Saturday and its a poetry stanza day, so after taking my vitals, all okay, I get up and prepare to go to the Stanza. Its very hot so I putter about doing small but useful things like checking my tyres and sorting my dosettes. There are messages from the Ruler’s Wit team about doing further work with them, so in the future there may be a lunch time meeting. I am hoping that this collaboration continues to be fruitful. The time comes to travel so with my twelve copies of a poem I drive to the venue only to find it cannot be used. A couple of the Stanza members are at the venue and we walk down together to St Dionysius church where we are told we can meet.

As I walk down to the church I am frantically trying to remember whether my poem has an expletives in it, as it might be cruel to ask someone to be reading Fuck out loud in the quiet of a church. When we get to the church it turns out that we are sitting in a side aisle in a circle of chairs. Of course being a church it is open to the public so from time to time during the afternoon odd members of the pubic popped in and out, I could not help wondering what they thought they might be interrupting. There are twelve of us this month and a good collection of new works. I feel reasonable today but I am anxious for a while till I discover there is a toilet in the church. It comes to my turn and I hear my poem read aloud and find myself surprised to hear the tempo at which it is read. I receive my feedback and then make my comments. Here is what I took, I’ve probably posted it before but for timeliness I repeat it.

449

Pull; pull; pull;
pull; pull; pull;
this is a man at war, 
trying to save himself. 
Pull; pull; pull.
This is the effort required 
to fend off chemo effects.
Every muscle, every joint
stretched and contracted
to keep the rhythm going.
Pull; pull; pull;
the metronome needs to tick 
there can be no stopping
until the clock runs down,
till the figures on the monitor
tell the story of kilometres,
of calories and strokes. 
Then and only then can it stop.
This is how the relentless malady 
is faced and challenged.
In every pull defiance,
In every pull conatus.
Pull; pull; pull.

449 17-06-2025

At five a clock a woman on a mobility scooter throws us out, but not before I buy the latest published pamphlet from one of the group and have her sign it. She is a well know poet and writes poetry that I could never write, so knowing how she approaches what she write and the work she puts into finding the right words and the effort to craft her work I appreciate the new poems.

With my new signed pamphlet tucked under my arm I recover my car and drive home to tea and an evening of quietly watching TV and reading. Of course there are the night meds to take, a finger splint to don and a nights sleep to get.

Sunday and I wake up and get myself going for the Sunday weight in. I come in at 101.2 kilos. This has been my average weight for sometime now so I am content this Sunday morning. After breakfast and some updating of the family calendar I take my car to the local garage and fill the tank and then I go and use the car wash for the first time. Its really three jet washes in one, so I put my time in, pay and then get to work on the car. After ten minutes my car is cleaner than its been for a while, unfortunately it shows up the dints, scratches and other blemishes. Back home my partner and I set to work on the garden, I prepare the area around where the new shed base in preparation for the new shed being delivered tomorrow. There is dead heading to do before lunch during which I start t draft the blog and watch the men’s final at Queens. As I do so I am also waiting for the first hard copies of my new poetry collection to arrive. Somewhere there is an Amazon delivery person working their way to wards me.

At last Amazon deliver copies of my new book and I eagerly open them. It is a special moment and immediately I know this book is much better than the Americans produced. Ruler’s Wit the new publishers have done a really good job. The feel and the look of the book is so much better. There has been some. moving around of the content and it feels so much better for it. Having now got the book I am eager to work with Ruler’s Wit again.

I decide to bite the bullet and to train so I get into my kit and go to the garage and the rower. I select a 45 minute session and get going. Its a fast and furious row, not a persona best but a really descent session, well over 9 kilometres.

After the session I record it in my journal and then change into comfortable clothes. Tea follows and then I continue the blog until its time to take my night meds and prepare for my 28 day jab in the morning. It will be a race against time as the new shed is coming at 11am and I will need to get everything back into the new shed before my injection site gets sore along with the other side effects. Its going to be a restless night.