There is nothing simple. Love is wonderful. War is heroic. The deeper the love, the more terrible its end. The more terrible the war, the more joyful its end. The machinery of conflict has potency and evokes awe. The salt of tears shed in love spice the soul equally for king and slave.
I took the train to London. Ooh – I never knew there were so many people in the world and that most of them would be in Leicester Squash. Yes, yes I know it should be Square. Apparently they are improving London ready for the GAMES. What games do you say? Yes, the Olympics. I must confess to feeling that it’s actually a lot of fit young folk running about and playing games. Tribal warfare with feral mobs of grasping lawyers has already broken out over the ownership of the Olympic stadium after the event. Anyway, they are pimping up Leicester Squash. Entering or leaving from the Charing Cross Road means battling with thousands of one’s comrades through a small gap created by building site mesh barriers. Any faller would be trampled. Last night a rampant gang of spidermen dress-alikes surged and jumped through the shuffling throng. A comatose young female in Father Christmas garb was dragged along by merry reindeer mates. Ho hum – I’m getting old and longing for Charentes-Maritime. My business plan in this world of austerity is for the inflatable Olympics. The same stadia and palaces of pugilism could be traipsed around the globe and inflated in the winning city like a travelling fair or circus. And we could have all manner of be-knighted bigwigs blabbering about drug scandals in the bouncy castle event. OR – we could have the games permanently in some unlikely place that needs a cash generating theme park like….um…. GREECE.
I went to London in full bourgeois pursuit of ART. There is a fabulous exhibition of paintings by Degas at the Royal Academy of Art in Piccadilly. It focuses on his paintings of dancers and takes in that period when the whole notion of motion was a lotion flotion in the air. Photograph, film and the science of movement were combining to fix and define the relationship between Action and Time. Ooh – when I try, I can sound right posh don’t you think?
I feel a bit mean for writing about Degas because he guarded his privacy very seriously. He thought the worst possible fate to befall a man was to be written about by writers. Well, that’s all right then – I don’t think I count. Regular readers will know that I once had a temp job in the ART world and developed a taste for the old brush strokes. Some exhibitions can be promoted with lofty themes and in reality have a cobbled up content. Not so this one! It is the biz with a buzz.
There is a modern term used in comedy these days of “projectile vomiting”. I had always dismissed it as hyperbole although laughed to see it in” Little Britain”clips. Last night Gilles and I dined at a famous Chinese restaurant in Wardour Street Soho named “Wong Kei” (Affectionately known as Wonkies). This restaurant is known as being good value but with staff at best brusque, but probably often just rude. The food is kinda slammed down in front of you and plates are snatched away before you have finished. Last night Gilles was left in mid munch when his plate of hors d’oeuvres was grabbed from the table. To a Frenchman this kind of thing is incredible. In seconds the next course was slam dunked in front of us. As I began the Chicken in black bean sauce young man of about 8 years old stopped alongside my table. He turned his green face towards our table and clutched his hand to his face as he convulsed in pre vomit apoplexy. Suddenly he let go. A stream of hot pre-owned sweet and sour pork noodles splattered into my rice and onto my arm. Gilles, who had not been impressed so far, shrugged and asked cynically if this was the cabaret. The child appeared happier and stood smiling in front of me. Waiters arrived throwing green tea and bleach on the floor. The child wandered back to his oblivious family who were occupied with a second screeching child who was throwing some kind of tantrum and charging around the salon. Still green, the lad resumed his meal. I was delighted. I hate to see food wasted.
The sting of bleach in my eyes and the splash of vomit had cooled my appetite. We paid and left. You know, this is the land of plenty. Sometimes it is just too much.
Emma thinx: When you think you’ve had enough, you’ve already had too much.
Italy is to be led by a technocrat. Greece has been handed to a technopinion of technocrats. All of this misses the vital point. What is a crat? Also what is the proper collective noun for a number or gathering of crats? And another thing – how could you hire one or apply to be one?
“Excuse me Frau Merkel – we have a problem here. Could you send us a couple of crats?”
Anyway this whole issue has led to me re-branding myself as a writocrat, busocrat, laundrocrat and very much of a gastrocrat. World governments please note. If you need to pay a big wedge of cash to hire a crat, you need look no further. Once you’ve put a crat in your team you’re on the way to salvation.
Well now, I’ve been kinda loafing about and kinda busy. You poor souls had to clear your inbox every single day of my output and I figured you might need a rest. I actually needed to get down to some good solid chocolate sampling and digging up of sexy tingle dust to sprinkle on a video trailer for “Knockout”. I’m sure some of you already know that it takes about a day to do 10 seconds of visual. If you would like to see my efforts they are here.
At an educational establishment where some of my bus kids attend, they offer “life skills” training. Often this involves retail orientation and expertise development. You probably know this better as shopping. The idea is to show them how to handle money and how to evaluate the best price. During a recent tutorial held in a hypermarket, a student was grabbed by security guards for impulse buying without payment. There are several terms for this practice. The suspect explained that he had been asked to obtain goods at the best possible price. Now, that lad got the best deal in the world. And they say educational standards are slipping!
Tonight as I drove my bus on a 4 lane highway at about 50 mph a black cat flashed into my vision as it sprinted across the 2 lanes to my right, across my path, body swerved a lorry to my left and sprang on to the foot-way. I’m guessing that’s 4 lives used up. If he makes the return he’ll only have the one in reserve. Should I buy a lottery ticket?
Emma thinx: Why do the big breaks all come in life number nine?
When I was a kid (by the way, beware of anyone who opens like this), the great fear was the advance of the machine. The world was mechanical. Most watches still ticked in clockwork measurement of time, so that to me it seemed that time did “Tick away”. Common London vernacular described the human heart as your “ticker”. Now the beep and the arty bing bong form the punctuation of time. The electronic calculator arrived as I was at primary school and its been a one way street ever since. A few days ago the final bridge to that past was blown. The last typewriter factory in the world closed down. Now let us think about that. The works of F.Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Shakespeare were all qwertyd out by ribbon and roller sweat. (A deliberate error is included to keep you awake). I hit the keys during the 70’s as a teenager and I still have my old friends at my side. These machines beat out novels and poems that were rejected by some of the greatest publishing brands in the world. Words pounded into the paper on these keyboards sat unread in slush piles of Faber and Faber, Mills and Boon, Poetry review and True Love magazine. Some of them are still there. Who knows, some work experience kid on a 10 year internship hoping for a job before she/he dies might be reaching for the next yellowing bundle on the !980 pile. What bothers me is what do we do when all the power goes off? Has anyone come up with the clockwork powered lap top?
A recent survey has revealed that “most people” feel insecure and vulnerable if they do not have their mobile phone with them. I suppose I should poo poo this idea but actually I think this is true. Firstly I think that folk feel insecure and vulnerable anyway as their jobs and life-style lose stability. Secondly I think that the cult of individual grasping for self that has created our societies, has eroded the notion of community. The mobile phone represents a kinda friend and a connection to our own network, where folk just might be more kind or care.
Unemployment among the young is a record levels and soaring. More and more old timer steam and clockwork guys are clinging on to their jobs, while kids who teethed on X box and have degrees are queuing for a job flipping burgers. I know it takes a while to turn the tanker around, but is there anyone on the bridge?
Emma thinx: In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is under contract to the bank.
Really I’m a bit of a pleaser type. If I write something I’ve got half an eye on what I think folk want to read. I don’t think I could have been a Charles Bukowski although I do admire him. He portrayed himself as a drunken sexist, although I’ve found that men like me more when they’re drunk. He spent years sending his poetry to editors and getting knocked back. For years he worked as a postman and from his own account in his book “Post Office” was hardly employee of the week. When I’ve entered poetry competitions I have been guilty of double guessing what the judges would like instead of ploughing the arid furrow of artistic truth. In social situations I try to pretend to be kinda like the other folk there and just go home. As an employee I’m semi obsequious because I want people to be pleased with me. I think I am most people don’t you?
All of this brings me on to another of my heroes. Yes – you’ve probably guessed it – Silvio Berlusconi, that slimy arrogant self seeker who should be the enemy of all righteous pure people like me. Take a look at this clip which is just so outrageous that when I first saw it I could not believe it. Also notice that he only had about a quarter of the hair on his head that he has today. The point is that people like this represent the possibility of being audacious and getting away with it. I would not want this guy anywhere around me, but I rejoice in the comedy of his vileness. This is a most inconsistent argument and I’m not proud of it. But it sure makes me laugh.
I’m missing France and the French language. I’ve been tweaking the foreword to Oscar’s book and called him. In the background he was playing Jacques Brel singing “La Chanson des Vieux Amants”. Brel was an unparalleled genius as a musician and a poet. If you love French, or your soul longs to understand its longings or you feel homesick, have a chocolate and a weep with me. Go on, give in! This song is so beautiful in French.
Emma thinx: The imbalance of your inconsistencies = YOU.
It’s week 4 of the Warm Fuzzies Blogfest and it is also the last week of my daily blog before it moves to a new twice-weekly schedule.
The quest this week is to discover what makes us scribblers do it at all? Hmmm – well, I would have to give two separate answers. I write poetry because I want to magnify that small voice that is the essence of life. Most of the time you cannot hear it above the rumblings of lusts, stomachs, diesel engines and the pick and mix dilemma of daily decision. As I have aged the sound has become ever fainter and more distant. These days it is the blurred hiss of the TV sound system between segments of the jangling multi-coloured commercial breaks.
I write Romance because I like sexual passion, travel, wine and drama amongst most other things as well. The sensation of warm sun on my skin, a glow of Bordeaux wine and a long deep kiss of lips and souls that starts to build my desire, is where I want to be mentally all the time. As it is I aim a bus through heavy traffic and shop in Walmart. I am saved by a gorgeous lover. Romance writing is a turn on and is intended to nudge the love nodes of my readers. For me this is fantastic because it gives me too an erotic buzz and allows me to use what I learned about words and moods as a poet, but without the ruthless discipline of poetry and short stories. If I combine my two responses it would be in saying that I write because I love words and words of love are the writing of our emotional DNA.
I have chosen a passage from my novel “Knockout!” when the lovers are spending the night in Paris. They have dined and become engaged that evening. Both Anna and Freddie know that huge forces beyond their rapture are hurtling in. At stake are their lives – or worse – their love.
That night they made love tenderly, without urgency or complication, reaching out to each other like the roots of two seeds blown by chance and interwoven as one. At around midnight they lay touching hands in the moonlight. The window was a little open and admitted sounds from the street. In the distance voices and traffic spoke the muffled language of other lives. Somewhere close by in another apartment a sad saxophone played reflective moody late night jazz. If there had ever been a moment when she would have stopped time it would have been then – in the mellow moments of their after-love and their before-life.
The great River Seine rippled and pushed on to the sea as the sun tip-toed the back stairs of the world climbing towards dawn across Paris. Maybe the morning light would never uncover two lovers hiding within the protection of each other’s arms…
I would like to add my thanks to Juliana for hosting this blogfest. It has been a marvellous opportunity for me to encounter so many other writers. I know this kinda stuff is hard and eats time and so I wish you now a little peace and poetic space.
Tonight as I drove my route, the setting sun was a cold red disc in a sky of cruel blue. The kids were singing along to Rihanna’s “We found love in a hopeless place”. A particular lad always wants to sit next to me. He pointed at the volume control to indicate he wanted to pump it up. I pumped it up as a V formation of rooks passed across the void of space and we sang, bopping about in our seats. For just a moment I really felt the lonely turn of our planet in the cold indifference of the cosmos and heard it filled with defiance and a kind of love. The lad cannot speak.
Emma thinx: A beautiful second will fill all time.
For Juliana: WFPF 4xposts plus 4xtweets = 24 ?
You know those shows like “Les Miserables” and “Oliver” where there are always packs of ragged urchins in dirty clothes and smeared faces. All the same, they intone in posh fake underprivileged accents and defy their filth with their perfect white teeth dazzling from their blackened well nourished rosy skin. It’s a form of theatre I have always called Singing In The Pain. You would think that these historical “shows” are colourful cameos of those poor n ‘appy snappy, golden gutter, good old days. Please forgive my little pastiche of show biz poverty. It helps if you flap your arms like a bird and do a knees up misery minuet.
The trouble is that when you come across kids who are are only slightly less piteous, who smell and whose crooked teeth are already stained with tobacco, you kinda think they should be cheerful. They are not. I pulled up in the bus this morning and picked my way through the detritus spilled from ruptured bin bags on some wasteland which adjoins a run down house. A chaos of bins, old bikes, a bed and a rusty supermarket trolley vie for dominance in a garden of unintentional urban art. Eventually a lad stumbled out, unwashed in the same torn soiled clothes he always wears. This is 2011. We have been to the moon. So far we haven’t got to poverty and more importantly, its causes. Some politicos will tell you it is not there. Follow your noses guys.
As an act of goodness I agreed to do some child sitting this morning. It was not too tough, but it was a peep at a world that I had forgotten. On the TV was a channel clearly sponsored by some global coloured plastic manufacturer. A few seconds of cartoons were followed by about 15 minutes of toy advertising. One toy caught my eye and actually made me laugh aloud. It is called “Stinky the garbage truck”. It is billed as “interactive” and you can see it here. The imagination of these toy designers is truly fantastic. This machine belches, farts and defecates. It bellows and sings and actually is the most crass and UTTERLY DESIRABLE TOY I have ever seen. I have had dinner parties with people who have behaved very similarly but without the entertainment. I want one and I’m gonna pester and pester and pester and stamp and whine ’til I get one.
Another toy was a radio controlled tarantula. Some horrible boy was tormenting his squealing sister into terror. In my youth they just stuffed a frog down your knickers. I guess you just can’t get the frogs these days. I’ve never mentioned it to Gilles.
Emma thinx: Imagination – the pale public mask of unlimited fantasy.
Today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK. I feel humbled by the TV pictures of older men and women who endured war and combat. Now they stand in Whitehall in the slight mist of a late autumn day. Green leaves still decorate the plane trees in a defiant gaiety, like a soldier’s marching song. I reflect that all the crowds gathered there would only have occupied an hour or so of a machine gunner’s time in the trenches of World War One. At Passchendale each human life was exchanged for two inches (5cm) of advance.(140,000 soldiers died)
The magnificence and pomposity of State plays out a fabulous theatre which does give gravitas to the ceremony. Today and tomorrow the mines, bullets and bombs will harvest their crop of lives and limbs. The flags will drape the coffins. We all agree on the futility and cheer our brave warriors. One day, one day there will have been enough killing. It is easy to make hollow judgements and rhetorical appeals for peace. Peace appeals for itself. Where are the humble giants of humanity to silence the strutting dwarves of division? I hear those opposed to European unity and wonder if they skipped a few chapters in our history.
Lunch-time found me in a country pub for a traditional English roast. It was the occasion of a distant relative’s birthday. Ooh, how I would hate to be a caterer. The poor lady had to explain that the roast potatoes had all gone wrong – so it would be mash or boiled. There was a bit of huff and puff, a dash of English tut tut and several Gallic shrugs.Through the window a clear blue sky drew me a picture of two aeroplane vapour trails crossing in a perfect kiss. I took a photo to show you. I am alive, I can eat and kiss. I think I thought sincerely of those from whom War had stolen their hitch with the potatoes or had no eyes to see.
Emma thinx: The enemies are those who divide us, not those from whom they divide us.
I suppose there are degrees of shame. I’m always telling people not to beat themselves up. In the absence of the confessional I’m just gonna confess to all you guys out there, most of whom are Russian Mafia spamming me from websites with a .tk suffix. All you computeroids out there probably knew about these creatures years ago but they have only just come onto my radar. If you see postring, glowlan, massprofits on your traffic BEWARE! They constantly change their names so keep alert.
So here is my confession to you sweet readers and also the Russian Spamming Mafia. Last night I parked up my bus and came home. Somehow a large gin and tonic slipped accidentally into my hand. As I lifted it to my parched longing lips the phone rang. It was the bus company. There was a crisis and a mob of kids had not been picked up. Was it possible for me to dash back to the depot, collect a bus and save them? Enraged parents were foaming at the mouth with anger and only I was capable of confronting them. And then I lied. Oh Great Unisex Progenitor of the Busiverse, I told them I was not at home and could not get there within an hour. Even as the lies slithered from my throat, a life giving infusion of gin passed it on the way down to my deeper soul. Did I want to deal with rage filled parents? Um – no to be quite frank, I did not. Kids – I am so sorry. I have felt wretched all day.
Another reason for my deception was that I was going out. I was going to dine with some friends of Gilles and the food would be Romanian. Just the idea of Romania reverberates in the follicles of the romantic novelist. So, I prepared myself with interesting comments about Romanian culture. I had googled the work of Mihai Eminescu (headline photo) and read (in English) his passionate poem “Desire”. I enquired as to what the hostess liked to read. And the answer was “Pride and Prejudice”. That shut me up. I’ve never read it! We had a lovely meal of pork with the finest ever mashed potato which was as light as mousse. There was beetroot with caraway seeds and cheese filled pancakes. Gilles has such wonderful friends who do big stuff in the world. Sometimes I wish I’d gone to school properly instead of wandering about wanting to write the poem that is out there somewhere in the Universe. At least I knew the smell of river water on my hands and knew that I had stolen it from under the nose of Time before it faded into the hour, the lifetime and the deception of personality.
I’ve been hiding from Formula One and football. Oscar Sparrow called me to say that he had to put out his first ever blog in preparation for the launch of his collected poems. As a blogavirgin he needed inspiration. I told him, rather exasperatedly, to write about bloody racing cars going round and round and round. He said he would but was worried about the jargon. I tried a translation myself.
Emma thinx: Drag reduction system: keeping Queens out of Formula One.
OK Literatti – let’s get down on some poetry. Today I have been busy on a whole new project of compiling and editing a book of poetry on behalf of Gallo-Romano Media. Regulars will have heard me rattling on about my mate Oscar Sparrow whom I have known for many years. He’s a bit kinda prickly to be honest and is a tree book hard-liner. On account of that he’s scuffed along in a bedragglement of small press pamphlets, anthologies and Arts Council artsfarts. (An artsfart is a form of poetry only read by South American ant-eaters) Eventually I have persuaded him to put out a small collection of his poems via Rosina’s media outfit. Everyone knows that no one reads poetry except other poets and they don’t like it cos they didn’t write it themselves. I’m officially gonna be credited as editor and a small contributor. He believed that he has sold his soul to the forces of Mammon but he cheered up when we assured him that no one would read it and he wouldn’t get paid. It is at moments like that you know you are in the presence of a true poet. I wish Oscar were my brother so that I could love him.
- Death! Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
- Flop, plop.
- Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.
- Plop, plop.
- And scudding by
The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,
- And my head shrieks — “Stop,”
- And my heart shrieks — “Die.”
* * * * *
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them — and fled
They all are every one! — and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
And dizzy me dead.
I might reel and drop.
Plop.
Dead.And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
Flop, plop.
* * * * *
A curse on him.
Ugh! yet I knew — I knew —
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end —
- My Devil — My “Friend”
I had trusted the whole of my living to!
- Ugh; and I knew!
- Ugh!
- So what do I care,
And my head is empty as air —
- I can do,
- I can dare,
- (Plop, plop
- The barges flop
- Drip drop.)
- I can dare! I can dare!
And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.
- Drop.
- Dead.
- Plop, flop.
Plop.
Emma Undercover 