wendy house

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To laugh often and love much;
To win the respect of intelligent persons
And the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest critics
And to endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one’s self;
To leave the world a little better,
Whether by a healthy child,
A garden patch
Or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm
And sung with exultation;
To know that even one life has breathed easier
Because you have lived -
This is to have succeeded.

3 mins from garden to tummy

My first crop was crunchy-yummy!

If anyone noticed the blood on the patio, they didn’t mention it.

Polite English society or people too busy partying to notice?

I’ll never know.

* you are imagining the title, the footnote and anything approximating a series of 5 previous none-entries. Please do not comment on or refer to the absence of this post in any public arenas, its existence will be denied.

my SIM card is toast

my toast taste like plastic

I’m tethered to a landline while the

support agents’ holdin on, and holdin on, and holdin….

his accent is no form of English that I can understand

pass the whiskey mac…

bed gone

everyone

moved on

The first in a weekly series – Five-word Flash Fiction Fridays (5F)

We roast on the beach, submerged in glowing inactivity

Counting the waves while I listen to your mood swell and recede

Riding the tide into the evening we reassure ourselves that

what counts most, cannot be counted

feeling compelled to share my experience I’ll ask

• have you tried this…
• do you know about that…

Asking before I’ve heard all the story. Not finding out all the twists and turns in the story as the teller may find it. Not giving full space for the storyteller to explore and reflect at their own pace, in thier own perspective, which is so much more full of more relevant feeling and being.

The story may be about a problem, but the telling of the story may be all that is needed. No solution sought, just the time and empathy of the listener.

Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that even pragmatic advice may not be of real benefit, it may even detract from the real value of talking around the problem.

want

before tell

ending in need

A bridge over the river Siene is decorated with messages of love.

Padlocks.

On the barrel of each padlock is a message of love, some in black pen, some in red varnish.

Beautiful art emerging in one place, bought by so many lovers.

It’s visual, community poetry, in action. Sculpture. Very moving

This is the end of short trains,

they will be terminated,

only long trains from now on.

Those French are both assertive and sizist.

me: your glass and my glass together make a full glass!

you: And an empty one

me: I can go to the bar with the empty glass and get a fresh pint in it

you: so you get a fresh pint and I get left with the warm mixed up 2 half pints

me: hmmmm..  probably best that you keep your current half empty glass.  I’ll drink my half then we can go our own ways

i suffer from mental health

is there something wrong with me

I’m a one girl phobia

I’m a hidden soldier

when writing blog posts I sometimes find it difficult to percieve where the sentence ends and the paragraph starts

the difference between a sentence and a paragraph

its a para normal experience

Home can be anywhere, anytime,
It can be in more than one place and time.  
Home is always there and never there.  
Unlike Rome my home doesnt need time to be built.
Like a shadow it follows me around.
Always welcoming,  its presence  waxes and wanes through my days.

Morcheeba sang rome wasn’t built in a day

Ashley F Harrold and guest  Lesley Saunders reading at Reading’s poetry cafe.  

In May one of my most-favourite poets, if I am  allowed more than one favourite, Brian Patten, will be the guest.     That’s as exciting as the delivery of dry chopped wood to a house heated by a wood-burner during a cold-snap when the current supply of wood has run-out.

There appears to be an ongoing controversey about the  labelling and meaning of the sections. These sections, bits,  stages,  modes, are referred to as ‘halves’ by the young bearded Mr. Harrold.   This controversey is revisited at the begining of each cafe meeting to ensure the audience is not suprised by the unexpected onset of an interval or ‘half’.

Many locals take part in open Mic’ sections.   That’s not open micky-taking it’s open-microphone in trendy shorthand.    I’m beginning to recognise some of the open mic  regulars,   especially those who’s work I like.  

In 2004 Ashley  said:

“Most of the open mic poets we have are pretty good, I think they must put something in the water in Reading as we always have a decent quality, compared with other open mics elsewhere in the country, which is heartening and inexplicable.”

Absolutely

I dreampt a poem, it didn’t rhyme or have rythm, it wasnt a love poem, a funny poem or an action adventure poem.   It was a short story:

A person experiencing trouble writing poetry phoned  the poetry support line.    

we offer a non judgemental listening service for poets suffering from extreme distress   Through tears  the poet  described his pain,   all the rhymes had been used before by other, better, poets.   People that heard his poetry, smirked or even  laughed at his serious poems, looked baffled by his funny poems and fell asleep during his epic adventure poems.   For months now he had been unable to show anyone his poems.   Nothing worked, he had failed as a poet.   He’d even tried Haiku. There was no point, he was going to give up.  

We are here to listen.   After a short silence the poet read the last poem he had written then described all it’s shortcomings while he shed a few tears, then thanked the listener for not criticing his poem and for not pretending that the poem was better than it actually was.   He felt better now, thankyou, goodnight.

Poets for Oxfam

John Hegley  delivering St. Georges day

Once again Reading’s December Poet’s cafe offered the treat of  the engaging Mr. Hegley.  

Mr. Hegley manages varied and entertaining audience participation during his perfomance.  

For one poem he found a member of the audience that was prepared to nominate another member of the audience to translate a poem from French.     John would read each line and the audience member translated.   For each line John would comment on the quality of the translation.      Some of the French phrasing lent itself you English people making   translational errors.   The mistakes lead to some smile and laughter inducing imagery.    

I giggled myself off the chair on several occassions,  

Another form of participation involved the audience being given a line to sing on cue from John.   For example,   when he said ‘blah’ we had to say ‘mange’.   I do like being able to take part.

During the evening’s events I learned many things including

• there are many, published, poets in Reading that regularly attended the poets cafe
• John’s head moves with agility through  all sorts of angles, often quite dramatic.
• AFH’s fingers are prone to splaying  and twirling

I wonder what bodily movement I should develop to enhance my (to-be-developed)  poem delivery talents?

Wandering around the stunningly topiaried gardens of a stately seat in Kent.  There some some significant, and in significant, discoveries:

• a pole dancing topiary bear
• a Virgin balloon full of hot stagnent air
• Woodwormed Jacobean panels beside a spiral stair
• Ms Scarlet’s radical stealth mohican-style crop of not-ginger hair
• some bushes (not Scarlet’s)

My parents took the family on a day trip to London, to the Tate gallery.   At 7 yrs I was not well equipped to appreciate the treasures on display.   Mum and Dad seemed to spend ages looking at dull boring pictures of clouds (Turner).   I asked permission to explore the galleries at my own pace and was allowed to wander off.   I walked briskly,   errr ran,  around the building capturing impressions browsing for literally seconds at vaguely interesting paintings that I’ve long since forgotten.  

Then.   I turned the corner of a gallery to be confronted by the death of Chatterton.  

His vibrant orange hair glowing,   his purple velvet breaches full of warm lively texture in the daylight.   The torn paper on the floor.   His face white as marble.   Clearly dead.   I was captivated,   I stood studying the painting for what seemed, to a 7 year old, like eons.   I fell intrigued.   Who was this beautiful man?   Why was anyone that beautiful, dead before being old and wrinkly?  

He became my first love.   He was a local Bristol boy,   I was a local Bristol girl.   Later I read Peter Ackroyd’s book ‘Chatterton’ and wondered whether his death was an accident or deliberate. I visit St. Mary’s Redcliffe  occassionally,   the place where Chatterton reportedly discovered the manuscripts on which he forged his texts.   He has remained young, beautful, and with my thoughts.  

From AElla

O! Synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee;

Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys death-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.

Reading town’s resident international performance poet, AF Harrold, has taken the concept of performance poetry to new realms of existence.   How?   Using the AF Harrold website he has enabled people to download and construct an avatar of himself.   This effectively moves himself from real work to virtual world (website),   then from virtual world to real world  (download and print)  in multiple different places from printers all over the world:

“Want a cut out and keep A.F. Harrold paper doll, designed by Dolly Dolly, to sit on your desk? Right click here. (And choose ‘save target as…’)“

The story goes further,   once AFH has been transported from real world to virtual world and then back to the real world,   AFH encourages his newsletter readers to take photographs of their dolly and send them to him,   some of them will make the journey back into the virtual world.   From AFH’s newsletter:

‘download the cut-out-build-and-keep your very own AFH paper doll’ link – download the template, build a paper AFH (please be careful when using sharp blades, I accept no liability for injuries or embarrassment) – and then… take photographs. Put your miniature AFH in curious places, with curious people, at exotic unlikely destinations and snap away.

I’ll put up some of the best or most interesting pictures (only those suitable for family viewing, though under-the-counter prizes may be awarded too) in a gallery either on www.afharrold.co.uk or on my Facebook and/or my My Space space.

The prospect of participating in this treat may well prompt me to spend some money on a colour printer.    Participation is just to, too,   two, tempting!  

I love the idea of  4 dimensional,   group performance poetry,   its the best.  

Thankyou AFH

This is a figment of your ripe imagination

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2am
Cemetery junction
Heards of black taxi’s rumbling by
Smaller, colourful, cabs weave between them
Heels clicking, skirts, hair and make-up readjusted
Bright laughter and  flourescent light waft from the rows of fast food shops
sometimes I feel wonderfully invisible in the bustling crowds as I wander the Reading streets at night

Thomas swirls  along roads built to bounce him and give me lots of   steering opportunities, through violently yellow  rapeseed fields, between hedges who’s vaulting arms meet above us.  

Thomas purrs and whirrs

Wendy  curls and twirls

Game-addict clinic opening in Amsterdam
Dueling piano bar opening in downtown Boise
Archived Items not opening in Microsoft Outlook 2003
croci opening in my garden

preliminary thoughts insincerity scrawled on a serviette