A Comfy Kind Of Restless

Hi!

I read this article today and had to sigh.  It is a never ending farcical endeavour trying to write when the kids are about, even before I consider all the glass ceiling/weaker sex debate that Virginia Woolf brings up (which, contrary to the article I linked, has come a long way). 

And leaving out the housework and laundry…

I am positive there is unmapped potential in me that I am too distracted and tired to even begin to send out into the world; it’s a blooming good thing I love the punks I live with, and have begun to get serious about organising and simplifying our home to give my future self much more freedom 😉

My nine words came from Randomlists :

Swift   Head   Kaput   Acoustic   Announce   Habitual   Melodic   Paper   Uppity

I sit here:

Swift pen straining to extract,

From a head that’s kaput,

All of the creative ideas

That came to me

Over the dishes.

Meanwhile:

Young male voices

Intrude,

Testing acoustic limits

In a steamy, tiled room.

(YouTube has taught them

To announce and project

Every thought in their head

So that those at the back may hear…)

One would think

That I could shut out

This habitual (oft-melodic)

Interruption through daily practice;

But it seeps into my mother-brain,

Keeps me reacting

As if their squawks mean danger – 

An invisible force,

Pulling me from my paper

Almost as violently

As the uppity, soggy child

Who later bursts through my door…

Hubby does the honours when it comes to the boys’ daily showers.  I oscillate between trying to write in that short  time and just getting small ‘straightening’ tasks done in the house while keeping half an eye on motivational YouTube videos.

It doesn’t really matter what room I’m in, the children will come and find me to tell me something ‘urgent’.  Pairing socks is easier to get back to than a poem, after a long discussion about what kind of snake a purple squiggle on their artwork is (and whether or not the characters they’ve drawn are in immediate danger), it must be said.

I love that they want to involve me in their creativity and lives, and I often get small things gifted to me at this time, so it can be really sweet; but if I have been unable to write at any other point of the day, or one of the kids has been off ill (as was the case today) and I have had no quiet space with my thoughts due to cuddling and playing time, I find it really hard to still be in demand when someone else is there for them.

I write best before 9pm, and ideally between 10am and 2pm.  This will be easier after the summer when Youngest starts school, of course, but I also need that outlet now.  After reading to the boys and getting them to agree to go to bed (!) it is really too late for my brain to generate anything like a “lightning crack of genius”.

My life is a blessed and comfortable one, and I of course realise how precious all this time I get to spend with my kids is, but I feel – after almost eight years – my restlessness falls in line with Woolf’s observations about rooms and ruminations quite a bit these days 😉

[Second pic is from here]

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello 🙂

I have not visited my beloved random word generators for a while, so I popped onto Textfixer and got these nine words for today’s poem:

I read them and immediately knew what I was going to write about 😉

Seven  Messiah  Star  Baboon  Weasel  Acoustic  Decade  Accursed  Tactic

Seven days a week

I follow the news

On a fake messiah;

Watch this ‘star’

Tear up the world stage.

Gesturing like some baboon,

Flanked by a devoted weasel or two;

Addicted, as always, to the acoustic virtues

Of his open mouth…

I get sucked into

The same game

Of judgement and name-calling,

Part of me enjoying 

The dangerous feckless folly unfolding.

I shake my head and feel sure

That this decade we’re in

Shouldn’t be tolerating him

And his accursed ways;

That every tactic he tries

Is inherently wrong.

But what ‘adulting’ am I displaying here:

Faulting a system

I don’t even understand…?

How weird to feel superior

When a great nation toys with wars.

[Second pic is from here]

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi 🙂

So, here is the third instalment…

Mr McKenna shifted in his seat and there was a faint buzzing from somewhere near the window.  My tea had gone cold.

“It’s the subject matter: it’s…delicate” said Mr McKenna, at last.

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Mr McKenna slid the piece of paper over to my Dad, who took it without his eyes leaving the Headmaster’s face.

“Pornographic, is it?” asked my Dad.

“Just read it!” I sighed.  “Tell us how many mixed metaphors you’ve found, denounce it as ‘school boy emotional crap’ and let’s move on, eh?!  I’m missing Chemistry.  You know, where I’ll learn to blow up the school properly?”

It was Mr McKenna’s turn to wince.

Dad gave me one of his icy stares.

“Yes: I’m such a disappointment.”  I rolled my eyes. “Mr McKenna, there is no need to bring my Father in again.  As you can see: he’ll be no help in making me less prone to violent thoughts, vengeful tendencies or antisocial rhetoric.  He’s troubled too, probably needs counselling – definitely needs an attitude adjustment…”

“Russell!  That’s quite enough!”  said my Dad, in a tight voice.

“I agree, Russell; that’s not very helpful at this juncture…” [came my Headmaster’s reply]

The glassware in the cabinet was positively vibrating it seemed.  I turned and left, balance still tipped to me.

(208 words)

Hmmm, not the easiest of school meetings!  Which character are you feeling the most sympathy for, three parts in?!

[Pic is from here]

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello

from Randomlists

Horrific news coming out of Las Vegas in the last 24 hours.  My heart hurts for all those affected, it just seems so senseless; so hard to explain.

I hope minds are changed once and for all about the availability of devices to make guns into automatic weapons, or guns in general, no matter how controversial that may be to say.

It is just not worth the human cost, in my opinion. 

Doll  Shocking  Crowd  Near  Voiceless  Succeed  Probable  Defiant  Collect

Past the bodies

Doll-limbed

Scattered; more than shocking –

A dispersed crowd,

Ambulances near,

Darkness on a voiceless stage.

And they succeed:

Again the probable

Becomes more so.

And,

No longer defiant,

We try to collect our shattered thoughts

Around splintered lives

And walk on glass

While crunching numbers:

Injured

And the dead.

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hey there!

Today’s Textfixer words seemed rather appropriate! It was a little alarming to hear the rhetoric being bandied about on the news, as I went out to collect Youngest earlier…

Drowned  Fumbling  American  Bullet  Desire  Hug  Honey  West  Whale

And we watched them

As they drowned in their own egos,

Fumbling with the lives of millions:

An American gaslighter

Veering close to North Korean rocket fuel.

Page is from “Fold Out, Find Out: The Blue Whale” by Philip Steele

We wondered:

What bullet would we be biting next?

Whether each man’s desire

To be seen as great

Could have been cowed before this –

Can some political ‘hug’,

Or a sweetened deal,

Be enough honey to make

Someone friendly towards the West?

Scratch talk of elephants:

At every meeting,

From now on in,

There’ll be a freaking WHALE

Lolling in the background…

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi!

Hiss  Habitual  Favour  Back  Thief   Hurdle  Bag  Numeric  Shaman

The hiss of disapproval
As they sit on benches
Surrounded by habitual pomp
Goaded by others in favour this week.

Those at the back
(Like anywhere) troublemakers
Playing the thief
Of credulity: well.

A clever hurdle here,
A concession in the bag;
Spin that numeric truth thin
Like some talented Shaman…

I watched the Prime Minister’s question time (PMQs) today, and I wanted to write about how many MPs stood up and pressed Theresa May about the arrangements for the Grenfell Tower rehousing and investigation.

I wanted to explore how surreal it always is to hear any one of them remark on events that affect ‘ordinary’ people, while the MPs are simultaneously being cocooned by grandeur and tradition within Westminster.

There was a lot of reference to class division having been brought to our attention in the harshest way by the towerblock’s blaze, and how this year and this century should mean that none of it should exist any more.

I listened to the accents, and I noted what my first impressions were. I closed my eyes and took them in, tried not to have my storyteller’s mind fill in parts of the speakers’ biographies straight away – but it was impossible to escape.

We categorise from a very early age. We are taught to. The more life experience we have, the more we learn to read the ‘signs’ when we first meet people. It becomes something we do naturally, it gives us a framework, lets us determine if we are ‘safe’, or how much we will be understood by the other person. We get impressions and feedback from others in a myriad of different ways, and often subconsciously; then change our behaviour accordingly.

This becomes a problem when we take our categorisation further and decide that others deserve less. That their lives are expendable, that steps should be missed out when assuring safety. Although it seems incongruous (and, dare I say, patronising?!) to hear a plummy accent declare that ‘the poor’ and ‘disadvantaged’ in our societies should be treated more humanely, it is indeed even more chilling that the fact does still need to be pointed out!

My generated words only led to a poem about the general workings of the Commons Chamber, but there is a lot more in my head I wish to express!

Later, I watched footage of cladding being taken down from other towerblocks, and the whole thing is beyond scandalous. How can anyone, anywhere justify knowingly endangering lives by using materials, that are proven to be a fire risk, on people’s homes?! I really hope that the investigation is widened to include any company or body that is responsible for knowingly choosing money over lives. I just can’t get my head around the enormity of such a deed, and the price the Grenfell residents have had to pay for that decision.

I fervently hope there are appropriate criminal charges brought to bear after the police investigations.

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Copyright © 2017 Montaffera All Rights Reserved
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi.

The reports keep coming.  I don’t know how London’s emergency services are supposed to cope, never mind the communities who live there.  I find myself watching the rolling coverage on the BBC a lot more than is healthy, but it is almost like if I take in every detail I will somehow see that there is a meaning to all the recent tragedies.  That I will be able to glimpse some equilibrium and feel comforted? 

But at the same time I don’t wish to be merely consoled, I want to look the chaos in the face and show the grit that those communities do, become mightier by seeing how other people manage it; learn the ultimate resilience.

My heart, once more, is with the afflicted families.  I am so proud of the humanity that is being shown across faiths and class divides, for this is how we all should be.  It proves there is, after all, hope and kindness still circulating in this world.

Ahead  Want  Doubt  Toys  Linen  Sad Romantic  Strong  Middle

I don’t want to be ever fearful

Of what lies ahead.

I don’t want to doubt

The future of a curly-headed kid:

Happily playing with toys

And hiding random stuff

In my linen baskets.

I don’t want to be sad

Every time I turn on the news;

Feeling voyeuristic

As there are Panorama specials

Advertised

That make suffering almost romantic

By adding music.

I want to remain strong,

Show my children that:

Things like terrorism can’t win.

We are not in the middle

Of some unimaginable

Slump in humanity –

We’ll get through this…

Won’t we?

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi

Yet more powerful images in the news today, such raw emotion.  I can only imagine how angry the surviving former residents of Grenfell Tower are beginning to feel. 

It was all too surreal to comprehend at first,  I would think, looking up at the shell of their homes and knowing that this tragedy was forewarned, but its remedy forestalled. 

The class questions this raises are not going to just disappear, and nor should they.

Word  Decisive  Circulate  Offset  Acquit  Roll  Disaster  Aloof  Hilarious

They don’t believe a word she says

About being decisive

And working tirelessly

For the common good.

As rumours circulate,

And the promised

Is offset by reality;

It is hard to acquit guilt.

When hours roll by

And a leader does not share

Solidarity in the face of disaster –

Appears aloof,

Stirring anger in her wake –

They must be forgiven

For taking to placards and soundbites;

Finding platitudes

Ruefully hilarious.

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hi

I wrote this poem earlier this afternoon. 

This evening it is a week since the London terror attack, and two days since the close of the UK’s snap election voting window.

I was thinking about how the news has been pretty dominated by the fallout from Thursday, and put the fact that we are on high alert for another terrorist attack somewhat on the back burner.

There have been more prominent reports of where the London investigation has got to, and how Londoners are coping a week on, since I wrote the below, but it was how I felt at that moment in time.

Guide  Ignorant  Doubtful  Awful  Befitting  Flag  Bizarre  Periodic  Question

…An over-interviewed tour guide

Tired but earnest,

Eager to inform the ignorant

Or doubtful

That this event was indeed awful…

…Silent sweeps of skylines

With, befitting the events,

Each flag hung at half mast…

Bizarre that these images

Have been overtaken so quickly

By our not-so-periodic

Flurry of voting

(And the DUP question)

Is this refusing to be cowed?

Or just herding more lumps under carpets?

It has been a week of extreme scrutiny for London and its people.  It is lovely to see the community coming together to help one another, and keep strong.  As more and more details emerge of last Saturday night, I worry for those living there in the weeks and months to come.  I hope we manage to thwart any new plots against us, and give the UK a bit of breathing space while we sort ourselves out.

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Hello!

I once more came to my pen and notebook, hoping to write something about the election. 

I have been watching the coverage on the BBC off and on all day.  I unfortunately had to go to bed early, and not watch the election last night, due to somehow managing to pull a muscle in my left side while lowering myself to lie on the couch (?!) so I’ve been hugging my hot water bottle a lot and moving gingerly!

Again, the generator listened to my subconscious, and gave me fitting words:

Promised  Purple  Hook  Accountable  Believe  Afraid  Carrion  Brush  Drugstore

But the promised triumph

Lay in tatters by her feet –

Her pride growing purple

From his best hook.

Yet she still felt accountable,

Still willing to believe;

Though afraid that the carrion call

Would summon many…

She took a moment

To brush down her suit –

Grimaced as she swallowed

A drugstore-full of bitter pills:

Caustic fruits of Labour.

I am actually very pleased with how the poem turned out 😉

The country will take a bit of work, however!

Interesting times ahead for Britain, it would seem…

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Copyright © 2017  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!