Tag Archives: poems

February 19, 2023 · 14:44

Bleak to positive

I’m trying my best to try and think of more positive things lately, it is actually harder than I thought it would be and that is a huge contrast to the person that I used to be; I was often considered a bit of a Pollyanna – if you don’t know who Pollyanna is, Pollyanna is a little girl who always found something good about things that happened until one day she had an accident and couldn’t walk anymore and she found it hard to find anything good to say and the people she shone her light on – all came in mass to remind her of her old way of thinking when she was in her darkest hour.

For the past nine years I’ve suffered from very bad depression bought upon initially by illness and then extreme poverty, around 2015 I had my first true thoughts about suicide and have been struggling with them ever since.

I am trying to find the old me again as it is very clear in the near future, I will be moving out of this home and into a new one and hopefully things will be a little better for me emotionally.

I still have no date for that yet, but I know it will be coming before the end of the year at least, Paul is determined and Henry has resided himself to the fact that he wants to stay with his father and not follow me, because he doesn’t want to make new friends in a new school.

Wherever I go, they have to tolerate a house rabbit, because Ray is coming with me too – because I am the only person who gives him any attention and he would literally pine to death without me!

He is 5yrs old and a dark grey Dutch, so dark in fact you’d mistake him for black, he has dark blue eyes and loves reggae, gardening shows, rugby and Peter Rabbit – seriously he has his favourite types of music and TV shows, he is a house rabbit after all. 

I can’t eat a banana without sharing it with him; he gets grumpy and throws his food bowl at me!  He can be quite violent when affronted!

He needs neutering because he stinks.

Well anyway, there are still dark days to get over and when I have those days I tend to write dark and morbid poetry – but I am trying to break it up and space it out, so sometimes when the poems are being published, I may not actually be having a bad day at all, it may have been days or weeks ago.

I haven’t had a major depression bout for over a week now, but I am slowly slipping into it again as tonight I have been feeling on the verge of tears and being quiet and sleepy, but I am not sure what bought it on.  But at least I am not suicidal tonight.  I am just a bit dozy and I suppose sulky due to loneliness.

I am writing these words at 2:30am on the 19th February 2023, this will be published in the afternoon – again, to space things out a bit.

Sometimes when I get writing specifically for my blog, I tend to write three to five poems all at once and about two or three diary updates and it would really annoy my readers if they got all of this one day and then just one tiny poem for a few days after.

So I space things out.

I am trying really hard to think about things that are not bleak – anything really so not to focus on the dark thoughts, because I am trying hard to push my old life away for a brand new one, that I believe is very close to coming to me and it’s going to be amazing but terrifying!

Seriously terrifying – but you know what?  I heard Mel Robbins a motivational speaker say once, that psychologists have proven than fear and excitement are formed from the same chemicals in the brain, they are in fact the same thing and you can trick yourself into believing your fear is excitement quite easily, so you don’t panic so much!

So when you are frightened, just think to yourself – it’s all so very exciting – I am excited – let’s do this!

So yes, I am terrified but it’s exciting…

Do you think I am ready for the nut house yet?

Thanks for reading!

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February 10, 2023 · 00:30

Rigid mind

Rigid, those are my thoughts tonight; Rigid and taut through depression and desperation

No matter how hard I try to sit myself down tonight and ignore what’s going on in my heart and mind on a base emotional level, I still can’t help but be dragged down by a numbed mind.

I have written four poems tonight, all destined for the deletion pile, though I am trying to be more merciful with my craft and lock them away in a file on my laptop called “wasted”, as it was wasted time.

Wasted one, wasted two, wasted three, and wasted four, until I felt that tonight I am not in my poetic mojo at all and gave up.

I am certainly in a creative mind-set, but not really focused for Project AD, that’s a children’s comedy horror and I feel more like writing something along the lines of Mr Ted or The Gargoyles Heart.

Oftentimes when I have days or nights like these, I tend not to write anything, not even towards my blog – but I have decided to change.

I have decided to share these times with you all, because these are the times when I can get really down to the heart of the matter – become creative, it’s a strange place to be.

Depressed and apathetic in everything but the written word, depending however what that written word is going to be at the time and whether or not it matches what’s going on inside of you.

A few years ago I used to write snippets, where they were more or less like practise pieces and I would just write the first thing that came into my mind and I would post it.  I got out of the habit of that and it really should be revived again.

This is the start of that.

Thanks for reading…

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January 10, 2023 · 10:10

Sorry if I ruin your day

I had a bout of depression yesterday that was pretty bad because I felt extra lonely.

So I created a lot of really down in the dumps poetry scheduled for today, but as the day moved on I felt happier in myself and so all of those poems are really passé now.

Please don’t worry, I was feeling dramatic – but I keep myself to myself when I am like that and start creating morose poetry and songs, like a sad vampire at a piano… think of The Vampire Lestat at the piano talking to Louis in the 1995 movie Interview with a vampire… it was that kind of creative vibe for me yesterday afternoon!

Hey it got work done didn’t it?

I don’t like to drown people in my sorrows offline and in my home; I like to keep my home and family at a happy place… I suppose then that Pollyanna hasn’t died yet in me, like I said she had a couple of months back!

There is hope for the little dear yet!

Thanks for reading… and I am sorry if I ruin your day with what’s to come!

I know it’s hard… but enjoy it?  *cringe*

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January 5, 2023 · 15:58

Lost poetry & young love

The world has lost seven new poems in the past two days.

When I write a poem I am in a certain emotional state or a semi-trance and I write them; if I am disturbed sometimes it is OK if it is for a few seconds, but seven poems in the past two days has been interrupted for five minutes or more with much needed emotional feedback which meant the poem was half finished and the flow was gone, so they got deleted. 

I never get the flow back ever again when a poem has been interrupted in its creation, there were times in the past I put the unfinished poems into a folder on my computer and I have tried to get back into that space but it never happens – so poems that are disturbed like that are lost forever, so now I delete them.

Every poem I write always ends up on my blog; this is another reason why my blog has been so quiet.  There is a lot of emotional turmoil going on within the house and people want my response to what’s going on because I am the mother of the house; however, when you are mother of a house where your opinion doesn’t matter, what can I do other than sit there, give whatever emotional support I can, sit and shrug and say – “you know I can’t do anything about love”.

Its hard being a mother to a child and making suggestions for that child when the father has opposing ideas and is very strong-minded and shoots my opinions down like we’re in a war against each other!

It’s even harder when you know your child has come to you to speak to you in private because he doesn’t want his dad to get on his case again for his honest opinion about the situation.  So when he asks you for help, you have no choice but to talk to the father and then realise that the father seeks the child about it and starts the mini wars again. So the child asks for help, you tell them, I need to speak with dad and he asks you not to, or sometimes he says ok, but you know it’s always the same. It’s more difficult than you can know!

It is very difficult knowing too, that when you tell your child you are separating and in a few months’ time will be moving out – that this child choses to stay with the person he rarely goes to for any emotional comfort simply because he wants to stay in this house (which he will inherit as it’s in a trust for him) and to stay in his school with his friends because he doesn’t like the concept of change.

It’s hard because you know in your heart that his emotional declination is almost assured if he stays.

But as stupid and irresponsible as it sounds, my child is thirteen in May and in my opinion I should honour his life decisions whether or not it hurts me – that’s the kind of liberal parenting I do.  It’s all about my child, not me, that’s the way I am.

His father is much more conservative about raising children, education comes before anything – that includes emotions. I often joke that Paul is like a cross between Data and Spock, but in actuality it isn’t funny!

There are times when Henry gets emotional about not being able to do a question in his homework and I swear Paul is struggling to hold back from saying “Being emotional about this question is illogical, you need to do the homework now and do the emotional reflection later.”

It’s Henry’s choice to stay here and I am not going to wrench him away from what he wants, simply because my ego has told me I know better than him.

Maybe I am a bad parent, but for me, I want him to be happy and thrive in a way that doesn’t cause any unnecessary stress for him, also he has a girlfriend, he is dating already and so who can split up young love like that without having some huge pangs of guilt?

Thanks for reading…

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December 4, 2022 · 14:05

Duh Brain forgot again!

Forgot to add that some poems that will be on my blog in the next few days were pre-planned before the post last night stating that there are going to be explanations if those are not current thoughts and feelings.

So from next week, it really counts.

Sorry about the confusion!

Thanks for reading!

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September 2, 2022 · 11:15

The speed of thought

I wish my brain could make my body work in the same pace as its imaginations; I’d be prolific, drowning in art work and stories and it would be amazing – but no, it is never going to happen!

I think about too much and so little actually gets physically manifested because my daydreams are lightning fast.

I really meant it when I have said in previous posts, I don’t suffer from artist or writers block, I suffer from artist and writers overload!

You have no idea that in every poem I write and post on the blog, there are three or more pieces of art that are not being produced to go with it, because I can’t paint that fast!

Every painting I have done in the past takes an average of three hours, but anywhere between ninety minutes and six maybe even seven hours a time!  That’s just one piece of art!

You have no idea how much I wish everything I think of would physically manifest, the exacting art ideas I have, the exact stories, the exact movies, the exact music and the exact songs – but I manage to physically manifest so little of it, because of lack of time and speed ability, in fact I don’t even believe I produce a whole 1%.

You have no idea how I am obsessed with my imagination and how it consumes my daily life to the extent that I often forget to live in reality!

Paul is both a blessing and a curse for this, because he will happily allow me to be consumed by it all, whilst feeding me and keeping me as comfortable as he can – but he doesn’t like to interfere with my daydreams AT ALL!  It scares me when he dies someday, it scares me because I am so consumed by it all that if he were to die tomorrow, I might die a few weeks later because I will forget to feed myself, I will forget to live and he doesn’t shake me out of it, like others have done in the past and I have told him – that could be dangerous, but he doesn’t take it seriously.

I wish he would, because I am quite serious – I would forget to live when he dies, especially when he dies, because the more I grieve or the more stressed I am, the more I lock myself away and go into what I call an “astral travelling adventure” where I am quite literally channelling through my body to write or paint, and often I don’t hear or feel anything in that state, once in it. 

It is hard to get into that state initially if there is discord around the house, but if I go into it before the arguments and ructions start, I can’t hear it… its weird and I doubt I am making sense to those who don’t experience the same as I do.

There are times when Paul wants to feed me, where he knows I can’t hear him or see him, no matter what he does, but he touches me and like a sleepwalker I am literally shocked back into reality and have a little panic attack and calm down and then he tells me that dinner is ready.

It really is like that for me.

Sometimes I thought I should cheat.  I should write my poems and then explain what the art should have been, but probably would never get done by me.  Just so I can show you more.  But then I thought; you wouldn’t understand what I am trying to achieve or understand why I would do that, so should I bother?

I’d really like to paint at least one poem a week, for my YouTube channel that will start at the end of the year.  I could paint a picture a day, anything up to seven pictures in time for the vlog, but that is probably all I could do.  I couldn’t do anymore art, if I did that without it affecting my stories and sleep time.

Paul likes the idea but also he is a realist and he believes that it would hugely affect how much writing I will produce.

He knows I love art more than writing, but he loves my writing more than my art.  He hasn’t experienced much of my music, so he has no opinion on that.

 I really do wish that I could physically produce all that I think about at the same speed as my thoughts.

Happy reading!

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June 6, 2022 · 11:15

Why?

I am holding onto a hope

That my stalkers leave the dope

That they will decide eventually

That watching someone like me is essentially…

A waste of their time and energy

I hope that they leave me alone

Because why they do this has me thrown

They’ve never knew me offline

So why do they do this all the time?

It’s been thirteen years now, since we talked

On a forum and differences balked

Did it really mean that much to you?

I need to know, I have no clue!

Why do you insist that I…

Need to believe what you believe or die?

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May 25, 2021 · 11:40

thought of the day 1

I will admit that sometimes I preschedule my posts, especially those of poetry. 

I had a very ecologically aware and poetic day on the 20th May. 

Sometimes the themes of my poetry come in bursts of phases and waves; much like my story writing does too.  I get days where it is more of a vampire day or a dystopian day and my art or stories or poems reflect this, I can’t force myself outside of the theme I feel for the day; that is my major fault.

Today I feel artistic, I want to practise art, for me it is one of the dreaded mixed days, where I have more than one theme; today I feel like practising dragon art, writing towards a dragon story but also dystopian, I also feel like shopping but that is not a creative theme for me, that’s just me!

At the point of writing this post, it is the 21st May.  This post has been prescheduled because my body is giving me warnings that my auto-immunity issues are preparing themselves for yet another hit of something that will knock me off my feet for a couple of weeks.  I hope it gets over and done with before Midsummer night, because around that week I have minor surgery.

Happy reading

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May 20, 2021 · 11:35

Poetry sneaks in

I know I write poetry and this blog used to be known for that; but I seldom read poetry personally.  I read Byron, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Wilfred Owen, Pam Ayres and silly kid stuff like Spike Milligan and Dr Seuss; but generally, besides these, nothing else. 

I read Wilfred Owen purely for GCSEs and I think I have read some of Sylvia Plath too, but those were for studies only. 

I have been recently reading a lot of country and wildlife journals and I keep seeing another poet mentioned a lot in there with quotes; this has spurred me onto wanting to read more of him and I got Paul to get a book from the library for me of him.  “John Clare”, this could be a new influence if I am honest.

Also I consider Neil Gaiman to be a poet too; I love some of his short stuff sometimes more than his long stuff, he is another influence of mine.

Upon reflection, I think perhaps I read more poetry than I take for granted.  A lot of the novels I love are crammed packed with verse and rhymes, like Alice in Wonderland etc.  See poetry sneaks into funny places; it’s easy to take advantage of it and not notice it when it wafts in front of your face.  Anyone who says they are not particularly fond of poetry are liars, even street gangsta types and chavs who gets embarrassed by the notion that they even pick up a poetry book – sorry to say it to you guys, but you love poetry.  Every song is a poem and that means rap IS poetry too!

See the world with fresh eyes and you will see it’s so true!

Happy reading!

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February 7, 2021 · 13:30

Top 10 children’s books that influenced me

Top 10 children’s books that influenced my writing and why

Dragon’s dinner by Susannah Corbett

This is a hilarious book I read at least once a month to myself, I know it’s a young child’s picture book, but I adore it!

It is written in rhyme and there is a comedy element on every page, not to mention great illustration too!  I have a love for dragons that almost rivals my love for vampires; this is seen in the novels I write.  In fact, I have nearly finished a dragon novel to the extent that I may be considering sending it off to an agent in 2022.  At the moment I have approximately three more chapters to write of it again, this is the eighth draft, but then I will store it away for a couple of months and look again with fresh eyes and see if it needs a ninth draft – but I doubt it at the moment.

A strange thing for me is that writing the story initially can take just under a month for me to do, but editing and redoing drafts can take me three months, because I find that a boring process, I hate redoing stuff!  I am trying to learn to love doing that.

My dragon novel is potentially YA or adult fantasy, not sure yet, it is definitely bigger than this picture book and does have a lot of comedy elements to it.

Horton hears a who by Dr Seuss

I love most books by Dr Seuss and this is my favourite.  I like books where something unbelievable is eventually proven to the other characters of the book and that is something that is seen in a handful of my own works.  Once again there is a comedy element to the book.

I think I love this story a lot because when I was a child I used to blow bubbles and imagine that every bubble was a planet full of life, like Earth only different with unique creatures on each planet and that the time scale was epically fast.  I never read Horton Hears A Who until I had my son Henry and bought the book for him when he was 2yrs old – so the book resonated with me a lot.

James and the giant peach by Roald Dahl

There would be more than just one book by Roald Dahl on this list, but I wanted to be as broad as possible in my listings; it was difficult trying to narrow down which book to choose for this list by this specific author; I chose the one that I felt was the most unique and the one that literally got my heart pumping with excitement as I read it.

There were so many wonderful things in this book, talking, friendly insects, a comedy element, drama, horror, lots and lots of excellent scenery I just adored it.  I loved the parts where the peach acted like a hot air balloon and was flying above the world.  It is this scene which has influenced me the greatest, because I am working on a fantasy series based on a hot air balloon traveller which is aimed for a YA audience potentially.

Harry Potter and chamber of secrets by J.K Rowling

Much like most people nowadays, it is hard to think of fantasy and children’s books without thinking about Harry Potter, it is a great series and narrowing down to a specific book was very difficult, but this is my favourite because of the living trees and the giant spiders.  Also I found this the funniest of the lot.  I like depictions of forests particularly with living trees mentioned occasionally, such can be found in many books, Lord of the Rings and The Wizard of Oz to name but two.  I have to admit, even I have written a scene with forest spiders in one of my novels, not to copy, but because it just felt so right and almost expected in a manner; in fact it is a scene in my main dragon novel.

Engelbert Sneem and his dream vacuum machine by Daniel Postgate

This had me riveted from the offset, it is amazing.  I love books where you get to dance around in someone else’s dreams and things like this, BFG and a couple of other stories had dreams in them too.  I love writing about dream worlds within my stories from time to time, but they do seem to be more horror based than my usual comedy fantasy.

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

I have loved reading Heidi ever since I was a child and I must admit not only reading it, but also love watching all the movies that come out based on this story too!  Heidi has influenced my imagination a lot over the years.  I love goats and mountain sceneries and books with snow, books that star strong minded children who seem to act as blessings to the adults of their world.  I love miracle stories too and little Clara certainly had a miracle happen to her!

Quite a few of my books do seem to be rather Germanic, Norse or Slavic based, unintentionally, I haven’t really understood why.  I have strong warrior figures in my novels and the landscapes usually end up sounding like Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, the Alps and sometimes even the Carpathians.  I have never travelled outside of the UK; it would be lovely to do so at some point and visit some of those places that influence me and my writing.

Diary of a wimpy vampire by Tim Collins

It is such a funny book and the fact it contains vampires is another reason why I love this book so much; also this book made my son into a reader, because before he saw me reading this book to myself and laughing my head off at it at every page turn, he absolutely hated reading!  But now I have to say, he tries to read a whole large novel once every month.

My vampires have some comedy interjected into the pages from time to time, but it is not deliberately set out to be a comedy series – I just can’t help myself.

Mr Stink by David Walliams

I like books where children change the minds of the adults around them as I have mentioned before and this book does that.  I love books which show the best qualities of humanity, generosity etc.  I also love stories that are riches to rags and back again to riches, I have loved themes like this since I was a kid.  I loved movies such as “The Jerk” with Steven Martin and “Life Stinks” with Mel Brookes amongst others and yes, it is a theme I would like to write someday too.  Once again, there is comedy here.

I will say, that as a child I read a lot, but it was mostly non-fiction and that a majority of the fantasy and stuff I indulged in were movies, I watched a movie every day, without fail, sometimes three times a day, because I was home educated and work fast in my studies and had a lot of spare time to myself, cooped up indoors all day long.  My father had a massive VHS collection over eight hundred which had two or three movies on each he recorded off the TV, so there were always a lot of things to watch!

The tin can band by Margaret Mahy

I love all the poems and songs in this book.  I love the artwork and everything about the book.  The art inspires my art a lot and the poetry knows how to touch several nerves too.  I love the concept of dancing in the shadows and having night time, shadow acrobats dancing around you, causing you to hallucinate and see things that aren’t quite what they seem when the lights are out. 

The poems contain witches and various other creatures, some with comedic ideas and others more serious in tone, such as deforestation and a lovely concept on death too.

I love authors that have a knack in making death less scary and more beautiful or at least more fun.

Wolf by Gillian Cross

I like books about the homeless and hippies and that sort of thing, this book contains squatters and a little girl who tries to live with her mother under extraordinary circumstances.  The child is rather independent and I just love the book, but I can’t say it has influenced anything in particular though.

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