The Big City

I know I don’t write a blog about poetry. I don’t know anything about poetry plus I don’t know how to write about it plus if you change the subject of your blog the reader becomes frustrated like finding sugar in their omelette. So, Sorry about that. First it was fiction, now quoting poetry.

Mairéad Byrne doesn’t have an RSS feed so you have to keep going back to see if she’s done anything new yet. Her writing style is so infectious that if you do keep doing that, like I have been, you find that all your thoughts start expressing themselves in her voice. I quite enjoy this although I wonder whether it’s a bit insincere. It happened visually when I was reading a lot of Daniel Clowes comics (before he was a star) but usually only when I was on buses. Once, in Camberwell (good we’re back to London) the whole other top deck looked like they’d been drawn by him.

Anyway, check this out, I think it’s hilarious, and more.

Heaven
I was finding it a bit tedious climbing the stairs so I decided to up the ante. First: Wash the stairs. Next: Lay squares of paper towel down. Then: Move up & down the stairs landing only on the squares of paper towel. Rationale: My slippers tend to leave marks on the wet steps. Effect: Increased difficulty climbing stairs, which action now requires tri-partite effort a) almost vertical hoisting of the legs, with b) frantic whole-body follow-through, propelled by c) pumping action of right arm against banister; with d) descent involving a domino-effect toppling, always in danger of skidding off the paper towel & the step, always in danger of plunging straight down the stairwell like a bucket in a well. Going up & down the stairs is much harder than before, & also much more unusual. Going up is more like ice-climbing. Coming down is more like bungee-jumping. I have started going around the whole house like this. I have put squares of paper towel down in all the rooms & halls so that I can lurch around like Frankenstein, having close encounters with the floors & walls. The house has shrunk & I have grown huge, like a monstrous erection, mindless yet programmed to seek. Full report to follow.