Louise, The Dogs And The Words

I'm mental me. No literally I have health anxiety A mental illness you can't see That upsets my life regularly Minor symptom - a catastrophe! Worst scenario - all I see A fear that trample over me Takes away all rationality And leaves me looking desperately For help unnecessarily I wish I saw what you all see And could breathe and step back sensibly I wish it came more easily Oh stupid health anxiety I wish I wasn't mental me

I am sat A crippling fear Bubbling Below the surface Threatening To break through I breathe Desperately trying To calm myself With distraction Rationalisation And hope Always hope

I slept well last night. For the first time in ages. A long hard sleep. I think, perhaps, I slept too long because I've spent all day half asleep. All day I've been in that place where I'm not quite awake, my head in a fuzz, easily disrtacted and desperate to go back to dream land. In this place somewhere between awake and asleep some of the best stories lie. If I can find them. Some days I half-wake from slumber to a mind full of stories and poems as though the dreams have hitched a lift back to reality. Today is not one of those days. Instead I've walked the dogs, pottered around the house and now I'm sat. Trying to get those synapses to give me something of value. Instead they're saying "nah let's Google Rory McCann pictures or get in an infinite Greg Davies outtakes Youtube loop instead." I have no motivation. That is my curse. I try not to be lazy but I am terrible at getting myself motivated.  I work well to close panicked deadlines. If...

It's national poetry day so I thought I'd honour my least favourite form of poetry, the haiku. I'm not sure why I dislike it so much, it's perhaps something to do with how short they are. They're also quite restrictive: one line of 5 syllables, one of 7 then another of 5. I prefer to be able to use lots of words. I also believe poems are best when they rhyme (which is probably why I'll never be taken seriously in poetry circles).  Despite my dislike of them I always think it's good to do something you don't enjoy every now and then. That's how I've recently started to enjoy eating eggs and cucumber after years of insisting I don't like them. So here is today's Haiku which also serves as a guide as to how to write one: Take a sentence of Seventeen syllables and Dissect them like this

This evening I've been writing a selection of poems in honour of some of my favourite theorists (what do you mean you don't have a favourite theorist?!). They're as yet untitled, I think the last one is my favourite. Enjoy!  Sun Tzu can tell you How best to win at war Know your enemy, know yourself Only fight if victory’s assured Maslow's good at ranking things Very good indeed Ranking things in order Is all that Maslow needs Have you seen my mate Schroedinger? He's not a fan of cats He likes to stick them in a box And cats do not like that Occam lost his razor He sat and had a think Where did I have it last? he thought He found it by the sink