Paris

Stripy mohair jumpers

The lot of us, yellows, greens, reds.

In 1980s Paris.

Climbing the Eiffel Tower

And looking down on Daddy and Hen.

The boys were too scared to come up,

So just the girls went.

Girls are better than boys,

Enjoying the view from up high.

We wave down at them,

And at the beach that holiday,

Henry fell over and cut his foot.

I didn't.

I was careful, I was good.

I didn't mind the sympathy,

He could get all he liked.

I didn't cry because I was strong and big.

yesterday's musings

I think I write about being mad far too much. I know its good to write from experience but I've experienced things other than madness. Anyway, I slipped into it again. Here's yesterday's poems:

Polar-fleece, such unnatural material,

Fire-resistant, made for all weathers,

Cosy-warm and evil.

I lie on my polar-fleece red blanket.

And wonder why one person's dislike

Could colour my view so entirely.

Everything is magnified,

Every facial expression,

Every stranger's conversation.

I draw sharp breath.

I must stop this,

This over-observation,

Especially when I take

Every word to heart.

The word of every stranger,

Expression on strange face.

I must learn to take off my

Paranoia-tinted glasses

And re-join happy-ville.

I've not been to prison yet,

But it is probably like Prisoner Cell Block H.

And mental hospitals.

I don't think I could cope.

The madhouse was bad enough.

The urine on the floor and

The bath that had no plug.

And no lock.

Prisons have locks,

Hospitals have no locks, no privacy,

A curtain around a bed.

For far too long.

The tracks of my tears run down my face

No tears though.

Just a feeling.

Are they someone else's tears?

The rational view is a sinus problem.

I think Jesus is crying for me.

Perhaps because I won't do what I'm told.

Save the world, they say.

But I don't know how.

Ponce cat fluffs out his chest

Towards me.

'I know better than you.'

And he does,

Looking in the air at

Things I can't see.

He can see my voices,

my hallucinations, my Jesus,

Who comes when I am sick in the head.

He can see them now,

Understand them,

In a way my over-conscious mind cannot.

What's God anyway, Cat?

Such contentment in licking your paw.

schmaltzy

I'm not happy with this poem because I don't feel I've captured my feelings about my bedside table, it feels a bit schmaltzy. But I'll post up my first draft and see if I can re-draft another time.

Smells like candles,

The darkly varnished wood.

A face scratched in at night

Keeps me company when sleeping

In my pale cold blue room.

The veneer cracks at the edges,

Show chipboard underneath.

My bedside table.

Books on top, a yellow lamp.

It doesn't creak like scary wicker.

I scratch my name in the deep brown wood,

Of my bedside table.

spider plant

Spider plant just keeps having babies.

I cut off another two and,

loathe to kill them, place them

In a terracotta pot.

Spider plant throws forth

a long umbilical cord.

More babies on the way.

But I worry about my two charges,

Limply pale in their new pot.

They're watered and fed.

And then I find a woodlouse

Climbing on the saucer.

There's more and more, tiny tiny

Baby woodlice eating at the roots.

They curl into balls.

To kill the baby woodlice would

Surely be unfair.

But I owe it to my spider plant

To care for her young.

I spray my pesticide.

There's more woodlice in the garden I suppose.

Another iambic pentameter attempt

Masculinity

The lord of self control and virtue stands,

In square on pose, well versed in fight,

For wholeness of his masculinity.

I throw a dart of love, a dart of pain.

Then run for safety of my ignorance.

haikus

Fuchsia is in bloom

Alone on the grey pavement

Purple stamens proud.

Cut sage smells strongly

In my shopping bag, lovely

Friend forgiven, hug.

Blue plastic chair, shy

Of authority, broken.

Leaves feeling control.

postcards

My words for you resemble tiny little seeds.

Big round cheeks and a purple dress.

Blooming in the foreground,

My heart is carnations.

The ducks are floating and flying round the overflown river.

The medieval city holds crumbling buildings together.

Tourists come and bring their money

In return for a grand hotel at night time and Disney's Poland.

A splodge of orange beer stain

En-captures a man

Small and funny legged

In shadow to me.

Will I see his truth?

My struggle is accepting my lies.

holiday

It is sunny in London

And raining at my holiday destination.

The beautiful city I am aching to see

Will be under the cover of thick grey cloud.

Photographs of the basilica will be blurred.

Photographs of me will be bedraggled.

It is sunny in London

And raining at my holiday destination.

But by the time I get there, the sun may

Peek through the blanket above,

And shine particularly on me

And my holiday.

handbag

The handbag lay

Face down

On the yellow bed.

The dirty fawn strap

Curling like the path of a

Rollercoaster carriage.

Quiet.

No passengers to scream aloud,

Help!

The handbag lay

Face down

On the yellow bed.