Hooked to the pulses,
Billy felt it too,
Right as rain, he showed it
To the margin of fainter faces.
With unfailing feet he
Wooed and married flight.
All by his-self, don't laugh,
It's Billy Dancing.
Sweat, light as watch-oil,
Welling beneath the hairline,
Arcing over temples,
Swims towards the bass-line.
To see it was the breath of imagination,
A volume of desires in
Animate sweeping curves.
Its what he thinks, don't laugh,
It's Billy Dancing.
And for one fine moment
He was on the edge,
The final limit, and more than
Ever now
It was a slow death,
When age and appearance
Would determine how they thought
And wait for him to stumble
As a drunk.
Don't be fooled, here under the cutical moon,
Drowsey as an autumn wasp,
Twenty and eleven years has
Made a bigger soul.
Raw and unwitting it should never end.
He flirts as well as the young
Girl with him,
Still in him-self, don't laugh,
It's Billy Dancing.
c87
Saturday 12 December 2009
Thursday 10 December 2009
You can't take it with you.
Last thing at night I keep a day-to-date diary. A simple, pretty boring to read account, partly kept up; as i don't want to break a several decades old chain, and partly, for a too long to explain here reason, for alibis.
For a long time before computers, I also kept numerous journals on the go, Moleskines. Some still live in boxes in the attic, a couple though, important ones, that had been on many of my early travels, were mislaid and lost to me, many moons ago, in a West country town when I was backpacking some Cornish coastal paths. And although it may not be a big deal in the large scheme of things, as the saying goes, I think I know what Mr. Irwin felt when he pulled that stingray's barb from his heart.
But the past is just that, right? Yes, it's alive and no, it's dead. Sometimes it still does bother me where they might have ended up. Maybe a bunch of 20 something's howled with laughter and Stellas around some fire on a beach, taking turns to read and clown parts of one of the books. Or maybe some stable hand puzzled over starfish sketches I did of African cities at night from a plane descending into Mombassa. Perhaps some suicidal schoolgirl cutting class curled up on a bed, forgotten and alone, reading about that time on that bunk in Inverness when I wasn't feeling so hot. And maybe a word or line will save her at least till dinner.
But who am I kidding? They probably met a quick and quiet dispatch at the bottom of some dumpster, noticed as much, as a fish does a bicycle thrown into a river.
So maybe I subconsciously created this blog so I could communicate with those someone else's, so I can write these posts, which will likely be viewed as much as what those books were recycled into – maybe pencils to write more pencil material. A rolling space, kept, not so much for display but to feel in touch with people, the tribe so to speak, kind of like the ham radio set that Mark’s parents in the film, “Pump Up The Volume” give him to talk with his friends back East though he discovers he can’t reach them so he does this pirate radio broadcast to no one and nowhere special every night from his basement. I remember being taken with the idea, it’s kind of a cool thought to broadcast whatever you want, whenever you want however you wish, to no one or anyone wherever they may be. Or like setting a net down somewhere in a stream where fish, or something, can swim through.
I never kept a log as such back then – just a private journal and always with me in wind and rain, writing in cars, buses, planes, trains, kitchens, trolleys, gardens, lawns, tents, standing and sitting, restaurants and cafes, street corners, barber shops, malls, escalators and stairs and elevators, parks, beaches, boats, theatres, schools – the various books carried and represented every place that I'd been, seen, every thought and feeling I've felt and person I've known in those years even if not captured, a record of those years careening like a rickshaw through a Delhi night – a symbol of the moments, not of what anything could've been but just what it was, paper outside the head, of all that did happen, to ground you in times when you questioned whether all the faces, the pursuits, place and encounters and occurrences were true.
That they all must have meant something (and connected to something) but you never quite figured it out, right? And not that you ever really open the books these days, but that simply their presence holds a hope and reassurance that, yes, it all really did happen and that perhaps they gave the appearance of raw material that could someday in someway give or hint at the answer, an answer, the one people whether they know it or not are always trying to find ( if indeed there is one ) as to what it’s all about. Or in the least something for that girl curled up on that bed… To give that feeling like, okay, it’s all here and sure the journal, blog, and whatnot are going back into the river but at least what you now have is something that makes that all not seem to matter too much, at least now.
So I'm convincing myself that it is really all inside of me. Perhaps the journal pulls at that part of you that needs to get it out and perhaps the blog pulls at that part of you to write while knowing that, gosh, theoretically, any one could pop in at anytime though maybe no one, like my lost journals – so perhaps it’s all ultimately really in the doing.
Back to the beach boys, the stable hand, and the forgotten girl – I'd like to believe that the journals could have helped or bettered someone, but it was my life really – gone, and here again – I see what matters, what remains, and that you can't take it with you.
For a long time before computers, I also kept numerous journals on the go, Moleskines. Some still live in boxes in the attic, a couple though, important ones, that had been on many of my early travels, were mislaid and lost to me, many moons ago, in a West country town when I was backpacking some Cornish coastal paths. And although it may not be a big deal in the large scheme of things, as the saying goes, I think I know what Mr. Irwin felt when he pulled that stingray's barb from his heart.
But the past is just that, right? Yes, it's alive and no, it's dead. Sometimes it still does bother me where they might have ended up. Maybe a bunch of 20 something's howled with laughter and Stellas around some fire on a beach, taking turns to read and clown parts of one of the books. Or maybe some stable hand puzzled over starfish sketches I did of African cities at night from a plane descending into Mombassa. Perhaps some suicidal schoolgirl cutting class curled up on a bed, forgotten and alone, reading about that time on that bunk in Inverness when I wasn't feeling so hot. And maybe a word or line will save her at least till dinner.
But who am I kidding? They probably met a quick and quiet dispatch at the bottom of some dumpster, noticed as much, as a fish does a bicycle thrown into a river.
So maybe I subconsciously created this blog so I could communicate with those someone else's, so I can write these posts, which will likely be viewed as much as what those books were recycled into – maybe pencils to write more pencil material. A rolling space, kept, not so much for display but to feel in touch with people, the tribe so to speak, kind of like the ham radio set that Mark’s parents in the film, “Pump Up The Volume” give him to talk with his friends back East though he discovers he can’t reach them so he does this pirate radio broadcast to no one and nowhere special every night from his basement. I remember being taken with the idea, it’s kind of a cool thought to broadcast whatever you want, whenever you want however you wish, to no one or anyone wherever they may be. Or like setting a net down somewhere in a stream where fish, or something, can swim through.
I never kept a log as such back then – just a private journal and always with me in wind and rain, writing in cars, buses, planes, trains, kitchens, trolleys, gardens, lawns, tents, standing and sitting, restaurants and cafes, street corners, barber shops, malls, escalators and stairs and elevators, parks, beaches, boats, theatres, schools – the various books carried and represented every place that I'd been, seen, every thought and feeling I've felt and person I've known in those years even if not captured, a record of those years careening like a rickshaw through a Delhi night – a symbol of the moments, not of what anything could've been but just what it was, paper outside the head, of all that did happen, to ground you in times when you questioned whether all the faces, the pursuits, place and encounters and occurrences were true.
That they all must have meant something (and connected to something) but you never quite figured it out, right? And not that you ever really open the books these days, but that simply their presence holds a hope and reassurance that, yes, it all really did happen and that perhaps they gave the appearance of raw material that could someday in someway give or hint at the answer, an answer, the one people whether they know it or not are always trying to find ( if indeed there is one ) as to what it’s all about. Or in the least something for that girl curled up on that bed… To give that feeling like, okay, it’s all here and sure the journal, blog, and whatnot are going back into the river but at least what you now have is something that makes that all not seem to matter too much, at least now.
So I'm convincing myself that it is really all inside of me. Perhaps the journal pulls at that part of you that needs to get it out and perhaps the blog pulls at that part of you to write while knowing that, gosh, theoretically, any one could pop in at anytime though maybe no one, like my lost journals – so perhaps it’s all ultimately really in the doing.
Back to the beach boys, the stable hand, and the forgotten girl – I'd like to believe that the journals could have helped or bettered someone, but it was my life really – gone, and here again – I see what matters, what remains, and that you can't take it with you.
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Just Friends
It rang!
And what a frozen spell was broken
Then.
Bated, cramped and ingrown
Lay,
Cold Sufferance on an ochre
Day.
It rang!
And from that Hampshire voice no
Promises,
But something deeper, ineffably
Grand,
An inner thought through a dialling
Hand.
It rang!
"Come to lunch, we're having
Roast".
Her consonants and vowels felled
All,
Un-hemmed the temper's day, within one
Call.
c 90.
And what a frozen spell was broken
Then.
Bated, cramped and ingrown
Lay,
Cold Sufferance on an ochre
Day.
It rang!
And from that Hampshire voice no
Promises,
But something deeper, ineffably
Grand,
An inner thought through a dialling
Hand.
It rang!
"Come to lunch, we're having
Roast".
Her consonants and vowels felled
All,
Un-hemmed the temper's day, within one
Call.
c 90.
Tuesday 8 December 2009
Structured Procrastination
I have been intending to write this blog for days. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have admin to do, a new website to design, Christmas cards to draw out, and several screaming deadlines to hit.
I am working on this blog as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time.
All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him to do it.
However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.
Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.
At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks.
The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent.
This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators also have excellent self-deceptive skills. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?
Now should I post this now, or go and look up on wikipedia the biography of the beautiful B-list actress I saw in a film the other night.
I am working on this blog as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time.
All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him to do it.
However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.Structured procrastination means shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact. The list of tasks one has in mind will be ordered by importance. Tasks that seem most urgent and important are on top. But there are also worthwhile tasks to perform lower down on the list. Doing these tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher up on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, the procrastinator becomes a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.
Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.
At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list, that one never does?" Admittedly, there is a potential problem here.The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks.
The observant reader may feel at this point that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is in effect constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent.
This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators also have excellent self-deceptive skills. And what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the bad effects of another?
Now should I post this now, or go and look up on wikipedia the biography of the beautiful B-list actress I saw in a film the other night.
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