Tag Archives: accepted poem

Failed Blood Test and Watching TV

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Today marked a new low in terms of activity. I took Julia to work, came home, did a few bits on WP and email, went for a blood test, went home, watched some Lewis on player, had lunch (the last of the lentil soup), fell asleep, rewound player to the point where I fell asleep, fell asleep, rewound etc, and again, washed up, greeted Julia, had a nice refreshing cup of tea.

If I had to mark the day I’d give it 4 for procrastination and sloth, 1 for activity and zero for progress in moving house. If I had an emoji for a big black hole full of nothing I would use it now.

To make things worse, my recovery is still progressing very slowly (maybe even regressing very slowly) and I had a phone call from the surgery to tell me that one of the blood samples had been rejected as the tube had not been filled to the line.

For some reason the INR test, which can be done with a finger prick of blood, needs a full tube of blood if being done without use of the quick and convenient machine test. I think this is to do with the use of machinery in testing rather than the actual quantity of blood. (This is the one I have to monitor my warfarin intake. It is an irksome procedure where the anticoagulation service worries, sends me excessive text messages and messes me about constantly. What they never seem to do is get my dosing right, but it doesn’t matter to them, as it only inconveniences me. They jsut sit in an office and draw their pay.)

This means I now have to have another test tomorrow. Fortunately I have nothing much to do, but if I had been working I would have had to refuse it, or go to phlebotomy at 7 am. This is one of the benefits of being retired.

I have more comments but I am going to do a Hemingway again and leave the rest to seethe beneath the surface.

Despite all this, it was a good day as I had another acceptance – making three out of three for June. The ever-present danger of smugness starts to become a possibility . . .

Photo by ThisIsEngineering on Pexels.com

Quick Note

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Just a quick note. I will reply to comments soon, but for now I’m having to rest my hands. Even clicking a mouse button is currently a bit sore. I can use a different finger to do it but operating a mouse with different fingers or with two hands causes extra complications.

The same goes for typing – even using different fingers imposes strain on the sore joints. Last night I used a hot wter bottle but I’m not sure it helped. Today at work has been a bit of a trial, though arthritis was only part of that, and not necessarily the worst part.

On the plus side of the leger, I have had another acceptance, which ws for a tanka prose I ws quite pleased with. That’s often the kiss of death as editors quite often reject poems I am pleased with.

Aren’t you pleased with them all? I hear you ask. In truth – no. There is usual one in three that is just there to make up the numbers and  the other two are often OK, but don’t really excite me once they are done.

If you wanted me to sort out poems I am really happy with, I expect that out of the roughly 150 I have had published, less than 15 would be ones I was really happy with.

I suppose that’s always going to be the way of things – we are always fated to want to do better.

I will stop here. My clumsy fingers just wiped out all my words and I had to search drafts to find it again. It happens infrequently and I can never remember how to do it. Fortunately I was able to find it. This was very dis-spiriting.

 

 

Things Fall into Place

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Sorry, in the earlier version of this post I may have been a bit sloppy and given the impression that the haiku I wrote was the one in this post. In fact I did write the haiku in the post, but merely by taking words from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 19 to illustrate how he used a lot of words that he could have used for something else.

My haiku, which won’t be published until October, is not as good. Though it does have ducks in it.

I just had a poem accepted for publication, my first in fourteen years.

This isn’t as bad as it may seem at first glance, as I actually didn’t submit anything for fourteen years. After a few years of limbering up and writing limericks I decided to give it a try again.

The first two submissions came back so fast it felt like they were on elastic. In the days when we had to use post it was all much more stately. So I tried again and seem to have sneaked in under the quality bar.

It’s only a haiku as I’m famously lazy and can’t see any point in writing more than I have to. Three lines, ten words, fourteen syllables, no rhymes.

In terms of effort it beats a sonnet hands down.

This is Sonnet 18 cut down to a haiku. It’s ninety-nine words shorter and though it’s not going to achieve immortality, it’s an example of what Shakespeare could have done if he’d have set his mind to it.

(Looking at it, I wish I’d thought of doing this sooner as it’s a lot easier than writing one from scratch).

a summer’s day

rough winds shake buds of May

eternal lines

If Shakespeare had written haiku instead of messing about with sonnets he’d have had more time to write things like a spin-off from Henry V where Sir John Falstaff opens up a small hotel on the south coast, with hilarious consequences. Falstaff Towers could have been so good…