READING AND WRITING

Thinking that I should get some writing back out there in the poetry mags, I wrote a poem for a competition about love; I can’t really remember what it was like, being in love. When I read of all that madness I begin to wonder if I was ever, really in love. Just like my memories of old granny, the tyrant, I only retain the bad stuff. They said they wanted poems on both falling in and out of love…I naturally chose the latter and created this rant below:

HAMMERED FLAT

My head is full and bursting
with glimpses
of long-sleeved blouses and light-weight
jumpers
arrayed at eye-level;
a regiment at my right hand.
Any one of them would fit
my situation.

In my line of fire
the back of his head smirks;
it dares me
to reach for blunt objects
poison darts…
carefully planned alibis, and
mysterious gangsters
from a murky past.

I picture rooftop parties
and mountain picnics,
his startled shape, flailing
on the wind, like
an inebriated seagull
tumbling and squawking
at the woman with her hand out…

not saving, but waving.
Cheerio then… bastard.

Captain Correlli’s Mandolin…again am stuck in the middle, and have started reading other books; I always do this with his novels. When you begin them you are captured and charmed by the characters and the settings but soon slowed down by the history lesson. I like history but there seems to be something stilted about the way he uses it in his novels; I’ve read three of his now and this happened in every one. When I turned 40 I stopped reading books if I got bored half-way through; the first book I discarded like that was ‘Oscar and Lucinda’. Again, charmed at first but bored flat eventually. So I’m not going to read him again.

In the last couple of years I’ve got into Wilbour Smith; his books are fantastic. You are getting a history lesson in a novel but it’s well-fictionalized. You just can’t put them down; a great read. Also in this time been through the Jean Auel series, ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’. What an amazing read they are, though the sex gets a bit gratuitous at times; but then again maybe that’s because I’ve completely lost my sex drive and, subconsciously, don’t want to be reminded of it. I was really pleased to hear that ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ won a big prize last week; it's one of the best books I've ever read, though I think it should have ended earlier than it did. I’ve got the last Harry Potter with me, think I’ll dump the captain for now and get into that.