Alone

He,

he

is no

longer radar identifiable,

wings clipped until he fell,

fell crashed to earth with an almighty thud,

mind all messed up, synapses spilling from his ears.  Mired in mud he

makes no attempt to free himself, for he, brain unwired, no longer comprehends, 

he has nothing left but fear and emptiness.

So he is here, waiting,

waiting for death

to rub

him

out.

Anna :o]

Tony at dVerse has us going all mathematical, writing Fibonacci, Pascal’s triangle or triangle poems.  My effort is that of a Fib.  Thanks for the inspiration Tony!

Image: courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Author:  Maggie McCain

City, Early Evening

It is Ramadan

and in nearby mosque müezzin sings

and his soothing rhythmic call to prayer

permeates, sweetens sultry summer air,

plane drones lazily overhead,

distant seagulls squawk and screech,

leaves rustle in a whispered breeze,

mimic ebb and flow of salty seas

gently crashing into breakers.

Beneath canopy of softly swaying trees

discarded life snoozes drunkenly

as fellow flotsam sits beside her,

eases bottle from her hand

and washes down remaining cider.

Shoppers compare buys and chatter,

men discuss as women natter (:o]),

children squeal as pigeons scatter

and in the café dishes clatter

amidst the annoying hiss of coffee maker.

Revellers reach their destination

as bus sets down at central station,

girls alight in giggling groups

tottering on their high-heeled shoes,

dressed to the nines to go a-pubbing.

Lads aloud with false bravado,

raid cash machines with credit card so

to impress the girls with apparent riches,

win their hearts and go a-clubbing. 

Boy racers cruise with music blaring,

annoying all and pigeon scaring,

cars all souped up and flash with chrome.

Vendors vie, shout Chroni-kell, Big Issue,

accordionist squeezes tuneless air,

church swings out its bells a-ringing,

street singer croons in city square,

and in the distance sirens wailing,

paramedics rescue lads a-ailing,

felled by youth and drink excesses

as girls pass by in tiny dresses. 

And in the station

weary workers board their buses,

glad to leave the city rushes,

glad to leave the day behind,

glad that they are going home.

Anna :o]

This poem reflects sight and sounds of my city (in which I work – not live) observed across an hour, early evening.  The call to prayer of the müezzin is a case of poetic licence as, as yet, this does not happen in the UK.  I needed to research to discover as to whether an imam ‘sings’ prayers and found this not to be so and what I hear (often – and it is truly beautiful) is the imams rhythmic voice, which has the quality of beautiful music, breaking through into the night air.

(I couldn’t find an image to truly represent my hours observations, it was between 7-8pm and broad daylight and all was well with my world as I awaited my bus home.  The image is not that of my city.)

This poem also heralds a welcome halt to writers block; oh so many prompts attempted and after a reasonable start, words and thoughts dried up or there was nothing at all.

Shared with the good folk at dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight– thanks dVerse!

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Author: Brylcreem 2

The Significance of Birds

                                                                                           

Man and The Moon, 1990, Andrew Wyeth

Death comes in threes

she says solemnly as if somehow

mere utterance of these words

will cause the Sword of Damocles

to hang teetering, teeter over the head

of some soon-to-be-dead   unfortunate.

We do Last Offices;

lay him on the whitest purest sheet.

First stage (Clinical),

turn him and he groans

as last air expels from lungs

and watch horrified

as blood spills in rivers from his lips. 

Can you now understand my pain?

his dead body asks.

We lay him prostrate

as if in reverence to his God

and cleanse all that is corporeal,

gently pull his legs apart

and place padded pants. 

Oh the indignity of death

his dead body oozes.

Second stage (Aesthetics),

he now supine gazes

with unseeing eyes

as we again wash away his life,

trim brows and beard,

anoint him with essential oils,

dress him in his Sunday best. 

I am at rest now his dead body whispers,

I am ready and we usher in the family.

My best friend wants me to lay her out

I say as we both drained,                                                                      

clutch at warming coffee cup.

Y’know she says      

on my way into work today

there were magpies, four strutting confident.

Four for death.

Do you think…?

Just as I mean to tell her

she is stupid I see crow

and catch my breath as

he tap tap taps    upon the window.

Caw, caw, caw(pse) he advises

as he views me with his beady eyes

and one not prone to superstition,

nevertheless, a chill shivers down my spine.

Anna :o]

The above is the result of Tess's  prompt of the naked man and is also shared at the Poetry Pantry – hope you like it!

Primitive

He lays me on his couch,

its okay he says and he

soothes me with his velvet voice

and then somehow

I’m swinging through the trees,

huu-hooing, huu-hooing...

I feel history in my bones,

equilibrium rent so so long ago

as new world punctuates

that of the old, the old the primitive.   

DNA revolutionised,

not now content 
with mere existence, evolutionised,
I am inquisitive. 

We have him now, colobus,
crashing screaming to the ground
and I, Alpha, take first pick,
tear him limb from limb,
sink teeth deep into his flesh... 

He brings me out of it.

my past that is,

but the memory does not fade,

is not forgotten. 

Well, I didn’t expect that he says

(with a grin I recognise as fear). 

Maybe your ancestors are the missing link

he wonders out aloud. 

No doc I reply, look out there;

look at the primitives who roam

the streets arms hanging limp,

as if some roaming hunting ape,

savage, strutting,

uttering guttural sounds 
to intimidate those who (attempt 
to) rise above dark ancestry, become civilised.  
We are all the missing link I say.

He is afraid, still, and I see

red pools on shirt and floor,

he grimaces as he holds bleeding wrist

and terrified, I taste blood upon my lips.  

I am primitive.  
I am madder than I think.

Anna :o]

The excellent Brian Miller is hosting tonight at dVerse and the theme is puzzles, crosswords, jigsaws, anything we find puzzling.  The 'missing link' sprang to mind…

Oh and as the prompt is puzzles, here is a puzzle for you:  If it took a psychiatrist 19 minutes to INTERVIEW me, 16 of those minutes to DIAGNOSE my problem, how long did it take him to have me *SECTIONED?

*  Sectioned (detaining or sectioning) = involuntary commitment.

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons   

Author: Christopher Walsh, Harvard Medical School.

Petrified

Image by Musin Yohan

Tomorrow holds bleak promise,

offering naught

but that of darker days ahead. 

Storm gathers up its tricks,

marks time.

You are the burden that I carry,

tote on heavy laden shoulder,

shoulder well leant upon. 

I am weary of it all. 

Of late I’ve wished you dead.

I shall dream of Medusa, gaze on her. 

What better than a heart as cold as stone

no longer beating to your rhythm. 

I could be no more petrified than I am.

Anna :o]

My handsome one was diagnosed with young-onset vascular dementia while in his early forties, some thirteen years ago.  He is in a sense lucky as his dementia presents as apathy and he sleeps perhaps eighteen-nineteen hours out of twenty-four.  He could not exist alone and requires prompting for most of his daily living needs.    Without prompts he would never wash, shave (he has a beard and it would be down to his knees) or change his clothing.  He would eat!

He is never unhappy and it is probable he is more content (he was a worrier) than he was prior to dementia.

His happy apathy has been a blessing in another way, in that I know he is safe when I go to work – I do not have to worry about him ‘wandering’ when I am away from home.  I need to work to pay the bills, the biggest being the mortgage.

A recent event has changed everything, an event that could have led to his death and indeed mine if I had been at home.   After much angst I have sorted the problem out, removed its potential of harm.

But I know and have known since last November that his decline is accelerating and there will come a time when he will not be safe at all if left alone.  But the need for me to work will still exist.  In today’s depressed market it is unrealistic to consider down-sizing, and if indeed this were possible, the upheaval and the ‘strangeness’ of a new home would accelerate his decline even further.

So the need to ‘put him in a home’ – a place of safety -sometime in the future, possibly the near future is the only option available.

This is something I have been aware of since not long after his diagnosis.  It is something I do not want.  How could I hurt him like that?   How could I forgive myself?

The stigma of dementia hangs heavy on all those involved.  You find out who your real friends are – it appears my husband had none…  even close family members, (handsome one’s)siblings back off and you become more isolated…

Dementia is a terminal illness, of that there is no doubt and it devastates all it touches.  I do not want my handsome one to go into a home – I would rather he die first; die before he becomes a stranger to me and I to him.

I went to sleep yesterday hoping he would be dead when I woke up.  If you are not in the same position as me, you will not understand this.  I do not want his mind to die before his body does.   It is not a selfish thing; I want him to die now while his personality still exists, I want him to die because I love him.

Entered at The Mag, Mindlovemisery and Poets United.

Le Stelle

Her love gone

Her heart cast adrift, she so forlorn,

she and Le Stelle, they rode the storm

‘til tempest died, and sails rent and torn

all hope was lost and she so did mourn

the loss of love for she he had scorned.

And she in despair,

Wind still, now becalmed and lost at sea

at the mercy of the Gods was she

and she uttered forth her soulful plea

O my love, I gave my heart to thee,

please return my love and rescue me.

And Sol bore down.

She adrift for days on briny deep

and sun bore down and death did slow creep                                     

and for her lost love she so did weep

and she prayed the Gods her safety keep

as she drifted now in twilight sleep.

And the vision.

And in her dreams Paleamon rose

and he and dolphin leapt ‘bove the bows

and she in his arms he did enclose

sang sweet to her and soothed her woes

and delirious, life with him she chose.

And then eternal peace.

Life below blue sea she now did crave

neath new luscious moon and crested wave,

and to Paleamon her heart she gave,

and she to him a willing slave

on dolphin leapt to loves watery grave.

Anna :o]

The above is a late response to the dVerse Saturday prompt of Beauty.  The beauty of the human singing voice sprang to mind and that led on to Pavarotti and so stuck on YouTube I became – I missed the deadline.

I was introduced to the wonder of Pavarotti by my handsome one; he bringing home the LP King of the High C’s and that was it.  I fell in love with his voice and his image on the LP sleeve, abandoned the hubby and kids, packed my suitcase and stalked Pavarotti round the globe…

Seriously, I do so love his voice and always will, and it was through him that my love of opera began, until then my only exposure to it being while at school and limited to The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance. 

Pavarotti truly was, especially in his early career, king of the high C’s he once describing ‘hitting’ one thus: “Excited and happy, but with a strong undercurrent of fear. The moment I actually hit the note, I almost lose consciousness. A physical, animal sensation seizes me. Then I regain control.”  Lovely!

And to further excite your ears, more Pavarotti, this time Che Gelida Manina – now this I want played at my funeral!

Videos’ courtesy of YouTube.

Sundowners

Skies blaze as shadow casts

her dusky blanket,

sun dip-sinks below horizon. 

Twilight nags at those

who would sleep forever,

jolt-jars them from their slumber,

irritates, alters perception;

Reaper glimpsed                                                                                      

they shiver in their bones.                                                                                     

Charleston Farmhouse Door (The Mag)

Under half-dead eyes

they rise like jangled puppets,

strings pulled   ease aching limbs

from chairs that confine

like waiting coffins,

zombie-like they shuffle

until agitation animates their every action.

The Sundowners, brain atrophied,

this is their time,

a time of purpose. 

Fists, voices raised;

locked in on the other side of freedom,

they clamour at the door.

Anna :o]

Late afternoon, early evening and sometimes further into the night, some of our residents stir from their lethargy, lose their contentment, become agitated, argumentative, restless and wandersome.  These are the Sundowners who for reasons not yet quite certain are disturbed by and disorientated (at) this time of day and symptoms worsen.

Giving evening/teatime meds is fraught with distractions, little Edith will be hanging onto the bar of the drugs trolley bobbing up-and-down like a jack-in-the-box, Annie will be crying her heart out as she tugs at your sleeve, wonderful kind and pleasant Bill becomes a raging hulk demanding to know why he is kept a prisoner here and so it goes on.  The drugs trolley has become a magnet compelling all Sundowners to stick to it (and you) like glue.

Some Sundowners form escape committees – my mum did in her first residential home – sweet little mother morphing into a horrendous screaming banshee inciting her fellow residents to take action and escape this strange place they found themselves in.  As it was a residential home the door was unlocked, that is until my mother became a resident there and come early evening it needed to be locked!

In my home (where I work) some residents, confusion increased, attempt to leave the building with the day staff, adamant they have finished their shift too and demand to go home.  (We got round this by staff leaving by the back door.)

My lovely, lovely people – I hate to see them distressed.  But it will pass…

MLM’s prompt at Mindlovemisery made me think and Tess’s image prompt at The Mag gave me direction and so both these good people gave me inspiration.  Thanks MLM and Tess!  Also entered at dVerse -grateful thanks to Brian and Claudia!

Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author/User: Fir0002

Mouse

I am the quiet little mouse

that nibbles holes in skirting-boards,

dark holes to hide within;

in-between the spaces in the walls,

dark cavities built brick-by-brick,

a private place, a place for solitude,

a place for this reclusive

intro-vert-ed happy child.

They hunt me out –

the cats that is –  

prey on me with cruel mew,

paw at me with protracted claw,

try to scratch out words that don’t exist,

kill my sense of who I am.

I don’t want to play and make them purr,

I just want to be left alone.

Anna :o]

Karin at dVerse has us writing of any of the ideas of twins, opposites or divided selves and I thought I would write of my divided self.

Although not realising it then, as a child I was introverted, the child with not much to say and I knew I was different.  I could relate to adults more than I could to my peers – but I did have two good friends in my early years, friendships’ that carried through from primary to junior school.  And they were good strong and comfortable friendships and with them, my friends, I had much to say.

At the age of eleven my family moved from (a then and maybe still) rich southern coastal town to colder climes and it was here I realised how different I was.  Sitting at the desk of my new form teacher in my new school I glanced at the records (she was reading) from my previous school on which was written ‘doesn’t appear to have many friends’ and was hurt by this and couldn’t understand it at all.  Why would I need more friends?

Life was much harder in this new town and my difference led to me being bullied and quiet little mouse that I was, I accepted it, that is, for two years and then I fought back, having a ‘scrap’ with one of the bullies, which I lost – but won their respect and they never bothered me again.

Much later, when one of my children reached four, I had an internal scrap with myself, for this mouse needed to open her mouth to prevent a great wrong and it was at this time I invented the extrovert me.

Most people who know me, or think they know me – don’t know me at all.  To them I am the happy extrovert; outgoing, humorous, gregarious and they are comfortable with me – as I am with them.   Not very deep inside, the real me exists, I can count on one hand close friendships – I still don’t need anymore – I love solitude, quiet, thinking; hate parties, large gatherings at which I am expected to speak and hate noise.  Being the extrovert me, I am very happy having lived in its clothing for so long – being the introverted me, I am even happier.

Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author: Lxowie

More to Worry About

Fish in drinks,

allergies turning systems entirely by chemicals,  

cancer of their durability,

biological hermaphrodite and are volatile;

operating conditioners and disruptors’ identified

also there’s disturbing upsurge

in amphibians with investigated carcinogens –

similarly embryonic mammals’

remember reproductive polymer

causing warm back in English charity

and fish infiltrate testes. 

Trust the three CHEM hormones – plastics ability

(joggers in excellent host fisheries are

the undescended weather molecules). 

The containers that you work for -

responsible or single –

paints a species with mortality into children –

are there huge health results? 

Do use the day –

these with the belief of the ‘it’ in archetypes

necessarily out the reptiles but they,

they’re not immune, contents probable (of birds). 

Has intersex a plastic endocrine?

               

The frogs in France,

they that leach in every other fabric,

do up our legs – asthma not reduced.

Anna :o]

Charles at dVerse has us writing “Dada poems with scissors” – now this is new to me and I found it tremendous fun!  I chose this article I had read (in printed (slightly different) form) in The Sunday Telegraph, cutting up two paragraphs into single words, putting them in a dish and chose seven words at random, attempted to make some sense of them and repeated same until all words used (there were three ‘ins’ in the final batch which I stuck in where appropriate).

Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Author: Thue

Drum Roll Expected Please

You wind me up!

I watch you as you wind me up,

knowing

you care naught of my mechanics,

what makes me tick,

I merely a visible denotation

of your self-perceived position

wrapped round your flabby wrist.

You wind me up!

You think you manage me

but I manage you, set your pace,

my hands upon my face indicate

where you are  or should be 

in this very time and space. 

I am your controller.

You wind me up!

I am horoLogical, I am movement,

I am energy, I am precision. 

I move, wheels turn,

I bring societal recognition.

Your value is in me!

You wind me up!

I give you time, guide you

through the passage of existence,

offer a future state of potentiality

from this present to the finality of your past.

You wind me up!

I watch you as you wind me up,

knowing

you care naught of my mechanics,

what makes me tick,

I merely a visible denotation

of your self-perceived position

wrapped round your flabby wrist.

You wind me up!

 Value me – or time will quick run out for you!

Anna :o]

MLM at Mindlovemisery writes:

“This week’s theme is Personification! Personification is the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions. By all means feel free to submit stories as I feel this prompt lends quite well to fantasy. Any type of poetry goes, even just a blog posts about your encounters with animals behaving in a human manner would work beautifully.”

I thought I would write about my watch – not a Rolex (!) - which I would be totally lost without, the odd thing being that I have a pretty good sense of time and can almost always predict same before looking at my horological instrument – I guess I must need confirmation!

Time fascinates me and I often wonder what has preceded me in the annals of history - who/what occupied this very space in which I sit at my old computer desk…

‘How a Mechanical Watch Works’ – courtesy of Daniel Radeck at YouTube.