Eternally.
How long is that?
Forever and a day.
Surely that is too long, right?
Always.
When does that end?
Until I know when, I’ll carry on.
Until I know how, I will turn the now into the future;
And the future into the past.
Interminable. Apparently.
writing
Time.
Time waits for no man.
No man should wait for time.
Nor woman.
Nothing to Everything.
It took everything from my system. All energy is sapped. It hit me like a tonne of bricks. A freight train to the soul.
I lost comfort.
Hope vanished.
Life’s path took a dark spiralling turn south.
Goals and ambition kicked into the gutter.
Shattered connections.
Unhelpful, unhealthy solitude.
All I could see was emptiness and fear.
A vacuum of a chasm.
Empty demands and is spoken of in snide words.
Lost belief in myself.
Hurt. Gutted. Irrelevant.
Life being a cunt. Tortured. Shamed.
You gave me everything, every smile and every belief. You fueled me. You lit the lighthouse once again. A defibrillator to hope.
You gave comfort.
Life took a huge mountainous climb towards the sun.
The constant goal and need embedded.
You asked for nothing and embraced my confusion.
Impressive reality and challenges ahead.
It’s a wonderful miracle.
Without judgement, without demands.
Gained a soul this last year.
Excited. Overwhelmed. Relevant.
Life is a joy. Pleasured. Pride..
She.
She didn’t throw herself from gorse under a horse.
She could not endorse her message without remorse.
She didn’t plot a way to close down a course.
She didn’t use an overly aggressive force.
She didn’t yell, “What do we want?”, down a megaphone.
She didn’t cry long hard and alone.
She didn’t stick herself in front of rush hour.
She didn’t throw eggs, milk, or flour.
She didn’t write a play and sign up a star.
She didn’t brandish a message along the side of her.
She didn’t lecture or pity the fools.
She didn’t etch out a story, hands filled with tools.
Nor did she shout out at all cost.
She didn’t argue until hope was lost.
She didn’t glue her hands to classic artwork.
She didn’t fight, resist, bite, spit or go berserk.
She didn’t cry behind a podium in front of an audience of the great and good.
She did talk sense and described all she could.
She even wrote it on her pencil tin.
She whispered her words amongst the great din.
And nothing happened.
Nothing ever could.
Status quo.
No changes.
No new beginning.
The same old.
Nothing.
Rebellion #1.
I’m the rise against the odds. I’m the growl facing the sods.
I’m the vote that casts a change. I’m the matter that needs derange.
I’m the fighter in the field they want to mine. I’m the nurse fixing plasters rain or shine.
I’m the voice that they want to silence. I’m the battler against all manner of violence.
I’m with many who shout and demand new ways. I’m one of the glued-up rebellious art damaging strays.
I’m the silent protestor who annoyed the police sergeant some. I’m the leader of the change that has to come.
Stand alone, fall down. Stand tall and together, stand up for your town. Stand for the greedy and against the needy, stand opposite me, you’ll see. We’re the changes that are needs be. See.
The time is now.
Hey adventure, where are you?
I’ve been waiting, patiently and impatiently. Where are you? Perhaps, you missed me here. Hey adventure, where are you?
I know I’ve been distracted, confused and upset. Where are you? Just maybe, you’re too busy to call by. Hey adventure, where are you?
These days have been testing for me, unsure and hanging on the help of others. Certainly, you know where to look. Hey adventure, where are you?
I looked back at last year and the year before, and one before that. How come you didn’t visit me yet? Hey adventure, where are you?
Is it something I did, said or thought? Am I not the same person as before? Hey adventure, where are you?
When you call by, bring some tissues and a shoulder to lean on. I’m sure you’ll return. Hey adventure, where are you?
I’m feeling so low, blue and deep in shadow. You won’t see me outside. Hey adventure, where are you?
I need to feel the sharpness of lemons, taste the sweet cool air and smell of green life. Instead, you’ll see me between these walls. Hey adventure, where are you?
It could be worse I guess, cast off and unwanted? No letter of recommendation or wave off. Hey adventure, where are you?
Hey adventure, where are you? I need you. I need. I need you. Need you. You. Come get me. Hey adventure, where are you?
Hey adventure, where are you?
B.D.
I’m going to explode. There’s a simmering rage. It’s rising up and ever closer to spilling up and out.
The mountain of hills and volume of small plenty is what this is all about.
I sense walls and fences stand only to be broken. Each panel a temptation to clout.
Leaning forward, I imagine a shattered wall, crumbling and littered with flaking grout.
From the wall windows litter with broken glass, alongside a sagging spout.
I look to the sky and beg, “Why? Why? Why?”. Each word grows from whisper to shout.
I stumble. I fall. No one hears my call. I snigger. I grip the trigger. Should I squeeze?
Yes, yes, God please. Do it. Do it. End it. End it all. Time to say goodbye. Time to go.
But, I take a deep breath. I focus my tired eyes. The black dogs snap at my feet. I throw them a bone.
You are not alone. You are not in company. You are not your own. You are not the company.
Twitches replace stitches. I fiddle less. I flick the pages. Reading makes me feel better.
The books are my escape. The escape is what I need. The last legs. The leg. The finale.
The fear never departs. The delay must stay. Keep it all at arm’s length. Control it.
Never ever give in. The black dogs can’t win. Snap all they want. Never give in.
Hard rain.
Trapped, twisted and descending; landing seemed so far; never ending. Flushed from on high; plummeting from cold beginnings to the warm decks below.
When it rains, it pours. The heavy hard rain begins as a gentle drop here. And a small drop there. Booming on the surface. Shattering outwards. Explosive force on almost microscopic scale. The end of the flow.
Drifting by influence; winds pull and push; tugging at the deluge and its wild rush; and unending battle of elemental force; tectonics in the sky; ending the moment of dry. Neither fast nor slow.
What started out condensed; freezing and crushed together; slid out and fell; spiraling like a dog fight; drifting and shifting; catching every light; warmer now. Hot snow?
The mind’s eye. Cry. Cry. Cry. Bellow out the yell. Roar in pain. Not now. another again. Victor slain. End of the game. Ended flow.
Review: The Big Book…
The Big Book of Literacy Tasks by Nancy Akhaven is targeted for grades K-8. As per the cover, it aims to give teachers 75 activities that are balanced and suitable for students to complete. This reference book is engagingly colourful, well illustrated and concise. It provides instructional plans that can be tailored or differentiated to the need of a teacher.
The book helps teachers to hand off the tasks to the student. It moves very much from, “I” to “You”. The book is well-structured to allow students to be challenged, and reduce teachers from dilly-dallying, which in an era of electronic media and distraction, helps a teacher try to engage a student deeper.
The author Nancy Akhavan, an assistant professor of Educational Leadership draws on her experience and dedication to professional development research to illuminate daily planning. The tasks can be divided into useful everyday skills, weekly practices and a few slightly more complex challenges. They are each applicable to reading circles, workshops or other literacy tasks. The book is loaded with tips, things to look out for and insights to allow English acquisition learners to progress into fully-fledged literacy learners. The author delivers far more than a lengthy book title.
This book offers Guru-like support, with practical advice and encouraging ideas that are easy to drop into the classroom. In a world often flooded by educational text resource, the bright cover with a climbing wall, Akhaven’s guide acted like a beacon for inspiration this week – and shall continue to be picked at until all is imparted and transferred appropriately.
The Big Book of Literacy Tasks by Nancy Akhaven has been published by California’s Corwin Literacy, a sample can be found online here.
Morphogenesis vertigo.
Enclosed at the face;
A covering for all;
A covering in part;
Worn as a disguise;
“I am Batman!”
This one is to amuse.
Industrial melanism in evolution;
From one code of darkness to natural selection;
Pollution and solution across generations;
Soot deposits and sulphur dioxide making way;
But, in better times it did not stay.
The fibre, the gauze, the fitting;
Bringing laughter, applause and teeth-gritting;
The wearer or a surgeon, or that of the patient;
Bedraggled non-conformity latent;
Attitudes infect and vendettas follow;
Collaborate via masking tape bridging the hollow.
A shield used to frighten;
This veil;
The shaped false face;
Fancy dress?
The vizard. The visor.
Bound together, hidden from all;
Abducted and placed up against a wall;
The collector hidden, concealed and camouflaged from sight;
Lovell’s telescope uncloaking the night.
Turing screening the enshrouded Enigma;
Overlooked by figures with their stigma;
How did the cell know what to do?
Sent messages of Morphogenesis vertigo.
Boundaries.
The wall doesn’t keep you inside
nor does it stop you escaping.
The range of the boundary’s grasp sit inside
refusing to ruffle or fold ever slightly like two ever strong shoulders of foundation.
The fences you make prevent you living and pay sacrifice to the freedom out of your longing reach. Barriers change in time and
ruins rise to fall, with temples and churches spilling outwardly, full of prayers for one such deity or another, seeping your skin’s
inward desire to be led and let go,
while forever knowing you carry the
weight of slumping shoulders
bound by boundaries of the mind.
Scale.
It isn’t the panic
that draws you ever closer
within its tumbling realm of vision or that tremble in your loin,
dancing upon the shaking shoulders of sacrifice.
It is the bite that remains forever itching failing to heal and settle,
a ruin which ever leaks over your skin
intoxicating the inward desire
while forever guilty mite weakens
slumping from shoulders
into the abyss.
The Fall Within You
It doesn’t take much to trip and slip when the angry dogs are snapping at your feet. They’ve invited wolves this time and they’re agitated in ways you knew as frequently possible m yet could never escape. They howl and snarl drawing nearer without ever getting close enough to sink their sorrowful rabid fangs into flesh. Their dirgeful salivating pus-filled gums drip oozing brown liquids across the foot of the bed. You feel heavy-hearted panic for a moment. Chapfallen fear.
A white hot cold like steel pressing against your mind’s eye, sliding all senses beyond control, the rage simmers and bubbles threatening to erupt to the heavens above, bringing hell to the day’s gloomy sky. Yet it won’t and can’t. You’re in a mediocre state. The best that can happen is average. The worst is equal to the best. Flailing and flat lining just above terrible but far below lugubrious pleasure. A monotonous gray scale of simply not good enough. The dour silent rage.
You know you can’t escape the wretched day that hasn’t come, but woebegone, you know it is soon to arrive. The fed up walls will fold in and the ground will crumble. You’ll slip, fall, down and tumble. The saturnine strives you had and the live you lived will be gone. The forlorn ashes of the fires burning around you will blow in sepulchral raging winds from north, east, south and west before slamming doleful thunderous bolts of lightning into the parched remains of your skeleton. That morose skeleton itself, fused and beyond mobility. Useless mirthless blue.
Hope knocks at your dejected door but the disconsolate door’s hinges have long dispirited rusted and welded to the wall. The wall has been long-covered by grim vines, rotten downhearted hanging nooses, despondent witch trial posters and fragments of a long forgotten camera obscura lens. The crestfallen wall’s dusted windows each produced Pepper’s ghosts no longer. Their cast down faded glass panes are grimed and moulded beyond shape and figure. Faded features hang weary and low, tangled in slim twine macramé. Downcast melancholy.
Life.
Life is for living; it’s for seeing; it’s for feeling; it’s for playing;
it’s for kicking a football in a field; it’s for stumbling on stones and slipping and breaking some bones;
it’s for smiling; it’s for crying; it’s for…
…missing home; it’s for feeling that tear. That tear building in your eye; and that moment you look at something so stunning, you’re overwhelmed with feelings.
You try to find the words, but the words aren’t there. They’re out there. They’re in here. In your head. But. You just can’t pick them up and place them in the right position.
Life. Life is beautiful. It’s pretty, it’s witty, it’s exciting, it’s frightening…
It’s staring into the abyss and not knowing where you’re going.
When you want to go somewhere, you go somewhere. Having a plan is all fair enough. Having no plan: just as good.
Just live the way you want to live.
There’s only one way of life.
And that’s your own.
Live, breathe, hope (Draft #1)
Muck in your eyes, surging cries, looking at then falling skies.
Pain straining your train of thought, hate free world sought, avoiding a day of distraught.
Stress says take a rest, your chest days you’re not your best, can’t even get dressed.
Stumbled upstairs, fairs not so fair for your cares, time to go get some stares.
Off we went, full consent, not worried about the rent, feeling less than elegant.
While I live, I breathe, I hope. Those hospital superheroes got me off a bad slope. Those hospital heroes helped me cope. While I live, I breathe, I hope. Up once again looking down life’s telescope. While I live, I breathe, I hope. Those hospital heroes helped me cope.
Knees a quivering, head all shivering, doctors and nurses delivering.
The news was confusing, my listening cruising and choosing, what it’s using, musing and infusing.
Shook by the broken heart, given a start, by way of observation chart.
Rating the flurry of worry, compared to a filling of slurry, bitter taste exiting in no hurry.
Human resources steadying, off for further readying, yet in a place unsteadying.
While I live, I breathe, I hope. No need to duck, dive and mope. While I live, I breathe, I hope. I cling on to the shipping towrope. While I live, I breathe, I hope. Walking together on every tightrope.
After the manic half hours, the room drained of flowers, friends turned away after hours.
Left with my thoughts, my personal dreadnoughts, gunshots casting lots and lots.
The demon at the foot of the bed, fear felt instead, I could have been brown bread.
Jabbed and prodded until sleep, a peak that weeped in heaped seep, knee-deep in thoughts that go deep.
Slipped in and out of shut eye, thoughts indivisible by, unable to oversimplify.
While I live, I breathe, I hope. Reach out for the good bathroom soap. While I live, I breathe, I hope. Thankful for the stethoscope. While I live, I breathe, I hope. Knowing today is just a kaleidoscope.
Who am I to tell you what to believe?
Who am I to tell you what to believe? When I can’t picture the ideas you conceive. Every day you bend, kneel and pray, but here I am with thoughts hidden in grey.
What do your Gods speak to you? How can you have faith in if it’s true? Do animals and plants have belief? Perhaps they’re all to lucky to avoid grief.
What is wrong? What is right? When does darkness stop and become light? How do the lost become the found? Must it take circumstances so profound?
Who are they to tell you not to believe? They can’t feel the life we’ll all leave. Resurrection, dedication and minds so set. Always believing, no sweat for regret.
The hum of the crowds all drowned out. Knowing how and where, never in doubt. Eyes to the sky, devout until the last. Shadows of worry forever outcast.
Their words, choruses and hymns echo. Through halls, walls, valley calls they grow. How did the lambs find their leader? Must they nod or bow before their reader?
Who are you to tell me what to believe? My mind is free like the air I breathe. I pass with peace but no direction. Each duty comes with no selection.
What I choose I can’t quite grasp. The paths I lead cannot all clasp. The roads I drive cannot all go on. Each lane merges and bends to one.
Destiny and fate call my name. I don’t know the end of this game. How did I get to be so alone? The decisions alone were mine to prone, groan and bemoan.
[scrawled in Kumbum Monastery, Xining, Qinghai on 19th July 2021]
Ride forever.
I once knew a man on bicycle who could ride forever.
He’d ride into sun, storms and every kind of weather.
A puncture one day hit and tested him.
He found himself lacking the spring and vim.
Ride on. Ride hard to a fashion. Ride forever. Ride with relentless passion.
By the roadside, he tolled and slipped into woah.
Up he got, took a moment and dreamed of the roads he rode.
His wheels could feel the steel of his hand.
As he screamed and crammed the bike back onto the land.
Ride on. Ride hard to a fashion. Ride forever. Ride with relentless passion.
But he got himself taped up and back all together.
Out he headed off back into the ferocious weather.
His seat squeaked its old crumpled leather.
It whistled along the thick purple heather.
Ride on. Ride hard to a fashion. Ride forever. Ride with relentless passion.
The ride outside is a long old road.
But when all is truly told:
The wheels of the soul spin over and over again.
All along the plain the eyes focusing on the main campaign.
Ride on. Ride hard to a fashion. Ride forever. Ride with relentless passion.
Riding out far, hands over bar, music in his ears:
Waving away notions of his fears and tears.
Gears into set, helmet into position and off he flew into transition.
The clothes hemmed his angular position as he set forth his mission.
Ride on. Ride hard to a fashion. Ride forever. Ride with relentless passion.
Bitter taste.
Some things were not made to be enjoyed;
The bitter tastes they leave on the palette;
The framed emptiness they draw not toyed:
The forceful thump of Thor’s mighty mallet.
Ever cringing nails on the dusty blackboard;
Piping rumbling ghostly marching skeleton bands;
Darkest nightmares suffered and explored;
Murky creatures move through dense moist wetlands.
When hope and love do not arrive on your booking;
be sure to recall that time of overlooking;
a subordinate word at the theatre of the absurd;
for entitlement to a smooth passage is unheard.
Grasping doubt.
Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t.
I wish I could but I feel I couldn’t.
I look deeply into my dreams.
They all don’t seem what they seems.
Parts of the perfection have no direction.
Each and every ambition is littered with defection.
So, I sit back, relax and just float along.
Knowing the words and tunes but making not one song.
My actions, my words don’t let me show it.
There’s music in my soul I know it.
Doubt bites at me, it knifed into my soul.
Black dog edging, tearing away at my lifelong goal.
So, what’s stopping has stopped the beginning.
My head is no longer a fit place for winning.
Stop.
Carry on?
Fly Like a Bird of Prey.
Do you recall Kim? Before her Evangelia. Wasn’t there a Jayne too? Nikki wasn’t too quickly. Shirley not? Wendy house? Didn’t you once meet unrequited love? You said you wouldn’t carry on or try again. But, you did! And, who now? Who do you fancy? Is it that Nancy? Or Daisy who drives you crazy? Or Spring, Summer or Autumn? The seasons of choice? Dance with your dreams.
Do you remember that Karst mountain? It rise from the ground like a camel’s hump. You said to yourself it was the most beautiful mountain you’d ever seen. And then you set eyes on Everest. Then Ama Dablam. Then Annapurna one, two and three. Fishtail Mountain. Snowden again and again. Always Winter Hill, but forever dreams of new peaks unseen.
You said you wouldn’t read after Jon Ronson. Wasn’t Jurassic Park the book to end all books? Then Airframe, the Animals of Farthing Wood should. The Jack Reacher series could. Ian Fleming gave you the spy that ended all spies. Pages of love, lies and cries. Yet, you close your eyes and there’s no disguise. Your bookmark never hides.
Back in the day wasn’t Ghostbusters always your favourite? Gremlins and Goonies, two you’d never forget. Watching Jaws, again, without regret! 007 live and let. Leslie Neilson going on and on, I bet. Movies like Gemini Man and iRobot to watch once – no fret. The minds eye full of Skynet.
Things are said one day. Things come and go away. With each passing birthday I say, never betray your display of child’s play. Each day we find a way to convey the driveway of life. Hooray! The outlay does not outweigh what we repay on our stairway to our breakaway. Fly like a bird of prey.
Written in January 2020, in Nepal, on a notepad. Before COVID-19 became annoying.
Refresh.
Craning my neck: stooped harshly.
Deep inside the bowl: placed hands partially.
Turning the pressure to flow: seeking coolness.
In my Chinese house: undrinkable cruelness.
The water here: causing neshness.
Flowing slow water in Manchester: enhanced freshness.
Upstairs at the bathroom: Broom Avenue childhood.
Drinking fast to slow: glug, glug, should, would and could.
Cooler than air, fresher than fair: my share.
After teeth, before sleep: my answered prayer.
I miss that tap: we were raised together.
The tap of life: water from Lake District weather.
Night rider.
The leap of faith: a frog darting between wheels.
The ray of light: shining beams and how it feels.
The foot on pedals: energetic pulsing engines pumping like pistons.
The gripped handlebars: spinning cogs unheard for all who listens.
The rush through dark: air rippling over and under.
The night time cycle ride: a wonder of a wander.
Darkness enveloping: hot air strangling the pathways.
The slick of the wheels: gliding along, down and up every raise.
Trees looking on: witnesses of the rider in the night.
Snakes hiding away: not their chosen spectacles of sight.
Cool air nowhere to be seen: the slick ride of the bicycle abound.
Night rider: over ground, uncrowned and without a sound.
Treasure!
Treasure! Treasure, I tell you! Jewels of the ocean sent over seas and up the river! Landed to me! Inspirational treasure! Oh, how delighted I am! For my gold, has such value untold. The treasure is the warmth of thoughts shared. To be unforgettable. To dream the unknown future foretold. Tell me dreams. Are you with me? Are you for me? Oh, your unforgettable embrace. My heaven. My dream. One day, I hope you shall return. Until then, I have my treasure. The greatest treasure, however, is your heart and soul. My memories. You are the treasure I seek.
Low pulse.
Veins showing boldly, ice flowing through coldly.
The swagger has gone, the light has not shone.
Stone replaces the many beats, without the need for feats.
The temperature rose, now nobody knows.
Beasts chose this path, giving no laugh.
I’m wearing a hollow crown, high over the frown.
Darkness swallows me whole, emptying up my soul.
Growling tormented screams, ending all dreams.
No rose without thorns, these days free of dawns.
Eternally sweltering heat, sleep patterns less neat.
Lonely bedspread of solitude, world emptying seclude.
Where is hope today? It’s gone so far away.
Checking out. Sean Lock R.I.P.
Memories of you.
Remember this too.
Farewell and adieu.
It may be time to go.
How will the remember you?
This only they can know.
So, for me and for thee.
Thy words and actions be.
What you want them to see.
Live as you are free.
Without fear be the true me.
It’s your life to cast wide.
The sands of time’s tide.
Enjoy the rhythm, enjoy the ride.
Live it up and full of pride.
There’s only way to buzz your own buzz.
There’s only way of life (and that’s your own).
You need to be true to yourself.
Live hard, live well and in good health.
Buzz loud like a bee.
Today will be yesterday tomorrow.
Leave behind not one sorrow.
Regret nothing and win love.
The game of life is as a dove.
A symbol of peace flying on high.
When I go, do not cry.
For I have lived, and given it all.
To this day and every call.
Though you passed on and gone.
I spotted you as you shone.
You danced, sang and gave clout to your shout.
Your light never goes out.
Condolences to the family and friends of Sean Lock, British comedian, writer and TV star. Ever since seeing 15 Storeys High starring writer Sean Lock with actor Benedict Wong, I’ve been hooked on this charming word-loving comic genius. His panel show appearances, stand-up comedy and writing for other top-notch acts will be missed.
Sean Lock (22nd April 1963 – 16th August 2021)
Caterpillar tracks.
Creating from destruction;
removing from construction;
stripping away from old walls to create new ones;
shredding parts to create hearts;
the caterpillars may be very hungry, but the leaves no longer are.
Actively inactive, sessile rhythms;
Emerging from darkness into light;
Gone are many legs, now wings to fly high;
Dietary changes, decreased yet increased ranges;
Seek food, partnership, courtship and repeat.
In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf. Hope.
Eggplant.
She’s the carrier of love.
Infinite possibility.
She wants to learn the love of her heart.
She doesn’t know how to do it yet.
Everybody needs love. She knows this.
She will learn from her soul.
She inspires. She desires.
The mentor. The goal.
To be better.
TWIS#1: Back to School
What a wonderful place to be.
What an excellent team to see.
The beginning of another school year.
Facing it without any fear.
Confident in the team founding.
Faithful to the conditions surrounding.
The seasons and reasons full of hope.
To the next climb we have our rope.
Up the mountain and down the hill.
Great days we have to fill.
To the team, teachers, staff and all:
Let’s go have ourself a ball!
Thank you for these days.
May every moment be full of rays.
We’re going to change many a mind.
New roads we can find.
Values and morals we can teach.
Making new avenues in reach.
Guiding one another with the other.
Father, sister, friends, mother and brother.
The family are invited together.
This new week brings bright weather.
Thank you all for sharing all you know.
You’re the community I want to grow.
ACTON28: AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC 