Poem Friday #10
Election 2010
Good morning Britain.
Today well-hung.
Not drawn
or
quartered.
Two halves might make a whole.
Just don't be conservative.
The counting continues.
Fascists out.
Greens are go.
One solitary independent stands out from the crowd.
Scotland the brave
Defeats the auld enemy
again.
Swingers are in
we hope.
But regardless,
Change is a-coming.
-----------------------
Aah the glorious days of election fever. We are now faced with a Conservative-Liberal coalition and two men who have morphed into one another. Who knew that Mr Clegg would sell out on such a monumental scale.
--------------------
The Psyche and the 25 mile walk.
[If you walk too far you risk losing your mind]
I was psyched up for 5 miles.
10 was achievable.
15 became a curse.
20 and my vessel wasn't functioning quite so well.
21 and my psyche was lying face down on the grass.
22 and my limbs shook like jelly.
23 and my eyes were flickering open-shut; open-shut.
24 and my psyche came back for the finish.
24 and a quarter - when a quarter becomes a lifetime.
24 and a half - each stile feels like a mountain.
24 and three quarters - I can see the end.
25 - Done
in.
A pint in hand.
A medal round my neck.
Mind and body at peace.
[til I stand up anyway and realise nothing works anymore]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dorset Circular Coastal Challenge - 25 miles in 10 hours. We completed in 7.5. It's the closest I've come to breaking point. And all in the name of fun.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Astral Showers
A thousand glittering stars rained down from the sky.
The night lit up.
Celestial powers enlightening the unloved.
Channels of energy propping up limbs.
A manic force field from heaven.
Sparking up the ignition.
The night lit up.
Celestial powers enlightening the unloved.
Channels of energy propping up limbs.
A manic force field from heaven.
Sparking up the ignition.
The Zombie
Looks just like me and you.
a head,
2 arms,
2 legs,
a mouth a nose and 2 eyes.
Walking like you
to an office somewhere in a city
to sit at desk like you do.
To punch at the keys for 8 hours a day.
Then retire
to a home cooked meal
and a glass of full-bodied red.
Moving, seeing, doing,
just like all the other humans
but feeling nothing
No connection
no sorrow
no euphoria
no black days
no anxiety nor mania.
Just a flat line
Undetected by modern medicine.
Unexplained.
------------------
Modern day philosophers are undecided as to whether 'zombies' exist. By zombies they mean hypothetical beings who are physically indistinguishable from 'normal' people but are not conscious.
It seems a crazy thought and yet perhaps not too alien when you get to thinking about it. Consciousness is about being, feeling, making connections. Connections, real connections are so hard to come by; mental states can be explained if you seek the explanation. So what is real? I know what makes me feel real and it's not conversations or substances or things or shaky mental states; it's intimacy and it's hard to come by. But when you find it, even for just a moment, it's glorious.
a head,
2 arms,
2 legs,
a mouth a nose and 2 eyes.
Walking like you
to an office somewhere in a city
to sit at desk like you do.
To punch at the keys for 8 hours a day.
Then retire
to a home cooked meal
and a glass of full-bodied red.
Moving, seeing, doing,
just like all the other humans
but feeling nothing
No connection
no sorrow
no euphoria
no black days
no anxiety nor mania.
Just a flat line
Undetected by modern medicine.
Unexplained.
------------------
Modern day philosophers are undecided as to whether 'zombies' exist. By zombies they mean hypothetical beings who are physically indistinguishable from 'normal' people but are not conscious.
It seems a crazy thought and yet perhaps not too alien when you get to thinking about it. Consciousness is about being, feeling, making connections. Connections, real connections are so hard to come by; mental states can be explained if you seek the explanation. So what is real? I know what makes me feel real and it's not conversations or substances or things or shaky mental states; it's intimacy and it's hard to come by. But when you find it, even for just a moment, it's glorious.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
The Psyche and the 25 mile Walk
Last Saturday I completed a 25 mile walk in 7.5 hours (it was an event - the Dorset Circular Challenge run by the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service). We had to complete in 10 hours and the route was circular starting and finishing at the Square and Compass in Worth Travers.
I didn't have time to fully process the challenge this might pose physically - busy week and the election was taking up a lot of my mental faculties.
Anyway I travelled down on the train on Friday. Several beers, a Cornish pasty and a curry later (ideal preparation for an endurance event) and we were holed up in Swanage YHA. Six in the dorm, zero sleep (there is something distracting about the incontinence sheets that crackle every time someone turns and the light blazing through whenever anyone makes a nocturnal trip to the toilet) and up at 6.30am.
We started at 8 and our group was being led by a very fit woman (I'm still not convinced she is entirely human). The pace was blistering. I had not prepared for that or the sheer cliff faces we stormed up and down for the first 14 miles.
They say that when you run the marathon you hit a wall. I definitely hit a wall on that walk. From about miles 18/19, but especially 21 onwards I was well out of it. It is not something I have ever experienced, the feeling of my psyche leaving my body, ostensibly giving up, whilst I looked down on myself putting one foot in front of the other, again and again and again. My mind kept saying 'I will just lie down on the grass. Go to sleep', my body continued. It was a battle to keep the two connected, but my desire to complete seemed to overpower the other thoughts. Crazy. I guess that is partly how it feels when you're training for the SAS or something. Anyway it adds fuel to my ideas on the psyche as being separate to the vessel (body).
We finished.
And I'm now contemplating a 48 mile walk in 18 hours. Is this possible? Am I mad? Time will tell.
I didn't have time to fully process the challenge this might pose physically - busy week and the election was taking up a lot of my mental faculties.
Anyway I travelled down on the train on Friday. Several beers, a Cornish pasty and a curry later (ideal preparation for an endurance event) and we were holed up in Swanage YHA. Six in the dorm, zero sleep (there is something distracting about the incontinence sheets that crackle every time someone turns and the light blazing through whenever anyone makes a nocturnal trip to the toilet) and up at 6.30am.
We started at 8 and our group was being led by a very fit woman (I'm still not convinced she is entirely human). The pace was blistering. I had not prepared for that or the sheer cliff faces we stormed up and down for the first 14 miles.
They say that when you run the marathon you hit a wall. I definitely hit a wall on that walk. From about miles 18/19, but especially 21 onwards I was well out of it. It is not something I have ever experienced, the feeling of my psyche leaving my body, ostensibly giving up, whilst I looked down on myself putting one foot in front of the other, again and again and again. My mind kept saying 'I will just lie down on the grass. Go to sleep', my body continued. It was a battle to keep the two connected, but my desire to complete seemed to overpower the other thoughts. Crazy. I guess that is partly how it feels when you're training for the SAS or something. Anyway it adds fuel to my ideas on the psyche as being separate to the vessel (body).
We finished.
And I'm now contemplating a 48 mile walk in 18 hours. Is this possible? Am I mad? Time will tell.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
In Amsterdam
Amsterdam: Fragments of Freedom
An overnight boat, a cabin for two.
Bunk beds, a shower and a little sofa;
Luxury in miniature.
Beer and a book unravels the disguise of a solitary traveller.
Emerge at dawn:
The Hook of Hollandica.
Scrabble for tickets, for change.
Make friends over coffee.
Embark on a train
to Rotterdam.
CHANGE
then onwards to Amsterdam.
A city of canals,
of bikes,
of charm,
of grime.
Well-connected waterways, a map-maker's dream.
Admire Van Gogh,
Dutch Master,
A deft painter.
Textured brushstrokes
Placemaker,
A troubled man.
Wander slowly to Vondelpark,
A linear greenspace.
City dwellers on mass:
Bikes on parade.
Stop for beer,
a smoke,
then eat-a-plenty.
An evening stroll back through sex streets.
SEX SELLS
Faded glamour.
Fake love in bad lighting
Sleep on a ship,
That doesn't move anymore.
Awake in a red bed,
With a dry mouth
and a head full of ideas.
The Dancer
She snakes to the music.
A faded princess.
The light hides the lines, the scars,
the broken dreams.
Dance for your supper,
Entice, invite,
them in.
Money spins
It sucks her in
Happiness will follow.
You can be a star,
seize your moment
And enjoy.
But the eyes belie
a spirit in decline.
a jaded one with surface shine.
Tulips
Geometric lines
of colour
in square fields.
--------------------------
I travelled on my own to Amsterdam. It's been a while since I travelled solo. I needed to recapture the freedom that comes from lone trips; the trepidation, the sense of adventure, the openness, the self-knowledge you acquire.
I took an overnight ferry from Harwich in Essex to the Hook of Hollandica. It takes roughly 7 hours. The boat left at 11.15pm. I was as excited about the journey as the destination.
We were woken to an announcement inviting us to breakfast one hour before we embarked. And so it was we arrived in Holland.
In the spirit of adventure I got chatting to a random in the complex quest for train tickets and we ended up taking the train together; suddenly we were travel buddies. I love the immediate intimacy that comes with such meetings.
Amsterdam was sunny, gritty, charming, little fragments jarring together to make a whole city. We walked for hours along the canals right to the southern end of the city. Despite the sunshine, I wanted to hit my original objective and we went to the Van Gogh museum. Such an interesting man - he only practiced for ten years and didn't begin painting til he was 28. I like the idea that talent need not be fixed. It always seems like such brilliance comes at a cost and he had his dark days. Eventually they subsumed him and he ended it at the tender age of 38. A shame indeed.
After our cultural overload we went to Vondelpark, a mass of people with a park on the side. It was Sunday and it seemed like the whole city (and their bikes) had spilled out into the park. Lovely. As was the afternoon nap.
We smoked a joint in a little cafe looking outside at the people looking in on us. It reminded me of a peep show. After that we were hungry so we ate an Indonesian banquet. Twenty five dishes in all!
It was a whirlwind that ended with a walk through the red light district. Aggressive energy, harsh lights and discomfort. We didn't hang about.
I slept in a permanently moored former freight ship and had breakfast with the brusque German owner, who scared me a lot initially, but warmed up.
It was then time to head back to port and the ferry home. Tired, but happy.
An overnight boat, a cabin for two.
Bunk beds, a shower and a little sofa;
Luxury in miniature.
Beer and a book unravels the disguise of a solitary traveller.
Emerge at dawn:
The Hook of Hollandica.
Scrabble for tickets, for change.
Make friends over coffee.
Embark on a train
to Rotterdam.
CHANGE
then onwards to Amsterdam.
A city of canals,
of bikes,
of charm,
of grime.
Well-connected waterways, a map-maker's dream.
Admire Van Gogh,
Dutch Master,
A deft painter.
Textured brushstrokes
Placemaker,
A troubled man.
Wander slowly to Vondelpark,
A linear greenspace.
City dwellers on mass:
Bikes on parade.
Stop for beer,
a smoke,
then eat-a-plenty.
An evening stroll back through sex streets.
SEX SELLS
Faded glamour.
Fake love in bad lighting
Sleep on a ship,
That doesn't move anymore.
Awake in a red bed,
With a dry mouth
and a head full of ideas.
The Dancer
She snakes to the music.
A faded princess.
The light hides the lines, the scars,
the broken dreams.
Dance for your supper,
Entice, invite,
them in.
Money spins
It sucks her in
Happiness will follow.
You can be a star,
seize your moment
And enjoy.
But the eyes belie
a spirit in decline.
a jaded one with surface shine.
Tulips
Geometric lines
of colour
in square fields.
--------------------------
I travelled on my own to Amsterdam. It's been a while since I travelled solo. I needed to recapture the freedom that comes from lone trips; the trepidation, the sense of adventure, the openness, the self-knowledge you acquire.
I took an overnight ferry from Harwich in Essex to the Hook of Hollandica. It takes roughly 7 hours. The boat left at 11.15pm. I was as excited about the journey as the destination.
We were woken to an announcement inviting us to breakfast one hour before we embarked. And so it was we arrived in Holland.
In the spirit of adventure I got chatting to a random in the complex quest for train tickets and we ended up taking the train together; suddenly we were travel buddies. I love the immediate intimacy that comes with such meetings.
Amsterdam was sunny, gritty, charming, little fragments jarring together to make a whole city. We walked for hours along the canals right to the southern end of the city. Despite the sunshine, I wanted to hit my original objective and we went to the Van Gogh museum. Such an interesting man - he only practiced for ten years and didn't begin painting til he was 28. I like the idea that talent need not be fixed. It always seems like such brilliance comes at a cost and he had his dark days. Eventually they subsumed him and he ended it at the tender age of 38. A shame indeed.
After our cultural overload we went to Vondelpark, a mass of people with a park on the side. It was Sunday and it seemed like the whole city (and their bikes) had spilled out into the park. Lovely. As was the afternoon nap.
We smoked a joint in a little cafe looking outside at the people looking in on us. It reminded me of a peep show. After that we were hungry so we ate an Indonesian banquet. Twenty five dishes in all!
It was a whirlwind that ended with a walk through the red light district. Aggressive energy, harsh lights and discomfort. We didn't hang about.
I slept in a permanently moored former freight ship and had breakfast with the brusque German owner, who scared me a lot initially, but warmed up.
It was then time to head back to port and the ferry home. Tired, but happy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
