The Mighty IS

The MIGHTY IS

I’m not boxing 

On Boxing day 

With Gloves

I’m not boxing up 

Gifts after missing 

The Real day 

In service to a 

Lady or lord,

I’ve written 

About Boxing day

every year

I can remember

Starting just like 

This…

And this isn’t 

A poem so 

Let’s try prose then….

I once called my lover JoeJoeBunnyplus. He thought of himself as a regular Joe. Well I said; 

“Don’t you mean a Joe-Bunny since bunnies are a dime a dozen in the fields? But you’re not. You’re a JoeJoeBunnyPlus. You’re like everyone else with a big plus sign for more. “ 

It was well before a movie in the cinemas in 2019. People can be crap. People can be greedy and crap. People can be greedy, crap, and willing to steal for nothing but boring kinds of power. That’s not a Joe-Bunny. That’s not a Joe-Bunny Plus. It’s not a survival of the fittest to end up with the most money. It’s not some ‘misguided’ Darwinian theory or Hitler Rhetoric about mind power, to control the purse strings of the world or to hold people at ransom. It’s just plain CRAP. My JoeJoeBunny was not crap. I’ve been known to use that word too much. A relation of mine used to say it a lot. 

“You’re not crap.” In some families is a rather large compliment. It probably shouldn’t be, though it does seem to get straight to the point, no mucking around and all that. Even when I think of it now, the nickname was kind of crap. He wasn’t a mathematical equation with a plus sign and the other bunnies were not regular either. The main point was the intention to say;

“Of all the Bunnies, if you were a bunny, I chose you because you are not a chubby little Santa in glasses but a dashing bunny leaping about in glasses in life’s rather troubling real version of Watership Down. “ 

Then I realised there was levels of crap in that statement. Well, of course many lovers say all manner of cheesy-ball comments in the throes of love. I mean if you look into it deeply enough I could have been calling the man an introduced species pest who was into Mathematics. I wasn’t. The truth is, if you think and think and think and wrap Philosophy around it all so much that the joy is gone and talk and talk and talk and worry and worry and worry, then those full moments of brightness are diminished to what feels a lot like….crap. 

Perfectionism might do that in the greatest irony of all. Perfectionism might be like the original Kermit the Frog being told to have two legs the same length. The original Kermit was not as symmetrical looking as the one you see now. The children liked him though at a little fair in Engadine. Perfectionism might just about turn art into well…..crap. The subtext is lost on people at times. Great art is laden with a subtext that makes of magic and it can be received by people of any intellectual bent, any age, any sort of background. Perfectionism can also lead to greatness but it’s important to put a soft blanket around yourself and others sometimes or we get back to the…crap, the stress, the desperation, the need to organise everything, push people into a box or take from them the most basic human right…to be loved, to be held gently with a feeling that is about safety, nurturing, truth and what lies inside, the uniqueness of every human spirit, the plus sign, not the minus. If you deny the plus enough the minus takes over in most people whether that be that they become nasty people in the midst of abuse or just very very sad and withdrawn. It most certainly doesn’t make people stronger just sadder or meaner until such time as they find people who are willing to find the plus or even the original Joe Bunny, the collective experience of vulnerability in its most beautiful and fragile rawness. It is that fragility that has been at the centre of most great art works or human endeavours in general. That’s the greatest part of who we are. The minus sign, sending tests to test the human spirit denies the beauty of the plus because we are not machine minds or batteries. Never ever believe those who ask you to harden up but finding harmony is a different matter, finding love, well that’s to be negotiated for sure. 

You don’t have to be Kermit the frog a Sorcerer or a bunny. You don’t have to be all light and fluffy, you can be dark and mysterious too sometimes but the real rub is, what do you sacrifice for power or popularity? Being overly dark can also be very……crap… and it can break someone’s heart forever or destroy a family, which can be a lot worse than looking a little too oversentimental. Every attempt in life is worth considering, competition can work but let’s cut the crap and admit, there’s too much to be lost in hate dressed up as love or hate. Love is just love. It’s something you don’t even need to think about when it arrives. It is. It’s whole. It’s very beautiful. LOVE IS THE MIGHTY IS. 

Joan of Arc

What’s a memory if it is forgotten? Is it still a memory? Can it be retrieved. Unfortunately for some it can be and fortunately too there is reverie in remembering. I was from a Catholic home, but that doesn’t mean I could ever be Joan of Arc or a saint like that. I recall on the telephone to a school friend, as a little girl, laughing and saying;

“Now I know how Joan of Arc felt,” after being confronted with a playground bully but I was never in any such suit of armour really. I was gifted collections of holy cards for special rights of passage and researched the saints, out of interest and in particular Joan of Arc. I found Joan of Arc interesting, not because she died at the stake, not because she was set alight by barbarians, not in the abuse she suffered and not in her supposed religious significance. I thought she was full of something more than honourable, more than righteous and more than keeping up with the boys. I just thought she was unique and that’s all. She was from poverty, wore armour and fought for the needy. She was beautiful and she believed in free will somehow without even knowing it, even at odds with the religious doctrines and cultural markers that might have relinquished her motivation to march into battle as a woman among men. I don’t completely agree with her methods though but it’s impossible not to see that, in some ways, she did carry the flag for suffragettes and feminism to date given the patriarchy that surrounded her. That’s how I came to be in a musical group called “Joan of Arc”, many years ago. It was wiped form my memory and has come back to me in recent months. I know that it featured a song that I sung in bed to someone I loved very much called; 

“I will carry you home.” I can honestly say, the opinion of anyone else of that song is not my concern. I value the memory from where it came and the good place from where it was sung, that being my own heart. That’s actually enough for me. All of the people who sung it with me, were very unique, versatile and powerful singers and I was lucky to have had the chance to share the song. I admit that my voice was probably not up to par with them but that’s why I was so lucky to sing something I wrote. Making music, like anything in life is often a collective experience. 

A few years ago someone in my Facebook feed shared a kind of ambiguous and rude post about the café Joan of Arc which I believe closed down with reference to the singing group I was in. I’m sharing my feeling here, because at the time, it confused me and regardless of how many people read this, my story is my story. I wish to be the teller of my own story. It is a basic human right to be a storyteller and to share with others who it is you are, what it is to be unique and independent or to be needing of love, in all of our views on life that my possibly change too, in our failures and furrowed  brows  and in the success stories that shape a smile or two or many. Someone who knew the story I believe, came in to defend the group and it is only now that I can appreciate that a man stood up for a woman in a way that we need to see more of in this world. The reason I didn’t know it was about me is because I had lost my memory. An ABI  which I am actually largely healed from now, does not mean that you should keep from the individual the truth. That is what happened to me and it is a really truly disgraceful way to have handled the situation. It of course should not have mattered about the ins and outs of the band’s line up, about the stylistic choices made or about whether what came before was better or not. What should matter is that we stand up for each other and love each other when we can and support each other to know the truth and find peace in life. I stopped engaging in Facebook more recently because of that man’s post and my returning memories because I’m no Joan of Arc. I don’t want to go into battle with people or compete for a place or be a number of likes or string of comments from people I might never actually see. The viciousness of the words are a shock to me and the lack of bravery from men, bar one, to stand up against that kind of bullying was astounding and including silence from people who wanted to keep in good with all the wrong people in the music and entertainment industry. As women, we don’t need men to fight our battles, we just don’t need the battles in the first place. People try and fail at all sorts of goals. I think the historical figure, Joan of Arc, could have done a lot more than having to mop up the mess of fat, ugly noblemen swimming in their own greedy war on peace. I don’t think “Joan of Arc” the musical group was my failure. I’ve written so many songs in my life but all of them were about original memories and nobody can take away those stories from me. I am my own memory keeper. Macbeths of the world still exploit people in all sorts of ways, but mostly people are good. In every bad memory I have had, there can be at least one good person to be counted. In every good memory, there’s nobody so bad. Apparently the CD floats around in some people’s car. 

Did you know for a while, I went to musical gigs of unknown people on purpose over the big money spinners. I listen to those people’s cd’s all the time. Some of it is amazing. Some of it is rather weird, hit and miss or struggling slightly around the edges. Those frayed little bits round the edges actually can delight me for people should not be made perfect, instagrammed into a barbie doll dumbo, manufactured beyond repair with no traceable places  to the fragility of human life, to that place of vulnerability. I don’t always need to stand tall or brave. I’m not always brave. I’m definitely not tall. I’ll curl up in a ball or crouch low sometimes. I’ll cry. I’ll tell that bloke on Facebook to get fucked in a blog post because he never wrote a song in his life and then realise, nobody much reads this and I’m probably looking like a second rate version of Joan of Arc meets Bridget Jones. I’ll remember that I might feel less angry tomorrow. I’ll get up again. I’ll probably delete this blog post eventually, knowing being set on fire killed Joan of Arc but the flames of hurt that hit my body in life, leave scars but strength too. I tried again and cried again then tried again. That’s all we can do, cept put a few smiles in their two. 

“…..sedens ad opus suum totum tuom animum corrumpere mores fingere alia animalia vulnere vitam. Animalitas dignitatem habent. "

My Willow

That tree they make 

Cliché 

That tree they call 

Sad 

When the branches 

Are sweeping

And arching

And aching 

And happy to

Hold with the earth. 

That tree they 

Call fiction

Of story books 

In whispering winds 

All sold 

And sorrowful.

But the willow 

Is green 

Like a lime

Sublime -

A rhyme 

Made of softly 

And lofty 

And proud. 

Not proud like 

It’s better

Or brighter

Or best… 

Proud like a 

Sentinel star 

With tenacious roots 

And limbs 

And shining

Dancing leaves

And mauve catskins-

meow. 

That one I called 

Willow like a spell 

In the heart of a 

Mourning cloaked

Butterfly 

I had hoped to 

Carry home 

One day. 

Wondering about Pachelbel

If Pachelbel’s canon was about cannons for wars and not a musical canon, there would be a lot less weddings with a beautiful song. There’s something about the musical canon that feels soothing. The way of it, is to keep in step with a loyal underscore  in the melody and scape over the top a melody which imitates the original but adds to it each time. It’s recreational. It’s innovation on the solid loyalty, as a relationship might be if it’s a good one. I have always loved that piece of music, though it’s widely popular. It’s a good kind of popular because even quiet people seem to like it and loud sort of people do too, for the most part. I wonder if Pachelbel thought that he’d nailed it. I wonder if Pachelbel was the only person who wrote it because songs seem to come together in the company of lovers and friends. I wonder if Pachelbel thought, well that’s a piece of crap (even though he’d made music before) and threw it in the bin and then someone he loved took it out and put some books on the crumpled mess and said

“You are a masterpiece, you are loved, take a shot on this…” 

I wonder if he dreamed the music in pictures like I always did with brave knights, a fairy and a wild but gentle steed. I wonder if Mozart or Mozart’s sister listened to Pachelbel and wondered about giving up altogether. It’s funny how their pictures in Wikipedia are almost entirely the same person, like they time travelled through the musical wonderland of creation together. Did someone ever say to Mozart, you don’t need to be Johann Pachelbel or Pachelbel Johann or Bellepachel Jo Ann, you have it all mixed up, you just need to be you. Were they like any of us, fearful, brave, terrified, shy, bold, aching, needing, bright, wild, untempered, put back together again from one day to the next? I’m just wondering about that? I think it is so for the music to sound as it does, full of beautiful heights on the edges of mourning too for there is in every piece of music that beginning and middle and end. What would Pachelbel think that those should choose that song which is about longing to keep the beginning and middle and end in a bundle called forever. I suppose he was proud and yet in a search for Pachelbel he doesn’t even appear in the musical timelines. He’s that kind of side project, there not forgotten though. Was he more the alternative to the mass? Did Mozart find the seed or was Pachelbel that before.

If your name was Primula Vulgaris, would you change it? Sounds positively beautiful and positively vulgar. Did they grow at Pachelbel’s place? It’s hard to imagine Pachelbel as a punk, as a scruffy mess in the morning. It’s hard to imagine him burping to the Pachelbel Cannon or up at the harpsichord in a dressing gown with a snotty nose and a room full of half drunk cups of tea. It’s hard to imagine him changing a nappy to it although I’ve done that must be said all the same. It’s hard to imagine, but I’m quite sure it happened. 

This piece sort of smooths out the edges of a crumpled page or crumpled heart. I never did get sick of this song, though I’ve played it many times. He was connected to Johann Sebastian Bach, thought to have influenced him. I always loved that name Sebastian. May the bells ring in peace this Christmas season. Xx 

The Weather

The weather is about people 

It’s about a sunny day with people 

It’s about a photograph with people

With people and birds and memories. 

With people and birds and memories, hellos

Or goodbyes.

The weather is about feelings 

Cold days, blue days, grey days, with feelings 

And birds and umbrellas and gloves and scarves 

And skating on thin ice but waiting for the sun 

Helping someone up, with birds and memories, 

Hellos or goodbyes. 

The weather is about courage 

It’s about lions and zebras and the wild 

It’s about feeling the heat, the fire, survival 

Protection and pain with….

People, with feelings, with courage. 

The weather is about you 

It’s about waistcoats and raincoats 

Boots or sandals, socks or none, 

About singing in the rain, dancing in 

The sun or braving the snow, 

It’s about people and feelings and courage 

and you. 

Take the weather with you 

Take it, like that. 

Insta-Grouch

I was feeling ok, 

Even after a horrible funeral 

Filled with beautiful words 

then I saw a bloke advertising a 

pregnant woman 

Usually that’s real sweet 

Usually I could say Hey, 

There’s something 

To write home about 

To shout from the rooftops. 

But it was on Instagram. 

She was doing a handstand you see 

By the edge of a pool with her legs apart 

To advertise a movie star. 

It’s unsafe you know. 

Already the kid’s an ad. 

Already the kid is a risk. 

Already the kid is a price ticket. 

INSTAGROUCH.

Call me that. 

Take That. 

Take that 

And that 

And that. 

I was feeling ok you know 

Even after feeling real low 

Not like dancing on ceilings 

Or making a beautiful gingerbread 

house 

Then I saw a bunch of boobs 

Sets of legs, abs and ads and 

Gloss and floss and goss and 

Stuff, all buff and tight and 

BORING, like snoring when you

Really just want to go to sleep. 

INSTAGROUCH

Call me that. 

Take that. 

Take that 

And that 

And that. 

I was feeling ok you know

Not sweet, not free, not wild 

Not like a queen, not like a Kitten 

In a top hat, but heres one 

Instagrouch

Take that 

And that 

And that 

And that. 

I was feeling ok you know 

Not sweet, not ready to tweet 

Unless to a passing bird 

On the lawn

Not like a swan on 

The graceful lake 

Nor a Cockatoo 

In it’s charming 

Ways, 

Then I put myself in 

The bin. 

Because some days suck 

Some days you feel like a ten 

Tonne truck killed you 

And you survived sort of 

But didn’t.

Some days I’m mad, sad, bad and an 

Insta-grouch.

DO NOT DISTURB. 

Call me Oscar 

Draw me on some 

Big Eyebrows 

I’m not clinical,

I’m cynical 

I’m bright sometimes

just not today. 

Life is beautiful 

In sections.

With gaps and spaces 

With sunshine

That hits yoru shoulders 

Or a grouchy green fluffy 

Frown in the form of a 

Shit storm covered in 

Good memories and 

Bad memories…

So take that 

And that 

And that and that. 

The sun will shine again. 

You’ll see. 

Im saying it to me or two or three 

or whoever might be there 

Take that... take a bit of tomorrow for today 

That doesn't feel too grey, 

Yeah, ok. 

TAKE THAT I SAID. 

Umbrellas

This isn’t a poem. This isn’t a story. This is about an umbrella or a page of umbrellas or an umbrella in the sky or an umbrella in the rain. Um…. Where’s that umbrella.? Where’s that little place of shelter in the storm? Where’s that little hope against the dark skies? Where’s that kind of mushroom shape, that dome, those soft curves, that portable rooftop? In dreams and wishes, I’m sending you another one. I hope it finds you. This isn’t an answer or a solution. I’m sorry about that. It’s just a little hoping rella, with an Um for I don’t know everything but a B, for I hope you can be brave and I think you can. Too much Disney can be a bit annoying with plastic cups and supersized coca cola combo deals and all that, but I still love Mary, the original one on account of Mary May Jones my Great Grandmother. That’s a real Poppins. I hope she might pop in with some kind of kite heart, like a ghost wearing dancing shoes or something like that. 

This isn’t a poem. This isn’t a story. This is about a lot of umbrellas drawn all over a page. It’s about something to hold onto with a candy cane shaped handle, even if life isn’t feeling too sweet. It’s a little hope. It’s the shape of waves on the edges, an ocean, take a breath in and out and in and out. I’m hoping for you some better days. I’m hoping for you parasols in the summer too. Don’t give up. No kind of jewels or stolen silver service forks or golden numbers are as big as Love itself.  This is about those silver ribs all covered in rainbows, a travelling Umbra, a travelling flower shape, a little hope… 

This isn’t a poem. This doesn’t rhyme today because sometimes you might lose that sing song kind of happy metre because of a storm, a really bad one, a really sad one. This isn’t a story. This is about Umbrella’s drawn all over a page. This is about beautiful colours, this is for you, this is a little hope… It’s for you 

Chocolates

Chocolates made from me 

Are more you see 

Than sweets and tea 

Are more you see than 

Milk and beans 

Are made of dreams 

And bluebirds dear 

Are ever but near 

And Mixed with a tear 

Yet never you fear 

For there is time 

In every rhyme

For the sublime 

Imagination

kind of

Station…

Where time 

Does hasten

Towards 

hearts and starts

and apple carts 

for pies and charts 

that say the weather 

might be wild 

or sweet and mild. 

That place upon 

The train line

Without a sign

But in your

Head it’s there 

With daisey’s

At the fair

Or a little bear 

Made of patches 

And mending

And  sending 

You honey bees 

Across the seas. 

Chocolates made from me

Are more you see 

Than sweets and tea 

Where can they drive you?

To a red painted shoe or two 

To an over the rainbow 

To a marvellous show 

Where can they fly you? 

To a sweet centred hue 

To the softly goes place 

 Of  ribbons and lace 

All tied round a tin 

That might just win 

Some more 

Smiles. 

Why Do We Dream About Flying

Little children, big children, little people, big people 

Adults…

Want to fly

Because flying might be beautiful 

Because flying might be free 

Because it’s hard to do in a silly tight dress 

So you might not wear one and just flutter 

About in feathers and skin 

Why do people dream about flying?

Because looking down from up high

the view is wider 

the view is breathtaking 

the scene is connected 

the puzzle is more whole. 

Why do people dream about flying? 

Because they don’t have real wings 

But sometimes it would be quite handy 

To flee in a hurry 

Or to meet love with something

More tangible than a metaphor. 

Why do we talk about angels and clouds 

And beautiful flying geese  

with the moon on their wings? 

Because the sky is so blue 

And the stars are so bright 

It might be nice to get a closer 

Glimpse at all of that. 

Why do people dream of flying 

All by themselves in such a wide shape 

Though we start life curled and knotted in tight?

Because it is a dance 

Because it is visible 

Because it is honoured 

By most 

And remembered

By most as daring and beautiful 

And oh so free-willed 

And sometimes brave 

And independent.

Why do people dream of flying so? 

Because they can’t fly 

And sometimes can’t 

Isn’t as bad as having every can 

In the whole world 

Until you turn into greed 

And silly kinds of plagiarisms

And inventions to look like 

A star that got lodged in 

An Instagram war with 

A set of wings made for 

Somebody else. 

Why do we dream of flight? 

Why do we talk of capes? 

Why do we write of avian human hybrids? 

Why did Di Vinci fixate on it? 

Because it was just out of reach 

Because it is a free ride 

With your eyes closed 

Because growing up doesn’t mean 

Letting go of a psychedelic joyride 

Into creating something 

With your own imagination 

Because it’s unlikely 

And unlikely feels better than a routine

Even if your head keeps making routines 

And then one day you meet someone 

Who knows how you feel 

And the surprise makes way for 

Flight. 

Why do our minds take flight? 

Because they can. 

The Track Winding Back

This is a story that happens to be true. It’s a story forgotten by myself and then remembered. It is the story of three people and a story that became retold in all of the wrong ways. It is a story not many people would care to believe. It is the story that most people didn’t choose to believe in. It is the story of a stolen story but it’s still ours so I’m going to write what I remember today. It is a story that makes me smile. It is a story that makes me angry. It is a story of love and loss and feeling proud. People use the word proud as though it’s candy. What I mean to say is that it can sound kind of sickly sweet to bandy the word around all over the sales pitch of life or in the quest for self approval. Even so when I remember the Pollywoodside I feel proud, well not about all of it, but yeah some of it makes me proud. 

I met this young man in the church where I was taken every week growing up. I was in my teens when first I shook his hand. His name was Jack. He had a rare condition made famous by that old flick The Elephant man. He didn’t much like the film though. Who really wants to be called the elephant man anyway? I always hated the ritual of shaking hands in church to give the sign of peace. For me it felt forced. I didn’t always know the family beside or behind even though they may have frequented the church from week to week. I was a private person really inside. When I reached out to shake Jack’s hand he didn’t offer anything. Even though I hated the sign of peace I was offended by his refusal at first. Later he would tell me I was treating him like a charity case and that he could see right through me from the start. He was kind of surly at first, quick witted, a little dark, a little shy and even a bit annoying. Later I would tell him that he had beautiful hands and that it was a selfish decision to sit in front of him in church because I wasn’t keen on shaking the hands of hairy old men that might happen to be sitting next to me. The real reason I shook his hand is because I was feeling very sad inside on that particular day and his eyes seemed to match mine. It had nothing to do with charity and only to make a connecting point with someone who might understand. It took a long time before Jack would believe me. The world then wasn’t at all welcoming of people like Jack. It’s better now, though I still see the gaps like a gaping rotten dent in society. I still see there’s all kinds of ways in which we favour the kinds of stereotypes that pushed Jack into a dark room and a lonely little space at first. 

This is the story of Jack and a character we wrote about called rose and a beautiful river. This is the story of music, ah sweet music, oh rock and roll and a synthesized beat with a groove that might make a dent in that feeling of a humdrum ground hog day. This is the story of us. It wasn’t for sale.  It wasn’t to be exploited. This is the story of big boats to dream of and smaller boats like home. This is the story that makes me miss Jack and love him even more. This is a story of the song I used to sing to him, There’s a track winding back to an old fashioned shack…. Even though he never did live in Gundadagai  or Hollywood either. 

It came to pass that I ended up in Jack’s room with my boyfriend. He was a huge Janis Joplin fan which had something to do with a story from years before. This is not that story but I might tell it one day, you never know. Let’s just say, Jack was a fan of Joplin and so was I. The first song he played was “Take Another Little Piece of my Heart” on a cassette tape. I love that song. The raspy full imperfectly rock and roll gravel of Janis is something to behold, that’s what we always said. Jack told me he would lie in his room and play out another life in dreams with Janis. It was the life of Janis and Jack, Jack without the disease. Just Jack. We decided to make a play or movie script about it. We kind of bantered around the storyline and I was for a long time obsessed with the story of the Titanic and wanted to feature that true tale of old somewhere or somehow in my own way. That was because a student teacher who had come to my school in grade six, literally knocked me for a six in a good way with her beautiful youthful zest for theatre. We turned our classroom into the Titanic and were allowed to choose a character for a full reinactment. I chose a maid called Maise even though Miss Grundy said I should choose a lady since I was the one most enthusiastic about the whole project and may as well take advantage of being served sandwiches and tea. I said that she would be a lady called Rose. I would be Maise so as to get to meet those from top deck and bottom. I explained that the part would offer me more versatility. I remember crying for a week when Miss Grundy left after her term placement in our school. She was so much fun and grew in me an even greater love of drama and theatre. I was that kind of kid, emotional, romantic and well….yes a bit dramatic, but still kind of private too. 

From memory, with Jack and myself and my boyfriend we decided as a compromise to have three stories running alongside each other, the story of Jack and Janis in the 70s and the story of Jack and Rose on the Titanic and then there was the true story of Jack, myself and my boyfriend somewhere sliced in between all of that.  In my head, or possibly our combined thoughts, it’s hard to recall who wanted what so many years later, It was meant to be an offbeat kind of montage of heavily edited and layered film to challenge that kind of realism you might see in most twee, do-gooder  films about people with “disabilities.” 

My boyfriend at the time was kind of headstrong in a gentle way, if that makes sense, about finding a way to at least realise a play reading of this story we made. It took so much convincing to get Jack out of his room. We wrote some music for the piece about Jack and Rose and a heart that would go on forever and matched to this kind of slightly over sentimental motif a kind of acoustic version of Joplins Heart Again so as to shake up the boat and not put people to sleep with being too cornball about love and all of that. The acoustic version of Take another little piece of my heart was actually, in the end the nicest arrangement I’ve heard and it had nothing to do with my input only to say I did drown into the loveliness of it for a while and pop up for air with the rock parts that still remained around the edges. 

The story of how we got to perform on the Pollywoodside is a little long and hard to tell now but we did and only to a small crowd. I didn’t care about the size of the crowd. I was proud of Jack ebcasue he chickened out at the end but went on at the last minute. When he stretched his arms out at the head of the pollywoodside with us as a three, that kind of flying isn’t easy to come by. I felt free. 

Afterwards we decided to celebrate and went to a little café near the Arts centre called the Trebble Cleff. It often had a pianist playing classical music and was nostalgic for me in more ways than one. When we went to take a table we were refused entry because of Jack. It’s a true story believe it or not. It wasn’t one of my finest moments then because I recall losing my marbles and parading Jack around and asking everyone if they might not mind having Jack in the place. This made Jack embarrassed and angry with me a little If I recall correctly. Later I admitted it wasn’t just about Jack, that is was about me too. I had an eating disorder at the time and being hungry makes people a bit crazed. I recall screaming at some poor elderly man;

“Guess what he’s a freak and Im a freak and you’re a freak for being too old to matter anymore according to the rest of the world, so let’s just get along OK. “

We ended up somewhere or other eating fish and chips, that I didn’t eat anyway holding hands in a park. It wasn’t perfect. It’s a beautiful memory though. It’s still our story. I’m glad that I could remember him finally again, though he’s gone, somehow a track wound me back  to him, in my dreams, eventually. 

Ps 

Oh I forgot to mention, that Jack began writing his own music too, synthesised kinds of beats. He was hugely talented. He died in his twenties. He’s one of my heroes for real but he’d hate that kind of corny talk and I’d just say too bad, I’m saying it anyway. And he’d just say, hold my hands again and you can say anything you please. 

Hannah

I remembered a girl I knew many years ago a few nights ago in my dreams. When I woke up the realisation that I actually knew this girl, now a gorgeous woman struck me, not like lightening but like rain, as beautiful and life giving and sometimes sad as it is or wild as it is or as sweet or angry or delicate or full and curved or crystal clear or pelting down real loud to say “HEY, I’m here, I’m a voice and I’m me.”  

I’m going to tell this story because it’s part of mine and in case this lady might come across it one day. I hope that’s ok. I mean everything I’ve done with good intention. I knew a few girl’s called Hannah. It’s a lovely name. I always thought so. It means grace. You might not think of this Hannah in words like grace but that’s because some people don’t know what grace means. Grace can mean many different kinds of ways of being graceful. It doesn’t just mean you might sit around sipping tea looking like a Princess. It might mean that in the face of other people’s dis- “grace” you stay true, make a mark and stick to your own ideals or goals. Hannah was living with some people near to my house. There was more to the story that I didn’t remember  at the time, that I now do remember, which is a whole other story that I cannot yet tell. I’m hoping one day to do that. I was closer to Hannah than I realised but I started to know Hannah as a friend. We both liked to dance. Hannah is a beautiful dancer. There are many ways to be beautiful. It doesn’t always mean dancing on your toes though it can. She was beautiful in that way of feeling the beat, holding onto the floor with her heart right down to the ground, in a tight way, then a free way, all her own way. But she wanted to learn some steps for a while. Yeah, she had Down Syndrome so finding a class for her was, back then, near impossible. It struck me as rude, downright strange and frankly revolting that anyone needed to be convinced about Hannah. We found one alongside people who didn’t have Down Syndrome. She was a decidedly gorgeous match to music. Music and Hannah were a match made in Hannah. Years later I saw her performing. She was like rain and the feeling after rain, she was like light and the feeling of the night too. She was intriguing. She was not a diva in the annoying sense. She was a fever, that kind of good fever you might get on the dance floor when you’re not too afraid of the floor or the air. She was Hannah all grown up. I was impressed. Discovering I knew her before, only now makes me feel all the more impressed because she’s come along way, but she’s still Hannah, brave and beautiful and bold. 

I went to see her perform in a show and then outside near the water. She was worried about her costume the second time. The second outing was set up by a man I work with performs with her. He had insisted I come along because he wanted it to be about Hannah, he wanted me to see Hannah again. The costume was made of plastic.  She didn’t want to wear the costume and had asked for a different costume. In such contrast to her reality, her humanity, her willingness to bravely go where many had not gone, to forge a path forwards for others like her, I had commented that whatever she did and whatever she wore could never remove the genuine and fine woman she had become. I was proud then to have met Hannah and had the chance to see her shine. Some people are meant to dance. That’s Hannah. She’s the true Dancing Queen that woman. I only wish I’d got an autograph.

Little Heart, Big Heart

If a heart quite literally grew a tiny child, a tiny heart 

If a heart cradled a tiny babe, right there 

Like an atrium to the lightest glimmer of hope 

Would it be the joke of a rabble?

Would it be the mark of a freak? 

Or horror reels for sale? 

Would it be frightening?

Would it be a miracle? 

Would it be a stand up riot? 

Would it be words like parasitic 

or rare condition? 

No. 

It would just be different 

It would just be a beautiful little change of plans 

It would be something to re-manage or reimagine 

A rose that bloomed from a garden 

Not a cave with all its veins like roots and 

Rivers deep.

She would be a survivor 

She would be something to write home about 

Something to shout from the rooftops 

Like a sister or a child or guardian who clung onto 

The very centre of a soul 

For dear life 

And came up for air 

In a different direction 

With the same 

Yet different 

Heart as 

Anyone 

Does. 

Chief

Epilogue to The Shark Tooth 

I often feel telling the truth is underrated. A lot of the world’s problems spring forth as a result of lies, cover ups and corruption. That’s why I’ve been largely autobiographical in this blog as fragments of forgotten stories spill back into my consciousness. Amnesia or forgetting is not always permanent. Memories lay deep in the subconscious brain though it's sometimes hard to understand memory from imagination. 

If anyone at all reads my words, I wrote about a necklace a few weeks ago. It was a sharks tooth. It was given to someone I love. He gave it back to me at a time of need. I gave it on to a young woman in a very serious state of distress later. She found me some years on and gave it back to me when hearing of another deep wound I needed to heal. Skipping forward I waited to give the necklace to someone else who I called Chief. I thought he was good. I'm not sure about that. I only know I was with good intentions but it made me want to explore the word chief in a little poem. 

Chief 

What is a chief? 

What is the leader?

Who is the teacher? 

Is it the oldest?

Is it the youngest?

Is it the tallest? 

Is it the earth? 

Is it you? 

Is it a badge? 

Is it being told you matter too 

Like a small tear 

Into an ocean of 

Trying again

Striving for better 

Than a bad day

Striving for better than

a wreath of

decaying promises.

Is it the top? 

Or is it a circle 

with someone to 

help make it work best? 

Is is a fireman’s hat? 

Is it more than pretend? 

I was thinking of a flower 

That kind that won’t 

Take over the garden 

That stands out in the storm 

That attracts the best kinds of 

Pollinators

That’s beautiful and brave 

And honest.

I was thinking of the Moon

How it glows like a lamp 

In the sky 

And everyone sees it 

But it’s soft and brave too. 

I was thinking of the breath 

Of the wolves in the sales 

Of a boat 

I was thinking of a River 

That dances

That commands the space

But gives life. 

I was true.

I really meant it. 

I did.