Andrew MacLaren-Scott's Blog, page 5
December 16, 2021
New Words
Hell on Earth
It’s hell out there
the lady said
while sitting by the window
looking at the natural world
which so many see as heaven
while she spoke of owl hunting mouse
and cat hunting bird
and fox tearing a vole apart
blood, guts, opened heart
while I thoughtfully sliced my breakfast sausage
and watched the animal grease glint on the knife
Heaven? Hell? Mixed?
Whatever it is it is… Life
Life Plodding
It comes and it goes
It is what it is
It will be what it will be
It's good and it's bad
It's fun and it's boring
It's less than it seems
It's more than we know
It's sunshine and rain
It's drought, flood and snow.
Naturally nasty
Some Nature writers have an awfully rosy view
of the reality playing out outside there
from my garden to the woods and forests and the seas
Natural selection is cruel
Not deliberately cruel, just uncaring
What is good at surviving survives
What is good at reproducing reproduces
No care, no compassion, no morality
unless such things assist survival and reproduction
As the spider traps and devours the fly
The bird eats the bug
The cat eats the bird
The flesh eats the flesh
as it will do everywhere, out there
across the multitude of galaxies and their stars
if driven by natural selection
No real compassion or care
in the driving force behind everything
everywhere
The Journey…
Frightened, worried, lying (both ways)
Shy, folded, confined
Cheating, stealing, wandering
and wondering slowly, for myself
Outside, always, looking in
My mouth beginning its habit of causing trouble
Changing, studying, learning
Exploring, tentatively, but rarely quite succeeding
Lusting, longing, obsessing
Self-absorption and introspection
Lusting, coupling, changing
Despairing and depressing
Hoping, endeavouring
but then failing
and coping with the unbearable
almost, mostly
Depressing, recovering, depressing, all cycling
Angry, short-tempered, selfish
Then changing, improving, succeeding
partly
Aging, reflecting, regretting
but improving, partly
and still moving on
...then hitting a rhyme
immortal I
immortal I cry
for
I am immortal
the me of today
having these hours of life
that can’t be taken away
This evening I’ll sleep
I may even die
but today I’m alive
until I drift into slumber
‘till other days
other lives
of indefinite number
So today I’m immortal
never to die
but to live and enjoy
beneath the infinite sky
Life and death
It’s dead, she said
What’s dead? I said
It is, she said, pointing
But what is dead? I said
Oh… not life
But what’s life?
This, she said
What’s this? I said
Life, she said
Which is? I said
This… it just is
Ah well, do you want to walk on further?
I do, I think
We do think
We do
Until we don’t
When dead, we said
The single moment
Life is not a sequence of moments
as so many do claim
but rather there only ever is the moment
the endless instant in which changes occur
which then are changed away again
And time is just a relative measurement
of different changes’ rates of change
And you have only ever had one moment
but it has changed in the ways we describe
as instants, hours and days
and years, decades, a life
but just the one forever changing moment
bringing its complex mix and muddle
of pleasure, pain, interest, boredom, awe and strife
That’s life
What Matters
It really doesn’t matter that some people think the Earth is flat
or that humans never landed on the moon
or that evolution either did or did not make all creatures into this and that
It really doesn’t matter that some people think they know their God
or that all that happens is some vast and interweaving plot
with every step we take determined as a step that must be trod
It really doesn’t matter if people believe in ghosts, or not
or karma, reincarnation, transubstantiation
the whole magical mysterious and unlikely lot
All that really matter is what we do
to self, to others
to me, to you
Four homes
The old lady with the grey face and pink dressing gown
looks older every evening
which I suppose she is
but why, I wonder, does she sit there
with wide open curtains in a brightly lit lounge
slumped before the television for all to see
The middle aged lady with the jet black hair
alone on her sofa with a bottle of wine and one glass
most nights, almost all nights
with curtains wide open and her solitude lit up
for all to see
The inhabitants of Number 29
with curtains drawn all of the time
day and night, rain and shine
Why are they never looking out
but forever shut in, for none to see
The dog, I understand
Big Golden Retriever
with paws over the back of a soft chair
forever watching everything there is to see
And out there, walking, walking, walking
there is always me
Water under the bridge
Of course it doesn't exist
what has flowed under the metaphorical bridge of Now
but these past waters can still tug us along
for good or bad, somehow
Ah William, Topaz
It’s dark, it’s cold, I’m growing old
But I don’t care, I find
The thoughts within my head 'aint dead
From that thing that I call my mind
Even with fingers that don’t work right
I can stab a keyboard and thus I can write
Even if what I write is actually shi… (not very good)
I’ve been reading the words of a man called McGonagall
Words so fine because they are so dreadfully awful
If you’ve never read him give him a try
his attempts at poetry may make you cry
with laughter at him, certainly not with
for he certainly thought that only if
he got the respect he deserved he’d be up on high
immortalised in a statue looking at Dundee’s sky
I give up. I’m no good, I just can’t compete
With the magnificently dreadful McGonagall’s feat.
Covid days, and after
December 9th...
Oh, I have a tickly throat
10th: Really sore throat now
11th: Very sore throat
And then, the most severe sore throat that I have ever had
Then the friend I recently lunched with tells me he has tested positive for The Covid
So I test
I am positive
But I feel better!
A bit of a cough, no trouble breathing, no more sore throat
Then... Exhaustion…
Total exhaustion like never before
Three days when I barely get out of bed
And I sleep or doze for 18 hours every 24
Just lying awake the other six
Then… you know… I think I’m through this
I am up. I am better, I got lucky, and I never had any trouble breathing
But then, with the main event over, with the virus seemingly overcome…
My feet go numb, my fingers too
My legs, not really feeling there, will just not go where I want them to
I struggle to walk, as if on stumps from severed feet
I wobble and stumble and fall and drop
Can’t hold a pen, can’t write, but can type, time to see the doc
Post-viral peripheral neuropathy, he says, but warns it can escalate fast
into paralysis and even death, in some patients seen in the past
Hospital
and the man in the bed beside me appears to be quietly dying
with his daughter there, silently crying
But nurse is taking bloods from me
Scans and nerve conduction tests next day
Then a firm diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (“Gay-Yan-Barray”, as they say)
explaining that an auto-immune attack
is rotting the electrically insulating sheath around my nerves away
A slow recovery is the best I can expect
Seventy five percent win, twenty percent are permanently damaged,
five percent die
Then home, beyond the window of the five percent risk
Hoping to be one of the seventy five and not the twenty
just wait, and wait, and rest, yes rest, aplenty…
But still, I never had any trouble breathing
I got lucky, really, I think to myself, each evening…
2021 Sun
My feet crunch on frozen snow
on the first of January 2021
carrying me forward through my sixty-sixth year
of a life often blighted by worry and fear
Does it have to be this way?
Well, it hasn’t always been
There have been times of lighthearted progression
which when troubled, just seem like a dream
And as the lamplight sparkles upwards from white
I do resolve to tackle my plight
Relax, review, recover, move on
through another circle around our hot distant sun
Dark December
Dark December
Dregs of cold black coffee
Night already at four pm
Thinking of changing
dark thoughts
into a restart
Fresh start
New life
begins today
Allegedly
Every moment
Every day
Even in dark December
Trying to sweep dark thoughts away
Through a glass
The glass moves
because I moved it
I moved it
to make it move
and observe how the light changes
reflected, diffracted, magnified and shrunk
all options explored
by the light from a lamp
in a glass that is moving
because I moved it
Why?
Because I wanted to
Why?
Ah… the nub, the essence
of the ultimate question of life
and light, and motion
intent and freedom
Why did the glass move
and the light change?
Why, do you think?
Freely?
You think?
Ach, I lift the glass and fill it with beer
Better, this seems than introspection
and the beer moves
because gravity pulls it inside of me
Why?
Aye, I know
because gravity goes regardless of me
as I see the light again in the glass
that moves because I move it
How?
Why?
Drink
Sigh
Unknowing me
Each time I awake
I recall that I don’t know what I am
as a conscious awareness
presumed to arise from flesh and blood
from atoms, ions, and a molecular flood
A brain of pulsing pinkness then soon dead greyness?
Is that me
or is there more
a spirit, soul, or secret we can’t see?
What truly am I, and what are we?
And when I decide to rise
heaving this body that lifts from my bed
did I really choose to do that
or just unthinking chemistry inside my head?
Am I a bouncing pinball
that molecular flippers play
or a creative dancer
truly choosing my way?
Did things ever start
and will they ever end?
How did life arise
and to where will it send?
Knowledge is mere description
of an ultimate we don’t know
Not explanation
just here’s what came, and what comes
and how it may go
Walking free
Here I am walking in darkness again
this time in the city and past the high and lit up windows of a gym
where a hugely obese man is pacing ponderously slowly on a machine
while I am just walking on a waterside path
And a beautiful slim woman is running up there on a machine
fast and, like the man, expensively
while I am just walking, for free, on my path
her glossy golden hair waving alluringly to and fro with her bouncing bounding
while my own hard hairless head is just carried along on old shoulders
cosseted in a black woolly hat
containing wet warmed thoughts of the loss of my youth
as I am walking onwards on my path
until I meet a drunkard slumped in the alley where he usually is
with a dark bottle protruding from brown paper in this hand as there usually is
and where he usually mumbles something incoherent at me
as he does again today
probably a request
but I just continue on my way by walking on my path
past the church, the pub, the café
none of which attract my custom
as I turn
walking back past the drunkard, just slumped and silent now
past the beautiful woman still bouncing on to nowhere
and the big fellow still struggling to walk on a machine
as I ponder the expensive fees displayed on a lower window
and wonder if a modest modicum of beer might be worth purchasing
for later in the evening
as I walk on for free, on my path
leaving the fat man, the slim woman, the drunkard and the city
to get on with their everything without me
after I have headed in to lift one bottle from the big store’s beer shelf
and then kept walking homeward on my path
...and now, quietly drinking, as I write...
The unmindful moment
Now, walking,
grainy pavement below
Oh, memory, walking to school
Lesley ahead, I better walk slow
She is so beautiful
But we are twelve years only
Oh, pavement meets road
Stop, memory leaves me lonely
Heading to shop
Thinking now of store where I worked
aged fourteen
Looking at girls
to whom I am unseen
Ah, green light, cross the road, old man
recollections as I go of my life that began
65 years ago, give or take,
or 66 already when the fetus started to make
Oh, beggar ahead, what a shame
Or is he a scammer, or himself to blame?
Dark now, so dark in November
Here is the shop
Why have I come?
Oh, I remember
Beer, paper, butter, bread
How do such memories get stored in my head?
Walking in aisles
Thinking of nerves
Electrical waves,
while heading to the lady who serves
and here's what she says:
“Hello, how you doing?”
“OK,” I say,
looking at her with my mind far away
Packing, credit card, swipe, goodbye
That fleeting exchange of the glance of an eye
Walking slowly, pavement grey
Mind flicking memories of so far away
Why do they come so,
those memories that mutter?
Nudging me back to my lives as another
Go now, be gone
Please leave me, be done
I just want this moment,
as my nowself, alone
Half eight
The old tower clock bell struck once
for half past eight, not late
as I walked in the November darkness
and saw through a lit up window
a young man pounding on his exercise bike
fighting against the time, perhaps
when the bell would strike again far on
in much later days
and as I thought of him I passed the ancient graves
prompting of course in miserable me
some further thoughts of time
When right on cue, and looking up
I saw a baby held in arms at a high bright window
being gently shaken, and co-cooed at I expect
as I wandered on and recalled some other author’s words
I don’t remember who, but I could paraphrase them
by imagining the grim one with his dark scythe
watching us all from the shadows and saying softly:
“Hah, only half past eight,
I can wait, I can wait, I can wait…”
But still I walked quite cheerfully then
thinking of tomorrow again
Slapping the shining wet tarmac with my big old feet
and loping gait
at those few minutes after half past eight
Bow wave
When water in a stream, urged down to the sea by gravity
hits a boulder
it wells up
creating a sustained and bubbling bow wave that defies gravity
but only due to the continual flow of water through it
just as we ourselves rise up in defiance of the stronger forces of decay
temporarily
sustained by the flow of matter and its energy through us all
Some say that life could not arise spontaneously
as it defies the decay of dispersal called entropy’s increase
but it is that very inevitable process that raises us up
just as the downward pull of gravity forces the bow wave to arise before the boulder
we are the complex bow waves created by the energy of sunlight hitting matter
greening and growing the plants
that build us
until, once having made more waves
we individually die
Future past imperfect tense
We never meet the future
We never return to the past
Yet worries about the future
and regrets about the past
disturb so many moments
of the now that is all we ever have
I tell myself each day
to live the day alone
but the future and the past
will disturb me ‘till I’m gone
Night walking
I walk at night and look in windows
with curtains open
and evening lives lit up to see
An old lady sleeping before a flickering screen
A grey-haired man supping beer
A young boy at a kitchen table
head sunk forward in the appearance of despair
A beautiful woman serenely sipping what looks like gin
Two men playing chess
And a big golden dog at the window
looking suspiciously at me
as I walk, and walk, and walk
and wonder about what I see
and think do they leave the view of their lives open
for the entertainment of them
or of me?
Dame distress?
There is a woman sitting opposite me
in the pub
Alone and seemingly growing increasingly distressed
Heavily built and glamorously made up
Fake blonde fortyish
bright lipstick, short skirt, bare smooth-shaved legs
Talking to herself, quietly
Just received another wine
But now has got up and left
Leaving the wine
Untouched on the table
Stood up by some uncaring man, or woman?
Despairing?
Unstable?
I worry about her
I don’t know her
She glanced at me as she passed
Shuddered her face a little, and maybe glaring
Her perfume is still in my nose
as I return to my drink
and think
Negate Negative
Negative thinking…
sinking
into the mind’s deep swamp
Stop
Desist
Resist
Nothing can change the past
At least things got better, at last
So look up to the light
Not down at the shite
And see that much that could have gone wrong
Actually went right
Sometimes the morning
Sometimes being inside my head
is not the best place to be
Sometimes the hardest thing
is simply being me
The morning poison
of dreadful thinking
The daily struggle
to surface from sinking
I flounder, then rise
it does get better
Beware of the morning
and don’t let it fester
Thoughts
The only point in thoughts
is if they give you pleasure, interest,
or motivation to take some actions that will assist
All others should be swept away, dismissed,
each moment, each, minute, hour and day,
each day, by day, by day
Let it go
When the brain fever comes just deal with the moment,
the moment, the moment…
The brain fever of panic, anxiety, stress, depression…
which comes; but goes…
Just deal with the moment, the moment, the moment…
until the brain fever goes…
The Day way
I got depressed about my life again today
quite badly
But I don’t have a life!
All I ever have is a day
Then a sleep
Then a day, again
Each sleep is a death
Each day is a life
The past ones are gone
The future ones can be lived when they come
Just live the day
I know it’s what so many say
And I think I could just about manage
that way
today
Storm
It comes, the head storm
It passes, is gone
I must remember
As the lightning rips through the neurons
That blue sky and sunshine remains there
Beyond the storm
Green grass below the flood around my feet
Stillness beyond the tearing wind
Waiting to return
When the storm is gone
Not right
I have no right to be depressed
The second son of a Second World War veteran
Pampered from birth, he would say
with no war to fight
no wrongs to right
Coddled and cared for
then sent off to school
yet anxious and nervous
the misfit, the fool
Clever - undoubted
expected to thrive
but the source of disappointment
as I struggled mentally to survive
They’re dead now, the veteran
and his mothering wife
but I carry their dissatisfaction
through the rest of my life
You know what my problem is?
I needed a war
Instead of a life questioning purpose
always wondering “What for?”
I saw him go working
Then returning to home
endlessly, endlessly
as I became fully grown
He died with a gasp
She dimmed slow like the light
I sat there by both
So depressed by the sight
Alone now, at home now
Growing old, and anxious, nervous, afraid
Soon to be dead
from this mess I have made.
The Escapees
They yearn for the extraordinary
For fantasy in film and fable
Fiction
Far-flung foreign lands
that don’t exist
Reading on the bus
Gaming in the cafe
Wizards, witches, zombies too
Anything to escape from, well… from me and you
Other worlds and psychic plots
Conspiracies found by joining unrelated dots
They walk through life in a half-there state
often missing what is truly great
Nonsense is the better friend
to occupy minds until the real unhappy end
Half rough prose, half clumsy rhyme
The fruitless search for better time
Anything but the here and now
There must be more, somewhere, somehow
Anxiety dreaming
Awake
What’s this?
Another day
An ache in my stomach
that won’t go away
Those dreams of memories
that trouble me still
just getting up is an act of sheer will
But a bath, a shave, a glance in the mirror
A wry smile to self and the jolt of a shiver
A wrestle with clothes
then the buttoning of shirt
and gradually life
is less of a hurt
Gulls calling
The gulls are calling,
overhead
I feel as if they are laughing at me
but instead
they are just making their age-old dinosaur cry
and I wonder if even they know why
But when I hear gulls calling
my spirits always lift
perhaps some deep memory of sun and sea drift
but gulls keep reminding me of the reasons to be
Life, sun, air, and breathe
Listen to the gulls as they call, then they leave
Venus shining
Venus is shining
above the dark road to home
A beacon reminding
of my life here alone
Surrounded by others
but in my solitary place
like Venus just shining
away out there in space
The future you
When I was young I rarely worried about the future,
even though I knew it might stretch for far.
Then a wife and children arrived,
and worries about the days beyond consumed me,
until the time arrived when the children were gone.
Now as I grow old I try not to worry about the future,
although I do.
I do because I know what dread it may bring,
to me, to us, to you.
Words passing
She sits with her back to me
A stranger, reading
Words, so many words
So many pointless words,
of fiction.
All made up,
unreal.
Words, words, words,
Page turn,
Words, words, words.
Pages, page pages.
So many pointless words,
of fiction.
All made up,
unreal.
Passing the time she spends
in reality,
ignoring reality.
Pointless words,
of fiction
Which is not a popular view
Among those who so revere the made-up tales
The fantasies of other worlds
And magical fables
And things that can never happen
Among the words that have so many readers in their grip
Fake words
False worlds
Of fiction
Pointless thinking
Things there is no point in thinking about:
Anything that happened to me in the past,
Unless there is a lesson to be remembered
Anything that may happen to me in the future,
Unless I can do anything to avoid anything bad
Guilts that can no longer be remedied,
Other than by avoiding causing similar guilts in the future
Mystery’s song
We are the universe become aware, say some
All one consciousness, some claim
Each mind an island connected by a deep sea floor
Each individual an unknowing part of so much more
We are all one
Each mother, father, daughter, son
Back to the dawn of conscious minds
And forward into the never ending stretch of time
Expand, contract, bang and crunch
The pulsating universe, the first free lunch
Birth and death mere illusory breathing
of the greater thing that is forever living
But…
Nobody has any knowledge really
Science, church, mystic, seer
The questions all stay the same
And final answers never draw near
Details, structure, trickery, yes
But the ultimate anything is anyone’s guess
And even our guesses will be insufficient
In light of our senses so weakly deficient
Keep asking, keep questing, keep probing, go on
But you’ll simply add verses to mystery’s song.
Burning whispers
Those whispers do come more steadily
in my mind
like little flames arising from red embers
to flicker then fade
but then return
Telling me things I might rather not hear
That I disappointed my parents
by wasting my time and thoughts on chasing nonsense
That I disappointed my children
by not being the father that they could have had
That I disappointed my lady
by pursuing misguided ambition rather than good sense
That I disappointed myself
by taking so many wrong turns
and achieving so little
And as the metabolic flame that powers my heart
must begin to surely shrink and cool
those tiny flame-like whispers do still rise and flicker
in this disappointing, disappointed, fool
New Poems
Well, the previous post of some years ago was somewhat premature - a fellow can change his mind, can he not? Rather than creating a new book of poems to add to my existing poetry and prose highlighted in the previous post and accessed via the top link of the sidebar, I have decided just to put the new poems here, as and when they arise, and just in the order in which they may, or may not, arise, with all the repetition and revision and order and disorder, that may arise... So here, from most recent down to most distant in time, is what I have to offer since publishing The Wash.
Hell on Earth
It’s hell out there
the lady said
while sitting by the window
looking at the natural world
which so many see as heaven
while she spoke of owl hunting mouse
and cat hunting bird
and fox tearing a vole apart
blood, guts, opened heart
while I thoughtfully sliced my breakfast sausage
and watched the animal grease glint on the knife
Heaven? Hell? Mixed?
Whatever it is it is… Life
Life Plodding
It comes and it goes
It is what it is
It will be what it will be
It's good and it's bad
It's fun and it's boring
It's less than it seems
It's more than we know
It's sunshine and rain
It's drought, flood and snow.
Naturally nasty
Some Nature writers have an awfully rosy view
of the reality playing out outside there
from my garden to the woods and forests and the seas
Natural selection is cruel
Not deliberately cruel, just uncaring
What is good at surviving survives
What is good at reproducing reproduces
No care, no compassion, no morality
unless such things assist survival and reproduction
As the spider traps and devours the fly
The bird eats the bug
The cat eats the bird
The flesh eats the flesh
as it will do everywhere, out there
across the multitude of galaxies and their stars
if driven by natural selection
No real compassion or care
in the driving force behind everything
everywhere
The Journey…
Frightened, worried, lying (both ways)
Shy, folded, confined
Cheating, stealing, wandering
and wondering slowly, for myself
Outside, always, looking in
My mouth beginning its habit of causing trouble
Changing, studying, learning
Exploring, tentatively, but rarely quite succeeding
Lusting, longing, obsessing
Self-absorption and introspection
Lusting, coupling, changing
Despairing and depressing
Hoping, endeavouring
but then failing
and coping with the unbearable
almost, mostly
Depressing, recovering, depressing, all cycling
Angry, short-tempered, selfish
Then changing, improving, succeeding
partly
Aging, reflecting, regretting
but improving, partly
and still moving on
...then hitting a rhyme
immortal I
immortal I cry
for
I am immortal
the me of today
having these hours of life
that can’t be taken away
This evening I’ll sleep
I may even die
but today I’m alive
until I drift into slumber
‘till other days
other lives
of indefinite number
So today I’m immortal
never to die
but to live and enjoy
beneath the infinite sky
Life and death
It’s dead, she said
What’s dead? I said
It is, she said, pointing
But what is dead? I said
Oh… not life
But what’s life?
This, she said
What’s this? I said
Life, she said
Which is? I said
This… it just is
Ah well, do you want to walk on further?
I do, I think
We do think
We do
Until we don’t
When dead, we said
The single moment
Life is not a sequence of moments
as so many do claim
but rather there only ever is the moment
the endless instant in which changes occur
which then are changed away again
And time is just a relative measurement
of different changes’ rates of change
And you have only ever had one moment
but it has changed in the ways we describe
as instants, hours and days
and years, decades, a life
but just the one forever changing moment
bringing its complex mix and muddle
of pleasure, pain, interest, boredom, awe and strife
That’s life
What Matters
It really doesn’t matter that some people think the Earth is flat
or that humans never landed on the moon
or that evolution either did or did not make all creatures into this and that
It really doesn’t matter that some people think they know their God
or that all that happens is some vast and interweaving plot
with every step we take determined as a step that must be trod
It really doesn’t matter if people believe in ghosts, or not
or karma, reincarnation, transubstantiation
the whole magical mysterious and unlikely lot
All that really matter is what we do
to self, to others
to me, to you
Four homes
The old lady with the grey face and pink dressing gown
looks older every evening
which I suppose she is
but why, I wonder, does she sit there
with wide open curtains in a brightly lit lounge
slumped before the television for all to see
The middle aged lady with the jet black hair
alone on her sofa with a bottle of wine and one glass
most nights, almost all nights
with curtains wide open and her solitude lit up
for all to see
The inhabitants of Number 29
with curtains drawn all of the time
day and night, rain and shine
Why are they never looking out
but forever shut in, for none to see
The dog, I understand
Big Golden Retriever
with paws over the back of a soft chair
forever watching everything there is to see
And out there, walking, walking, walking
there is always me
Water under the bridge
Of course it doesn't exist
what has flowed under the metaphorical bridge of Now
but these past waters can still tug us along
for good or bad, somehow
Ah William, Topaz
It’s dark, it’s cold, I’m growing old
But I don’t care, I find
The thoughts within my head 'aint dead
From that thing that I call my mind
Even with fingers that don’t work right
I can stab a keyboard and thus I can write
Even if what I write is actually shi… (not very good)
I’ve been reading the words of a man called McGonagall
Words so fine because they are so dreadfully awful
If you’ve never read him give him a try
his attempts at poetry may make you cry
with laughter at him, certainly not with
for he certainly thought that only if
he got the respect he deserved he’d be up on high
immortalised in a statue looking at Dundee’s sky
I give up. I’m no good, I just can’t compete
With the magnificently dreadful McGonagall’s feat.
Covid days, and after
December 9th...
Oh, I have a tickly throat
10th: Really sore throat now
11th: Very sore throat
And then, the most severe sore throat that I have ever had
Then the friend I recently lunched with tells me he has tested positive for The Covid
So I test
I am positive
But I feel better!
A bit of a cough, no trouble breathing, no more sore throat
Then... Exhaustion…
Total exhaustion like never before
Three days when I barely get out of bed
And I sleep or doze for 18 hours every 24
Just lying awake the other six
Then… you know… I think I’m through this
I am up. I am better, I got lucky, and I never had any trouble breathing
But then, with the main event over, with the virus seemingly overcome…
My feet go numb, my fingers too
My legs, not really feeling there, will just not go where I want them to
I struggle to walk, as if on stumps from severed feet
I wobble and stumble and fall and drop
Can’t hold a pen, can’t write, but can type, time to see the doc
Post-viral peripheral neuropathy, he says, but warns it can escalate fast
into paralysis and even death, in some patients seen in the past
Hospital
and the man in the bed beside me appears to be quietly dying
with his daughter there, silently crying
But nurse is taking bloods from me
Scans and nerve conduction tests next day
Then a firm diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (“Gay-Yan-Barray”, as they say)
explaining that an auto-immune attack
is rotting the electrically insulating sheath around my nerves away
A slow recovery is the best I can expect
Seventy five percent win, twenty percent are permanently damaged,
five percent die
Then home, beyond the window of the five percent risk
Hoping to be one of the seventy five and not the twenty
just wait, and wait, and rest, yes rest, aplenty…
But still, I never had any trouble breathing
I got lucky, really, I think to myself, each evening…
2021 Sun
My feet crunch on frozen snow
on the first of January 2021
carrying me forward through my sixty-sixth year
of a life often blighted by worry and fear
Does it have to be this way?
Well, it hasn’t always been
There have been times of lighthearted progression
which when troubled, just seem like a dream
And as the lamplight sparkles upwards from white
I do resolve to tackle my plight
Relax, review, recover, move on
through another circle around our hot distant sun
Dark December
Dark December
Dregs of cold black coffee
Night already at four pm
Thinking of changing
dark thoughts
into a restart
Fresh start
New life
begins today
Allegedly
Every moment
Every day
Even in dark December
Trying to sweep dark thoughts away
Through a glass
The glass moves
because I moved it
I moved it
to make it move
and observe how the light changes
reflected, diffracted, magnified and shrunk
all options explored
by the light from a lamp
in a glass that is moving
because I moved it
Why?
Because I wanted to
Why?
Ah… the nub, the essence
of the ultimate question of life
and light, and motion
intent and freedom
Why did the glass move
and the light change?
Why, do you think?
Freely?
You think?
Ach, I lift the glass and fill it with beer
Better, this seems than introspection
and the beer moves
because gravity pulls it inside of me
Why?
Aye, I know
because gravity goes regardless of me
as I see the light again in the glass
that moves because I move it
How?
Why?
Drink
Sigh
Unknowing me
Each time I awake
I recall that I don’t know what I am
as a conscious awareness
presumed to arise from flesh and blood
from atoms, ions, and a molecular flood
A brain of pulsing pinkness then soon dead greyness?
Is that me
or is there more
a spirit, soul, or secret we can’t see?
What truly am I, and what are we?
And when I decide to rise
heaving this body that lifts from my bed
did I really choose to do that
or just unthinking chemistry inside my head?
Am I a bouncing pinball
that molecular flippers play
or a creative dancer
truly choosing my way?
Did things ever start
and will they ever end?
How did life arise
and to where will it send?
Knowledge is mere description
of an ultimate we don’t know
Not explanation
just here’s what came, and what comes
and how it may go
Walking free
Here I am walking in darkness again
this time in the city and past the high and lit up windows of a gym
where a hugely obese man is pacing ponderously slowly on a machine
while I am just walking on a waterside path
And a beautiful slim woman is running up there on a machine
fast and, like the man, expensively
while I am just walking, for free, on my path
her glossy golden hair waving alluringly to and fro with her bouncing bounding
while my own hard hairless head is just carried along on old shoulders
cosseted in a black woolly hat
containing wet warmed thoughts of the loss of my youth
as I am walking onwards on my path
until I meet a drunkard slumped in the alley where he usually is
with a dark bottle protruding from brown paper in this hand as there usually is
and where he usually mumbles something incoherent at me
as he does again today
probably a request
but I just continue on my way by walking on my path
past the church, the pub, the café
none of which attract my custom
as I turn
walking back past the drunkard, just slumped and silent now
past the beautiful woman still bouncing on to nowhere
and the big fellow still struggling to walk on a machine
as I ponder the expensive fees displayed on a lower window
and wonder if a modest modicum of beer might be worth purchasing
for later in the evening
as I walk on for free, on my path
leaving the fat man, the slim woman, the drunkard and the city
to get on with their everything without me
after I have headed in to lift one bottle from the big store’s beer shelf
and then kept walking homeward on my path
...and now, quietly drinking, as I write...
The unmindful moment
Now, walking,
grainy pavement below
Oh, memory, walking to school
Lesley ahead, I better walk slow
She is so beautiful
But we are twelve years only
Oh, pavement meets road
Stop, memory leaves me lonely
Heading to shop
Thinking now of store where I worked
aged fourteen
Looking at girls
to whom I am unseen
Ah, green light, cross the road, old man
recollections as I go of my life that began
65 years ago, give or take,
or 66 already when the fetus started to make
Oh, beggar ahead, what a shame
Or is he a scammer, or himself to blame?
Dark now, so dark in November
Here is the shop
Why have I come?
Oh, I remember
Beer, paper, butter, bread
How do such memories get stored in my head?
Walking in aisles
Thinking of nerves
Electrical waves,
while heading to the lady who serves
and here's what she says:
“Hello, how you doing?”
“OK,” I say,
looking at her with my mind far away
Packing, credit card, swipe, goodbye
That fleeting exchange of the glance of an eye
Walking slowly, pavement grey
Mind flicking memories of so far away
Why do they come so,
those memories that mutter?
Nudging me back to my lives as another
Go now, be gone
Please leave me, be done
I just want this moment,
as my nowself, alone
Half eight
The old tower clock bell struck once
for half past eight, not late
as I walked in the November darkness
and saw through a lit up window
a young man pounding on his exercise bike
fighting against the time, perhaps
when the bell would strike again far on
in much later days
and as I thought of him I passed the ancient graves
prompting of course in miserable me
some further thoughts of time
When right on cue, and looking up
I saw a baby held in arms at a high bright window
being gently shaken, and co-cooed at I expect
as I wandered on and recalled some other author’s words
I don’t remember who, but I could paraphrase them
by imagining the grim one with his dark scythe
watching us all from the shadows and saying softly:
“Hah, only half past eight,
I can wait, I can wait, I can wait…”
But still I walked quite cheerfully then
thinking of tomorrow again
Slapping the shining wet tarmac with my big old feet
and loping gait
at those few minutes after half past eight
Bow wave
When water in a stream, urged down to the sea by gravity
hits a boulder
it wells up
creating a sustained and bubbling bow wave that defies gravity
but only due to the continual flow of water through it
just as we ourselves rise up in defiance of the stronger forces of decay
temporarily
sustained by the flow of matter and its energy through us all
Some say that life could not arise spontaneously
as it defies the decay of dispersal called entropy’s increase
but it is that very inevitable process that raises us up
just as the downward pull of gravity forces the bow wave to arise before the boulder
we are the complex bow waves created by the energy of sunlight hitting matter
greening and growing the plants
that build us
until, once having made more waves
we individually die
Future past imperfect tense
We never meet the future
We never return to the past
Yet worries about the future
and regrets about the past
disturb so many moments
of the now that is all we ever have
I tell myself each day
to live the day alone
but the future and the past
will disturb me ‘till I’m gone
Night walking
I walk at night and look in windows
with curtains open
and evening lives lit up to see
An old lady sleeping before a flickering screen
A grey-haired man supping beer
A young boy at a kitchen table
head sunk forward in the appearance of despair
A beautiful woman serenely sipping what looks like gin
Two men playing chess
And a big golden dog at the window
looking suspiciously at me
as I walk, and walk, and walk
and wonder about what I see
and think do they leave the view of their lives open
for the entertainment of them
or of me?
Dame distress?
There is a woman sitting opposite me
in the pub
Alone and seemingly growing increasingly distressed
Heavily built and glamorously made up
Fake blonde fortyish
bright lipstick, short skirt, bare smooth-shaved legs
Talking to herself, quietly
Just received another wine
But now has got up and left
Leaving the wine
Untouched on the table
Stood up by some uncaring man, or woman?
Despairing?
Unstable?
I worry about her
I don’t know her
She glanced at me as she passed
Shuddered her face a little, and maybe glaring
Her perfume is still in my nose
as I return to my drink
and think
Negate Negative
Negative thinking…
sinking
into the mind’s deep swamp
Stop
Desist
Resist
Nothing can change the past
At least things got better, at last
So look up to the light
Not down at the shite
And see that much that could have gone wrong
Actually went right
Sometimes the morning
Sometimes being inside my head
is not the best place to be
Sometimes the hardest thing
is simply being me
The morning poison
of dreadful thinking
The daily struggle
to surface from sinking
I flounder, then rise
it does get better
Beware of the morning
and don’t let it fester
Thoughts
The only point in thoughts
is if they give you pleasure, interest,
or motivation to take some actions that will assist
All others should be swept away, dismissed,
each moment, each, minute, hour and day,
each day, by day, by day
Let it go
When the brain fever comes just deal with the moment,
the moment, the moment…
The brain fever of panic, anxiety, stress, depression…
which comes; but goes…
Just deal with the moment, the moment, the moment…
until the brain fever goes…
The Day way
I got depressed about my life again today
quite badly
But I don’t have a life!
All I ever have is a day
Then a sleep
Then a day, again
Each sleep is a death
Each day is a life
The past ones are gone
The future ones can be lived when they come
Just live the day
I know it’s what so many say
And I think I could just about manage
that way
today
Storm
It comes, the head storm
It passes, is gone
I must remember
As the lightning rips through the neurons
That blue sky and sunshine remains there
Beyond the storm
Green grass below the flood around my feet
Stillness beyond the tearing wind
Waiting to return
When the storm is gone
Not right
I have no right to be depressed
The second son of a Second World War veteran
Pampered from birth, he would say
with no war to fight
no wrongs to right
Coddled and cared for
then sent off to school
yet anxious and nervous
the misfit, the fool
Clever - undoubted
expected to thrive
but the source of disappointment
as I struggled mentally to survive
They’re dead now, the veteran
and his mothering wife
but I carry their dissatisfaction
through the rest of my life
You know what my problem is?
I needed a war
Instead of a life questioning purpose
always wondering “What for?”
I saw him go working
Then returning to home
endlessly, endlessly
as I became fully grown
He died with a gasp
She dimmed slow like the light
I sat there by both
So depressed by the sight
Alone now, at home now
Growing old, and anxious, nervous, afraid
Soon to be dead
from this mess I have made.
The Escapees
They yearn for the extraordinary
For fantasy in film and fable
Fiction
Far-flung foreign lands
that don’t exist
Reading on the bus
Gaming in the cafe
Wizards, witches, zombies too
Anything to escape from, well… from me and you
Other worlds and psychic plots
Conspiracies found by joining unrelated dots
They walk through life in a half-there state
often missing what is truly great
Nonsense is the better friend
to occupy minds until the real unhappy end
Half rough prose, half clumsy rhyme
The fruitless search for better time
Anything but the here and now
There must be more, somewhere, somehow
Anxiety dreaming
Awake
What’s this?
Another day
An ache in my stomach
that won’t go away
Those dreams of memories
that trouble me still
just getting up is an act of sheer will
But a bath, a shave, a glance in the mirror
A wry smile to self and the jolt of a shiver
A wrestle with clothes
then the buttoning of shirt
and gradually life
is less of a hurt
Gulls calling
The gulls are calling,
overhead
I feel as if they are laughing at me
but instead
they are just making their age-old dinosaur cry
and I wonder if even they know why
But when I hear gulls calling
my spirits always lift
perhaps some deep memory of sun and sea drift
but gulls keep reminding me of the reasons to be
Life, sun, air, and breathe
Listen to the gulls as they call, then they leave
Venus shining
Venus is shining
above the dark road to home
A beacon reminding
of my life here alone
Surrounded by others
but in my solitary place
like Venus just shining
away out there in space
The future you
When I was young I rarely worried about the future,
even though I knew it might stretch for far.
Then a wife and children arrived,
and worries about the days beyond consumed me,
until the time arrived when the children were gone.
Now as I grow old I try not to worry about the future,
although I do.
I do because I know what dread it may bring,
to me, to us, to you.
Words passing
She sits with her back to me
A stranger, reading
Words, so many words
So many pointless words,
of fiction.
All made up,
unreal.
Words, words, words,
Page turn,
Words, words, words.
Pages, page pages.
So many pointless words,
of fiction.
All made up,
unreal.
Passing the time she spends
in reality,
ignoring reality.
Pointless words,
of fiction
Which is not a popular view
Among those who so revere the made-up tales
The fantasies of other worlds
And magical fables
And things that can never happen
Among the words that have so many readers in their grip
Fake words
False worlds
Of fiction
Pointless thinking
Things there is no point in thinking about:
Anything that happened to me in the past,
Unless there is a lesson to be remembered
Anything that may happen to me in the future,
Unless I can do anything to avoid anything bad
Guilts that can no longer be remedied,
Other than by avoiding causing similar guilts in the future
Mystery’s song
We are the universe become aware, say some
All one consciousness, some claim
Each mind an island connected by a deep sea floor
Each individual an unknowing part of so much more
We are all one
Each mother, father, daughter, son
Back to the dawn of conscious minds
And forward into the never ending stretch of time
Expand, contract, bang and crunch
The pulsating universe, the first free lunch
Birth and death mere illusory breathing
of the greater thing that is forever living
But…
Nobody has any knowledge really
Science, church, mystic, seer
The questions all stay the same
And final answers never draw near
Details, structure, trickery, yes
But the ultimate anything is anyone’s guess
And even our guesses will be insufficient
In light of our senses so weakly deficient
Keep asking, keep questing, keep probing, go on
But you’ll simply add verses to mystery’s song.
Burning whispers
Those whispers do come more steadily
in my mind
like little flames arising from red embers
to flicker then fade
but then return
Telling me things I might rather not hear
That I disappointed my parents
by wasting my time and thoughts on chasing nonsense
That I disappointed my children
by not being the father that they could have had
That I disappointed my lady
by pursuing misguided ambition rather than good sense
That I disappointed myself
by taking so many wrong turns
and achieving so little
And as the metabolic flame that powers my heart
must begin to surely shrink and cool
those tiny flame-like whispers do still rise and flicker
in this disappointing, disappointed, fool
December 21, 2018
Regeneration
https://andrewrscottphotodiary.blogspot.com
Entries may be sporadic, or frequent, and unexceptional
What lies through the next new door? We shall see
November 16, 2018
Washed out
The Wash
It will all come out in the wash, they sayin the great, grand wash of Timewith the spin cycle of our good Earth each dayand the soak and the suck of the tideAnd every disruptive distractionwill disperse to much less than it seemsas everything currently consuming usdissolves like yesterday's dreams
