I did it!

Well I got there in the end, at about 5pm tonight. I’m shattered, but jubilant, especially as most of it was written in the last two weeks. Just goes to show what you can do! My book may have reached 51405 words, but it is only about half written, so I will chunter away at it, but a lot more slowly. I’m really looking forward to getting back to normal lfe, and making a start on those Christmas cards, and also catching up with my blogs.

A VERY BIG THANK YOU to all those behind the scenes at Nano who helped participants to do their best by writing encouraging things in emails and on the forums.

CONGRATULATIONS to all those who are now winners, but also to the many who tried their best, but didn’t make it. You tried and that is the main thing, and brave to try in the first place. We must all be nuts!

So here’s to next year! I bet it will be here again before we know it!

Progress Report

I have been struggling with my Nano entry, but have managed to get going again.

Watch my efforts to catch up by clicking here 

November Gem

 

November hangs, listless, limp.

Near but not quite the end of the year.

This no-mans month, a bridge of sighs

is in limbo, moribund, not quite here.

 

How magical then, to find a rose.

No longer virginal, yet blushing still.

Rain damaged petals streaked and holed,

with rusting spots, edging  a frill.

 

She  radiates her considerable charm

in an otherwise bleak environment.

Like a distant star, attention seeking,

blinking reflection in the firmament

 

Despite these ravages of time and season,

this rose with grace clings on and shines

like a beacon, against the dismal umber

of sad November, as the year declines.

 

Pale pink petals graduate to white;

fragile wisps, like flakes of snow.

Paler than her summer glory,

this rose possesses a special glow.

 

With her head held high as if communing

with an unseen God, she presents herself.

Her unique beauty enhanced by it’s rarity,

enriching a scene devoid of wealth.

 

Soon she will succumb to the winter’s cold:

the dampness of rain and the crispness of frost

But that  glimpse of beauty, so self-assured,

will sustain till the spring. It cannot be lost.

 

©DF2007

 

 

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Surprise, surprise!

Hello Max
I am writing to you with news of your impending fatherhood. I had hoped things would be different and that the fling that we had at the caravan park might have gone unnoticed. Unfortunately that is not the case and I am due to deliver the pups next week. I am a little concerned about the delivery, given that you are a German Shepherd, but I have every confidence that nature will be able to cope. I am lucky that I have a roof over my head, and humans who do not attach any stigma to the event. In fact, the younger female is expecting too as a result of a coupling with that foreign boy. Anyway, I thought it was only right you should know, as I don’t expect to see you again.
By the way, I am Minilady the Jack Russell. I hope you remember me?
Min.

©DF2007

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Wish you were here

Postcards for ‘Wish you were here’. These three form a set.

Hi Fred! Remember me? Holiday been good? Recreation, study, and reflection? Always good to reflect, on the past. On the future too! I’ve got a holiday job, learning a new skill which I plan to use pretty soon. I’m helping out in an abattoir, chopping up flesh. Hey, you’d never believe how complicated it is, getting just the right cut. I’m quite good at choosing the appropriate knife. I really like large ones, though there’s something ghoulishly satisfying about hacking away with a knife that’s too small for the job in hand. I’ll soon be accomplished though, and ready to begin the new project I promised my daughter.
I wish you were here now, as I can’t wait to see you. But don’t worry, I’ll find you, wherever you hide. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on the experience of a lifetime.
Enjoy your last weeks,
Your avenger.

Woman on holiday.

Amy, my love…
Another postcard, in an effort to keep sane. Are you watching me as I write this? You could have been here, bucket and spade, frilly swimsuit, and later sharing drinks and girlish giggles under the scorching sun. But it was not to be. You were three. Are you still three? You would have been 18 now, probably on an 18-30 holiday, rather than here with me. But that would have been fine. I could have have coped with that. But I can’t cope with this void, this emptiness which seems to envelop my whole being, relentless in it’s clasp. Your father is precoccupied, has plans, he says. I have no idea what. You’d think after the abattoir this would be paradise, but he seems not to notice. He exists somewhere else. We are strangers.
Oh how I miss you my love. I so wish you were here!

Postcard to the father, from prison officers.

Reading the scrawl on the postcard, he became angry. No one had told him of Fred’s transfer He re-read the brief message.
‘I regret to inform you that the intended recipient of your recent postcard message is no longer with us. I am therefore returning your postcard. (Oh, and the abattoir. Good choice of holiday venue!). Yours’, etc etc.
‘The cheek! Where is he then!’, the man exploded.
Muttering expletives, he found and dialled the prison telephone number and waited. He needed to know where Fred was, otherwise his plans were useless. Perfect execution was needed if the desired, optimum effect was to be achieved.
Moments later, shocked, he sat down. Why wasn’t he told? Surely he should… years and years of unrelieved pain, unanswered questions and then plotting and planning revenge, just to be told… that he had died fourteen years ago, in his sleep! The easy way out…

©DF2007

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Ascent

The verdant slopes reflected the bright light from the midsummer sun. Clusters of colourful flowers gathered under hedges, and mottled pink and white petals adorned the branches of trees in an orchard. The land flattened out, treeless, with few bushes and plants. It all seemed so familiar. The grassy plains gave way to a rougher, stonier ground, dotted with poppies and marguerite’s. Then the land fell away steeply, revealing jagged cliffs, ledges populated by squawking gulls. The azure sea beckoned with an array of glittering gems. Assisted by a gentle breeze, I floated languidly, taking it all in. Yet I felt uneasy.
A slight rustle behind me informed me that I was not alone.

‘Hello Melek. Beautiful isn’t it? ‘
‘Absolutely’, I replied. ‘How did you know I was here?’
Veli, my mentor, smiled enigmatically. ‘Just a hunch. I hear you’ve entered Cally’s writing competition?
‘Yes. I thought I’d have a go.’
‘Well good luck with it. There are quite a few entries I believe, so stiff competition. Let me know when you hear the results’.

He smiled again and vanished. I sat down near the edge of the cliff and contemplated my entry for the competition. It had been a spontaneous outpouring…

* * * * * * * * * * * *
The ‘angel dream’ occurred frequently throughout my childhood. Heralded by a wonderful sensation of floating, I wafted serenely down a staircase; a mere shadow against a backdrop of muted shades of pink and yellow – almost ethereal. I knew I was an angel, but apparently my wings didn’t work very well because as the descent accelerated I lost control and crash-landed. The dream was accompanied by a strong foreboding, but no sounds. Waking up after impact I felt scared and uneasy.
Years later in therapy, I realised that hearing my mother tell of her regret about my birth, as I perched on the stairs one night, might have something to do with the dream! A loveless childhood led to a search for the impossible, and a string of wrecked relationships. The only person close to me was my twin sister, Mehtap.

During my late teens, the dreams occurred less often and for a while life was angel-free. I began a promising relationship and for three years I was happy. Maybe I took Cliff, my boyfriend, for granted. Something turned sour and Cliff began an affair with a work colleague. Initially I feigned ignorance, trying to maintain the status quo, but the angel dreams re-appeared with a vengeance.

Now the dreams were very frightening. The soft glow and ambience of the originals was replaced by streaks of red, orange and black, interjected by a bright light which mimicked sheet lightening. Isolation and silence pervaded the dream interwoven with a strong sense of foreboding. When awake I was plagued by flashbacks. Then one night the dream began as normal but quickly changed. I was in a palace that was richly decorated with gleaming marble and gilt. I was alone again, but became aware of a loud rumbling beneath my feet. The floor shook. In an instant I was an onlooker, watching as the palace was razed in an earthquake. A large fissure opened up from somewhere near the detritus, travelling with speed towards me… and then I woke up.

This dream terrified me. I searched news reports trying to ascertain if an earthquake was likely to occur somewhere with a beautiful palace. Of course I found nothing and gradually the disturbing visions faded, my thoughts being occupied elsewhere. My relationship with Cliff came to an abrupt end, and again I was alone. Mehtap proffered the proverbial shoulder and I was glad to accept.

I was on automatic pilot that next week. I felt numb mostly, but susceptible to brief periods of intense pain. And then I was visited by another dream. This was by far the worst and left me devastated. I saw my beloved sister disappear into a black void. I appeared to be paralysed and could do nothing to help her. I was forced to watch. I awoke crying, convinced that something had, or was about to happen to Mehtap. I dared not ring her. I tried to be rational, but it replayed over and over in my head the next day. I needed to tell Mehtap to be careful; but why? What was the black void I had seen? I couldn’t make her anxious over a dream, so I struggled through the day, feeling that I was falling fast into the grips of some demon’s den of insanity.

I decided to go for a walk. I remember that it was a beautiful day. The colours were so bright and the birdsong so sweet; but something was wrong. I sensed it rather than felt it. My mood was very low, and the world around me lacked congruency. Of course, the weather was not under any obligation to match my mood. How could it be? But something was wrong.

* * * * * * * * * * * *
I am left with that feeling to this day, and I noticed it more sharply than usual when I looked at the scene before me this afternoon, but I have no idea why. My story ended there, strangely. Rising, I take a last look at the sea as it sends me a thousand sparkling winks. Unfolding my wings, I fly home, thoughtful and uneasy.

A couple of days later I meet up with Veli.
‘How did you do in the writing contest?’ he asks.
I give him a side-long glance.
‘You knew didn’t you?’
‘Of course! We all go through it. And survive’
He looks at me intently.
‘Tell me’.

I tell him how Cally had sought me out that morning, and then gently explained that I had not won the competition, because in reality it was not a competition, but an exercise; a necessary cathartic step, if my integration was to be successful.

‘Cally went on to explain that she set writing tasks everyday as a way of helping people remember and come to terms with their past, or as in my case, make sense of it. She said all the answers to my questions were in my story. Then she told me that Mehtap is alive. I am so relieved. It took me a while to grasp what she was really saying though’.

‘Which was?’ Veli prompts.

‘Well, after she told me this, I thought about my story and retraced my steps, unknowingly, as I was so preoccupied, to the spot on the cliffs. As I was bending down to pick a poppy, my foot slipped on some stones, albeit very slightly. It was enough though. In a flash I realised what had happened and understood why I recognised the place.’

Veli smiles and takes my hand, patting it gently.

‘You will survive, now that you know, and can see the pattern of your former life’.
‘You mean the pattern of falling, in all it’s glorious forms?’
‘Yes. But you have had your last fall. Now you can only rise. Are you ready?

He has to ask?

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Mystical Dawning.

At the dawning of time,
amidst steam-whirling clouds
of intemperate nature;
of spattered rocks and dust;
savage winds and steel temperatures;
a moment of calm transposed upon chaos,
the first rising of the mystical dawn.

The beginning of a world,
the birth of nature; her offspring alive
with awakening spirits.
The mystical sunrise, Godlike, almighty.
overseeing the hesitant emergence of man.

Millions of years in the blink of an eye
yet the mysticism remains, still intact.
Neither nature or man has access to secrets
that this dawning protects to this day.
Nature is indifferent, too busy creating.
Man is learning, but may never comprehend.
He discerns much that is useful,
yet harbours the bad,
and this may be his eventual undoing.
Humanity may become part of the mystery,
a tiny irrelevant speck of the past.
Future beings will look back in amazement…
how sad, that a species forgot how to love.
And so, each dawning anew, the opportunity exists
to benefit from mistakes of the past.
But at the dusk of each dawning,
the mystery is darker and enshrouds
and perpetuates the myth.

©DF2007

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Some Things Never Change

A sudden roar from the other end of the room, heralded the entrance of one of the warders and a new face. In some slammers they ignore you, but this poor devil was getting the the whole nine yards. I wondered what he was in for, but didn’t have to wait long to find out, as he walked towards my end of the room and slumped casually on a chair, relishing the fact that he was the centre of attention.
‘What you in for mate?’, asked Joe, a mountain of a man, who instilled unnecessary fear into anyone who didn’t know him.
Grievous bodily harm, with intent.
‘What,.. drunk?’
‘Na!. Deliberate. Got the buggers back’
‘Go on’.
‘Who wants to know?’ He looked at Joe scornfully.
‘I do!’ said a cold voice behind him.
‘And you are…?’, he asked, turning to see the owner of the voice.
‘Someone you don’t mess with. Now, what’s the score! Wha’dya do?’ The owner of the voice put his boot up on the newcomer’s chair. He was Harry, the self-professed ‘boss’, and he was interested in finding out if he had cause for concern.
The man looked at him for a minute and decided to acquiesce.
‘I had me stag night. Two mates thought they could have a good time at my expense. I didn’t agree’.
‘What did they do?’ Joe asked
‘Got me totally plastered, stuck me in a bloody dog costume, and left me chained to a tent with a sign that read ‘Rover’, in the middle of a field of campers. When I came to in the morning, there were bowls of water and packets of dog-food left outside the tent, and about twenty people gawping and and wetting themselves laughing.
‘Well at least it was original’, commented Harry.
‘You’ve gotta be joking! They haven’t an original thought in their heads. Na! They read about some bloke who had it done to him a few years ago, except his friends left him in a field of sheep’.

Later that afternoon, in the relative privacy of our cell, Denny, my cell mate, asked me if I was ok. He was good like that. Very caring bloke. I told Denny I was fine. Little did he know that I was the original victim, who had been left in the field, with a tent, dressed only in a dog costume! I was John Rovinik at the time, hence the Rover bit…but because of learning who my real father was, a few years later, I changed my name to his. He and I became very close in the time we had together before he died. I felt he would have liked it if I took his name. Over the years I had learned to deal with the Rover experience. I no longer hated Rosie’s brothers, who had punished me for getting her pregnant. I still felt guilty about not getting in touch with Rosie again, and explaining what had happened, but it was all in the past.
The following years were difficult for me. In fairness, my childhood and teens had been marked by a distinct absence of love, security, even attention. As a consequence many of the troubles over the next twenty years were down to my inability to hold down a job, my lack of confidence, and the annoying habit I had of allowing others to make decisions for me.

Strange how two people tackle problems so differently. This guy had fought back, met his protagonists head on, but me? Well, I had run away.

My life was changing though. I didn’t run away from things these days. This was definitely my last spell inside. I had been helped a lot this time. I’d been on courses to help with my lack of self esteem, and courses to extend my skills, and courses to show me how to handle job interviews, and courses…well you get the picture. Yep, the future was looking, well… orange! I only had a couple more days and then I was free. The lassie from the social was getting me sorted with a place to live and she was arranging for some folk outside to help rehabilitate me, and keep an eye on me. She was worried, she said, that I might not take my medication, and that I would slide down the miserable slope again. No way, I assured her. This time it was good. This time I went out and my life started! I’d even got a job lined up with the council. Some scheme they run, but I don’t mind being a bin man. I would be working. I could hold my head up high with the best of them! In a nutshell, the past was the past and the future was mine.

Two days later, I emerged from the compound with my small bag of belongings and much optimism. As the taxi trundled along unfamiliar roads I had time to go over the details of where I was staying. The couple were called Mr and Mrs Akita and they had a daughter who was at university, so I wasn’t likely to see much of her. Apparently they had taken in people like me before, so I had little to worry about. I was looking forward to some home cooked food and a comfy armchair in my own room.

The taxi turned into a tree-lined suburban street, and pulled up at a house which looked pretty much the same as all the other houses in the road, in that it was a big semi, with a neat front garden and two cars in the drive. As I walked up the drive, I felt the thrill of freedom, the excitement of the unknown, but it all felt so good! When I reached the front door, I rang the bell, which echoed somewhere at the back of the house and after a minute I heard footsteps approaching. The door was energetically flung open by a pretty young woman, whose face, somewhere in the back of my mind, seemed uncannily familiar.
‘Hi. Are you John? Come in. We’ve been expecting you!’
As she turned to lead me in, a huge dog bounded down the hallway and almost knocked me over.
‘Oh, don’t mind Rover,’ the girl laughed. ‘He’s a coward. He won’t hurt you’. Then grinning she added, ‘He was named after my dad who was a terrible coward and stood my mum up on their wedding day. His friends said he’d been detained by a flock of sheep, who inadvertently thought he was a dog, as he was sporting brown spots, a fluffy tail and some rather fine whiskers’!

I heard her words. I looked at her face.
And fled!

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Cloudy Weather

It’s very downcast for the middle of May.
An uneasy quiet descends on the bay.

I’m not so sure she’ll want to come
The sky already dark and glum.

The waves, tormented with windy lies,
rush inland, their spite spraying those unwise.
(who gingerly peer or lean over the wall),
with an ice-cold watery, ferocious squall.

I have no idea what I will say.
Perhaps words will come to me if I pray?

A darkening sky the fine forecast denies,
promising instead an unwelcome surprise.

What would be the best way to convey
what I feel? All her fears allay?

A bolt of lightening, far out at sea,
and loud claps of thunder now decree
a storm brewing offshore; to my dismay
the rain begins; alas my bouquet!

Perhaps she will falter, change her mind,
to share my company she’ll feel disinclined.
Surely, surely, she will keep her word
or maybe I’m just being absurd…?

A seagull squawks. More thunder claps.
The storm might turn, or die out perhaps.

Should I follow nature, turn tail and run?
Fair maid by cowardice was never won!

But suddenly, a wayward cloud,
breaking from the community shroud
releases the sun to light up the street,
and slowing my hesitant, yellow retreat.

Then I see her, by a boarded cafe,
sheltering and waiting! So without delay
I cross the street, the storm unheeding-
every step, my nerves receding.
All the doubts are now dispelled
And my fear of rejection almost quelled.

She hugs me, her face a loving smile.
With relief I realise, it’s all been worthwhile.

©DF2007

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Double Vision.

This poem is about narcolepsy and the fact that sometimes I can dream whilst still seemingly awake! 

I explore new worlds;
I read and create;
Key-tapping unfurls
ideas innate.

I am engrossed;
And totally absorbed;
When a fleeting ghost,
colourfully daubed,
floats across my vision.
And then many more!
A bright myriad collision
of shapes, dancing before
my eyes without permission.
And still they come…
Not one an image of my volition,
and yet powerless, I succumb.

Hold on! My eyes protest;
and coming to, I realise
my dreaming state I must arrest.
Gently return uncomfortable eyes
to a position where they can focus
once again on my concern-
the computer screen -  my current locus;
or perhaps I should adjourn?
But I need to continue
my exploration, and so
I begin my study anew;
hoping the visions will go;

But within half a minute,
Another sprite has appeared.
A curse I emit…
It is just as I feared.
This dreaming is weird
as I am still wide awake
(or at least it appeared)
’til my eyes start to ache.
However, I know
It’s a well known paradox
acknowledged long ago.
My sanity it mocks!

It is part of my narcolepsy,
So I am used to intrusion;
But it could cause apoplexy
or mental delusion,
to those who have never
been asleep whilst awake.
No matter the endeavour
or the precautions you take,
it will arrive when it wants;
Chaos to administer.
Your sentience haunts.
It’s filtering, sinister.

For sometimes it’s difficult
to tell reality from dream.
Confusions result;
And things aren’t what they seem.
However, with time
it becomes less difficult
to control this raw pantomime;
the daily assault.
But it can help with the process
Of fresh creativity
Helping express
One’s positive activity.

I doze a short while,
Giving in to the dreams,
And then start again.
I stick to regimes.

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