Wednesday, Valentines day and like all days these days it starts with cyber rituals, messages, news feeds and litter followed by taking my vitals (all good again), and then getting up and making breakfast. This, although sounding easy and normal is taking an increasing amount of time as my energy levels get depleted more quickly these days. On rainy days like this I do not mind, a slow start to these days is pleasurable but when the weather picks up and is sunny it is less of a joy. There is not a lot on my agenda for today apart from an expected call from the book people in the USA.
My partner unbeknown to me posted a video of me tossing pancakes on the family WhatsApp yesterday, for any one interested here it is. It at least shows I can still learn new skills but it also reminds me of a prostate cancer advert that showed a recovered man smiling happily and sticking pancakes to the ceiling in joyous fun having had the news he was cured. Me not so lucky, so it would appear tossing pancakes is an unrelated activity to wellness or cure.
Mid morning I listen to Ginsberg read his poem America, if you have not heard him do this it is worth a listen if you are into poetry, American Beat poetry that is. I’ve put in below if you have 10 minutes to spare. The experience of hearing him perform it is vastly different from just reading it.
Any way having listened to America I felt moved to write a poem, not a Ginsberg standard poem but one where I try to grab the moment of how it is right now.
368 I have meditation in my ears where once was Ginsberg, that howling man of America, seeing lions and decrying the loss of self. I heard the voice of stand up poetry, the passion and the humour, compassion for the other. How and where does this come from, these tears unshed, this despair? There in the air is the message that I shall never, or never shall, speak aloud this distress contained within. Slowly but surely disintegration Seeps through both body and being that is unspeakable to a world of war and others pain and burdens. This utter insignificance Is desert like in its vastness. I have visions, fantasies of knowing rest but it is all too much. I turn up the volume of Alexa’s calming offerings. Noises not music, supposedly serene but now wallpaper to hang around me, buying time to write; no scribble, scratch around the fear of dying. As things slow down I function less. Every blog starts With the word “fight” but my jabs are slow, my hooks weak, all from memory of who I used to be. What I am now is too terrifying to look at, freakish, a thing I never thought I would be. Not just old but dying beyond my control, like this poem it is to be long, drawn out and never a hint of Ginsberg, Wantling, Ferlingheti and all the breathless poets whose voices shook the world. All I ever was is never to be. Ungrammatical silence is my legacy. 368 14th February 2024
Like I say not a strophe to change the world but how it is, sort of, for me. Back in the Real World my partner goes to see her mother with her brother, eldest daughter already off to work. I am alone and of course I set about making a meal for them to come home to in the evening and then the afternoon is mine. I do not do much with my afternoon except apart from drifting through cyber space and tidying up my laptops. My partner returns home as does my eldest daughter and in due course we sit down to the evening meal.
Over the course of the evening there is football and films, the last being What We Did On Our Holidays, a lovely film. A bit bitter sweet experience as it is a comedy about children giving their grandfather, who dies of cancer on the beech, a Viking funereal. Eventually I get to take my chemo and take myself to bed. Its been a strange day of contrasting feelings and rather disconcerting.
