Week To View


Monday

Cat mewing round legs,
kettle building up to boil.
This morning is a cold
grey April morning,
Sun 92.5 million miles away
& the Andrea Palladio designs
framed on the kitchen wall,
are perfect symmetry. Dear
diary, what would I do
without your 100%
recycled paper fibers
(ten per cent post-consumer)?
You make every day
simpler, happier, stylish
and more FUN.
Heart disease wears a skirt too.
Risk factors include succumbing
to the siren call of Hollywood
and making provocative
and emotionally powerful films.
The Independent Guide
to the Sun talks about
endings and happenings
in a remote future. Most
of the world's surface
is covered by sea. Diary,
so what? The labyrinth
has many entrances,
and tomorrow
may be one of them.
 


Tuesday

Hauled a bike onto a train
in the ever-living hope
that tracks would turn up.
She disappeared just as suddenly
as she appeared, confirming
that the first unsettling encounter
was beginning of a long
journey. Note to myself:
enthusiasms may be sparked off
by just such chance encounters
as this book may supply.
Grabbed a meal deal
at the Pumpkin Shop
and wandered through
the city. It was all so
Dutch - bungalows, courage -
the clocks were  very striking.
Later, at a cafe in the square
with trees, the evening brought
bats that steer by radar.
What's the world like for them?
My room has cotton robes,
air-conditioning, and
a silver lamp, whose lit circle
is the centre of the known world
and boasts the discovery of writing:
an art describing polished shoes
with no-one else's feet in them,
a fat, smiling buddha
on a little table, a train ticket.
 


 Wednesday

Throughout our childhoods
Louise had been slimmer
than me, and I always felt like
the chubby friend. Wanted to
sleep in this morning, but
I'm still on european time.
A request for assistance
and support. Are we
any closer to a solution?
See para 1. (Penalty Charges)
Lunchtime, wandered into town.
The girls walked by
in their summer clothes,
mechanics at Brittania Motors
shouted over Radio One
a poster advertised
"a rip-roaring risque
endeavour filled to the brim
with innuendo". Today's
achievements: dwelt in
the primary sources,
imagined an epitaph
and recited it. Decided
not to enter the Tour de France.
I'm going to have acupuncture
on my knee. Maybe eventually
I can rejuvenate my entire anatomy.
Thank god for duvets!
home of sleep, the kindest
of all the body's journeys
 


Thursday

River high and fast.
There were wavelets
and sun. A day
of possibility. Plan:
end this incidental exuberance
and overcapacity for fun:
it's what's expected of us.
Take up sauntering.
"I came, I saw, I conkered".
I wrote the phrase
'spared our blushes'
but it was too late.
Strolled along the Trent,
near Clifton Grove,
("the world seemed young")
and later drove down
Chilwell High Road.
Day mild, sky pale
but trying its best
to enliven the take-aways
and charity shops.
Marches and demonstrations,
are peaceful explosions
of common feeling,
but we sat in the garden
drinking tea and asked
whether we did these things,
or whether the poem
had brought into being
a parallel existence.
 


Friday

Today was a "comic
and ferocious gathering"
requiring a logo, coffee
at convenient times
and powerpoint. From every
compass point they came.
To the hypothetical reader
this book wouldn't be much help.
Note for tomorrow: "the lack of
any context or positioning
against a backdrop of
contemporary poetics, society
and philosophies..." (I'm
boring myself now).
Suitcases on wheels were
an epoch-making invention.
Collective action might be
the answer. But to what question?
Lunch with M. was · wistful.
Then took an escalator
to the Golden Age Centre.
Just remembered how
the sound of a violin
from the theatre cafe
turned the world into a dream.
That insect repellant
really worked!! Cup of tea
waiting emptily. Better drink it.
The three cellists on the bridge
were something else.
 


Saturday

Today, she "passed away".
i.e. she'll never speak,
write, think, be bossy,
praise my efforts or
love with the body entire
again. To write these things
down, is to show awareness
just as Fair Trade suppliers
strive be aware of exploitation
and strive to improve the welfare
of the workers ("no wonder
they taste so good").
Conscience doth make
cowards of us all.
Terms and conditions apply.
What am I doing this for?
Called Adam Crosby.
Depot Hill x 2.
9.50 saw Doctor Threllfall,
It took that train crash
to make me see how
selfish I'd become.
I leave the house
as Mrs Angry-Pants
and come back
a different person.
Somewhere today,
I stopped and listened
to my breathing
and waited for sleep.
 


Sunday

No perspective is offered
here. Reflections on today:
the body is no more or
less than the mind.
Tea in the garden
watching an orb spider
demonstrating pure
mindfulness, awareness
of self, leading to
obliteration of self (one might
say). I sent messages
to myself, that is,
to you. I haven't switched
energy providers,
I could be saving myself
up to 270 pounds a year.
Many struggle
to understand their bills.
It's getting late,
and having fun
was never on the agenda,
unless it's dream-fun.
Silence is the leaves
rustling. Darkness
is freedom. I myself
am a hypothetical stranger.
"I've always been
so much older than I am,
even when I was
younger" she said.


     © Alan Baker 2012