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Tuesday 28 February 2012

Secrets













Can you keep a secret? I can’t. To me, secrets are like viruses, I only need to be three feet away from someone before they fall from my mouth like middle aged drool. I never set out to divulge their details on purpose, it’s just that I have to purge my body of them, before they eat into my subconscious and terrorise my dreams.

Friends that know me well realise this and stay well away from sentences that begin “You can keep a secret can’t you?” Casual acquaintances and complete strangers though, have a habit of confiding in me at the drop of a hat. Perhaps to them I’m a sort of low-rent father confessor with time on his hands? It’s not that I’m at all religious. I suppose I’m what you’d call a lapsed agnostic. People often remark “I don’t know why it is, but I can tell you things I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else.” If I’m being perfectly honest, this excites me. When they say this, I can’t resist probing a little deeper; in the hope I may be privy to some big juicy revelation.

A psychoanalyst might interpret this as an attempt to fill a void in my own unremarkable life – where I become a kind of ‘secrets magpie’ collecting bright and shiny confidences from anyone who’ll let me have them. The frustrated actor in me also likes playing the role of ‘considered listener,’ or ‘covert interrogator ‘where I lure them in with invented secrets of my own in an attempt to disarm and relax.

I shouldn’t really be telling you this, because by doing so, I’m blowing my own cover, which is foolhardy to say the least. I could never be a spy anway. I wouldn’t last five minutes. Signing the official secrets act would be akin to signing my own death warrant. While Agent X was whispering the secret co-ordinates of some death laser I’d be flicking through my double agents address book seeing who I could ring first.

A mole, now that would be more up my street - playing the part of an unassuming nobody who infiltrates the highest echelons of some evil organisation with a catchy acronym. I can see the newspaper headlines now – UNDERCOVER JOURNALIST EXPOSES THE SECRETS OF JOBCENTRE PLUS. That reminds me, I must take the complete ‘Spooks’ box set back to the library before I get another fine.

Monday 27 February 2012

Cut Flowers


                                   



My lump, frozen and shaved like a white truffle
was shared out among surgeons’ with tumour envy
who stood in line
bragging that one encapsulated prize
would lead to another,
plus a full page spread in Oncology Monthly.

I ached to take it home
watch it shrivel.
Tease it with warm forbidden flesh
Give it the hope of cut flowers
Make it bloody suffer

Instead, I chose chemo,
took myself home
watched myself shrivel
teased myself with warm forbidden flesh
gave myself the hope of cut flowers
made myself suffer

They came in pairs  
asked if I’d seen Alien
joked about corrosive blood.
They said my lump was the lump formalin known as...
and performed sterilised high fives.
I rolled up my sleeves.

I made an effigy out of Blu Tack
and lanced it with cocktail sticks, leaving out the cheese
as the merest glimpse of a magazine fridge
made me heave.

Fatigue arrived like spring ants,
taking scraps of me away.
swarming when the Chemo stopped
and blood ran sweet again.

I heard my lump now resides in some lab rat
with tweaked DNA.
the cut flowers have gone,
replaced by pseudo-silken blooms
that fools all but the wisest bees.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Whispers & Dreams

















Re-incarnation isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. For one thing you don’t get to choose your new life. It gets chosen for you. I desperately wanted to be a Dolphin, or failing that a Wolf. Or even a Wolf with the brain of a Dolphin. I know wolves are pretty savvy, but just imagine having your synaptic cortex bumped up to at least 67% of a human brain. The pack would follow you off a cliff! They haven’t decided where to place me yet. Usually the transfer happens instantaneously. One minute you’re having a heart attack and the next you’re starting over as a new person, or a goose or even a dung beetle.  Either way it’s pretty dam quick. There isn’t any 24 hour cooling off period either, where you can weigh up all the pros and cons of frozen lakes versus a life surrounded by excrement. It’s a done deal.

But what happens to my soul? Up here they don’t refer to them as souls. They call them Human Life Echo’s or HLE’s for short. Apparently everyone’s HLE is composed of lots of fainter echoes from past lives. The more HLE’s you have increases your chances of winding up in the body of an animal, or an insect. I don’t know the actual HLE threshold, but it numbers in the thousands. They tell me I’ve reached my limit, so I’ve got to wait and see where they decide to put me next.

The choice isn’t arbitrary or reactive either, it’s all pre-planned. They say that every living thing has a finite and predictable life-span, so it’s relatively easy to plan many years ahead. Here, there are no such things as random accidents and premature deaths. Everything happens at a certain point and in a certain way. If it didn’t there’d be chaos. The system would quickly break down and all the harmony and balance would be destroyed. I know, it blew my mind too. The concept that every single living thing will die at a pre-determined moment kind of freaked me out. When they first told me I was full of questions. What about irrational, unplanned behaviour ? Surely you’ve got to factor in indecision and situations totally beyond our control, like blood clots, lapses in concentration, and wars? They laughed when I said that. They said nothing ever happens by chance - If I could see everything, all at once then I’d know. I’d see the beautiful patterns our tiny predictable steps make towards our own deaths. They might as well have told me God is really some spoilt child at his own celestial birthday party, cus it pretty much stomped all over my pre-conceived notions of free will and personal choice.

I wish they’d make up their minds. This body-less existence is starting to get me down. It’s like being locked in someone else’s dream. Not a very good dream either, more like a nightmare that’s all messed up and out of sequence.  Things are never static, they keep moving further away, and then are frighteningly close up, so close in fact I can’t tell where the hell I am anymore. I’m sure they’re making me wait to punish me for what happened. As if any of it was really my fault.

 That’s strange; I can hear voices, whispering voices. They’re all speaking at once so I can’t make out what it is they’re saying. Wait a minute, they seem to be leaving, or moving further away. Now there’s just one voice left. He, I think it’s a he, is speaking so quietly I can hardly hear him - something about a story. Now he’s fading too.
                “Don’t leave. What do you want me to do? You mentioned something about a story. Do you want me to tell my story, is that it?” Shit! He’s gone now. Why couldn’t he speak properly? Is this some sort of test? I feel so cold. I know that’s impossible as I don’t have a body anymore, but something inside whatever I’ve become is telling me I’m cold, so very cold…



They asked me to join their club but I refused. To be honest they all seemed a bit too stuck up for my liking. They were always discussing and debating. I timed them once. When I rowed away from the pontoon it was nine thirty am, and when I returned it was just before ten. They were all still there, chopsing away like a bunch of fishwives. When they eventually got onto the water, (45 minutes later) I was part way through my second cup of tea. What is the point of having thousands of pounds worth of sleek carbon fibre boats if all they do is talk about rowing? Don’t get me wrong, they use all the jargon – quarter pressure this and half pressure that. One of them, I think his name’s Roger had the ruddy cheek to give me rowing tips.
                “I’ve watched you ploughing up and down the lake like a veritable paddle steamer, and I feel I should say something.” Nice to meet you, my name is Roger would have been a better introduction, don’t you think?
                “Really, what’s that then?” He was one of those guys who likes to use props to illustrate his point. He picks up one of the Concept II oars, (which incidentally costs more than my boat) and starts doing a spot of ‘air rowing’.
                “You need to place your blades (oars to you and me) in a shallower position, like this. That way you’ll be able to increase your rate without expending any much energy.”
                “I quite like expending energy; it gives me more of a workout. Thanks for the tip though.” I should have asked him to ditch his posh blades and try my big heavy oak oars. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Ray, the ruddy-faced boatyard manager said he took one of the rowing clubs shining stars out for a row in one of the old fibreglass fishing boats (the same as mine). He said they hadn’t even got half way before the fella starts complaining about his ‘poor aching forearms’. Ray calls them a bunch of posers. He also says ‘men of a certain age and shape shouldn’t wear lycra’. I tend to agree.

That was over a year ago. People ask me why I do it. Why choose rowing as opposed to joining a gym or taking up mountain biking? It’s not an easy one to answer, but I think rowing chose me. I never set out to do it. I started walking, (wandering along canal towpaths) to combat my depression and just happened upon this large lake near my home. I’d lived there for over 10 years and never knew it even existed. I remember seeing flashes of blue and white through the dense birch trees and thought I was watching runners in a cross country race. When I got closer I could hear the sounds of yelling cox’s and the rhythmic rub of oars skimming over corrugated water. I felt like I’d discovered a secret world - a world where people came to escape their stressful, weekday lives in favour of a hundred metre wide, six kilometre long playground.

In the first year I rowed three times a week, (sometimes four) in all weathers and at all times of the day. I particularly loved the early morning. Quite often I was the only one on the lake, and I remember how excited I used to feel, running down the steep steps to the pontoon carrying a pair of rusty rowlocks and ragged nine foot oars and hand-bailing my boat with an old ice-cream carton. I couldn’t wait to get on the lake to see what mood she was in. Some days she was so quiet and still I could hear families having breakfast on their lakeside verandas. At other times the wind was so strong the lake became a sea, with white horses and invisible currents that spun my boat like a leaf in rapids. The only time I can’t row is when the lake is frozen, and even then I convince myself I can row through the ice. Cat ice isn’t a problem. I quite like smashing through the floating glass atolls and hearing the fractured echo roll down the valley. If the ice is half an inch or less it’s easy, any more and I risk being marooned.

Yesterday, the ice had begun to separate, so I persuaded Ray to let me have a go. I promised to come back if it was too thick and agreed not to venture any further than the sheltered bay area. I took the heaviest oars I could find (for maximum ice penetration), plus the compulsory life jacket that I always shoved under the stern bench. Ray had kindly cleared a path around the pontoon and across the lake towards the old boathouse so the birds could swim about. As I pushed off I could see the pale sun through a fine chiffon of mist. Within five minutes it became a dense eye-straining fog. First the banks receded, then the line of tethered yachts were swallowed up, followed by the marker boys and finally the lake itself. The only sounds I could hear were my own breathing, the slap of oar against water and the digestive rumblings of shifting ice. I felt frightened and disorientated. Each time the boat found thicker ice I had to slam the oars through it, and hope my momentum carried me forward. I couldn’t turn back, because I didn’t know where ‘back’ was. I even tried hurling a lead fishing bomb across the ice, straining my ears for the reassuring ‘plop’ into open water. It never happened.
Then my imagination started toying with my vision. The swirling fog formed into Anomalous shapes that buzzed me like mischievous spectres. Each time this happened I altered my direction, pulling through the water with only one oar, until the mirage evaporated or moved away. I also sensed the ice was getting thicker, but I couldn’t turn round because I was stuck in my own narrow channel. Then the oars started bouncing off the ice and it took two or three attempts to punch through. I wondered what would happen if I stopped. The fog might lift. Then I could get my bearings.

The whispering’s back. This time it sounds like a woman’s voice. She’s speaking so quietly, like my Mum used to when she came home from the hospital late at night and didn’t want to wake me. She never knew I heard every single word, or smelt the carbolic on her hand so close to my face. I wish she’d just slow down and speak normally - there’s only me here, isn’t there?
                “Hello, are you talking to me? Hello, is this some sort of test?” It must be a test and I have to pass it in order to move on. Perhaps if I carry on with my story they might come back?

Where was I? Oh yes, I remember. While I rowed and listened to all the daft suggestions my mind kept producing I suddenly heard a new sound - a close-up sloshing noise. My feet were wet. I quickly reached down and felt cold water moving around the boat. I knew it had a tiny leak; Ray had assured me it would take hours for the boat to fill up. The ice must have made it worse
                “Help!” I screamed and waited for the echo. There wasn’t any. How could this be? There’s always an echo, even when it’s windy. I screamed again, as long and as loud as I could, until my voice eventually cracked. The water in the boat was rising; I could feel it lapping against my ankles. I started to panic, rowing as fast as I could. Then my right oar clattered into something big and heavy. I stopped rowing and used the same oar to probe the air, like a blind giant with a white stick. I felt it again, hard and hollow, like a boat. It must be a boat. The water lapped at my calves, so I leaned over the side, but the oar slipped out of my hand. I heard it skid across the ice. The boat was stuck fast. I had to get out. Each time I moved a small wave broke over my shins. In desperation I reached over the side and felt firm-ish ice under my fingertips. I pressed hard.  Then the boat capsized, spilling me onto the ice - it held my weight. I heard a bubble and hiss as my boat went down, followed by the sound of the stowed life-jacket exploding into life. Then all was quiet.
I spread my weight out as best I could, lying face down with both my arms and legs extended. I lifted up my head and shouted one last time. Surely someone had to hear me? Then I heard a strange scratching sound, soft rasping footsteps moving towards me. The footsteps stopped and I felt something nibble my right thumb. I clawed the air and heard a loud hiss followed by a sharp stabbing pain in my arm. The second time, I felt a bone snap in my forearm and remember feeling a draft of cold air on my face and the sound of beating wings. Then everything went black and cold…

The cold feeling’s almost gone now. The whispering’s back though. Wait, there’s a voice. A female voice is talking to me. Now it’s gone again. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she (whoever she is) is riding on a carousel. One minute she sounds close by and then something snatches her voice away from me. If I can just make out what it is she’s trying to tell me? I need to concentrate. Here she comes again.
                “Stephen, it’s me. You need to concentrate. You need to…”
                “I need to what?” I’ve got to stay calm. She’ll be back in a few seconds.
                “Wake up Stephen, everyone’s here. We’re all here. We all love you…”
                “Mum?” 

Saturday 18 February 2012

Am I so hard to love












Am I so hard to love?
Do I ask too much of one heart
to unpack its cold, folded wings
and air them in the warm sun
with another?

Am I so hard to love
that kisses meant for lips
skim off my wet cheeks as flint
skips across an ever-widening ocean?

Am I so hard to love
now my family have gone?
There must be a surplus.
A place where love pools
so lovers can sink
or swim together.

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Jumping on the Grief Wagon














A few days ago Whitney Houston died in a bath, in a hotel room, probably due to a drugs overdose or binge drinking or both. What followed was a global Tsunami of grief and emotional outpouring from fans and the general public who had never met her, or were ever likely to meet her. There were photo-shopped Whitney headstones on facebook, endless You Tube recommendations and enough hearts and X’s to choke any Barbara Cartland devotee.

It made me wonder why it is that some people choose to heap all their sadness and grief upon celebrities such as Ms Houston when there’s so much more death and depravity to choose from? Do singers have the monopoly on collective bereavement? Perhaps it was the ‘Marilyn’ Factor' that set off a chain reaction? Who knows? I also think the majority prefers to follow the crowd, regardless of whether it’s the right thing to do. No one wants to be viewed as a callous, uncaring person who’s not that bothered about the death of someone who was famous 20 years ago.  To do that risks being labelled as unpopular and one of the ‘out crowd’.

It takes courage and a lot of gumption to buck the trend. Politicians must dread Q& A sessions if they spot someone in the audience who they know will ask the one question they don’t want to hear and cannot possibly answer. Certain people though,  like Sheep, are simply waiting to be herded. It doesn’t matter if the herder is a wolf or a shepherd; it’s all the same to them. They just need to be given the order to run down a hill as quickly as possible with the minimum amount of fuss.

There’s also a scary minority who try and out-grieve one another. These are individuals who are just waiting for the right celebrity to pop their clogs, so they can unleash their arsenal of sadness on the world, and sink their teeth into a great big juicy death.  They write eulogies, post pictures and organise groups solely devoted to ‘letting it all out’. They score each other’s efforts with smileys, hearts and X’s.  Thankfully, these 'compassionate fiends' only have a relatively short window of opportunity, so they need to maximise their efforts before the grief-wave recedes and everyone goes back to doing what they do best – bitching and moaning about nothing of any real significance.

If a loved and cherished family member or close friend passes away we don't shout about it on twitter or facebook (well I don't anyway!) Most of us conduct our grief privately, in separate rooms, and in some cases separate houses. Sometimes we consider sharing our grief  if we are among people who have also lost someone close to them. At other times we feel the need to unburden ourselves to perfect strangers.  

After all, grief is a process to be endured not a band-wagon to be ridden. 

Monday 13 February 2012

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

















(Written in November 2008, whilst working in a mental health setting)

This week, I drank far too much bad coffee, met a Dutch ex-wrestler called Bas and made a windbreak out of Lego. The budding Sherlock’s amongst you will have already deduced that these apparently disparate acts when added together can only mean one thing – a leadership and management course. Mine was run by an organisation called S.C.W.W.P. (pronounced SQUIP) – a government funded local council initiative, which means it will probably be shelved in a year’s time, to be replaced by some other bizarre acronym.
 During a recent appraisal interview, the centre manager informed me she’d put my name forward for the course. I smiled and replied “Oh, good”, while thinking, Oh Christ, what monumental fuck up have I perpetrated to deserve such punishment? So, with quiet resignation, plus the consolation prize of a week away from the unit I sat down in the Uber-smart University conference room, scribbled my name on a large bi-fold card and waited for my classmates to file in. Bare faced lies about reasons for attendance and perfunctory introductions were exchanged before Bas, the course tutor strode in with all the confidence and swagger of a royal bouncer.
He was at least six feet five in his wrestling boots, resembling a youthful muscle bound Clive James, sporting a Rolex Oyster and gun metal Bvlgari glasses. I could tell by his clipped phrasing and end of sentence ‘hmm, hmm's’ he was either a Serth African Boer or a Scandinavian natural. He confirmed the latter with a brief introductory speech about Antwerp and its nightlife. First days are a little like first dates. There’s so much information to digest that I only retain the stuff told to me during my own small caffeinated window in which I gabble and nod a lot.
Most of my fellow detainees were either council administrators or children’s nurses, bringing with them tales of pointless beaurocracy and embittered attitudes towards inept and power-crazed management. Luckily, Bas handled this disillusionment and bad feeling with aplomb, citing his own difficult passage through the business ranks with witty stories of sheer tenacity in the face of overwhelming ineptitude as well as decoding our own examples of trauma and frustration. He talked of personality traits, business models and performance targets, drawing from his varied background in pharmacological sales, middle management and teaching.  
On day three he split the group into two, gave each one a carrier bag filled with Lego and told us to build a tower in thirty minutes. Prior to this we had established our respective work types, with the aid of an ingenious ‘personality compass’ and rigorous Psychometric questionnaire. Bas was by his own admission an Operations Director or O.D, displaying directness, a no-nonsense attitude and strong desire to get the job done. I, on the other hand was due south of all things organised. I was quickly identified as a Liaison Officer or L.O by my limp agony aunt approach and “lets discuss and make sure everyone’s on board” mentality. Consequently, while we waffled on about roles and responsibilities our rivals were finishing floor thirty of Canary Wharf. In a ‘five minutes to go’ panic I hurled plastic bricks at my open-mouthed team members and screamed “just build a fucking wall!” Bas circled like a media savvy shark complete with Handy Cam and smug expression.
What will I take back to my cosy little work place? Will it be the lessons in assertiveness and calm unflappable discourse? Could it be the personality compass, body language pointers and time management charts - Possibly? What I won’t do is steamroll my way through and over some of my colleagues more questionable traits whilst at the same time collating all the necessary data for my own version of How to Lose Friends and get sacked. Leadership and management isn’t a quick fix solution. Bas made a short speech as we filed out of the classroom.
          “I don’t want you to rush back to your respective workplaces and start pissing people off. It’s far better to start off as cameraman, moving around observing and identifying some of the aspects of the course. When you’ve filled your camera with enough footage you can progress to editor, director and even producer if the mood takes you.”
I’m more of a second or third Directors assistant - full of great ideas but unconcerned with how to achieve them. 
“Lights, camera, inaction!”

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Valentines Day PLC






For singletons or the recently separated, V Day can seem like a worrisome blot on their emotional landscape. For eleven months of the year Florists, Confectioners and Card Shops churn out fairly unremarkable blooms, sweets and messages – then something odd happens at the beginning of February. It’s as though they’ve missed out on Christmas and are determined to try and out-tack one another.

It begins like Chicken Pox, with the odd pink blemish or swirl of red ribbon. Then as each day passes more and more cerise, magenta and crimson appears. Window displays become chock full of silk veins and arteries plumbed into swelling satin organs. Jauntily angled cocktail glasses and champagne bottles vie for space in this sick bowl of gushing sentimentality.

When I pass my local Thornton’s I’m reminded of that scene from Chocolat , when Alfred Molina is unable to quell his repressed urges any longer and runs amok in the window of the local chocolatier, gorging himself on everything he can, before he falls into a sugary stupor. This would be relatively easy to reproduce in Thornton’s, but Interflora and Hallmark might prove slightly more challenging.

For a start, I suffer from hay fever which cancels out the florists. How does one run amok in a card shop window? I could tear off all the bows and ribbons and adorn my body like some camp pearly queen or better still tear of all my clothes and stick myself to the largest card - a statement of dissent, if ever there was one.
Then there’s the question of disabling all the alarms and cutting through the steel safety shutters. I could always buy out the entire stock of Valentines cards and drop them into a flaming brazier whilst shouting “Love is dead!” through a megaphone to passing shoppers, but that would just get me sectioned under the mental health act.

No, the best thing I can do is not get involved. On the 14th February I’ll get up at 7am and slot into my well-worn routine. With my index finger hovering over the mute button I’ll sit and watch Bill and Sian being nice to each other and sip my instant coffee.

At approximately 9am I won’t rush to the front door and pore over the post, tearing open a certain beautifully hand -written white envelope with abandon, hoping for the subtle scent of Fleur by Floris. No, I won’t do any of that – I promise.