Or the end of the beginning. Whatever.

I can’t stop posting silly stuff. I am a full-time baby sitter at present (well … a 3 year-old, so even more challenging than a baby) so the days are all about silliness anyway, as well as short attention spans.

This was a response to a prompt from Esther, here

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Holy moly. Goodness me

I don’t know where I’m meant to be

No meaning here that I can see

Is this what’s meant by being free?

A brief respite within the womb

Then ‘Stand aside! Give me some room!’

Then out into this void of doom

The lights are on, but all is gloom

Face the facts. Open an eye

Make sense of it? Don’t even try

Is this life? Hello. Goodbye.

The first reaction is  to cry

Onto the treadmill. Join the race

Take a number. Find your place

Take some sunscreen, just in case

You’re on your own. You’re lost in space.

 * 

Today’s extraction from the vault comes from only yesterday, when I wrote a quick note for Mentalnotes1 in response to her sweet expression of thanks for God’s blessings.

I don’t disagree with the idea entirely – I think it’s very healthy to acknowledge one’s position in the scheme of things. Looking around it is clear that things could be a whole lot worse, after all.

But I’m not big on the idea of thanking some imaginary benefactor in the heavens. Perhaps we should, instead, spend more time thanking each other.

Thank you.

*

We wake up every morning blissed
But don’t thank God. He don’t exist
Doesn’t watch us rise or fall
Was never really there at all
we’re on our own here – sad but true
And though we don’t know what to do
Neither are we frightened fools
Who look above to read the rules
Where in our image, God we made
And as we see that image fade
Responsibility we take
The superstitious shackles break
Champions of our destiny
Captured in this life, yet free

*

At one point I created a sort of alternate self (another alternate self, in fact) but this one to express my feminine side. Or perhaps to express empathy for the feminine side – there is a yin for every yang, a O for every X. So I invented a sister called Alicia who wasn’t afraid to put me in my place sometimes.

So digging into the vault this morning I grabbed some of her stuff and shook the dust off it …..

*

Look. Don’t stare

I’m not invisible

But I don’t care

To be an invention

Of desire

Of thoughts that conspire

To recreate

Denigrate

I am not an image

From a magazine

To be seen

As paper thin

Nothing within

For I am more than skin

Deep.

So don’t peep

This is not perfection

Nor rejection

Just look

At me

And try to see

More than your own reflection

*

P.S. I apologise for reposting stuff 3 mornings in a row which may have been previously posted. The fact is that I am caring for my 3-year old grandson at present and have just a short time, and virtually no brain capacity, available before he gets up and enters the day at full speed. After that it’s all about playing with cars and trucks and fire-engines and riding bicycles and finding cows and kangaroos.

Alicia is no help at all.

 

Once upon a time I was to feature in a performance of King Lear – my only ever attempt at Shakespearean Theatre. It transpired that I actually spent the season in a hospital bed, and was thus replaced on stage (by someone better, as it turned out).

I’ve never been much of a Shakespeare sort of guy anyway, but I was rather taken by one line, because it says a lot about little boys and Gods. And I’ve never really stopped being a little boy.

‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.’

So here is another bunch of words dragged out of the past which touches on that a bit, I hope.

*

Fingers suddenly piercing cold water with youthful interest and exuberance . Left hand marrying right beneath the surface. Forming a makeshift cradle of liquid in which the fish, a minnow, finds itself elevated without warning into another world. Tiny frightened eyes blinking upwards at unfamiliar shapes through the unfiltered sunlight. Curiosity peering downward examining the mysterious creature for hints as to the nature of life.

 

The creature, in turn, gasping for that life as the fluid it breathes slips through careless fingers and lands in tiny teardrops on the dirt below. Fragile glistening scales exposed to the universe and reflecting the desperate message that life is fleeting and delicate.

 

But curiosity too, is fleeting and fades, like all things, with time.

 

Intertwined fingers separating and opening a gate into the void.

 

And from the cradle the fall begins.

*