I'm trying to get around the bit of writing a long blog and then trying to upload it and then it not being there! SO keeping it short and sweet.
The last one for today is details about my new blog that I'm doing every day as a bid to bring creativity and art into my every day. As for the past year, I've let my creativity and practise be pushed to the sidelines, but not any more. I'm taking a stand and giving myself permission to be and to create.
So please chcek out http://everydaycreativitiy.blogspot.com where I attempt to take up the challange thrown down by a dear friend in Austin, Texas, to make a piece of art work each day for 366 days and show it and blog it.
I'm loving the experience. Below is my first entry. For the rest check out at the address above.

While in Can Serrat, I climb a mountain, in more ways than one. We stayed at the base of Montserrat. A beautiful and mesmerizing serrated hunk of the thing. Others that were on the retreat said they were going on a hike, 3 hours to the top, so I went with them.
It wasn't a hike but a climb, vertical rock face, on all fours climb. The soles of my feet, two months later, are still sore. But I climbed it and walked back down and I had a tremendous sense of achievement that day. While at the top of the mountain, there is a monastery there with a Black Virgin. I did not know she would be there so she was a bonus.

Hello I'm back. I was back last week, and did a blog. And then when I went to post it, it disappeared. So I took time out and came back today. As if something is worth doing , it's worth coming back and doing it.
I'm been to Barcelona, for a retreat. Lovely place. Stayed at a place called Can Serrat.

I'm back, return of the Mack! But not for long, as I'm taking a rest from the PhD as I get my life, time and head in order. Got a month away in Barcelona to work on the full collcetion and I'm grabbing the opportunity with both hands.  I wouldn't be able to do this without the support of my family, so I thank them now. I'd like to dedicate the following poem to them.
 

Now

Smell of coconut milk

Plantain from the oven,

early morning haze,

Penetrating.

Breathing as one,

The coppery-coloured couple

arms entwined

their child within.

Rounded, smooth and warm

to the touch.

Naked

Like porcelain.

Midnight jazz

with a hint of cinnamon.

nutmeg vanilla.

Lingering.

I did not make it/ I did not name it/ I did not mould it /

it was already there waiting for me

I am not sure what it should be as it is not of my voice/

nor my hand/ but somehow it is mine

 

there are people buried who are not content to rest in silence/

they haunt me/their words ripple upwards and outwards/

calling to me, calling me back/

to those photo albums stacked neglected/

creased, worn, torn, soiled, sepia and black and white

images of generations, gone with the wind

 

I did not make it/it was already there waiting for me

voices call me into the past/ wanting me to knit their faces

together into some kind of whole/ knitting isn’t my strength/

once I drop a stitch a gap                               is created/

a gap               I try to fill with false memories

 

my great granddad, mother’s mother’s side, why did you come to England?

you left the heart of darkness for this land, where your fire was soon put out.

I feel the texture of your suit/ I recognise your straight back/

the poser without/ your stance/ but the details are fabrications

 

I did not name it/it was already there waiting for me

voices call me back to the land of the hummingbird/

where I smell the fragrant air of immortelle/

see the green green hills touch the sky

 

my father, you left the crown colony

for this land where your blood was poisoned?

I know your style with your hand in your left pocket/

the poser/no hint of a smile/ a performer/ the truth, never known

 

I did not mould it/it was already there waiting for me

voice calling me into the past/ wanting me to gather the lost threads of experiences/

but my hands are shaky and awkward/ the road map of lines

lead down dead ends, roundabouts and detours/ access denied

 

my great granddad, mother’s father’s side,

you left ‘Little England’s’ sugar cane behind for this land where you

spread        your                        seed                    far                     and     wide.

your wood cutters hands, veins like ropes, thumbs flat and discoloured/

I know the grain of your skin/ I sense the width of your nose/

the poser with a pigeon breast/ your longevity a fact/ the finer points a mystery

 

 

I am not sure what is should be/ but it was here waiting for me

I rememory/ I feel the intense heat/

I sleep with red ants/ rise a new/

a different look in my eyes/ a different look from my eyes

 

I know their style is mine/ I know their blood is mine

remembering faces/ names/ dates and histories

is the task in hand to validate my survival/

but the gaps continue to grow as time passes by

but these photographs , soiled, sepia, worn , torn,

creased and black and white, root me/ stay/

I know their fabric/I feel their fabric in my blood

 

I am not sure what is should be/ I know this is not my voice/

I know I did not make it, name it or mould it

but it was there waiting for me/ I know they are mine

They hang in bunches
on vines, cheek to cheek 
each an orb of luminosity                              

barred with claret bands
which scale the skins’
radiant segments,

like glistening rubies
in a jeweller’s window.
Shimmering, solid

globes: think baubles,
 a whizzing cricket ball,
blushing plump ladies,

think sun on horizon.
Glowing and glowing
and not one in any way

distinct from the other
-nothing about them
of individuality. Each
                                                                              
a perfect fulfilment
of perfection. Your,
handy work,

you who tends them
in the hot back room which
breathes in the day’s heat.

You are relaxed here,
tending a piece
of your island at home.

 

 

So the APR has come and gone and I think I got through it well. Just had feedback on the academic side of the PhD as those doing the review were not qualified to discuss my poetry included in the review. Which was very disappointing. But pushing that aside, the feedback and direction I received was most welcome and beneficial. But all it ever does if flag up the amount of reading and writing that I am doing and what I am not doing.
After receiving a really good new supervisor in October, my focus has changed once again and it just makes me feel as if I have to start all over again in the PhD academic side. So I'm redrafting the first chapter for this new supervisor, and I think I've lost momentum. I need to keep touching it everyday but everyday is filled with other things, work wise. So I have to resolve to find a better work/life balance. A better life/PhD balance. As come Sept, I will be entering the second half of my second year, my god. Isn't the second year, when things start falling into place and I'm rolling along, clocking up the chapters, clocking up the readings, at all times having an idea of the whole. Or am I living in fantasy land, and should stop putting more pressure on my self with the second year. relax and enjoy, relax and enjoy, relax and enjoy. Feel all so more relaxed already.

It's that time again. It just gets quicker and quicker for the time it takes to get around to that period when I have to verbally and in writing defend the Phd work that I'm doing and where it is going. And to be honest, it hasn't been going anywhere fast due to other commitments which are a necessity to pay the rent. I know I've probably said it before but I work all the hours to pay for a PhD that I haven't got the time to concentrate on. I have a period when I'm on task and I have to get on my own case ,as I think if I gave the writing and reading more time, this work would be so good. There is the potential for the work to be so good, and all that is needed is that little ingredient called time. Where to get it from?

Plan it. I've got to become more disciplined and plan for the reading and writing I will need to make this PhD the best it can be. And if that means I'm going to have to let go of some commitments, maybe say no more times , then so be it. As I'm not doing this PhD for the title. Hey I'm calling myself the 'Dr' now. No I'm doing this as it will open up so many avenues for me, so many more options. Okay it might be difficult to assess these options due to one thing or another, woman and black comes to mind. But I'm not going to give up trying. I've got to get my priorities right and I'm starting this week, by taking time out of work to go and find a quiet place to write the documents that have to be in for the annual review panel. Otherwise I will be making time available in the future for nothing, as I won't have  PhD to work on.

Swan Song

 

It is a last minute, beg, steal or borrow, flight deal.

Her long dead husband’s sister invites her for a month.

She flies out the next week to Las Vegas,

loses her luggage en route, arriving into the hot dry state

with one pair of clean knickers

and no blood pressure tablets.

A shopping spree is needed,

along with some late nights on the strip.

She’s punching dimes into the one-armed bandits

and throwing chips across the green velvet tables,

hearing ice clink against the glass

as she savours another brandy and Baby Cham.

 

No one hears from her in a week.

They call the house, the other house,

the sister, the other sister.

Thoughts cross their mind of a hospital,

a car accident, off the dusty, windy track,

after a late night drinking session in a saloon,

bearing in mind, she has no licence.

 

After 7 days, she gets back in touch, calls

to say that she just popped down to Mexico.
They imagine her chauffeured across the border,

sombrero protecting her delicate pinky beige scalp,

sporting a white t-shirt with “Amo México”

splayed across her ample chest.

Her arms are waving above her head

and her head is back, way back,

eyes closed, feeling the sun on her face

and her mouth is wide open as she laughs

as she’s never laughed before, abandoning

herself to the moment.

 

The days are counting down till when I make that return journey to trini. I've never been there before, I've only heard about it, bits from my dad and bits from the papers. Bits from literature I've sought out for that information. The crime rate is on the increase in trini. Foreigners are advised not to travel there. But it could be my 'home'? Would you stop trying to get 'home'?

Where do you come from?
asks the stranger by the ocean,
who stops and looks me full in the face,
all past activities of gathering blossom forgotten.

I open my mouth to reply but all there is,
is a gargoyle glare as my tongue sticks
in a groove and words lodge in my throat.

Where do you come from?
a second time the stranger asks
and the greatest difficulty I experience
is that I often can not remember
who I am and what I am about in my life
when I am not by the ocean.

I am so far away from everything I have known
that I do not know myself - with the turquoise
layered water, and the purple blue mountains,
and the red red clay coating my skin -
brings the old world into the new world,
and the new world into another world.

From time to time, I lose a sense of who I am,
what I think of myself to be,
what I know myself to be, my own true self.

That what I am about to say,
what I have in mind to say,
what I have planned for more than
a lifetime to say is still a mystery to me.

Where do you come from?
I close my mouth, and walk on
where there is no path.