Saturday and I wake up with a painful back having managed to pull it getting out of bed to have a piss. How ridiculous is that. I drink my coffee and easy myself up for breakfast. A slowly and careful muesli and coffee and then I run off the poems I am going to take to the poetry stanza later. I also run off my green flag stuff so that my partner can have a copy in the car. Morning meds and vitals get done and I choose an ice hockey jersey for the day. Penquins is my choice. I get myself ready including my back support that I used to use when I used weights. My partner goes to lunch with a friend and I head for the poetry Stanza.
On the way to the venue I check my tyres hoping that the repaired one has held its pressure, to my relief it has so I am able to carry on my journey with confidence in the car. I arrive early and as I can not get into the community centre I get a sandwich and red bull from the garage and dine in my car while I check football scores. The community hall gets opened and we all get in and set up the table and chairs. Today there are nine of us and my poem get read third and is kindly received.
Twenty three and a half By twenty three and a half inches. A measuring tape. Two laptops and stands With mouse and mat, top layer. Down. Used envelop, deceased RAC card, Hard drives, external. Hair band, rubber band, box cutter, Ear buds, biro, gimlet. USB stick, glasses, glasses reading, Bulldog clip, paper clip, expended paracetamol. Paper note, post office receipt, postage stamps. Sticky note flags, silver ring box, Remote and coffee glass; Almost overlooked the fifty pence pieces, rare. This is the archaeology of a dying life, Or, another instillation by Tracey. 349. 03-08-2023 @ 10:30
After Tracey Emin. Guide price £50,000. If you think £50,000 is a joke, remember Tracey Emin’s bed installation went for £2,400,000 purportedly representing her struggle with a period of severe emotional flux, so I reckon that wrestling with stage 4 cancer got to be worth at least £50,000. You see how absurd the world is and must not be taken seriously.
My back up poem was a lighter one, but not inconsequential, which I might share next time.
It’s time. Time to say farewell, bite the bullet and concede to the scythe. Like the inevitably Of harvest, I yield. Carefully I select the items, and with them the memories. With each comes stitched in reminiscences. Each pair are transitional items that will be jettisoned, recycled or forgotten. Reality confrontation at a brutal level. A mirror that won’t be denied And is now avoided. I’m never going to be the same and gone is the possibility. I am beyond any clever fix My waist line will never again be 36.
The session moves on and we read and discuss more poems. The variety is stimulating and the discussions are full of interesting new knowledge as people struggle to bring experiences together. I learnt that looking to have ones “ashes hauled” is a medieval way of saying having sex. There was apparently a woman called Elizbeth Heyrick who lead a women’s campaign against slavery before it was outlawed. Because women were disenfranchised and had no voice they made work bags on which they sewed symbols and slogans that supported the anti-slavery movement. The session comes to an end and we pack up the furniture before I drive home.
The house is locked up when I get home so I get myself set on the sofa and start to draft the blog to the accompaniment of a woman’s football match in the background. My partner returns and we eat a simple tea before watching England play South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. They lose by a single point. I watch Strictly on catch up and then down my night meds before going to bed.
