The Theatre of Life

Sometimes
I feel like a bad actor 
in a play I thought not to rehearse. 
fudging my lines, 
smudging the plot.
Sometimes  my mind slides to 
a distant place and time
and I forget I'm on stage.
The fans must surely 
perceive I'm a sham.

Sometimes it's like
I've failed an audition
for a part in a thing called The Human Race
and having been banned 
from the theatre of life
                                       due to some kind 
                                        of failure or something I lack 
                                        that no-one explained
                                        and I don't understand
I've broken through the roof 
and am watching the acts
with my back to a grey-blue sky.

                                        Sometimes 
                                        I see evil, destruction,
                                       hunger, need and corruption
                                       and I find myself screaming again and again
                                       Not In My Name
                                       Not In My Name.
                                       At least it was not me
                                      who stole a killers role in the play.

Sometimes I know I am inept with those 
who sprang from my womb 
and I think of the myriad ways 
in which I have failed, yet 
I see 
their wisdom,  insight and grace
and feel forgiven.
I am inept with friends 
yet they see me, understand, love
the why and what of who I am.
Even strangers like 
the incomplete face I display to the world,
so I leap from my peeper's perch,
my alien ship,
to embrace the living earth.

Sometimes I cognise, re-cognise
I belong.
I am real.

©Jane Paterson Basil

In Peace

When my parting breath 
  has exhaled all etchings of pleasure and gain, 
     releasing them to the blind breeze -
         when the milled shards of speckled pain 
           have quit my cooling heart, my leaden limbs, my stale brain -
           when no trace of shame or self remain - 
         build a pyre, pile it high,  
       roll my remains in a reclaimed sheet. 
      Weep if you will. but not for me:
       when you kindle the fire my ashes will fly:
         let them go as, barren, they float away:   
             think only of my freed soul
                  as it traces a trail along a veiled lane 
                    between river and trees 
                  home of our long-gone cloaked roams.
                In the dip where our arms reached,
                there shall I settle, 
                   there shall I lie, 
                           and there, in peace
                                          shall I rest for a while. 
                                                        
                                                   
 ©Jane Paterson Basil

Introducing Joshua

Introducing my beautiful new grandson
Joshua Reuben Galliford
Born 10.27 pm Monday, 28th August
At Southmead Hospital
Birth weight 6lb 12oz (3.62kilo)

Image: Joshua, 18 hours old.

With gratitude to the delivery team at Southmead Hospital. A special thank you to the amazing midwife, Sandy, who delivered him.

I watch,
knowing that which she
can only imagine, yet her agony
does not outreach her anticipation.
Even the searing pain fails
to twist her into anger
or fleeting regret.

As I watch, I remember
the first time I held her,
hoping that her life be joyous –
a hope which she now fulfils.

Sandy is reassuringly calm, but I detect a flicker of urgency as she glances toward the monitor, the instant before she tells Laura to grasp her legs, pull them toward her, and push. The baby needs to emerge very soon.

For an instant,
fear traps our lungs,
but Sandy silently commands
our trust. We exhale and it feels
like the room breathes with us.

Laura is magnificent,
as if she had given birth
a hundred times before.

My chest swells with pride
while I try not to enter the space
that exists between this mother
and her successfully married child.

Tomorrow, she will speak of trauma, not comprehending the strength she showed as her son was expelled from her womb. I will tell her she she was brave. I will say she made it look easy, but she will not believe me.

After a time,
the recollection of pain
will dim, becoming little more
than a tale she tells; an acceptable
paragraph or two
in her unique story.

One last push
and the room explodes with love.
Mother and son are skin to skin.
She holds him, kisses him.
He is beautiful.

She speaks his name, Joshua.
crooning in the soft tone that she used
all those months while he grew inside her.
He turns his head. His blurry eyes
seem to seek and quickly find
the face of his mother.

Birth
is a violent, traumatic act, and yet
within a minute or two of his emergence,
he is contented,enfolded by
my daughter,his mother,
his whole little world.

He recognises her.

When she speaks,
the very sound describes the deepest,
truest love.

In the days that follow,
Laura’s is the only voice
he responds to.

I leave my miraculous Phoenix
smiling softly, watching her long-awaited son
as he suckles at her warm breast.

Didn’t she do well…

While this is about Laura, her husband deserves an honourable mention. Dave is a caring, experienced father who adores his new baby son.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Thanks, everyone!

WARNING! THIS POST MAY CONTAIN STRONG CHEESE!

.

I’d like to thank all the amazing bloggers who have supported my prospective venture into uncharted waters. Some have reblogged the post in which I explained my plan, others have given helpful technical advice, or told me where I can access it. Many have wished me well. I humbly thank you all. Should my new blog succeed, I want you to know that you will all have contributed to its success.

It’s going to take a while to get the blog up and running, as I’ve decided to do a blogging course which Safar at Blisters, Bunions & Blarney thoughtfully directed me to. Although I’ve been blogging for two years, there are a lot of things I don’t understand about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and I’m sure there will be other little details on the course which will be valuable. The course begins this coming Monday, and I expect to start building my blog after the first lesson; it won’t go public until I have all the details straight. A part of me wants to rush into it, but that wouldn’t be wise. It needs to create immediate impact to prevent the risk of it fizzling out. It has to succeed.

Thank you all again.
You have done more than you can know.

I had compassion by the bucketload, but there were a lot of factors lacking in my life.

By liking me, you made me feel likeable.

By trusting me, you taught me to trust again.

By showing your faith in me, you gave me faith in myself,

and with your love, you eradicated my fear of giving out love.

You’ve given me all the tools to succeed

(apart from writing: I’ve got that covered)

Please highlight space between brackets to reveal arrogant secret message.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

If that sounds like some clever little piece of word-weaving-Jane-ishness, I want you to know it’s not. It comes from my heart. I’m a richer, better person for knowing all of you. I love you all.

 ©Jane Paterson Basil

Gifts

In
this
lonely
living room
clocks don’t tick.
Time
pretends
to stand still,
while I pretend
that there is no tock.
Festive
decorations
hang, my lights,
my many glittery bells,
giving the bright impression
that my life, and my family are well.
Tomorrow,
I will find a way
to chase away lost days:
catch up with the relentlessly
shifting, silent clock of turning time.
I will wrap the treats my  family really need,
though few of them are found in humble retail shops.
Here’s a list of all the gifts I want to give: health, happiness,
and
love, love,
love, love,
love, love,
endlessly.

©Jane Paterson Basil

For Laura

I’m seated by the window, watching boredom unfurl,
when you walk down the street, my dear depleted girl.
I focus my eyes on your wasted little frame;
hunt for a clue that something is the same;
a hint of that innocence I used to see;
the essence of your childhood personality;
something I can recognise that hasn’t changed;
a spark within your heart that’s not been rearranged;
a clue that you still attached to this family
in whatever odd way you may wish to be.

your unreachable proximity is baffling to me,
I watch you closely though I know you can’t see.
I’m unsure if in my absence you feel like my daughter;
it pricks me with guilt, makes me feel like a voyeur;
I’m spying like a stranger, an agenda in mind;
to steal away the limited freedom of your kind;
to lock you in my love or in a barred up cage;
ignore your screaming agony, your frothing rage;
strangle all the dealers who knock on the door,
until you finally appreciate what life is for;
when you rediscover a child’s sense of mystery,
and your hunger for drugs recedes into history.

You’ve passed the houses and you’re out of view;
I wish I’d left my flat and caught up with you,
but I know you’re needing something as you’re in a hurry,
and your answers to my questions would make me worry;
I shouldn’t inquire but there’s a limitation
on how many ways to have open conversation,
since you fell into a hole full of chemical highs,
while to everyone’s surprise, your body survived.
There’s so little of you left, but whatever you do
and whatever more you lose, I will always love you.

©Jane Paterson Basil

and we danced

like a giant
you filled my vision
eclipsing the milling mass
blue eyes bigging me to your size
arms unable to wait
and we danced
two giants
so intent on  passion
we didn’t see blurred mortals fall
or feel their bones smash
beneath our feet

The Daily Post #Giant

©Jane Paterson Basil

The lonely man

Having made the decision to dismiss all things related to jiggling passion and doe-eyed romance, she hypnotised her libido into an indifferent torpor.

Months stretched peacefully into years, before a lonely man with physical allure, but dull conversation, approached with an inviting smile, injecting a rippling frisson beneath dry skin;
a tiny itch like the tail of a sting.

The eyes of the lonely man dove deep into the core of her, and with a finger, tickled unwilling, damp fantasies.

His hand(as if by accident), brushed lightly against her thigh, pressing lascivious ideas into wakening flesh.

As weeks went by, each accidental meeting added heat to her unwanted, wanton desire for the relief which he was longing to give.

And he, hungry for love, pitching for her heart, her soul, continued in the only way he knew,
until she, weakened by the ache, gave him the treat of no more than her body.

It would not be true to say she had no heart, for in the moist heat before he undid her buttons and zips, her heart froze at the knowledge that the lonely man with physical allure but no conversation, was undone.

Later, in her melting tower she turned the lock, took a shower, cleansed herself in steam, all the while humming the closing strains of a bawdy song, her demeanor briefly shaken by his desolate scream.

Wrapped in fresh linen, her renewed flesh forever banned from thinking of him, she slept.

The Daily Post #Banned

©Jane Paterson Basil

Those promises

those loving promises
shaped by shy lips
lightly brushing the ear
with caressing sigh
weaving a dry melody

those loving promises
conveyed through eyes
glittering with unfulfilled desire
their fire hidden
behind a tiny fear

those loving promises
pressed into my aquiescant flesh
giving your firm body confidence
finally making you believe
you had won my love

those promises so truly given

I regret that for me
it was merely a pleasant game of
sensuous interplay
ending in physical gratification

it should have mattered
that you were more than a mechanical toy
to be switched on with a click
and quickly discarded

you were so much better than that

did I hear the rip of your heart splitting?
possibly
but I was more interested in the promising blue eyed thing
swinging into view

I smiled at him, never guessing
he was my retribution

The Daily Post #Promises

©Jane Paterson Basil

Hairy legs

comely green eyes gazed into mine
reavealing his deepest desires
eyes that could hold entire conversations
even while the lips dripped drivel

I read the language of those eyes
the plea
please love me, they cried

the promises
I’d scatter flowers for you, build towering castles in your name,
it would be a passionate game of love that only two can play
me and you, side by side, day by day…
we could be a team, I’d buy you icecream, life would be a dream…

you get the scene

and the questions
wouldn’t I like the company, a helpmate, soulmate, best mate,
a man to to rely on, a shoulder to cry on
a warm companion in my bed
why won’t I try
to be half of a duo instead

I smiled at the cliched phrases written in his eyes

I’ll tell you why, I said
I’m not inclined to shave my legs

©Jane Paterson Basil