Second Life/Baptism of Fire/Irises ignore a broken promise

A Second Life for the South Manchester Reporter

Kindling.
Smokeless fuel waits,
coal-like on a newly
crumpled Manchester Reporter.
Flames soon.

Baptism of Fire

Burning
old job contracts
virus heavy tissues.
Words released, smudged, free from structure,
Burning.

Irise ignore a broken promise

Four stalks.
Purple feathers
subtle lemon tongues taste
me, new and no longer with you.
Betrayed.

(unsettling this sounds like a sex poem, but was addressed to someone in my old employment).

Three today, I couldn't limit myself to one cinquain (five line poem) from the prompt for Day 5, NaPoWriMo.

Frank Exchange of Views (author comment: "My Frank Dixon!")

Frank Exchange of Views

You not Big Boy
You not lady
You not woman
You Mummy

I'm Batman
I'm Big Boy
I'm Darth Vader
I'm beautiful

I'm the boss
You no the boss
You Mummy

Stand back
My shut it!

My want cuddle
My the boy
My the winner
My doing a wee in the bath

You put pretty on ears
You look like lady
You not lady
You Mummy



All True and said in the last 24hrs can't believe that prompt came up. Want to write something more obscure from it too, but it was gifted to me.

Writing a piece inspired by the title of an Iain Banks spaceship: "Frank Exchange of Views" Author Comment: "My Frank Dixon"

Meeting Morwenna

Short, daft one today, no sea shanty though (didn't take to the prompt!).

Meeting Morwenna

A night meant for romance
but that voice
from table 29
that voice keeps
stealing my attention
from candles and wine

"Morwenna!"
I hear her labelled
and I wander closer
step back
as late-staying children
crowd round her table

as she oinks a retort
her laughter
becomes a snort
and I recall the pig
she is known for playing
everyday (in our house, at least)

I look closer
for snout-like features
am let down
by small, unflared nostrils
and lack of appetite
as she nibbles at a Caesar salad.

It was like high-fiving Paul Simon
then finding
he doesn't have diamonds
on the underside
of his Edward Greens
and if he does they have never been seen.

Sarah L Dixon  Day 3 NaPoWriMo - not sure what this is or where it came from and the nearest it comes to using the prompt is the repeated rhyme.  x

The Museum of Unrealised Potential

The Museum of Unrealised Potential

Parenthood is real.
The heart-string snapped at a fall,
the blood that drops to the lino
takes their stomach with it,
as scared this time, as always.

Parenthood is real.
The giggles are infectious
the shared moments of hilarity
forge a life-strong bond
in the world of the frustrated.

Parents lie.
Say they are fine
about time
no longer put aside
for them to be.

I am the Museum of Unrealised Potential.

I mourn their unwritten plays,
unborn poems,
the thoughts they never
give their brain
scope to think.

The clay stays damp and flat, here,
without the flair of bare hands
that crave it's cool touch,
an antidote to feverish
childhood cheeks.

They have a unique view of adult and child,
but instead of taking this gift
and moulding something,
something outside the relationship
of parent and child,

but detached,
they deny more beauty or ugliness
a record in the physical form
of paper and ink, tapestry
canvas or clay.

They sleep exhausted and fraught with potential.

No time to read, no time to paint, or knead,
no place to voice their own thoughts, words or needs.

Parents.
Be honest.
Take time to visit
The Museum of Unrealised Potential.

Stay a while.
Surprise yourself.
Design a new life
with space to discover
what you can be too.

You haven't stopped growing,
because someone else is.

Close to you.

You don't stop knowing
who you are,
just discover more.

Lies - Prompt 2, Day 2. NaPoWriMo Sarah L Dixon

Tired beyond caring

Tired beyond caring

I am tired of pretty,
unstyled and not arsed.
I ruffle stale hair,
rough
with the mousse of a week.

I am exhausted of sexy,
a two-year old and his virus
steal my energy and enthusiasm,
give me smiles#
and tantrums.

I am tired of pretty,
make-up washed off
by tears of anger and emotion,
effort reduced to run mascara,
by one misplaced word.

I am exhausted of sexy
as you make overtures
candles, music, James Spader films,
my eyelids close, sleep claims me
on the settee.

I am tired of pretty
exhausted by the thought of sex,
tattoo my make-up on
and hold my hips tightly
I may orgasm, if I can be bothered.

Sarah L Dixon (3 pints drunk!)

Stole first line from Mid Shelley, BOMP3

Flinging paint and leaping deep

Monday 10:30am

I am told my maternity cover contract will not be renewed on 29th March. Someone else was marginally better, according to HR scoring system, than me, even though I had been trained in the job for six months (a little bitter? yes!) 1% difference. Was it worse to be so close or affirming that I nearly got it? I still haven't decided.

Ok. Cliche time! The world does stop. The floor does drop from beneath my feet. My legs do turn to jelly. My heart does skip a beat.

I am sent home, a drive I know I won't have to do many more times. I won't miss the tram plant traffic or the Grand Canyon potholes they leave as tarmac surprises for my wheels each day. I won't miss the game of "Where have they put the temporary lights this morning?"

SOUNDTRACK: Devendra Banhart weirdness and Ben Folds Five piano genius

I have been a Laboratory Assistant (spreading sputum on plates), a Medical Receptionist (taking semen pots from shy men), an Admissions Officer, Post Mortem secretary and worked in Student Welfare.

On arriving home I check the website of the company I have continued to return to, for seventeen years of employment. This company is all I have known of the job world and is automatically the place I return to.

UNTIL TODAY!

I scan some agency sites. Nothing tempting.

At The Parlour, a slow pint of something with a daft name and Danny Baker's autobiography "Going to sea in a sieve". How I feel, at this moment, but my concentration is poor and I have to re-read it all again at bedtime.

At Battery Park Cafe, some spicy soup, liquorice tea and familiar faces. My settee corner is free and I begin to plan my re-launch, three hours after I found out. I decide I am being thrown into the sea of uncertainty to test if I can swim, how strong my stroke is and which direction I will choose. Will I pick an easy promontory or take a long back-crawl to an island beyond my imagination?

I plan out my ideal week, the PA in me leaves little space for the spontaneity other parts of me may require.

I make concrete plans with the cafe for writing workshops I was tentatively setting up.

Within a few days I decide to quickly expand this and have now made enquiries in several different regions. I contact venues, secure a creche, design flyers and posters, update my website, social networking and other online forums. I write my first blog in three months.

Also, I have secured 14 hours work from home, employed by a neighbour's company, without the cost of petrol and 9 traffic hours and I will have an extra couple of afternoons with Frank. Within three days things are looking promising.

The Belle and Sebastian pop mope is becoming quieter and is now outside my head. Booker T and the MGs are doing something amazing with my car speakers and the world is suddenly wider.

Friday 16:00h

After an early morning Zumba Boost, I revel in Frank's energy and courage at Head over Heels, a soft play area and leave some flyers on the counter and my heart half way down a slide into an unknown life. my one moment of unadulterated joy this week: a multi-drop slide, like the ones at Alton Towers in 1984 (but without the wicker bag with handles - I can still feel the joy associated with holding these mats in one hand and a cold railing in the other, waiting my turn!) 

Watch this space: it will be full and new and scary and surprising and I will grasp opportunities by the ears and make things happen.

 

 

Medicine Unboxed:Belief A review

Medicine Unboxed: Belief

From the delightful slender flyer deriving beauty from three pictures of brain haemorrhages, to the accessible £45 conference fee to the 12 hours of intense debate tempered with literature, poetry, comedy, music and magic (and that was just Saturday!).

 

From the imaginative leap of Sam Gugliani, Oncologist, to realise there was an audience for this event to the effort and research it is evident he put into co-ordinating the fourth Medicine Unboxed, added to his ability to engage and question with such confidence, knowledge and dexterity.

 

Medicine Unboxed was nothing like I expected. Though I had no idea what to expect.

 

My particular highlights:

 

1) Poetry by Jo Shapcott and her honesty at not knowing exactly what imagination is and John Burnside being beamed in from Ireland.

 

2) Adam Kay's How to be a bogus doctor. Especially loved his idea of making a scan machine by cutting a washing machine in half and putting a lilo on either side and using masking tape to hide the facts and the cracks.

 

3) I returned on Sunday morning for Health and Justice, a debate I imagined would be dry and boring. This was the most engaging and surprising debate of the weekend and  this debate elevated itself above the people on the panel, the people in the Parabola Arts Centre and I feel every delegate carried the memory of this debate with them.

 

I was staggered by the scale and scope of this forum and delighted to have been part of this rewarding and massively ground-breaking experience.