TONY
No cross words from your quiet wise lips
Just a calm, easy smile
An inventive streak.
Ships in bottles, ship on the wall
Your skills displayed proudly in the hall.
You gave me a rabbit’s foot said
Is it okay? Don’t want to upset you
It’s waxed and wired just today.
A copper bracelet fashioned from pipe
A bag of plums juicy and ripe.
Thick syrupy wine I’d sip to be polite
The taste would linger throughout the night
Heaven beware because on his way is the Bacchus of
Crosswords coming to play.
Squirrel Frenzy
This isn’t my usual style but I thought I’d have a go at flash fiction!
She shooed away the squirrels for the hundredth time, picked up the empty peanut bag and settled to watch her birds have their feast. One by one they returned, scrambled up to the bird table and lunged at the new squirrel proof feeder. Each time they failed and squealed irritably while the finches, nuthatches and woodpecker pecked away at the fresh supply.
They got angry. They squealed louder. She clapped loudly as she moved towards the feeder and as she turned back to the bench a large buck ran at her feet and she nearly fell trying to avoid it. It screeched an almost human sound and sat returning her stare. It moved closer and was joined by another two. They moved closer as they were joined by another three. By another five. By another nine. Who scratched their way up her body. Squealing. Nibbling. Gnawing.
She thrashed and screamed. Another dozen. Fifty. Nibbling. Gnawing.
Her veins.
On foot with elephants
I missed the elephant in the swimming pool by one week – in Mole national park, northern Ghana. It had strolled up the hill for a chlorinated swim by way of a change. But it was okay because I got closer to them than I was comfortable with, in a jeep, with my friend and two rangers. One of these guys was smaller than we were, and I am sure that an angry elephant would have been no more frightened of him, than of one of the baboons that were as populous as sparrows in my garden. The second warden came complete with a safari suit and a rifle. Or maybe a replica rifle. I don’t think I’ve ever been very close to a real gun, but it didn’t look like it could shoot a bullet big enough to even graze the hide of these healthy, well fed pachyderms. I could only hope that the plan would be to scare them away with a little bang.
We were bullied, no ahem, persuaded into exiting the jeep, which was tied together with string anyway, to take photos of each other with three of the giants in the background.
‘We need to drive around that way, a bit closer’ said small warden without safari suit.
‘Closer, why closer?’ ‘I don’t want to get any closer thanks’. We were perhaps thirty feet away.
‘Please, speak in whispers and if they smell us they may charge, we have to be behind the wind’ he said. Now, I hadn’t felt any wind, it was as hot as well …Africa, as still as a graveyard before a thunderstorm, and my adrenaline was telling me to run back to the jeep pdq. These guys are probably used to re-assuring wussy travellers who like the idea of a gentle stroll, to see some cute wildlife just like Attenborough, but then turn chicken in the end.
‘Don’t you want to show your friends how close you were to elephants?’
No actually I want to throw up but I suppose that would be too noisy.
‘Okay, I guess I probably should do this.’ They led us closer and I snapped the two of them with my friend. Then I realised that I had to turn MY back on them, no more than twenty feet away. Needless to say my face tells all in that photo. I’m glad I did it; I still love elephants – from a distance!
We only stayed in Mole for two nights. It was a brilliant experience, a lot more rugged than a safari I did in Botswana a few years earlier, where the lodge was the height of luxury. In Mole, the water and electricity in our chalet was only on for a couple of hours a day and there were creepy crawly things that I’d rather forget. The atmosphere was great though and the view was about as good as it gets. Just before sunset herds of elephants of all sizes come to bathe in the waterhole down below the veranda. A much more relaxed way to see them!
It could be you one day
I met an elderly man today. He had come to out-patients for one of years of appointments in cardiology, nephrology and the eye unit. He had a sparkle in his eye, stains on his shirt and his trouser fastenings were quite suspect, but I liked him. He chatted to me about his ailments and I helped him to sort through his paperwork amongst which was a poem. I tried to peep at it but couldn’t quite see, and after a while he offered it to me, saying that it was about the ageing process and he had ‘adapted’ it to include bits about his health. You can Google the original, it’s called ‘The shape I’m in’and each stanza ends with those words.
I could see behind him that someone was shifting from foot to foot, a young medic who probably hadn’t yet been on a geriatric ward. Now, whenever someone gets impatient like that it makes me slow down even more (one day I will regret it because I do it when driving with some idiot on my bumper) so I made the paper shuffling look more professional for a few minutes. Once I’d had my game, I asked Mr so ‘n’ so if he minded holding on while I dealt with the next person. He didn’t of course; and when I’d finished with Dr Shifty, he was thrilled to have a captive audience.
We talked about poetry, pills, the country bus service and that although he had been to most departments for treatment over the years, he still had most of his brain cells. I told him he was doing well as most of mine seem to taken the low road when I took the high. It was good timing, I had a quiet spell and could indulge him, but confess I had to pinch myself a couple of times when I realised I was losing focus.
His conversation with me was possibly the longest he’d had for a while but it cost me nothing and do you know what? He was good fun and I really hope that I get to see him again. I can’t help wondering how my life will be when I’m his age in I don’t know, twenty or twenty five years. Will I be lonely? Invisible? Will my toe nails be unkempt because I can’t reach them? Will I have stains on my clothes because my vision isn’t sharp enough to tell? At the moment I plan to be outrageously eccentric, but will I be able to make that choice or will it just happen to me?
Thirty Years and One Day
Thirty years and one day ago I was sitting in the garden with a friend watching our toddling daughters playing in a sand pit. It was a July day just as it should be, scorching with a silent air, waiting for a thunder storm that didn’t come. The girls played happily with the sand between their toes and fingers sticky with ice cream. I was waiting as well, for the discomfort I was feeling to turn into something tangible instead of the crampy, twingey, shovey feeling in my abdomen. I wriggled in the deck- chair for the umpteenth time and caught my friend’s anxious sideways look.
‘Are you all right? Nothing’s happening is it? You’re very fidgety.’
‘Just a bit uncomfortable, maybe things are getting ready and it will come on Saturday when it’s due.’
‘I’m not sure you will last that long,’ she laughed as I rolled to my knees on the grass, the only way I could extract myself from the deck-chair, and then gradually shifted from quadruped to upright.
‘It can’t come soon enough for me but I think it’s another lazy girl, just hope she doesn’t give me such a hard time as Nina.’
Natural delivery had eluded me when my daughter had arrived nineteen months earlier, I had a dose of pre-eclampsia and they decided to induce me. And so, in the way of much of what happens to me in my life, I really wasn’t certain what I was feeling. Husband came home from work, dinner was eaten, toddler was bathed, tucked up and TV was watched.
‘I don’t think I’ll go to bed’ I said at around eleven, ‘something is definitely going on and I don’t want to have any panics.’ The vision of my waters breaking in the style of a tidal wave, ruining the mattress, was second only to it happening in the supermarket, where I had already entertained them by fainting a couple of times.
‘Shall I call mum and dad?’ we didn’t have a car in those days and his parents were pre-booked to be taxi and to look after Nina in the event of any night time journeys.
‘Let’s wait a bit, I can’t tell if I’m having regular contractions.’ He intermittently dozed on the sofa and watched while I paced around for a couple of hours. I knew that I was in labour then, but still couldn’t time my contractions accurately; they would come at ten minute intervals and then seem to be up to half an hour. I just knew it hurt; I’d had a bit of what may have been a show, so we called the hospital.
‘Come in if you think they are ten minutes apart, it’s your second it could happen very quickly.’ With the complications I’d had the first time they weren’t taking any chances. Half an hour later we arrived at the hospital in my father-in-laws orange Saab and I waddled in. All of my so called contractions stopped.
We waited. Regular checks were done and it was agreed that I was in labour but only three centimetres dilated and they said I could go home for a few hours if I wanted. There was absolutely no way I was budging, once I was there that’s where the mess was going to be! They punished me for staying – with an enema!
M went home wondering why he and his parents had been up all night and I fell asleep for a few hours until I was woken by pain. Because I was so medicated for my first birth I had been to National Childbirth groups this time around, I was determined to be present and that my baby wouldn’t be having any drugs. The day drifted on through with all well; I was constantly monitored, they fully expected that I would need a Caesarean and so wasn’t allowed even a drink. Thank the Goddess for my tiny and expensive NCT natural sponge to suck on. With my legs in stirrups my nether regions were frequently explored by an assortment of midwives and doctors, one of whom I could have slapped for catheterizing me and reaching in to stick something on the baby’s head leaving me pinned to the bed.
Towards mid afternoon when I’d been huffing, puffing and making strange shapes with my mouth for what seemed an eternity, I was finally taken to the delivery room with nearly my ten centimetres. I was crying with pain and ready to give up and have some nice drugs. The bitches said it was too late, it wouldn’t make any difference now, and baby was on its way. I felt really panicky- this hurt big time. They gave me Entonox, but I was trying to breathe, pant and inhale all at once, just too confusing for my tired, addled brain.
My precious son arrived at 4.50pm weighing a whopping nine pound one ounce, incredibly long and skinny. I was proud of myself for the drug free arrival I gave him and totally shocked and happy to have one of each. He’s still tall and skinny now, very handsome and intelligent, and a loving parent himself. I’m very proud of him and my beautiful daughter; being a mother is a gift that I give thanks for every day.
Sleepy Devon
One good thing came out of my car breaking down today. This has been just the second occasion that I have spent any time with my daughter’s boyfriend and I have decided that he is a love. Why? The way he reacted to our plans going awry. We left home at 10.30 and should have been at Hound Tor in less than an hour, but my car broke three miles from home. While I waited for the mending man they took the dogs off for a walk, got a taxi home to pick up girlies car, came back to take the dogs off my hands again while the mending man followed me limping to Halfords. We went to browse a motorbike dealership while a new battery was sorted and I began to understand his passion and just how knowledgeable he is about bikes. I felt thoroughly out of place there though – never seen so much power and shine under one roof.
We got my car back, headed home for a quick snackette and situation re-appraisal and around 2pm set off for the moor again. This was supposed to be a treat for him, his first trip to one of Nina’s and my favourite places. I thought how sweet of him to squidge his six foot three into the back of my tiny Sadie, leaving Nina and I to chunter on, as the glory of the south Dartmoor hills opened up on the horizon. Dido and Daisy his new best friends gazed adoringly at him as he slipped off to sleep and only woke as we thundered over the cattle grid and got our first view of the lovely granite outcrop that is Haytor.
‘Wow’, Nina and I in stereo, just as we have a hundred times. ‘What do you think Steve, isn’t it stunning?
‘Uhhh’, he’s awake but not as we know it.
He recovered in time to scramble up Houndtor ten minutes further on,
and was a very happy puppy with his ice cream, camera and a focus worth of scruffy sheep in need of threading. Down the other side of the hill with views clear back to East Devon
lies the ruins of a mediaeval village where Steve and Nina made ‘Grand Designs’ that even included a granny annexe (on the edge of said village way beyond the cowshed), although he wouldn’t commit to which granny!
I should probably take it as a compliment that he managed to fall asleep again while I barrelled through the back track to Ashburton; if I had been the passenger I’d have been clinging to the dashboard muttering to any goddess I could think of. I think he then managed a few miles of wakefulness but was gone again through Totnes and until we parked in Dartmouth.
Coffee and chips by the waterfront kept him going as did the crossing on Higher Ferry but quelle surprise, we lost him again until Paignton, which is perhaps best slept through.
I’m fairly sure that Steve enjoyed Devon; he did get to sleep his way through countryside quite different from flat, overbuilt Portsmouth. Our rolling hills and picture skew villages giving way to azure sea are clearly soporific and I’m looking forward to sending him to the land of Nod again soon. It was great having such an easy guy around when the car was poorly; I know a few who wouldn’t have been so laid back.
So who has heard of threading?
Apparently it originated in the Indian sub-continent. Picture this: – Five women in a hotel room in Ankara, strangers just five days earlier. One American, one Indian, one Australian, one English-Nigerian and one Pakistani; two are sharing the room, the others are invited.
‘I’m going to deal with India’s whiskers’ says Pakistan.
‘You’re what???’
‘I’m going to thread her.’
‘What on earth?’
‘Come and see, I did Australia last night’
‘Yes look at me it’s amazing, let’s get some wine, you can watch her’
‘I’ll do you too’
‘Sounds painful, America, shall we go and watch?’
India lies on the bed; Pakistan takes two feet of white cotton, ties a knot to make a circle, a few deft movements and aims it at India’s top lip. They watch amazed as a mass of black hair is whisked away leaving a totally smooth finish. The process took just a few minutes.
‘Didn’t that hurt?’
‘No, I had it done before I came on holiday, it just pulls a little, no problem’
‘Where do you get this done? Pakistan are you a beauty therapist?’
‘No we learn from our mothers at home.’
‘You talk about it? How embarrassing.’
‘Why? It’s part of life, especially once you’re a certain age.’
Before she knew it America is on the bed lying on her side.
‘Owwww’, a squeal like murder, hope the room is sound proof.
‘Get her ice quick’
‘Ice, where from?’
‘The mini bar, quick a beer can, throw it here’ hisssss, it hits something hard on its journey across the room oozing brown lager bubbles onto the pristine five star bed linen.
‘Ow ow ow’ another half dozen whiskers hit the knots.
‘Uh . . . no need to worry about me, I immacced before I left home, I won’t have any long enough for you to grab.’
‘Bet you have, I’ll find some.’
‘Uh no, but I’d really like to learn how to do that, is it difficult?’
‘Just takes practise, here try it on your own legs.’ England-Nigeria takes a piece of thread and tries it on her hairless calves, nothing happens.
‘Here try it on America’s leg, she has plenty’
‘Ow ow ow aghhhh, noooo I need them to keep warm’
‘Oh how can I learn? This would be so useful, it can’t hurt that much’
‘Your turn now, over here, no you have to lie down I can’t reach you’
‘It’s too dark isn’t it? How can you see what you’re doing?’
‘Aha no problem, you have many, many fine hairs, it will take much longer on you, and you thought you didn’t need it, wouldn’t you rather be nice and smooth?’
‘Yes but…’
‘America, drink the wine it will stop the pain, now England-Nigeria you’re used to plucking your eyebrows so it won’t hurt, another beer can please!’
‘Put your tongue under your cheek to make your face stretch out’
‘This is crazy I never . . .’
‘Shush, you need to keep still stop giggling’
‘Ah’, England-Nigeria drew her breath quickly.
‘Watch America, you need to learn how to do it for me’. Four pairs of eyes looked down as a dozen hairs at a time were lifted from her skin. ‘Can you do this with bikini lines too?’ Five continents collided in a giggling heap.
Anzac Cove
A single satin poppy like a drop of blood on innocent sand.
As far as the eye can see, empty turquoise, peacefulness,
In the loveliest burial ground in the world
For the thousands of ghosts of lost boys
Who were sent here to die.
Stones pierce the green like rows of shark’s teeth
Stones that name Anzacs in their teens and twenties
Few old enough to be dads, all young enough to be sons.
Antipodean voices whisper as they search
Emotion choked as names are uncovered
And Rosemary battles for remembrance
Against the fennel scorched air.
The thing that’s not called writers block
I’m back. From two weeks and two thousand miles in Turkey where I have seen things fit to make even my hair curlier. I started with well meaning intentions of keeping my travel journal (thank god I resisted buying a sexy new one). Within twenty four hours the intentions had become ‘As long as I keep some notes my photos will help to fill the gaps’. Within seventy two hours I was thirty six behind. Hot, thirty eight degrees (where does that tiny round symbol hide on the keyboard?), getting tired from not sleeping on board hard beds and rising too early. Because we need to get moving ahead of the traffic, because we have to get there before the cruise ship spillage, because we have three hundred kilometres today, making me crabby, I’m on holiday right? Right but you didn’t want to lie on a beach G.
The damn bus was not conducive to writing legibly. That’s not true; San managed it because she can form beautifully neat words. I’ve seen opium fields, Troy, the Blue Mosque, temple cats, those hideous cruise ships sail into port like floating mounds stuffed with three thousand termites. I’ve met an Aspergic American, a beautiful young woman from Pakistan who had fled a ten month abusive arranged marriage and I have forced a smile from the grumpiest Istanbullu Maitre D’ imaginable. I went to the house where the Virgin Mary is reputed to have ended her days on this earth and shamefully touched immeasurably old artefacts with ‘Do not touch’ signs beside them. Emeralds the size of my fist dazzled me when rain fall like the Sunderbans trapped me inside Topkapi. So why am I not writing these stories? There is enough material to keep me occupied for months. Writers block doesn’t exist does it? If I was dedicated, I would be writing at any spare moment, anyplace. So maybe I’m just lazy, maybe I’m just not a writer. Not true, I am and I just have to do it – to write on through the dribble and find the discipline.
DAILY PROMPT: Everything I know about his/her body in 6 minutes
She weighs 39 kilograms and is 1.6 metres tall. Her skin is pale but not totally because there are areas that rarely feel soap or water. Those patches, beyond her cuffs, collars and hems, are grubby, grey and would benefit from a brillo pad scrub. Her toes have wide spaces between them where there should be some flesh with nails growing at odd angles and screaming for attention by thrusting themselves against her socks, drilling holes. She has long hairs on her legs, probably Mother Nature’s attempt to keep her warm in the absence of subcutaneous fat. Her buttocks are concave, her rib cage hangs over her lower body and we can’t resist counting, just to check that the numbers of pairs are as we have been led to believe. Her breasts have dropped back to pre-puberty but with dark hairs around her nipples. The beauty therapist has waxed away every strand from her underarms leaving red sore areas. Her complexion is acneed and the circles like twin black eyes threaten to paint themselves down her entire cheeks.
Lucid Gypsy 