Still Right For Me

Facing painful truths without getting
upset: we are taught youth should
last forever, an ideal to be achieved
through botox, hormone replacement
therapy and plastic surgery; but just
as I never succumbed to make-up,
I‘m failing in my duty to stay young

It is your right to be angry with me
for not being younger in an age of
increasing sex appeal, we’re taught
to believe in physical performance
only, females are expected to fulfil
male fantasies based on artificial
acting in adult movies - therefore

You’re right to blame me for being
a failure; I never became the siren
you were taught to dream of - BUT
I am joyful knowing you were just
right for me, the romance shared
was perfect- I’m sorry you were
upset when I told you this, sorry

That you feel I’m failing you today
because you are still right for me
and will always be…

I Have Earned My Rest

Still between worlds infused with crazy desire to
complete my terrible text – but overcome by tragic
discovery my courageous attempt to thrive on dry
beskuit led to symptomatic resurgence of allergy

Soft rain and loud thunderclaps mirror a desperate
prayer earlier today when stuck in an endless
meeting; there I could tune out the meaning of
spoken inanity, but not the resonance of it

Could not escape metre and timbre of King Kong
and her henchmen, Crying Mock Turtle delivering
a speech with many sighs and innumerable sobs
and Mr Dream-A-Lot riveted to his own spot

Being driven into the deep sitting in this big old car
of a meeting, gnashing of teeth trying to escape
the voice floating over me, nearly falling asleep
but remaining disdainfully awake, thinking of

Slashing my wrists and spraying blood on the
listeners as a clear sign I’ve had enough when
the end came, and after an anti-climax of more
sorrowful whining by Mme La Pompadour

I ran from the meeting only to find my powers were
spent, no more concentration to be obtained from
my brain, I did try to get back into step, in vain
chasing elusive meaning & strange formulation

In the end I conceded, came home to lie in your lap,
feeling I have earned my rest…

Oh Mistress-Mine (Revised)

Oh Mistress-Mine, like the Old Testament’s Prodigal Son you
return unto the fold so stealthily, coming to us like a Prodigal
Daughter; you’ve rested well, it’s seen in your demeanour,
you are calm and resigned as sensed in your serenity

Will it be another foray into unchartered territory where
you’ll do innovative work, showing how we, like you, can
stay home courageously, with long disappearances, sudden
returns as a new moon after an eclipse

To shyly smile, win new acolytes with strict orders, rejecting
irrational demands made eagerly by troops who stayed
guarding sacred portals from barbarian horde invasions –
uneducated clients who demand non-entitled services

We are a profession fighting for executive recognition of
our smooth relays of foreign texts into a civilised tongue,
one that is understood by the Anglo-Saxon hordes rampaging
south from the cold northern slopes

Be that as it may, welcome back, Oh Prodigal Daughter and
Supervisor of troops, with military alacrity we are ready to
follow orders, except where they clash with ethics forged
through millennia of fighting for right & free expression –

Rights you claim personally, Oh Mistress Mine, not share
with the rest who earn their living where you merely dally
occasionally, singing from time to time ‘hey nonny nonny’,
with much ado about nothing

And in this institution lies only the way of the dreaded
watery death and creatures of the bottomless profundity
waiting to swallow all of the mighty and haughty who
do not care where they tread…

I Am Not Coherent Anymore

Now I’m the proud possessor of an iPod Shuffler in its small
box with purple disk and miniature apertures, I am bemused –
this resembles the little gold and white booklets I discovered
as a kid and used to play my version of ‘The Magic Flute’ by
making them into magical objects opening into the bewitched
worlds when presented to the guardians between this life and
their enchanted space

I cherished these booklets and now I have a small tablet which
plays music in my ears, another dream come true, switching on
the Shuffler I am thrown from Dean Martin’s crooning ‘Ma Bella
Mia’ to ‘The Merry Widow’ then straight into Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach
Zarathustra’, from there into ‘Ave Maria” sung by Lesley Garret and
Hoffman’s Tales - the chorus about 'Klein Zack' -back into ‘Das
Studium der Weiber ist schwer’

Then into a Prelude by Chopin - you’ll excuse me when I am not
coherent anymore, how can I be after this mélange reducing my
powers of concentration to nothing - I still hate Vivaldi when
his music crops up in between, you’ll notice I do not mention
it and any song which gets on my nerves – oh delightful life
that abounds with magic everywhere!

Figures In There Somewhere (Revised)

Came home to a brightly coloured work text
with Edith Piaf’s life resounding in my head,
read a Roger Bootle (Fortune magazine) écrit
on PIIGS (probable Euro-split, Portugal,
Ireland, Italy, Greece & Spain) explained

And Edith Piaf’s life intervenes, paging too
violently in the magazine, reading a heading
Dad Doesn’t Have Hobbies, He Has Passions
Tom Ricketts said; admonished by my love
I rest the magazine, time to get rid of

Edith Piaf’s passions in my head, her words
ringing in my ears – what’s the use of being
Edith if I cannot do what I want? It may be
why being Margaret Alice fails, I cannot do
what I want, becoming instead

Expert at hiding desire from myself; I shall
never know what I really want except that
music and singing and dancing figures in
there somewhere

Sleep Will Increase My Intelligence

Tonight I did my French homework. I spent the weekend in abject terror,
having ascertained that there is more work than can be completed before
the December holidays, and that I don’t know my French verbs – l’imparfait
does not come easily.

I finished reading The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and his science-fiction-
writer friend yesterday. I’m sure that “Happy Landings” contains a few sinister
secrets – such as the murder of people with imperfections, that the trolls control
the people in some way and this is why they keep people from converging in large
numbers. All this will have to wait till the next book in the series. The book isn’t
perfect, but that is because two people are writing it and with a deadline in mind,
so it shows, but it is fun.

Today I was sleepy all day long and confessed I feel completely overwhelmed
right now. My beloved said bring your work home and I thought, bring the torture
home so I can feel scared all the time – but his confidence made me feel better.
Yet I still could not write a paragraph in l’imparfait, my attempt is pathetic.

We bought an e-pod for listening at work when the noise becomes too much in
the open-plan office – then discovered it is a “Shuffle” – the awful apparatus
shuffles my recorded CD’s, no choosing  the song when jumping forwards, only
random songs – how shall I find Obladi-Oblada when it is needed?

Oh well, with the hope that bringing my work home will help, I’m going to bed.
Tomorrow it is work-on-hand and the construction document to bring infra-
structure to Africa – my cup should be overflowing, if only my brain were clever
enough to master all these things – let me rest, maybe more sleep will increase
my intelligence…hah!

Sunday 11 November 2012

I Have Just Repeated It (Revised)

Olé Guapa is happening while sitting here with
local development planning & financial assistance,
Andre Rieu conducting with nostalgia, the melody
and dancing as promising as it will always be

Fingers flashing over keys, Death and Renata
Flitworth at it again, dancing up a storm at the
Village Green, dancing on upturned boards, the
rhythm unflagging, augmented by

Languorous lines punctuated by sharp movements
of head, arms outstretched, images repeated again
and again, crying for Saudade, sweet moments
lost in time – I joyously hold on to them – and

The Theory of Relativity – everything that ever was
exists forever and can be repeated whenever we
want – oh, I want, I want, I smile - I have just
repeated it….