Monthly Archives: May 2021

D H Lawrence Wonders What’s For His Tea – A Poem

14 Replies

Here’s the poem I had published in Obsessed with Pipework back in February. It is published in paper form rather than on the internet, which means I can’t link to it at the time of publication. I’m not sure what the precise etiquette is with quoting it after that, but it seems reasonable to do it once the next issue is out. That arrived this week, so it seems as good a time as any.

It’s meant to be tongue in cheek, but I’m worried that published alongside more serious poetry it might look like I’m being serious. This is not a poem about the dietary requirements of a well-known Nottinghamshire writer, it’s a poem showing that even serious literary heavyweights get hungry, and that they just dawdle about waiting to be served. D. H. Lawrence does not strike me as the sort of man who would make his own tea. I know he was considered advanced for his time but I’m not sure that this extended to housework.

I should read up on him, and as Julia’s uncle wrote a couple of biographies of Lawrence, which we have in the house, I have no excuse.

It has the rhyme scheme of a villanelle, but I couldn’t get the lines to the correct length without adding words to pad them out, so I gave up. It’s probably best described as “modelled on a villanelle” but ” a poor attempt at a villanelle” would also be fair. For a good villanelle, try here, or here.

In the end, as has been said by many people, you don’t finish a poem, you just abandon it. After hacking away at this one for nearly three years, I decided it was time to set it free.

D H Lawrence Wonders What’s For His Tea

The kettle sits on the hearth and sings
and Eastwood seems so far away.
He writes of snakes and other phallic things
and wonders what teatime will bring,
coughing gently at the close of day.
The kettle sits on the hearth and sings.
Dusk closes in on phoenix wings,
with thoughts of mothers and mortality.
He writes of snakes and other phallic things,
thinks of muffins, jam and apron strings,
and crumpets laid out on a tray.
The kettle sits on the hearth and sings
as he stretches out his stiffening limbs.
Could life have gone another way?
He writes of snakes and other phallic things,
ponders the fates of men and kings
and wonders where life went astray.
The kettle sits on the hearth and sings:
he writes of snakes, and other phallic things.

Time, Pressure and Procrastination

16 Replies

Yesterday I went to work as usual, checked the overnight sale, found there were just two, and decided to catch up with some writing admin that needed doing. On an ordinary evening I have seven hours to do this and haven’t managed to do it. Yesterday, with 30 minutes to spare, I managed to get it all done. There’s something about time and pressure that makes me a lot more industrious.

I go in about an hour before I’m due to start, in case you are wondering about me skiving – it’s the time I get to work after dropping Julia off. It’s not terribly convenient, but it’s hard to do anything useful in that time when you’re worrying about getting to work on time, or worrying about getting a parking space, so it’s easier to go to work. I give them a few hours a week extra, but I don’t feel guilty if |I need an hour here and there for medical reasons and vaccination.

The same applies to submissions. I can, on a slow month, spend weeks getting round to it and then, as this month, do three in two nights when the end of the submission window starts to loom.

I still have one set of submissions, possibly two, for the end of this month, but I’m nearly there with one set and have to decided if I’m going ahead with the other.

Half of me says I should have  ago. The other half says that it’s a new editor and I don’t want to send in something that might not be 100% right. I’m in possession of three halves again, I must stop doing this. The third half has just cut in and pointed out to me that it’s never 100% right anyway and one of the editors I’m submitting to this month never takes anything anyway. We don’t seem to be fated to work together. It’s like thee is some cosmic mismatch. Or, to be more sensible, he has an idea of what a haibun should be, and I fail to match it. He has even told me, several times, why he has turned something down. I struggle to understand why he thinks I’m missing the mark. I read the magazine intently looking for a clue, and as far as I can see, many of the accepted submissions aren’t hitting the mark either.  One day, with persistence and experience, I will get one in.

Anyway, time for work now. Eighteen minutes and I have written a blog post, something that took several hours last night, including playing games and staring at the ceiling. Time pressure is good for me.

Having said that, I just realised I wrote the post as a new page rather than a new post. Another senior moment…

 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

Not Very Happy

19 Replies

I had a phone call from the doctor today. It was a cheery enough phone call, because I am a lucky man and like my doctors. However, the news was rather depressing. I have been reclaimed by the anti-coagulant team and been put on Warfarin again. My next blood test is Monday.

It seems I am too heavy to be put on the new drug, which may not be powerful enough to do the job. My fault for being so fat, nobody tied me down and forced m to eat, so there is nobody else to blame. It would have been nice if the doctor had spotted this before giving me false hope, but I had a pleasant two or three days before it all fell apart.

The problem is that the anti-coagulant team runs the department like a bunch of petty tyrants. They can’t abide the thought of anyone evading their clutches and they can’t envisage a life without Warfarin. Despite the claims in the video they play you as part of the indoctrination, it does interfere with your life and they make no effort to be flexible.  They once demanded that I break off in the middle of a holiday to drive 40 miles to hospital and have  a blood test. When I told them there was no way that was going to happen they decided to be more flexible. It was a five day holiday and I’m not spending the best part of a day messing about with a blood test.

Another time they set a student nurse onto me. She rang me then told me, quite aggressively, that I had to start taking my Warfarin properly as my test results were unacceptably inconsistent. I had, it seemed, failed to hit the target on nearly fifty percent of the tests. (Teaching them how to bully patients is obviously a responsibility they take seriously).  I did a quick calculation in my head.

“I think you’ll find, ” I said,” that I have hit the target every time for the last six months. The problem is with the early tests when i was being tested two or three times a week and you couldn’t get my dosage right.”

“Oh!”

She then went silent, tapped a few keys and agreed that I was right. The simple truth is that Warfarin is a very imprecise treatment and the anti-coagulant team aren’t much use when it starts to get out of control.

So there you are. Imagine me as a victim, teetering on the edge of a pit as arms reach out to garb my legs and pull me down…

I went for Big Brother today, as he’s the nearest thing to a pit of demons that I have in my media.

Then, to make my day even worse, I broke eBay.

Not Quite a Senior Moment…

18 Replies

I really don’t know what to write about. I did do part of a post earlier this evening but I decided I ned more time so I can do it properly. That’s the trouble. My past is littered with posts that need more time. Somehow I manage to forget about them time after time…

It’s cold here tonight, and wet and windy. I really want to put the fire on, but it’s the second half of May and it doesn’t seem right. Better to be cold than soft.

I’m starting to get perilously close to a couple of deadlines and I’m falling behind with a daily writing challenge I set myself. It’s been going for four weeks now and I’ve managed to get behind every week. Fortunately I manage to pull it round each time.

I woke up in front of the TV last night after Julia had gone to bed and thought I was having a heart attack. I had a terrible burning pain in the chest, radiating up through my neck and into my jaw. Even as I was searching for pen and paper for a final message to Julia, I remembered some of the final words of the pharmacist relating to my new anti-coagulation drugs.

“Take it with food,” he said, ” preferably a proper meal.”

Yes, I had indigestion caused by throwing down a pill several hours after I had eaten, completely forgetting all I had been told. I spoke top the Anti-coagulation Service this afternoon, they also reminded me I had to have the pills with a meal, though they did say it was for the purposes of absorbing it better. There’s always something extra to remember, and as I’m having to do it with a decreasing amount of brainpower it isn’t easy.

Not sure if it’s a senior moment or not. Probably just stupidity…

Talking of stupidity – a couple of years ago, Julia brought some dried teasel home and left it on the floor as she sifted through her bag searching for keys. It seems to have released some seeds and we had teasel growing last year, hence the header picture. This year, we seem to have around 50 self-seeded teasels, including some in very tricky places. They are all rooted between paving slabs, so we can’t get them out to transplant and will have to weed quite a lot out to allow us to get to the front door. I don’t think we will have flowers this year, as I seem to remember they are biennial, but we will have  lovely show in 2022.

This is my version of the old Greek proverb – “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.”

I just noticed that it has slid past midnight – another day missed…

Bee on Teasel

 

A Magazine Arrives

11 Replies

Obsessed with Pipework arrived today. It contains two of my poems, which seem to have taken ages to work their way through the system. That’s the trouble with print journals, compared to on-line journals they take a long time. However, the good thing is that  It’s nice to see them in print on an actual paper page. It’s much nicer than just seeing them on-line. Unfortunately I can’t, as a result, give you a link. I will post them at some time in the future.

I will, however, look out my poem from the last issue and post that. I’m going to have to stop for a moment now, as Julia just served tea and I have spilt rice on the keyboard. I bet Philip Larkin didn’t have this problem…

One of the things I noticed after lockdown was that my ability to navigate round town had almost disappeared. It’s back now, but I noticed another lack today – I’ve forgotten a lot of wild flower names. It’s never been a strong point but there are a lot about that I can’t name. I must start learning them again. There were a lot of blue flowered plants in a couple of p[laces as we went out for a drive today – they looked a bit like borage but the flowers seemed more upright. Julia said it wasn’t borage but couldn’t ID it. It isn’t green alkanet. I’m starting to worry that after lockdown and at 50mph I have lost the ability to identify borage. This will be very upsetting if it is true as borage is usually so easy.

I suppose if that’s the worst thing that happened today I can’t be doing badly. As the day also featured a lot of wild flowers, a happy wife (I took her to the garden centre) and KFC for lunch  (the doctor told me I should eat more chicken!) I haven’t done badly.

The photos are from May 2016.

Robin

A Day of Contrasts

27 Replies

First job this morning was to parcel up the Prisoner of War postcard. It appears to have gone to a collector. There were only three people in the bidding and two of them chased it up over £60. As far as I know it’s worth £20-30 as a piece of postal history so I presume it was the story they were bidding for, and that it will be well looked after from now on.

Second job was to parcel up a nice late Georgian medallion. It was struck in 1835 so it’s nearly as late as it can be whilst remaining Georgian. It has been on sale a few months and we turned down several offers because we thought it was a good piece. It commemorates the installation of the marquis of Camden as Chancellor of Cambridge University. Lovely medallion, as I say, but he’s no great looker, and it’s a dull subject. It has gone to America. A lot of our better medallions go to America or China. I feel slightly guilty about exporting our heritage, but we have an excellent stock of historical medallions which is hardly ever looked at in the shop.

Earl of Camden, Chancellor of Cambridge University and, as I said previously, no great shakes in the looks department. Roman nose, piercing stare and, doubtless, a commanding manner, but not easy on the eye.

I then spent the rest of the day beavering away at my desk loading a succession of modern coins onto eBay. They are weird modern combinations – a coin from Niue celebrates Edison and the lightbulb, one from the Cook Islands celebrates the Ascot Gold Cup and one from Somalia is part of a series called “Wildlife of North America”.  The Cook Islands coin is quite pleasant apart from that, but the Somalian coin is an abomination and the Niue coin lights up if you press it in the right place. Words fail me…

I despair of any society where people actually collect these monstrosities

 

Can you see the light? 

At least the design is good, even if the mis-match beggars belief.

 

 

Plans and Haiku

13 Replies

Despite the first part of the day consisting of a mathematically implausible three halves, I did have a plan for the next bit of the day, which I’m going to describe as “bit” because it saves me having to be accurate.

The plan was to go home, write, wash up and make stew for tea. It also included, after my talk with the doctor, eating eggs for lunch and not sleeping in front of daytime TV whilst watching quiz with my lunch. Next time, I’m going to eat lunch at the computer.

It’s has all come to pass, apart from the not sleeping bit, but instead of being 5 o’clock, as planned, it is seven o’clock. As days off go, it has been OK, but not hugely productive. However, I have had another acceptance, this time from Wales Haiku Journal. It will be published in the next two weeks and is a haiku of eleven words. It almost feels like cheating to claim I’m having a poem published when it’s only 11 words long, but as Mark Twain said:

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

Brevity can be tricky.

I now have a nine rejected haiku which can be sent out again. Just because they have been rejected doesn’t mean they are bad. I’ve shown that before, with many pieces. As it is, I have ten ready to go to another magazine and if everything goes as it normally does, and they take one, as they often do, I will have 18 haiku looking for a home. It’s amazing how they mount up. That’s how it goes – one day you have nothing, next day you have too many. It’s a shame that the same doesn’t apply to £10 notes.

I’m off to eat stew now, I’ll see you all tomorrow.

The haiku features a robin, so that’s the reason for the picture.

A Plan Comes Together

19 Replies

The first half of the morning’s plan is complete. I got to hospital for 7am, found the last remaining parking space (as someone left), had my tests done (3 tubes this week) and went back to the car park to find a number of empty spaces and several people wearing NHS lanyards getting into cars in the (visitors only) car park. At the moment I am filling in time before going to the doctor to be lectured on my weight. She dressed it up as a discussion on anti-coagulants, but weight came into the conversation at the end, and I can imagine what is going to happen.

I am now off to complete the second half of the morning’s plan.

That was the doctor’s visit. It started badly when I was held up behind a couple demanding information on getting a Covid Passport so that they could go away on holiday and help spread the disease. Bad enough they want to go abroad,  without cluttering up the surgery when I need to get to the desk.

The good news is that I am the same weight I was when they last weighed me four years ago. That’s even better when you think I ddi put weight on but have managed to bring it down again over the last few months. I’ve used the Tootlepedal diet – cutting out a little bit here and there, and it’s working so far.

The doctor was able to make some helpful suggestions and has also changed my anti-coagulant to one where I will only need one blood test a year. I can’t start it until the blood results come in, but if it’s OK I will be able to have blood tests every year instead of the current weekly tests.

It’s all looking quite good at the moment. I’ve been advised to lay off the cereal and go onto eggs for breakfast, which is good, as I like eggs. However, it’s also bad as I can’t prepare them in advance or take them to work with me. Swings and roundabouts, as we say.

The third part of my plan, which I forgot about until just now, which renders my maths obsolete regarding halves, was that the pharmacy had all my stuff in and it was correct. I didn’t bother complaining that they hadn’t texted me last Friday as promised. There’s just no point…

Thoughts of Change

27 Replies

I’ve been thinking about blogging. I know I’m not the only one that feels this, as I’ve read a similar post today, but I’m feeling stale and uninspired and wondering where it is all going.

At one time, when we were on the care farm and we had lots of visitors, plenty of time, loads of nature and a multitude of new subjects, it seemed a lot easier. Of course, I then go back and look at it , and it really wasn’t as good as I remember. The typos in my old posts can be quite upsetting and the quality was patchy, to say the least. Fortunately I didn’t have much of an internal editor at the time. Once I got past the thought that writing down the dull days of my life was rather self-indulgent, I didn’t have much to hold me back. That came later when I started doing more writing of other types.

Things are gradually improving again and I now have ten haiku to send off. As I have a deadline in nine days and two more at the end of the month it’s about time I did get back into the rhythm. I am becoming a bit too much like our plum tree in the garden – a year of plenty followed by a year of sparsity. However, I know what do do with the plum tree – pruning and thinning – two jobs I don’t do. I skimp on pruning, and haven’t actually done any for two years, and I always wimp out of thinning, because it seems a waste to remove fruit when it is forming. I know that in theory it is better for the crop, but I just can’t do it. I keep saying I’ll look for a recipe for green plums, which might be the impetus I need. Something similar is needed with my writing.

I’ve tried to change the way I blog before, but I always drift back to the same old style, maybe today is the day I change. Well, tomorrow, actually, as this is today and it’s more of the same old rambling diary…

The opening picture is a Shilling of George II – 1731 – quite a pleasant coin. It leant itself well to the “drawing” setting on the camera. The closing pictures of the coin are how it actually looks. No, I don’t know why they always dressed like Roman Emperors for their coin portraits. It’s a King thing…

George II Sixpence 1731 Obverse 

George II Sixpence 1731 Reverse 

 

Where Roses Fade – a Haibun

11 Replies

This was first published in Drifting Sands Issue Six, December 2020. I was looking through the book where I print out my published pieces ( a trick my father in law taught me – when you need a boost, you can always flick through it). I discovered I’m actually several months behind with it and started poking around the internet. I quite liked this one when I first wrote it, and I still do. This isn’t always the case.

I probably linked to it from the blog when it was published, so apologies if you have seen it before.

Here is the link to the full issue.

 

Where Roses Fade

Thirty years ago, I rambled through the Leicestershire countryside and saw villages which had collections of crumbling farm buildings and odd nooks of unruly weeds. Stands of tall nettles often concealed rusty machines, and rosebay willowherb blazed in the sun. Now they are tidy, and iron butterflies decorate the fronts of houses built where real butterflies used to feed. They have become development opportunities, and gaps have been filled. Small neat houses and barn conversions proliferate, with block-paved drives and shiny cars. Drinks are taken, and conversations held, where pigs once grunted and chickens scratched. Snouts, though, are still rammed firmly into troughs.

tidy
but the roots of weeds go deep
unnoticed

 

Comma Butterfly