurring the darkness

I go with nothing
I gave everything;
gave everything, except
the tongue-tied gift of love

…fucking, fucking, fucking
a poem from myself the poet –
she unwrapped presents instead