At the Coal Face

At the Coal Face - written the day before a viewing in November, my first viewing in five years. I was Number 12 for a housing association flat. I was struggling so took myself off to a vietnamese woman for a pedicure

At the Coal Face - viewing a property

It's all so tight
in the throat
particularly
Easier to breathe
through the nose
breathe
release the chains bound tightly
across the chest
Leave to God
Trust to God
He has a master plan
You can say Yes and something better will come
Enjoy the pedicure
There is space for you
to make space
within

Note to my son

My son my sun my son
I love you
Not because you say I'm beautiful
but because of who you are

Who are you?
You are my sun
I will continue to fight for you
Fight for a secure home for you
Fight for a secure education for you
Fight these things so many take for granted.
I will always fight for you

I've got to fight for me now
I have to fight for me
I have to fight for me to fight for you
Without me you'd be so sad
I can't let you be sad
my beautiful, intelligent, funny
gigglesome, cheeky, kind, AWESOME
child
Thank you for blessing me
Hug you at 3.30
Thank God
BIIIIIIIIIG HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUG

Feels rushed, leaving

We're not packing to move house this time
I don't want to leave
Half term though (already!)
a good time to go

I didn't give myself time
after the breakdown
As soon as I felt strong, well
back to blogging!!

This began as a casestudy
It began as dumping ground
A casestudy about a statutorily homeless mother on benefits
A dumping ground for me so I didn't dump on my friends

My sixteen year old self is awake though
Doesn't want me to be writing this stuff
I have to listen to her
Reconnect

This blog is actually a love story
It's one person supporting another
It's what you have to do
I have to make a break

Re-union
Re-pair
Re-member
My-self

Four Haiku's - blogging - start and finish?

Writing blogs can heal
Even if noone comments
Fuck everyone else

Blogs are cathartic
Write your thoughts and let them go
There is Gold in mine

Stigmum has to stop
At least for the time being
I must heal myself

I'll miss you Stiggers
I'll read you all the time though
Comment with your name

Write a few more days
A gentle separation
Tear my heart out bitch!

That's yesterday that is, 'bitch', it's not how we speak, I speak and yeah, you might have counted five, but we don't keep count!

I am Velcro

Self realisation is an epiphany

I am Velcro
I allow things to STICK to me
I allow negative things to STICK to me
So fast they are stuck that I can't peel them off
So old
Men don't rape women
Women rape men
You're a hole between two legs
So new
Cancer cancer
Y Mama Tambien?
We have a duty to ourselves
That's what I wrote
I wrote that
ON HERE
before all this
We can change
We can all change
You Can Heal Your Life
In my bookcase Thursday night
Stick a positive on you
Right Here
Right Now
I am beautiful
I love
I am
LOVE

Let faith be your shield

I unearthed this poem yesterday when having a big clearout, that my son's class performed a couple of years ago.

"It's not a poem mummy, it's a song," said my son.

Here it is, I don't know who wrote it, but I like it and so might you.

When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold,
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand
For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
'Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free, with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness the power of the truth.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everybody
Coalition cuts start biting today
So yes, really,
I do wish you a happy new year
Olympics!
Woo, heard they're throwing an extra £41m to the opening and closing ceremony!
Diamond Jubilee!
Tip the disabled out of their wheelchairs to pay for that!

Voracious dreams I've had, thanks to a head cold
Nose, throat, ears
Keep blogging said a voice
Accept the fight
Rrrarghh I coughed up the knives of phlegm

I don't know if I have it in me
to continue Stigmum
(I see you're adding a new label
that old battle not over by a long chalk
I know...)
but I really do wish
you
and you
and you
and yes you too
oh and me aswell, why not
the very best of 2012

Believe

Taking It Easy - Poetry?

Not been writing pad nor blog
My head that's filled with all this fog
Or visions of the path I'm on
No sign of any battle won
Just a voice saying 'Don't worry'

(Taken from Notebook 25th November)

Don't worry
Don't worry about anything
Give everything you don't like to the Universe
and just enjoy your day
moment
by
moment

Black Notebooks

Black contains every colour
Every colour is contained in black
Every colour including pink
and blue (of Mary's veil)

(Taken from Notebook 22nd November)

Mind as you step over homeless bodies

I used to keep my housing posts short
Or play around with style
Now I ramble on and on
I bore me with my bile

It's because I'm not "in it" now
Not like I was last year
I see it but I can't ignore it
Don't you ever feel the fear?

To lose your home is horror
You can lose yourself I find
We need the bricks that shelter
Home within to ease our mind

Criminalising squatting
is a criminal act
executed by a self serving government.
Criminal not in State Law perhaps
but certainly that of the Land

Now don't mind me while I go off and have an existential breakdown.

Thankyou;)

Tears are good haiku

When it's hard to breathe
as memories re-surface
tears can really help

Trick or Treat Haiku

Knock knock, trick or treat?!
Give us lovely things to eat!
Sweets, preferably

My son not being home yet haiku

My love for my son
Encapsulates all feelings
Today is FURY

My son being home haiku

My love for my son
Encapsulates all feelings
Right now I feel peace

Cigarette moment haiku

Cigarette moments
come after you quit your drug
but still need to breathe

Must say, it is safe
and incredibly pleasant
I just close my eyes

I don't miss smoking
I remember it fondly
but never for long

A change in circumstances

I start my new job tomorrow.
Pulling pints in London's Last Local
or maybe not last local
but they are dying aren't they
replaced by Gastro Pubs

In the interview new boss mentioned holidays
Holidays! Of course! Didn't think of those!
Bar work isn't a term time job is it?!
On days I work my boy can sit in the pub
she says
Her daughter will be around so they can play together.

She's nice my new boss
Giving me this opportunity.
Opportunity
Opportunity for what?
I'm not sure I know
but I know it's an opportunity.

"Find out if you'll be better off,"
someone said. "And if you're not
don't take it until September when..."
"I'm forced to take what leaves me worse off?"

A change in circumstances
You always hope it'll be a change for the better
don't you?

Hope - Do we feel it today?!

This poem by Emily Dickinson, I sourced from Kate Atkinson's book Started Early Took My Dog which I finished reading the other day.

Today watching the Royal Wedding, watching the response of the vast vast crowd, there was a real of sense of hope. I can't explain it, it can dissolve very quickly, though I shall hold it as I make my way down to the pub (not dressed in anything as remotely beautiful as Princess Catherine's dress so shan't win the fancy dress comp I imagine!)

Anyway, I've said here's a poem, so here's a poem (Hope you don't mind Ms Dickinson).

'Hope' is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet, never, in Extremity
It asked a crumb - of Me

Have a lovely day!

Thieving Electrical Companies

£600 electricity bill
That's not right
Everyone's saying it
except the electrical company
fucking thief.
"Try not to use your dishwasher," says voice on the phone
Don't have one.
"Limit the use of your tumble dryer."
Don't have one.
£200 a month for a two bed flat?
"What can you afford?" they say.
"£40 a week for 12 months?"
Who can afford that?
I have to pay it off.

You know what gets me though
over and above this nasty
stinking
thieving
debt?
It costs 17 pence a day
to lease the meter.
No meter, no electric.
You have to lease it
or go higher rates on prepay
17 pence a day
before you so much as breathe.
Fucking thieves.

(Taken from Notebook 23rd April)

Easter Saturday

Into the blue dawn of birdsong
comes crashing my life
my debt
my loneliness
there
I've said it
Loneliness
surrounded am I
by beautiful beautiful
family
My life though
Mine
that debt overwhelms
future overwhelming
My life crashes through the blue dawn of birdsong
I must crash through my life
Or be hanged

(Taken from Notebook 23rd April)

Look after your teeth child

Look after your teeth child.

My mamma said that to me but I didn't listen

Did you?

Will I listen now?

Listen now

Look after your teeth
Look after your bones
Look after your skin
Look after your flesh
Look after your mind
Look after your soul
Look after your Self