A poem by the dust under my bed

Posted on 05/04/2013 by inktuition

I’m made of old skin and yucky stuff.

You can clean all day. It’s never enough.

I collect and clump. The havoc I create

absorbs your projected rage and hate.

With subtle poise I get up your nose.

You sneeze. You curse. A life decomposed.

I lurk. I linger. I’m a puffball of shame

that with your duster you think you can tame.

But I’ve got a special kind of knack

To outlive all threats of attack.

Mop, sponge or sucking vacuum,

I’m stubbornly stronger than a sweep of your broom.

So leave me be. Leave the dust to the dead.

For today, go out and be yourself instead.

A poem: the battle of him and me

Posted on 04/04/2013 by inktuition

He wants it quiet. I like it loud.

He prefers himself. I crave a crowd.

Listen to the battle of him and me.

He needs attention. I create it all.

He wants to know what’s real. While I just feel surreal.

Sense the battle of him and me.

He likes his sauce red. I much prefer brown.

He always shops for stuff. I prefer to verb and noun.

Articulate the battle of him and me.

He wants it every day. I’m more like once a week.

He’s pret-a-porter. I’m much more boutique.

Wear the battle of him and me.

He can forgive. I can judge and blame.

He sleeps with calm. I lie awake with shame.

So maybe this battle’s between me and me.

A poem for my black swan

Posted on 04/04/2013 by inktuition

A sight of you is rare: a flicker of fleeting soul

that’s dark and deep and draws my lens.

A sense of you is precious: a layer of feather

in a pond of green and white and beak and pen.

A feel for you is magic: a glimpse of shadow

connecting to a light

that shines somewhere within.

In praise of the audiobook

Posted on 02/04/2013 by inktuition

I cannot praise the audiobook enough.

Perhaps considered the plainer cousin of the ebook, or the slower version of the traditional book, the audiobook has never really been regarded with much appeal. By me. Until now.

I never really saw (or heard!) the point of an actor/actress drip-reading me the contents of a novel that I could devour by conventional reading methods in a fifth of the time. That was until I chose to take a seven-and-a-half-hour trip in my not-so-fast car from south of London to central Scotland.

I picked a gripping crime novel from the modest choice of audiobooks available from my small local library, believing that I would be so transfixed by the plot that the trip would simply fly by. Without actually being on a flight (my usual way of travelling north of the border).

And it did. The interminable monotony of the M6/M74 stretch of the trip transformed into a joyful distraction for a driver who didn’t even notice the cramp in her toes or the dragging in her lower back. Until later.

The audiobook had 10 CDs that stretched over 11 hours. I ended up listening to four CDs, with the fifth poised for play. I love to listen to local radio as I enter a new area/city, to help me feel oriented.

Being lost in a book is something that has made me feel alive and connected since I was first able to read. I am so captivated by the plot and the exquisite diction of the actress reading the book that I cannot wait to hear what happens next.

I love being engaged with a book so that I lose track of reality. What better time or place to do that than on a journey where a book can enrich, enlighten and enquicken!

A poem for Good Friday

Posted on 29/03/2013 by inktuition

I’ve always wondered what was hiding in Good

about a Friday that foretells a death,

where a revered man is nailed to a cross

with the scent of vinegar on his breath.

Dying he destroys our sins

is the story I’ve been told.

But what the story means to me

is a transforming that will unfold.

I had to explain, one random year

To an au pair of Easter knew nought.

So I explained that trust and hope and faith

can get lost in the cycles we’re caught.

We’re meant to believe that all will be right,

when cometh that sacred relief,

But when agony pricks the white of my eyes

I’m tumbling into my own grief.

Metaphor’s the cross, I know all of that

because problems resolve in their time.

Let it go, they say. Let fate do its work,

let your bum note again find its rhyme.

Why a ‘misleading’ DVD makes me question my own writing integrity

Posted on 29/03/2013 by inktuition

I prefer the cover of a DVD or book to be explicit about what is implicit.

I am raging. I am SO angry. I can’t believe I bought a movie DVD that seemed to be the authentic article, when really it had misled me into believing it was the real deal.

I’m talking about a DVD I bought in good faith that had the title, image and look of the original movie. Except it wasn’t. The DVD wasn’t fake, as such, but I got caught out.

It wasn’t until a few minutes in to watching the DVD that I realised I couldn’t connect with the original I’d seen at the cinema. Had we arrived late? Had we just forgotten the opening? I started to become convinced that this strange movie must be a viewing extra we’d missed by turning up to the cinema just on time, trying not to spill your popcorn in the dark, and hoping to have abbreviated the time spent feeling cross with the endless ads and trailers.

I was so angry: If I had spotted that the DVD wasn’t the genuine article before I bought it, I would have been happy with my bargain. But the fact that the DVD marketing company happily played on the distracted, hurried, trusting shopper that I am makes me boil with rage.

And I felt betrayed: One of the comments on the buying site I looked at (when I realised my mistake) was: “Hit the back button and don’t buy this rubbish.” If I remember correctly, I bought the offending DVD from a store (which I believe has now gone into administration). If I was buying the thing online, I would have at least had the chance to review what other writers had said, and take the time to click ‘no’. I wish I’d had the chance.

But ultimately I felt toxic shame: Am I doing this with my own creative work? What if I were to mislead someone in thinking what I was writing was really something else? I come across contorted titles of books, albums and even blog posts that make me think I’m going to expect a particular thing, and yet the reality lets me down.

Is this a gap between expectation and reality? Should we seek ‘obscure’ titles for our work that are understood only by the ‘clever’ inner sanctum, or should we seek to produce a ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of book/article/artwork?

Ultimately, I think my answer to this is don’t try to deceive anyone. Least of all yourself.

A poem for the Paschal Moon

Posted on 28/03/2013 by inktuition

A show-off moon looms loud above,

eager, serene and yellow with love.

The moon this year is bigger than most.

It makes me reflect on my unfulfilled ghost.

It stops my tracks, makes me stand in awe

at its light, its bright, its symbolic draw.

Not just your everyday, every-month moon,

the Paschal is rounder and makes me attune

to the wonder of nature, a great work of art,

to the bigger forces surrounding my heart.

Am I true to the light, the generous gaze

of her majestic roundness, her heavenly hurrahs?

Soul symbolism: If there’s no such thing as an ‘accident’, what does my bumped car mean?

Posted on 22/03/2013 by inktuition

“Superstition and accident manifest the will of god.” C. G Jung

“The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.” Aristotle

My car got bumped today. To be specific, the other driver thought he had more space than was actually there and, in his impatience to get through the too-tight space, his car gouged the side of mine. Or at least, that’s what it felt like as his metal got intimate with mine. It sounded as though he’d put a huge gash in the side.

He admitted liability and ran off to get his insurance documents. I stood there in wobbly shock, mind blank with what to do next in this situation, while other drivers in various states of hurry swore at me to move out of the way. Not a pleasant or uplifting experience for eight o’clock in the morning.

OK, so the physical damage was minor. But emotionally the bump has ricocheted through my day. I certainly didn’t feel I was handling this accident with grace or dignity. I’ve never had to claim on my car insurance before, and I’m loathe to start now. But more than that, I always interpret symbolically the events major and minor that happen in life, believing that Jung says about there being no such thing as an accident. If that’s the case, then what could the bump on my car mean, and what have I learned from it? Is there a deeper meaning? What’s my soul trying to communicate with me.

As I always do, I turn to my laptop for inspiration and insight. Through my keyboard I make sense of what’s happened and seek some kind of clarity and release. So, intuitively, here are the different levels of my thinking:

It’s just a bump. It’s all the other person’s fault. He should learn how to drive better. (Not a very empowering way to look at this).
Cars can signify goals and getting places. Is the bump a way of slowing me down and making me reassess the path I’m on? (Could be helpful to take some time to reflect and improve self-awareness and alter my road, if necessary).
The bump was on the right-hand side of the car. The right represents the masculine. Which part of me is the bump targeting? Which masculine energetic part of me is the bump making me slow down to consider? I’ll have to reflect more on this one, but it’s one to stick with.
What quality has manifested as a result of the bump? If I’m being honest, the whole debacle has been a lesson in patience. Perhaps the ‘accident’ will teach me to leave the house earlier and not rush down a crowded road full of other people in a rush, waiting to bump and shout at me. (Yes, patience isn’t a quality I have in abundance, so this insight has deep meaning for me).
I should be more mindful of everyone around me instead of always being head down to chase deadlines. Perhaps the bump was a reminder of how precious life is and how we can’t take things for granted mindlessly. The bump brought me straight back into the present and I’ve been driving oh-so-carefully all day. The car, as a representation of my conscious self in this world, has just been brought back into sharp focus. My attention is now revved.

Points 4 and 5 have the most resonance for me. Perhaps this tiny little knock on my car was a wake-up call, bringing me back to the moment. For other meanings, I’ll let them meander into my head next time I’m on a long drive (as ideas usually do when I’m nowhere near a pen to write them down).

I can already feel that the act of letting the ideas flow through my fingertips has restored me to some kind of dignity, and the bump no longer has its insidious grip on me. Perhaps it was no accident after all.

Take time to rhyme on World Poetry Day

Posted on 21/03/2013 by inktuition

If you’re thinking of taking a pen

To explore your innermost thoughts

Then today’s the day to do it:

It’ll help unravel your knots.

The UN’s World Poetry Day

Is a chance to feel what’s real

In the deepest darkest depths

Of your starkest startling dreams.

Whether rage takes hold in angry red

Or the blues cry over the page

Trust what comes, let it all spill out:

Free your soul from its strangled cage.

That song that’s stuck in your head? Tune into its true message

Posted on 18/03/2013 by inktuition

Tune into that intrusive music in your head to hear what it’s got to say. (pic:istockphoto.com/SilverV)

Oh, it’s SO annoying. Your head can’t switch off the replays of the most popular song on the radio you heard before dropping the kids off at school, driving to work, or running an errand. The catchy tune and chorus stick in your head ALL DAY. You think you hate the song, but the melody bounces around in your brain and chatters into your ears like your new best mate.

But apparently the tune that bangs on your eardrums all day – the so-called ‘earworm’ – is a song you actually know and like, according to psychologists from Western Washington University. Intrusive songs are most likely to turn up their volume when we’re relaxed and doing downtime activities like walking (or maybe the washing up) as well as when we’ve got a lot to do (like homework) and our minds are prone to wander. Annoying songs can creep in then, but are less likely to invade our ears when we’re focused on tough mental jobs and our minds are fully engaged. (If you’d really like to zap an annoying song from your inner playlist, here’s an article on how to get a song out of your head).

But how about a deeper viewpoint? What if the song that’s stuck is trying to communicate something else? What if the only way for your soul to get a message through to you on a particular day is by annoying you with seemingly inane lyrics and by banging your auditory door down with a song that has a deeper meaning for you? Listen in closely to hear what that repetitive chorus might be whispering to you.

When I need inspiration or insight, I trust that the lyrics from a song – popular or otherwise – will spring into my head. It’s a form of clairaudience, where intuition can guide me in a way that’s most meaningful for me that day. The message may not always be profound, but then symbols (visual or auditory) are often clever and subtle and need you to pay attention, interpret and trust them.

So, next time you can’t get words or music out of your head, remember to take note. It could be your inner voice trying to tell you something. Don’t drown it out.