Runaway

Today, I was back in the pool. I was feeling relatively cocky: my Dead Leg, apart from the odd patellar dislocation, has been behaving himself. I was walking lengths, up and down the pool, wearing pink and yellow flippers, when an idea for the annual anniversary poem popped into my head (a good thing, too, because it was yesterday. Ooops). A problem: I began to pay less attention to the flippers than to words. I stopped to do my turn at the far end of the pool, and the Dead Leg decided to go buoyant, and out to the side he went. Physical activity has always provided the impetus for a lot of my creative output. I used to compose music, write lyrics, and work on poems in my head as I ran. I could run miles, and come home tired enough to focus, and get things down on paper. No more. If I lose focus on the leg, he runs off, seeking asylum or distractions. I was afraid I'd I lost track of the poem, but it is still there, rumbling around in the back of my head.

Battery Grannies

In my own sort of homage to the Spartacus Report getting so much press today, my first Open Link Night poem for the dVerse poets website: http://dversepoets.com/ I'm a bit nervous. I've been a secretive groupie perusing the links on the site for a while.

Please feel free to read and comment. This one is still in process (what poems aren't?) and derives from my time as a Speech and Language Therapist caring for patients with dementia and their families. I think the way in which a society treats its  youngest and oldest members says everything we need to know about it. 

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Battery Grannies

The tour starts here. This is the Activity Room.

I would ask that you don’t open any doors, or go anywhere without

a member of staff. Please stay on the green carpet.

We want the best for our residents.

We offer everything they need-- positive freedom, freedom:

from hunger and thirst; from discomfort; from pain; injury or disease; 

to express normal behaviour; from fear and distress.

Don’t feed them.

This isn’t a petting zoo. 

Some of them are still very slender, but

they come to us in terrible shape,

most of them, so we fatten them up.

No one ever wants a scrawny one, but we stock

all shapes, makes, and models.

We feed them regularly.

Food is supplied in place.

They quickly learn to eat 

things

they don’t recognize, if 

they get hungry enough,

though the weaker ones get pushed aside. Occasionally.

Which

leads to other problems, which then require 

somewhat

harsher remedies:

The de-beaking of chickens is deprecated, but it is recognized that it is 

a method of last resort, seen as better than allowing vicious fighting and ultimately cannibalism.

Their legs don't always work, unfortunately, but

this will not affect your statutory rights.

Because they cannot move easily, the chickens are not able to adjust their 

environment to avoid heat, cold or dirt as they would in natural conditions.

Some have strange hock burns; do-gooders accuse us of 

leaving occupants lying in their own shit,

but we just can't train them to stand. 

We feed them, but then

they cannot support their increased body weight. 

First too weak, then too fat. A conundrum.

All are functional, to some extent. They

learn to mimic natural behaviour.

We train them not to chirp

or squeak,

and never let them pray.

Research suggests that they benefit from participating

in meaningful activity:

we encourage bingo and crochet.

Physical restraints are used to control movement or actions regarded as undesirable.

The telly works for some of them.

they don't know what they're missing.

Reception's not an issue;

they're content with static and with hissing.

Piled here,

they take up very little space.

Confinement at high stocking density is one part a systematic effort to produce 

the highest output at the lowest cost. 

We do our best for the shareholders and customers.

There's a warehoused granny for everyone.

Process of Poetry

I am still editing. And it is difficult. I am still working on the critical component of my M Res, and compared to that, editing is a doddle. I don't know how to 'justify,' critically speaking, what I've written, or the ways in which I have written it. I am struggling to define my own personal ethic, in terms of writing, so that someone else can understand it, or at least have some sense of my process. But how can I explain something that I am only just beginning to trust and rely on myself? I know when I draft is 'done,' when I can't do any more to a piece of writing for the moment,  and I know when I am ready to work on it again, because my brain itches. Right now, my brain is so tired that the itching ain't happening. I have successfully titrated myself off of Pregabalin, which didn't work its promised magic on the pain, but I am not sleeping well, in part because I need to get writing done and I can't relax. I'll try to have a nap, and see if I can feel the itching in my head a bit more clearly after that.

Doom, Gloom, the End of a Project Looms

My M Res project is almost in its final form, and I am having trouble finishing it. I would think, if I were not me and was looking at me, or still me and floating around having some sort of out-of-body experience, that this  'critical component' would be the easy bit. The *hard* bit, theoretically, would be actually doing the creative writing component. Not so. Getting really stuck in to the analysis bit, in which I have to compare my own work to that of a lot of famous, competent, writerly types, is more difficult. Finding the mental energy and focus to do it is made more difficult by pain, fever, and all of the annoying antics a Dead Leg can get up to, but the real issue is lack of confidence.

Ode to Naproxen Sodium

I feel as though my life should be sponsored by Naproxen Sodium. Between an arthritis flare and the usual Dead Leg/ CRPS nonsense,  I am in excruciating pain and am so irritable even I think I'm being snarky. I am also extremely too sleep-deprived, and am losing my command of the English language, so if you were actually expecting an ode, you are going to be SERIOUSLY disappointed. This is all I've got, and I think it is probably more of a paean to coffee.

Naproxen Sodium

sounds so much more exciting 

than it is,

so much more important.

Caffeine is marvellous,

an antidote to exhaustion,

though the coffee that carries it

competes with Naproxen Sodium

for my stomach lining's attention.

See? Complete shite.