Work

Bored, bored, turning into cardboard –

bland and unassuming and compliant.

I try to remain defiant

but that is usually reliant on my interest.

Which is waning yet complaining.

Deskilled, unthrilled and slowly killing my mind.

My work rarely inspires and constantly conspires

in the pursuit to add me to the daily grind.

Typing is so vacuous when you remain anonymous.

Until

There is someone to blame.

Lame.  

Stevie Smith

I have been recently trying to find a poem by Stevie Smith that recited for a drama exam I did years ago and I have now found it.

There are two curious things about this poem and Stevie Smith in general: 1) this poem totally describes a relationship I was in but I learnt the poem before I was in that situation. 2) I now realise that a lot of my poetry is in her style (although not half as good).

Nor We of Her to Him

He said no word of her to us
Nor we of her to him,
But oh it saddened us to see
How wan he grew and thin.
We said: she eats him day and night
And draws the blood from him,
We did not know but said we thought
This was why he grew thin.

One day we called and rang the bell,
No answer came within,
We said: She must have took him off
To the forest old and grim,
It has fell out, we said, that she
Eats him in forest grim,
And how can we help him being eaten
Up in forests grim?

It is a restless time we spend,
We have no help from him,
We walk about and go to bed,
It is no help to him.
Sometimes we shake our heads and say
It might have better been
If he had spoke of us to her
Or we of her to him.
Which makes us feel helpful, until
The silence comes again.

Stevie Smith

Back to school

Even though we are experiencing a short Indian summer, there is no doubt that the weather is slowly becoming autumnal or as I like to call it, ‘Back to School’ weather. I did really enjoy school but the fresh and dimmer mornings brings back a slight feeling of sadness that the summer is over and a depression that the nights are going to draw in and would be filled with homework. (Fortunately, I do not have to do much if any homework now, as my work is never that interesting or demanding).  

Thanks to Northern hemisphere schooling, I subconsciously think the year commences in September and ends in July (with August being outside of time). And with new years come new beginnings, so the start of school was also an exciting time, as you bought brand new stationery, had a new timetable and generally did not know what to expect in the forthcoming months. It was a time to start afresh, forget about last term and concentrate on the present. It is odd how we do not apply this to life after education and in our adult lives. Many people will think in these reflective tones around Christmas and New Year but being a contrary sort, I leave that to popular thinking and instead do my reflecting now.

Maybe we would all be healthier if we did not think of life as one endless continuum to our deathbed but divide it in years, like school. And like school, you can end on a high with a summer holiday (and a few breaks in between) as a reward for the past 11 months. Wouldn’t that be nice!

I’m now just going to have a little search on last minute holidays, just for research of course….