The world has gone mad, and it feels like the only appropriate response is to get madder. I, however, am in a love bubble. So I am shaking my fist at the world from inside my bubble. I thought I’d lost my writing mojo until last week; even the morning pages that I remembered to do felt hollow. Where had all my ANGST gone?! I did a spot of open mic for Poetry Platform and FAP with Friends in the Attic in early June, and rather than reading any of my own stuff, I shared an extract of ‘Belinda Blinked 2’ by Rocky Flintstone. It involved a particularly ludicrous sex scene in which Jim Stirling reveals his penis transplant result to Belinda. Fun. Boundary-pushing. LOLS. I was a guest performer for ‘Moving Voices’ at the Art House at the end of June. They got the first half hour of ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ and some of my cold germs too. My band and I got to go to Barking for Clout! Festival a few weeks back, and it was the loveliest theatre and the most fantastic people. Studio 3 Arts is a great community centred theatre in Barking that is headed by my good friend of many years; Liza Vallance, so naturally she had to read the Brain Haiku. AND, I was on a PODCAST! A podcast made by and for Tom Waits fanatics. When I was writing ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ I often listened to the Song by Song Podcast, in which Sam Pay and Martin Zaltz Austwick set themselves the monumental task of discussing and analysing Tom Waits’s entire back catalogue, song by song. I wrote to them a couple of years ago to tell them about the show, and got a lovely reply, but heard nothing else until a couple of months ago, when Sam asked me to come and discuss ‘The Black Rider’ with them. This was the first Tom Waits album I listened to, I remember I borrowed the CD from Lewisham library, something like 20 years ago...We also discussed Robert Wilson, The Tiger Lillies, it was me ‘on a stick’ as one friend commented. So far summer has been excellent!
The New Stuff Update: What was 8 new bits in May, is now 18. That’s not too shabby for someone who thought she’d lost her mojo. I finished 3 poems that had been hanging around my notebooks last week, and even arranged all of the bits into an order. I still don’t know what I’m looking at, but I found out yesterday that I had been given a 5-15 minute slot in Cabaret Playroom at The Albany in November, so that at least gives me something to work towards.
My only plan is to keep writing, keep sharing the new stuff at the lovely open mics in Winchester and Southampton, and have something more or less finished by the end of the year. I’ve been asked to perform an old burlesque act here and there at recent or upcoming events, and it feels like a gift to still be able to offer up ‘Past Jeu Jeu’, who I loved, but who needed to grow up. Bringing ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ around again has been wonderful, finding new audiences for it, as well as recognising the familiar faces who championed that show from the start, and never deserted me, though I felt totally alone and lost until only a few months ago.
Last week, when I was having a few ill days, I read something vaguely poetic I’d written back in April about passing my ex-partner on the street that day. A restraining order keeps him out of my neighbourhood, and two further non-molestation orders mean that he isn’t allowed to contact me, but at the time he was still at large in my home town, and I didn’t ever feel safe. That poem will never be performed I don’t think, but it prompted me to write something else about the last time he emailed me, long after we had separated. I called it ‘Famous Last Words’ and I decided that it was the last thing I was going to write about him, about the last thing he wrote to me. I’ll include it at the end here.
Things are better these days, but I’ve been changed by it all. For a start, certain song lyrics upset me in a way they didn’t before, I wince, and then I get angry. From my own experiences with domestic abuse, and the research I carried out when I tried to make sense of my experiences, I have learned two things: 1) I was very lucky, it could’ve been far worse. 2) I am one of many, far too many. And so in writing this new thing (18 bits of a new thing) I have been looking more outwardly, seeing intimate partner violence as part of a wider, systemic issue, as well as an experience I am still trying to personally process. I think that is probably where my writing is headed next.
Xxx
Famous Last Words
My famous last words aren’t flowing today
But the lines of pursuit
And the sordid promises
The endless gifs and google translations
Objectionable compliments
Double-speak and fake news
Blatant infidelity, pretend empathy
They’re on chrome spun display
The truth isn’t showing up today
But the lines of self-pity
And the shattered sentences
Suspicious forward slashes, dot dot dot
I miss her, still nothing
Bubbles break and views are bleak
A pile of charisma slumped by the bandstand
The truth is on full beam
It’s just pointed a different way
I read something I shouldn’t have today
The lines wove like a net around me
And the words were utter filth
Twisting flesh, ploughing the need
Pitiful cries, I’m struggling to breathe
You fed me burnt chicken and red wine
Tentative messages and tender rituals
Until I was within your grasp again
It’s fine, honestly, I’m OK
While the lines around my eyes deepen
My chest tightens
My nose and tongue grow, my ribs start to show
Stomach lining spews and vents
Instagram feed, a sickening need
Bargaining tools, re-established rules
I’m in deep shit now, but what’s worse is the shame
The power is in knowing today
I tell more lies when I’m chased by you
And my words can murder
Jealousy sucks and whimpers on speed
Fabric strips taunt and a sniper points
A pressure cooker spews hot pink liquid in the road
Your dilated pupils spell out horror
Playing a reeled timeline of constant pain
There’s some peace in remembering today
Some lines can be cut before they take hold
And though word snares are rare
Submitting of will and fractured ego
God’s voice or a damaged psyche
I take comfort in knowing at least I’m not you
Bolted doors and the cocooning paper
They steer me away, keep me clear of your gaze
I really had to hand it you today
That one line email really got up my nose
Five carefully selected, your famous last words
You knew it would rile me, I nearly replied
A voice said stop, the mist retreated
I skip for joy having nothing to say to you
Sticky lies slip, the net slackens
I reported your arse
Now get the fuck out of my face
The New Stuff Update: What was 8 new bits in May, is now 18. That’s not too shabby for someone who thought she’d lost her mojo. I finished 3 poems that had been hanging around my notebooks last week, and even arranged all of the bits into an order. I still don’t know what I’m looking at, but I found out yesterday that I had been given a 5-15 minute slot in Cabaret Playroom at The Albany in November, so that at least gives me something to work towards.
My only plan is to keep writing, keep sharing the new stuff at the lovely open mics in Winchester and Southampton, and have something more or less finished by the end of the year. I’ve been asked to perform an old burlesque act here and there at recent or upcoming events, and it feels like a gift to still be able to offer up ‘Past Jeu Jeu’, who I loved, but who needed to grow up. Bringing ‘Frontal Lobotomy’ around again has been wonderful, finding new audiences for it, as well as recognising the familiar faces who championed that show from the start, and never deserted me, though I felt totally alone and lost until only a few months ago.
Last week, when I was having a few ill days, I read something vaguely poetic I’d written back in April about passing my ex-partner on the street that day. A restraining order keeps him out of my neighbourhood, and two further non-molestation orders mean that he isn’t allowed to contact me, but at the time he was still at large in my home town, and I didn’t ever feel safe. That poem will never be performed I don’t think, but it prompted me to write something else about the last time he emailed me, long after we had separated. I called it ‘Famous Last Words’ and I decided that it was the last thing I was going to write about him, about the last thing he wrote to me. I’ll include it at the end here.
Things are better these days, but I’ve been changed by it all. For a start, certain song lyrics upset me in a way they didn’t before, I wince, and then I get angry. From my own experiences with domestic abuse, and the research I carried out when I tried to make sense of my experiences, I have learned two things: 1) I was very lucky, it could’ve been far worse. 2) I am one of many, far too many. And so in writing this new thing (18 bits of a new thing) I have been looking more outwardly, seeing intimate partner violence as part of a wider, systemic issue, as well as an experience I am still trying to personally process. I think that is probably where my writing is headed next.
Xxx
Famous Last Words
My famous last words aren’t flowing today
But the lines of pursuit
And the sordid promises
The endless gifs and google translations
Objectionable compliments
Double-speak and fake news
Blatant infidelity, pretend empathy
They’re on chrome spun display
The truth isn’t showing up today
But the lines of self-pity
And the shattered sentences
Suspicious forward slashes, dot dot dot
I miss her, still nothing
Bubbles break and views are bleak
A pile of charisma slumped by the bandstand
The truth is on full beam
It’s just pointed a different way
I read something I shouldn’t have today
The lines wove like a net around me
And the words were utter filth
Twisting flesh, ploughing the need
Pitiful cries, I’m struggling to breathe
You fed me burnt chicken and red wine
Tentative messages and tender rituals
Until I was within your grasp again
It’s fine, honestly, I’m OK
While the lines around my eyes deepen
My chest tightens
My nose and tongue grow, my ribs start to show
Stomach lining spews and vents
Instagram feed, a sickening need
Bargaining tools, re-established rules
I’m in deep shit now, but what’s worse is the shame
The power is in knowing today
I tell more lies when I’m chased by you
And my words can murder
Jealousy sucks and whimpers on speed
Fabric strips taunt and a sniper points
A pressure cooker spews hot pink liquid in the road
Your dilated pupils spell out horror
Playing a reeled timeline of constant pain
There’s some peace in remembering today
Some lines can be cut before they take hold
And though word snares are rare
Submitting of will and fractured ego
God’s voice or a damaged psyche
I take comfort in knowing at least I’m not you
Bolted doors and the cocooning paper
They steer me away, keep me clear of your gaze
I really had to hand it you today
That one line email really got up my nose
Five carefully selected, your famous last words
You knew it would rile me, I nearly replied
A voice said stop, the mist retreated
I skip for joy having nothing to say to you
Sticky lies slip, the net slackens
I reported your arse
Now get the fuck out of my face
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