Monday and I wake up after another torrid night, mainly not feeling well, in particular my gut. I had been up and down all night and taking meds in the night. When I woke up finally I was feeling strung out and tried to rest before taking my vitals. My vitals all came up normal so I check my messages and then get up. All I can face is toast and honey with a warm drink which I take onto the patio where my partner is reading. I try to relax in between fixing the sun shade and looking out over the garden.

I have been thinking about whether to enter the Poetry Societies members competition with its theme of counting, so as I look out over the garden and wonder if the few spots of rain will turn into a deluge or not I begin to think about words and shapes and colours. Eventually I start to jot in the back of my “Ins and Outs” journal. By the time I am ready to stop I have three more things scribbled down. Below are my initial drafts. I have no idea what I will do with them or whether I shall just leave them alone and move on.

400

Like my poems life is curated,
it is by filling the abacus
that I know the days
since cancer took me.
Now my life is a plethora of numbers,
singularly or in pairs they see inside.
"Is my arithmetic good" I ask
after every vial of blood,
pot of urine or dollop of poo.
My life is innumerated, recorded
so that I and others may tend me.
All my ins and outs in digital,
averaged, plotted and watched
for waning and ebbing.
Life is moonlike, changing shape
dependant on reflection, angles
and the tremulous rotations
of a system trying to maintain
it's dynamic equilibrium.
By these calculations
I gauge how many more 
mathematical days I have left
to count.

                                                                    401 15-07-2024

401
Every little effort,
the smallest movement
drains me. 
I wonder if  I am  talking
myself into weakness,
abandoning the positive mind set,
and settling from something
less than me.
Is there some deep seated
vein of self pity 
or longing to be nurtured
woven into my being.
All those years of exploration,
reflection and challenge, missing 
the mark out of trying to avoid
the uncomfortable pain
of being me.
I thought I was doing my best 
when in fact it was my unconscious
that has done a better job
and let me achieve the conscious
world I craved. 
Now it seems that when death is on the cards
neither can be hidden from 
each other. 

                                                                   401 15-07-2024

402

Chiminea made for onomatopoeia
amidst the mumbling of innumerable bees
and the furry flea filled flicking 
of squirrel tails.
This is what drizzles out of my dazed mind
when serious soul stuff is all gone. 
Sitting in my garden having cooing
competitions with pidgeons
and wondering where the wildlife
has gone.
Not the feathery, scaly kind of nature
but my own.
A head full of pixies
that would drain brandy,
eat the hottest curry and throw
themselves around on roller blades.
Those stay up all night
argument days talking
drunken shit and feeling clever,
well I never
thought it would come to this;
thinking froggerel and 
writing doggerel
in my garden sanctuary.

                                                      402 15-07-2024
                                                       Foot note; Shakespeare made up words why shouldn't I? 

Just before lunch time Amazon deliver five kilos of peanuts with the shells on. I have decided that my squirrel needs to work for his nuts and to enhance his diet with roughage as well as a lot of protein. I store the nuts a way and fill the feeders, strewing a few peanuts around to encourage the wild life to work a bit for its rewards. My partner and eldest daughter go out for lunch and get myself soup and cheesy bread as I cannot face going out today. I just want to rest being aware how fatigued I feel and that I am due at the dentist tomorrow for phase one of a new partial crown. I dine and start to draft the blog with the Post Office Enquiry going on in the background. Sir Stephen Lovegrove seems to be competent but his claim not to be aware of the postmasters convictions and the Horizon problems seems unlikely in this modern age of risk and awareness. The enquiry day comes to an end and I continue to draft the blog as my partner and eldest daughter return from lunch.

The biggest challenge this evening is going to be what to eat. At the moment food appears not to be my friend, so plain and simple is the way forward. Hopefully the evening will be simple with a diet of SWAT to watch. My watch word is to be kind to myself.