Tag Archives: frustration

the urge of frustration

Irritating habits die hard beneath
The flying frustration filling fiddley
Finagling, seriously slippery sycophantic
Sarcasm stays solid so sly, yet
Forever headache inducing grumpy
Attitude, this is just a single moment
In time, another well-ended day of
Turmoil unmet, unmatched and
Mostly unknown, the wilds, grass
Growing wildly out of control, excess
Emotion un-mown, hairy peace, yet
No peace at all, this centred grunt
The desire to lash in, not out, to
Strike self where no one else can
Reach, because I can, you get me,
Because I can.

But I won’t. Because it is silliness,
Plain wasted emotion, spent timing
The train’s not here yet, work still
Latent on my mind, the inertia of
Irritating subthoughts, bubbling
Burp-like to surface-mind, the smell and
Taste as stale-rank as any true
Gaseous emission, just one more
Burst bubble of impure thought-
Feeling, rough-edged colliding-
Word poetry-making sorts, all sorts
Bub-bubbling away, yet here I sit
Unable to stem the flow, oh to
Light a cigarette, down a shot, do
Something, step outside of this life
Knot that life itself is not bearable,
Yet something else in its entirety,
Terrible urge to bite fingers to the
Quick, scream from the depths of
Hellish guts, burning chest, the one
Word guttural remains of the day,
And yet as I write this, instead of
Releasing the demons and calming
The soul, the dance continues madly,
Staked and tied to the whole, there
Is no more sequential thought than
This, the rush to the end of that
Dark-edged abyss, the self-same
Pit that so many dodge round,
Some even float over, some crawl
On the ground, yet I stand stricken
Looking down deep inside, the
Monster inside of me called out
To ride, that great last one single
Adrenalin rush, to the bottom of
Hell, our own personal bend, the
Life of love and happiness spiked
On the end.

Still light dances the magic
The heart has not done, still
Singing the niceandquick, that spin
To the end, the DJ’s winding down,
The music’s turned off, the lights
All blast on, burning the last sultry
Dream off, the real world is here,
No fantasy rush, just another day
Gone by, another days final flush,
To sit and watch the swirl, of trees
Flying by, I take a deep breath
Let out soulful sigh, and realise
Today, is like all of the rest, you
Try hard as possible to always
Give your best, yet sometimes just
Sometimes, that beast of rebellion
Uncurls deep inside, that child that
We all once were looks around with
A cry, shouting, “What have you done!
With all of our dreams held so dear?
Where is the happy state, we always
Felt was so near? Where is the love?
The job satisfaction? Where is the
Caring, selfless compassion?
Where is the hero, that one we all
Are? Where have you led me?
When we had already come so far?
Why have you done this? Why take
It laying down? Why not live our lives
Now? Turn scowls upside down?
Where are we headed? Why do we
Want to go down there? Where is
Our head at? Why look deep down
There?” Then that little piece of
Sane self, the part we keep on the
Shelf, grabs us by our own collars,
Lifts us up on our feet, looks us
Sternly in the eye, pinches each
Stinging cheek, and tells us to behave,
To stop being so silly, and we know
They are right, with dry thank you
In throat, because we are looking
Into our own eyes, ourselves but
Remote, the ones we had sacrificed,
Who we felt left behind, have battered
Down internal doors, to come and
Save their own kind. We thank you
Other selves, you really came just
In time, we were about to do
Something dangerously unnecessary,
You have freed us from our own selves,
Let’s speak no more about this,
Moving right along, there’s no need
To make any more of today’s rush
To the line. Just rest dear true selves,
Go back and sleep in your rooms,
I’ve got this all covered.
You’re safe from me, I swear.
Rest, dear friends, rest well,
For the day’s nearly done, the flare
Of frustration’s course’s nearly run,
The negative internal vibes have
All been grounded away, head back
To your rooms, go relax, run and play,
Tomorrow will come as always, just
Another simple day, rest my selves,
Rest well, your job has been done,
See I still am a hero, even though
The only one I save is myself.

it’s just plain taxing…

I have to warn you – this will be a rant (hence the ‘category’ of ‘rant’).

For those of finer sensibilities, or who prefer to only read the less rant-acious blogs, turn away now. Read something from the ‘poetry’ category, take up table tennis, or learn the ancient martial art of navel-gazing (one of my favourite ‘down-time’ pastimes).

Still reading? Cool. So here goes.

First the facts:
1. I am a single full-time working parent.
2. My daughter lives with me 7 days a week.
3. I earn more than 44k a year (whoopti-doo, I hear you say. Just bear with me, this is all going somewhere.)

Now the punchline:
1. I presently get £80 a month ‘child tax credit’. That is the full extent of the financial assistance the government (which I have paid for during my 15 years working in England) gives to me. £80 per month. That’s it.
2. Because I earn more than £44k a year, I will lose my £80 per month child tax credit come June. That’s right, all gone. Supposedly, I don’t need it anymore. Thanks coallition government!
3. If I lived with a partner with both of us earning £44k (total annual household income of £88k) we would together receive £160 per month child tax credit, even after June. Nice, eh?

So, according to the government, the magic number is £44k.

And if two people earn less than this live together, they need financial support from our tax money, whereas I don’t (I do not take home anywhere £88k, although it would be really nice if I did!).

So there you have it.

Oh, and the coallition government also brought a stealth income tax increase in during this year, meaning someone earning more than £40k pays an additional £100 per month in tax… Because we can obviously afford it.

Where is this money going? I hear you ask.

Better schools? More libraries? Higher paid doctors and nurses? Public infrastructure? Paying the needy or elderly to be able to live better?

Nope.

This money is the debt we inherited because some idiot in the previous government (Brown…) decided it was a good idea to blow your and my money on failing banks. “Good money after bad money.” Interesting decision.

So, fundamentally, I lose £80 per month, Hounslow closes 8 out of 10 libraries (four of which were either just refurbished or rebuilt in the last 12 months!), we lose police, schools lose funding, local communities and charities lose funding, to line the pockets of already rich bankers.

The same bankers who gambled and lost our money in the first place. (Note, they did NOT lose their own money at all – neither the first or the second time, because most high-end bankers pay next to nothing in tax – 20% at most on maybe part of what they earn.)

That’s all.

Screw the working class, the middle earners. Tax them harder, remove their benefits. Let the gambling continue in the markets. (And before anyone self-righteously accuses me of cashing in on the scramble for cash then stabbing those gambling ‘heroes’ in the back when it all fell apart; I did not ever buy any shares, aside from the “option” to buy shares of a company I once worked in which was actually part of the pension scheme.)

And of course hike up the cost of commuting, electricity, gas…

I don’t want to pay for some gamblers to continue to burn our world economy.

Rant over! 🙂

Back to happy self.

Back to rewriting. 😉

Til next time, keep breathing easy,

mE (Em)

Site redesigned, ebooks online…time to get back to writing!

I find myself checking my download count for the three poetry books I have published so far, like an expectant gardener watching his crops turn from seedlings into blossoming fruit.

It is difficult not to feel a shade excited by a ‘good’ day of downloads.  The danger is, of course, that I’ll be down in the dumps after no or low downloads.

More interesting, to me at least, is the fact that I need the feedback of people choosing to download my books to feel better about my writing…or do I?

Truth be told, I have probably spent more time mucking about with my blog (thank you Adam for making it look so good…on Monday this week – I’ve probably already wrecked it by putting up ‘halfway’ decent graphics – sorry man!), checking my download count on Smashwords and generally not doing what I should be – which is rewriting my Killer Application book.

It is way too easy to get distracted.  The procrastinator kicks in and tells me all is well – I still have six months to get it into second draft shape.  Yet that is a goal I set so as not to put too much pressure on myself, an arbitrary goal to say the least.  Yet it is counting down towards me and I have lost a bit of traction on the rewriting.  Not a bad thing – distance may give me a better perspective, yet I feel it is not the right time for perspective.  The danger, of course, is slowing down too much…or is it?

I wonder if all artists, writers, creators feel this way.  Maybe this is a common theme – to keep the pace up while not burning all of the energy at once.  It is a hard balance to strike – between sleep and writing.  Seeing as this is only my ‘hobby’ (until I publish Killer App and start to actually ‘sell’ books instead of give them away), I guess I have to take the balanced view.

Oh to be able to spend all of my time writing – what joy, what excitement, what unbelievable bliss!  I envy you, full-time writers, I really do.  I am sure there are issues with it, but as Terry Pratchett once said, “Writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves.”  It is true.  Nothing I have ever done on my own aside from writing has given me so much joy and satisfaction.

No, this does not count ‘raising children’.  That is not done on your own, even as a single parent like me.  That is done with the child or children – they are as much a part of the ‘raising’ as we parents are.  In fact, I’m pretty sure my daughter raised me as much as I her. 🙂  Thanks Sky!

Anyway, I’ve decided to go away and stop mucking about with my blog, and the store I tried to create, and the ebooks I keep playing around with (oooh oooh ooh, I’ll just waste another three hours placing the new logo my mate Adam created for me for Darker Zeus on my ebooks…and create a new anthology of free stories…NO!  Get back to work!).

Sometimes we have to be the disciplinarian.  I think parenting others (children, people you know, your own parents) is easier than parenting ourselves.

Do they teach classes in ‘parenting yourself’?

Til next time, adios and good luck in all your endeavours!

Em (mE)

richmond cyclist girl

trip in
to london town
making my way
with the crowds.

i got as far
as Paddington
when I met someone
worth talking to,
for a while.

We spoke for moments
long enough to raise interest
when i walked away
saying, ‘have a good day’
dissapointment in her voice
later resonating
deep inside.

I should have taken
at least a number,
i wanted to, but realised
too late, this was just another
opportunity lost.

Maybe someday soon
I’ll see my Richmond cyclist girl
maybe someday she’ll see this poem
and remember me
by the Bagel Factory.

Just wanted to say,
‘Hiya!’ and sorry for not having the
common sense, or guts
to ask for your number
til it was too late.

I hope you had a really good day.

🙂

Potatoe potahto

Recently I was accused
Of some sort of racial slur
In a story I wrote
About gorillas in
Much Like Us.

When I looked again
Re-reading it through someone else’s eyes
Or as close as I could get in my own mind’s eye
I still could not see what they meant
Though I tried as hard as I might.

So I sat
And I thought
About all the pictures people see
About how we all see a different world
Through a myriad of different eyes,
How everything is up to us to define
Decipher, discover, decide
And we are all as infallible as each other.

From the slightest misunderstanding
To religious discourse, to racial hatred and outright war
The whole problem is us humans, desperate to not be alone
Fighting for some real meaning, some vital substance
In this life, on this rock, floating alone through space,
The vacuum that surrounds us.

There is no straight answer,
No all-encompassing truth that we can all happily
Accept, nothing that is so clear cut and true
That we all see it the same way, so we go on
Fighting and arguing, judging and describing
Pidgeon-holing. Reinforcing our own preset world view
Until all that exists in the wonder of reality
Fits within our own ten-second segment of bite-size life,
Allowing us to relax back into comfortable modes of behaviour,
The ruts of common existence and habitual blindness.

When will we all wake up to the pure beauty of clear sight?