For nights and nights and nights I lay on my pillow, worrying, listening to the rain, even though the skies were clear and starlit and the moon shone through my window like a lantern and I wondered what else I was hearing that wasn’t there or not hearing that was until one day I had my ears syringed with warm water and the wax flowed out in little honey-coloured clumps into a dish the nurse held for me and I no longer heard it rain except when it did.
I am re-badging my blog from a muted rural setting to a cheeky,
Irreverent bird,
a bird with balls, moxie,
Marching to his own beat, on his own path.
A Stand-up comic
a delver of the Absurd.
Not a morose follower of the herd.
No, this ostrich will not bury his head in the sand.
This bird will bray,
be heard,
be unafraid.
He’s my mouthpiece. Listen to his words.
There’s a wine called ‘Barking Mad’.
I liked it so much I bought six bottles and drank them all.
Not in one night, of course.
There have been times when I have been barking mad:
Over the insurance company’s delay in fixing my storm-damaged gate because ‘it is just a gate’,
Over next door’s yippee yappy dog who goes off when I piss under the lemon tree at night alarming the neighbours and the back lights go on to see what’s up [ Can’t a man piss in peace? ]
But mostly it’s the scammer with the heavy Slav accent who phones every few days to tell me my internet has been infected and will be turned off unless I phone a certain number.
It hasn’t been turned off yet and I haven’t phoned.
Over petrol prices that go up and down like a wild week at the Dow Jones.
I could go on but you get the idea.
Everyone is a Howard Beale barking mad at something.
It was not a black cat
But a red rooster
That crossed my path this morning
On my way to gym.
I waited
As it waddled past the car
Oblivious to the honour
I had accorded it.
Why the rooster crossed the road
I do not know
Though it waddled
With intent.
It had the whole day
In front of it
Provided it did not cross
Too many roads.
Before I met her
I always laughed at cartoons
alone,
was astonished before paintings & poems
privately;
but now
five years later
I pass the magazine to her,
the one with the crazy cartoons.
Look at this, I say, & she does and smiles
Span our faces & rumble our bellies
like little laughing Buddhas;
Trouble shared is trouble halved,
my mother used to say — but Joy
Works inversely:
It is doubled when spent with another.
So far I’ve dodged the bullet
The Damoclean sword
But I know it’s coming for me.
I have its word.
It’s waiting in the rafters.
It’s waiting in the pews.
It has interminable patience
& that is not good news.
It knows my area of weakness
My Achilles heel.
It’s waiting for me to slip up.
It knows I will.
It will not be beaten.
It will not be assuaged.
I open the door tentatively.
It maybe in the yard.
“I am getting a half -Van Gogh,” I say over the phone.
“A half -Van Gogh? What is that?”
“You know how Van Gogh lopped off his left ear after a fit of madness, or so it’s claimed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m getting half my left ear, the lobe lopped off.”
Silence.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“It’s cancerous.”
“Oh dear.”
“You said you would love me even if I had half my face missing.”
“I know but …”
“Hello. Hello…”
Ring tone.
Once I was stuck in the moment.
It was like being stuck in a lift.
I was going nowhere.
Not even up and down.
There was no way out.
No alarm button to press.
No keypad.
I tried not to panic.
Tried smoking a cig.
Humming a tune
Studying a fly on the wall
Studying me
Reciting my nine times tables
And then suddenly SNAP
I was out of it.
I don’t know how long I was in it.
It did have its moments
I must admit.
But you wondered if you’d ever
Get out and join
The flow of life again.
John Malone 