Nobody wishes to be cannon fodder,
nobody wants to constantly bleed for others
Even the most selfless sometimes need to be handled with care
If they falter, fail, if they break, them with the patience of a saint,
there is nothing left. No hope. No faith.
And so Sisyphus rolls his boulder.
*I’m still here, though I haven’t got much to share, or maybe I have too much. While I ponder this further, some pics from last night — 2am selfie madness.*
Somebody who follows me on Twitter – no idea why since they object to pretty much everything I say on there – asked me yesterday why I was always angry. Well, I’m not ALWAYS but it’s inevitable I should sometimes be in the current climate since, you know, I don’t go through life like a mindless robot.
No apologies for that.
I’m definitely too old for the number of Brainy t-shirts I own, but: I identify – I can be as annoying as he is but I’m unrepentant about using my brain.
Please go and like the original post, thank you.
Life doesn’t happen in chapters — at least, not regular ones. Nor do movies. Homer didn’t write in chapters. I can see what their purpose is in children’s books (“I’ll read to the end of the chapter, and then you must go to sleep”) but I’m blessed if I know what function they serve in books for adults. — Sir Terry Pratchet
I’m aware that this title appears to be advertising the bookshop of Berkshire’s leading commuter town, but it’s been drawn to my attention by no one that I’ve been so busy blogging about writing books that I’ve not looked at how to read the blasted things. Every reader knows how to buy books – see a previous blog : https://lifeassistanceagency.com/2018/12/28/how-to-buy-books/ – but reading them is an art form itself. In a modern world of boxsets, bagels and Brexit it’s a wonder anyone is reading, yet the literary…
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By Tom, about writer’s block – please go and like the original, thank you 🙂
“Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all”
―
What awful timing, or perhaps it’s related. My new novel UnfinishedBusiness is published and I’m struck down by what feels like something I don’t want to name, no, not a STD, but writer’s block. Despite a launch party last night that included four Spanish women without word of english to their name arriving to buy a signed copy of the novel for one of their brothers, I’m looking at Unfinished Business with the sense it was a fluke; never to be repeated.
I can’t recall if I’ve written about writer’s block before, I must’ve blocked it out, which is exactly the sort of crap joke that suggests it’s time to step away from the keyboard and do something else. Anything. Just stop writing. Mind you writers aren’t capable of much else, unless it’s the…
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I get off my throne
Take off my clothes
I keep my crown
My silver bangles
Get down on the floor
Crawl
A slow
Deliberate animal
I lick my lips, shake my hair
I can see your hands tremble
Such are our desires
An urge, intense and primal
To play predator and prey
At times you are my slave
Others I am yours
We revel
In filth and shame
Games of pleasure and pain
Now
You stand over me
Still statue carved in stone
Silent with burning eyes
You are already mine –
But my submission
Its meaning
My legendary pride
Discarded
For you, thrown aside
A queen purposefully brought low
– makes you even more so
Placing the final piece in the puzzle
So complicated and yet so simple
The contract that binds
Is the one left unsigned
Your hand on my throat
My fingers in your mouth
The sharp intake of breath
I expect
When you’re on the edge
When I know you’re close
Tomorrow
And the days after
I will bleed into your thoughts
Seep in little by little
Until
The need
To taste me again
Takes over
Colours
With crimson red over monochrome
Controls
You – body, mind and soul because
Mine is the name you can’t say
I am the secret you can’t share
What should have been sunset-lit
But instead
I am your midnight remorse
Je suis ton remord de minuit
We escaped gloomy cages
Breathed new air outside the musty pages
Of the books we’d sheltered in
For so long
We were bewitching birds brought back for a single song
Dried butterflies,
Wings untied,
Briefly swelling with life
Drunk on sun & scented promises
The sweet sound of stolen kisses
For a little while, we were allowed
To fly once more – high, above the clouds
It didn’t last
It never does
Alas everything must die
Go back to ashes and dust
But,
I’ll always remember
How once we emerged
From the cocoon of past winters
Don’t ever be intimidated by groupthink, don’t fall for identity politics, keep resisting the bullshit…
…but if all your attempts to re-establish sanity fail, leave them to it, desert the sinking ship – and do it with honour and dignity.
Be an authentic Corsair – walk the plank backwards while looking them in the face, so they are fully aware you’re jumping because you want to, not because they are making you.
It’s not often I have anything good to say about Twitter, it can be such a vicious place, especially right now as they’re cracking down on free speech. But… this isn’t going to be one of those posts!
Last night I couldn’t sleep, not one bit, not at all. Now I’m used to insomnia, I’ve always had problems sleeping but I usually manage a few hours. But last night there was nothing doing, I knew it was no use and I gave up even trying – I was pacing up and down until morning because I couldn’t read, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t do anything.
Predictably, by 8 o’clock this morning I was feeling like s**t.
So I turned to Twitter and asked if anybody knew of a quick pick-me-up, because I don’t drink coffee like other mortals. And Twitter delivered, a bunch of people replied with tips and another bunch messaged me to ask if I was ok, etc…now, that – alone – was a pick-me-up.
I had the cold shower quite a few people recommended, and you know what? It bloody works – you have to be brave though. I also made juice with everything I was told would help – all kinds of fruits – and including a big chunk of stem ginger…now I won’t say the juice tasted nice because it didn’t…but I definitely felt better afterwards.
I then posted a selfie to Twitter: post cold shower, post juice because it was after all a Twitter result – and now it has made it on my blog too.
It’s now afternoon and I’m having green tea and feeling sooo tired…and hoping tonight won’t be a repeat performance of last night.
People who have no problems sleeping…you have no idea how much I envy you.
When the stars peppered the skies, pinpricks of light in the silent night and the dark fabric of life,
you said I was beautiful – one of a kind –
but,
by dawn you had changed your mind.
It’s many years ago – sometime at the end of the 80’s – and I’m listening to that song. The one with the mournful synths, the one with the words seemingly plucked from deep inside me – the words I would share with you if only I could be sure you’d understand what they all mean. In my living room it’s a bit cold, we just welcomed autumn, a shiver runs down my back and the cat gives me one of his contemptuous looks for no reason at all. I start the record again, the needle trembles, settles, the record cracks a little, just like firewood in the old chimney – I sit back down on the floor, I could listen to this record a hundred times and more.
The phone rings, a strident siren, nobody in 2019 would ever be able to stand it but back then, as with all the other big, clunky, loud 80’s machines, we were used to it. It’s still ringing – I swear it could wake up the dead – I answer it because I have a feeling it’s you. Yes, it’s your voice, I was right – it’s a sign.
“Don’t speak for a bit, listen to this.”
The phone is plugged into the wall, I pull the cord as far as it will go, and hold the receiver next to the speaker.
“Are you there? Now, listen.”
It’s an order. it’s a prayer.
The shiver returns though I don’t feel the cold anymore, I’m nervously twisting the phone cord around my fingers – halfway through I stage whisper: “this bit coming up, you gotta love it.” I don’t know if you can hear me over the record player.
There – the song is over. I let the silence stretch for a number of seconds so I can pull myself together, I’m hoping you fell in love and need time to recover.
“Well?…”
An agonising beat
“Wow…yes…wow.”
I hear hushed wonder, the tone is right, you got it – my gift wasn’t wasted.
The next day there is a kiss, and we’ve got many more phone calls ahead of us. But it was the music, the synths, the words – it was the record player that did the trick, that really started things.
Forget Spotify and the über modern hi-fis, forget instant sharing, forget digital and iPhones – none of it has ever been as intense – as real – as the old record player and the ugly clunky grey phone stuck to the wall.
And it wasn’t just because we were teenagers.
