Friday and I am awake early doing my vitals, taking my meds and getting ready to go and see my hand therapist. So its all a bit of a rush but I am soon in the car to arrive on time. The hand therapist removes my dressing from yesterdays stitch removal and then washes my hand free of the last remaining blood. My wound is examined closely and it appears I have two spots that have not healed on the surface which means they are going to have to heal from the inside out, which is going to take a while. The therapist redresses the wound and then instructs me on my next set of physio exercises. I now have to wind athletic compression tape around my finger for ten minutes before I do my hand exercises, which now include making a fist. She measures my finger straightness with a neat little protractor tool and jots down my progress. With the basics done she reheats my finger splint and remoulds it to my finger in its new dressing. After forty five minutes she tells me how much I owe her and I give her fresh notes and drive home with my new dressing and instructions.

I decide to wait till lunch time to eat when I can take my partner, in the meantime I begin to read Aniara : A review of Man in Time and Space. by Harry Martinson. He was a Swedish poet who had a fascination with science and managed to combine poetry with it. So I settle down to read the introduction to it and the explanation of some of the names for things that Martinson created. First published in 1956 it is an intriguing glimpse of how someone thought the future might go given all the new ideas in physics and engineering of the time. The fact that it is written as 100 plus songs in an epic poem form makes it a fascination read, and a manageable one. Interestingly their is no copyright on it as it was decided that this should be available to everyone. My copy originated from Trent University library, I am curious to know how it came to be available to me. Clearly the university was not big on Swedish Nobel Prize winning poets.

My partner and I go to lunch and pull a blank at our first port of call, of course it is Valentines day so there are more people than usual eating out this lunch time. We find a space at our local garden centre and I get to have a late, late breakfast. On our return home we walk to the village shops and gather up a paper and treats before retuning home. I settle down t do the crosswords and then move onto preparing for tomorrows poetry stanza. I had decide to take my stab at a Villanelle but realise at the last moment that I have one of the key elements wrong so I spend much time re writing it so that the all the “B” lines in the rhyming structure through the poem rhyme. So I end up with a second version of my Villanelle to Villanelle. I will take to the Stanza meeting tomorrow then that me done with Villanelles, I leave the the field and acknowledge the much greater artistry and poetic talent of the likes of Dylan Thomas, Auden and Sylvia Plath.

428.1

Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
with any weapon and fashion to inspire
she took their lives in ways to thrill.

This was no ordinary way for blood to spill
nor was it how most become immobile,
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
.
The boots below the tailored twill
would step ruggedly upon a smile
she took their lives in ways to thrill.

no end of ways for hearts to still
liberating souls a darker style
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill.

From acrid poisons to electric drill
Villanelle ran the gamut of versatile
She took their lives in ways to thrill.

For body disposal pigs fit the bill
their voracious appetites like hellfire,
Oh Villanelle, Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
she took their lives in ways to thrill.

                                                                                                    428.1 14-02-2025
						  A Villanelle for Villanelle of Killing Eve

Having made my adjustments and run off copies for tomorrow I set about drafting the blog. I am rapidly running out of spoons, it seems to have been a long week, but just when I thought I might sink into the evening a friend rings me. She is collecting her mother in law and has taken the opportunity to ring me. We chat for a while and catch up on our week and what is going on before she arrives at the train station to collect her guest. I finish off the blog and sink into the evening, I shall watch TV and do nothing more than let myself be entertained in ways far different from last nights performance of Stewart Lee vs The Man Wulf. It will be night meds for me and then a night with the amended finger splint. Hopefully I will not need to get up it the night to take pain killers.