Ode to coleridge

 Friend of the Wise ! and Teacher of the Good !

Into my heart have I received that Lay
More than historic, that prophetic Lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up
Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to the understanding mind
Revealable ; and what within the mind
By vital breathings secret as the soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words !--

Theme hard as high !
Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),
Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner Power ; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received
The light reflected, as a light bestowed--
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills !
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising ; or by secret mountain-streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way !

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense
Distending wide, and man beloved as man,
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating
Like some becalméd bark beneath the burst
Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud
Is visible, or shadow on the main.
For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded,
Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,
Amid the mighty nation jubilant,
When from the general heart of human kind
Hope sprang forth like a full-born Diety !
--Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure
From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self,
With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
Far on--herself a glory to behold,
The Angel of the vision ! Then (last strain)
Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice,
Action and Joy !--An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chaunted !

O great Bard !
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence ! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linkéd lay of Truth,
Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes !
Ah ! as I listened with a heart forlorn,
The pulses of my being beat anew :
And even as Life returns upon the drowned,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains--
Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ;
And Fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of Hope ;
And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear ;
Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain,
And Genius given, and Knowledge won in vain ;
And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out--but flowers
Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave !

That way no more ! and ill beseems it me,
Who came a welcomer in herald's guise,
Singing of Glory, and Futurity,
To wander back on such unhealthful road,
Plucking the poisons of self-harm ! And ill
Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
Strew'd before thy advancing !

Nor do thou,
Sage Bard ! impair the memory of that hour
Of thy communion with my nobler mind
By pity or grief, already felt too long !
Nor let my words import more blame than needs.
The tumult rose and ceased : for Peace is nigh
Where Wisdom's voice has found a listening heart.
Amid the howl of more than wintry storms,
The Halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours
Already on the wing.

Eve following eve,
Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest ! moments for their own sake hailed
And more desired, more precious, for thy song,
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive, by thy various strain
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
With momentary stars of my own birth,
Fair constellated foam, still darting off
Into the darkness ; now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.

And when--O Friend ! my comforter and guide !
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength !--
Thy long sustainéd Song finally closed,
And thy deep voice had ceased--yet thou thyself
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
That happy vision of belovéd faces--
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it ? or aspiration ? or resolve ?)
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound--
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

Sorry not sorry

 Only you didn’t forgive me for leaving you in the dust.  Only you couldn’t accept that so you came for me. Not just you even I didn’t know back then just who you were connected to. The Freemasons the government the cops and a whole network you were in bed with quite literally. I left you because I realised you had a sex addiction that got worse by the week. You were literally the other half of my soul yet you decided to make me your enemy and tried every which way to erase my soul from this earth. The thing is you really should have tried to find out who I was and the rank I hold in the spirit realm. You should have done your homework before coming for me.  I don’t know all the details of who what why and when because if I had I would’ve sued you all to the hilt. Luckily the God that I serve keeps me close and will always give me back whatever was stolen from me. I won’t be quiet til the whole world knows what you all did to me. I can only thankyou all really because all you did made my faith absolutely unbreakable. I also know that anything that happened to any of you was between you and my God…

favourite books of 2012

Toast – Nigel Slater
It is thanks to routing through other peoples shelves that I ended up reading a book that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise and really loved. The book in question was ‘Toast’ by Nigel Slater which had initially piqued my interest after the adaptation on the television which i recorded and then completely forgot to watch. I then forgot about how much I wanted to read the book (see that self hype thing again)… until I was having a nosey and my eyes happened to fall upon it and so I picked it up and absolutely loved it.

All I knew of Nigel Slater before I picked up ‘Toast’ was that he was a rather well known chef whose recipe books seem to be in every single member of my families houses. I’ve never watched his TV shows and really never been that interested in cookery books, other than maybe Nigella, though I like cooking. ‘Toast’ is Nigel Slater’s memories of childhood into adulthood all told through food. I imagined this might be recipes but I was wrong as in fact it’s snippets of memories with titles like ‘Christmas Cake, ‘The Hostess Trolley’ and ‘Peach Melba’ (which I had forgotten once existed and instantly wanted) each with its own memories attached.

‘Toast’ really is quite a collection of memories as Nigel didn’t have the easiest or happiest of childhoods. His mother had health issues, his father wasn’t the most comforting or friendly of role models and of course there is the cleaner Mrs Poole who soon became the bane of Nigel’s life. It’s never a misery memoir though some of the book is very emotional it also often leaves you in hysterics. In some ways because of the humour I was reminded of Augusten Burroughs, only in this book the addictions are cook books and ingredients rather than drugs, the other thing that reminded me of Augusten Burroughs was the way slowly but surely Slater writes about his being gay, how he noticed it and coped with it in the 60’s and 70’s which again makes for a very heart felt and honest book.

I knew I was going to be rather smitten with this book when I read the line in ‘Toast 1’ where Nigel writes ‘It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you.’ He is talking about his mother and how when they make it in just the right way you are ‘putty in their hands’. People who arrive as the book progresses are each almost given a flavour in addiction to their character and this works wonderfully. It also really evokes atmosphere and underlying tensions such as when he helps his Mum make the, at the time, novel delicacy of spaghetti for his father which none of them have tried and as soon as they add the parmesan ‘this cheese smells like sick’ is deemed as ‘off’ and its never talked of or mentioned again.

I loved Nigel Slater’s writing, it never felt pretentious or woe is me or anything other than a down to earth account of his childhood filled with both happiness and sadness. It’s a ‘real’ memoir if you know what I mean, there are dramas and trials but they are never melodramatic. I decided Nigel Slater and I would be firm friends when he discussed ‘Butterscotch Angel Delight’ my all time favourite too. This is someone who hasn’t had the easiest start in life who rather than complain about it looks back at it fondly and asks the reader to join in and do so too. This is one of my favourite books of the year so far. 10/10

book reviews 2012..

The Murders in the Rue Morgue – Edgar Allan Poe ..

To say that I was disappointed or underwhelmed by ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ by Edgar Allan Poe would be some what of an understatement, but stay with me as I can see why it should be read. I have always wanted to get my mitts on a copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of Dupin, who is pretty much the first detective in fiction (though I am sure there are others), because I had heard that it is these tales that gave inspiration to the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie who are seen as the great masters of detective fiction in modern times, and who also happen to be two of my favourite authors. I therefore thought that I was going to love this collection.

The collection starts with the title story. From reading the first page or two I found myself thinking ‘this is going to be hard work’ as a whole three paragraph free pages about analysis of people and I think (and I say that because I was so confused, but simply could not force myself to read it again) Dupin who is the great detective that we come to learn so much more about through his accidental side kick (you can see it almost exactly retold in ‘A Study in Scarlet’ the first Holmes novel), as the pages then go on finally we get to the murder. In all of the tales of Dupin that deal with murder, for some don’t, all I can say is that nothing quite competes with the title story which is a shame as it’s the first one so everything sort of goes downhill from there.

I did find the ‘The Mystery of Marie Roget’ quite interesting as it is based on a true tale, so whilst its not as far fetched as the tale before it insightful as to how people looked at murder in the 1840’s, or sort of didn’t in a way. That brings me to the subject of when the book was written because as I mentioned this collection is seen as the start of the genre of detective fiction, which is why I was so annoyed that it read like both an instruction manual for detection and also like a deconstruction of the whole genre. In fact because so much I have read is based on this book it started to read like a lit crit book of this whole subject and I just couldn’t work with it.

You might be sat there thinking ‘but why is she not telling me about the stories in this collections. Well in truth it’s because there aren’t many. It’s much more about showing how clever Dupin, and therefore Allan Poe, is at solving a mystery and therefore things like character traits, back stories and the very atmosphere of Paris falls by the wayside and so sadly I felt disappointed in every tale. It seemed to me that ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ sadly failed for me because of its credentials. It might be the first of a genre which is now huge and I respect it for that, the thing is people read it then built on it and made something better. I’d recommend this for anyone studying the genre, not for those who want fantastic mysteries, stick to Sherlock if that’s the case but do remember who inspired those tales. 4/10

I do value the novel but I think I would rather have read about it in a section of Kate Summerscale’s rather wonderful ‘The Suspicions of Mr Whicher’ or an essay about it rather than fictions which read like rather patronising essays and a how-to-write crime guide.

from an old song i loved...

i believed in what you said

i trusted in your summer and so now

the leaves are all turning red and brown

and they will soon be coming down

how can i possibly go on hope is what keeps me alive

and now im so uncertain.......

at night i look for a reason why

i never see any shooting stars at night

just like a sure sign that everythings alright

just to quiet me.......

the more i try and look for you

the more i fail to find the truth

let me follow every road with you

or i will take the long way home......

just me part 2

so my dog went and we moved. we were buying a shoeshop and a semi large flat above in town.

we were there six months my mum and dad argued all the time we were there my dad didnt want to move nor did i. but she had her way she could manipulate and she was controlling all those dysfunctional qualities..

i can relate to them.six months had passed and my dad left her for another woman who for some reason despised me a cold lady with no children of her own. she made him never see me again in the end....heartbroken.

anyway my 13th year one ill never forget. my mother decided to tell me on the way home from somewhere

cool as a cucumber she said of course you know youre dad isnt youre real dad?

what the heck..NO i did not i was a kid who was going to tell me something as big as that....more heartbreak as i found out my real dad had abandoned me just before i was one....i never found out much about him the family were very hush about him i dont know why. he was an sas soldier a cold hearted desserter who never wanted children and never has looked for me even till this day. i dont exist to him....

by now i was more than misstrustful of people and could not accept permanence in my life and i was so wounded but i had an inner formiddable spirit still have i can blank things out very easily beacause then you dont feel any pain..i felt very lonely never got too close to anyone they were gona leave anyway right?

i felt worthless unloved and half a person my real dad was the other half of the jigsaw.

but i got through school and college still bullied badly but rolled with the punches. but i started my catering career and i skipped in to the party scene it was full of fake people i could ride with, they only cared about having a laugh and mostly emotional detachment. they were fake..but i rolled with them and i put up with the double standards i had zilch confidence and they almost made me feel stronger somehow.i gave n gave to these people when all they did was hurt me and shit on me but i would take it i didnt want to be rejected *again* my old friends rejected me for going off with these party people i had noone...these people had bigger issues than i and i would always try n help them unable to help myself somehow.

i never grew from these people at all. i didnt learn how to relate from these people they just wanted to get drunk and have a laugh..but i got older and wiser and learnt to help my self a little more over the years in between trying to deal with my emotions and issues of my past. i started writing poetry from the day my dad left. my poem sweet sundays were of the few times we shared a sunday together with other cousins n so forth until his ladyfriend put a stop to any contact. and writing helped me come to terms with many things in the end..i mean i try to relate the best as i can but im not good at that stuff. things come out wrong and im learning to be more open nowadays..problems shared and all that im slowly more self assured yeah ive been through hell but i get stronger every day and i know people had worse upbringings than mine..

my mum set high standards that were not only hard but impossicle my dad also. to the point of unbearable pain when youd dissaapoint..but you meet some special people in youre lifetime along the way that you nearly die inside when you hurt them and let them down because you didnt have the maturity and emotional strength at that time to deal with things and that pain is pain enough..i guess i learnt from my mum that i was worthless and complicated and from my dad to expect perfection and impossible standards from others.

to the point where theyd let me down because they were impossible expectations and to the point i let them down because i couldnt relate properly.i spent the whole of last year until now making those vital changes i grew up and got out of my head and into my heart to see people as they truly were i was extremely idealistic.

i had to deal with my issues for my own sanity and its easy to ignore them and carry on like everythings fine.

when you know deep down its not.when you go from one broken relationship to another i had a few.craving needing love but unable to give and show it properly..and putting up with some terrible stuff because you have low self esteem and zilch confidence, because of a fear of rejection. you realise the only thing that ties you is toxic its manipulation and a fear of abandonment....on top of all the other stuff bubbling away underneath. so there it is the raw version its 2 in the morning so i dare say theres the odd typo,forgive.

this year i learnt that the only way to be truly happy is to embrace your fears and deal with old emotions and stop resisting change.....i read someones blog for the 1st time earlier i was about to go to bed it brought me to tears and hurt my heart,,i wanted to show people more of me and why im a little aloof and detached and have a side of me tht needs time on my own,sometimes...it can take years to peel away the years and years of dysfunction. but in doing so you get to actually find the real you and learn to love you like everyone else didnt...

just me part 1

i grew up in a busy quite large pub on a busy high street. 11 years of mixed and very jumbled up memories.my mum and dad and myself and my infamous dog,my springer spaniel. every one knew me and my dog giggle we were inseperable...my dad was a very hardworking kind man a true leader not a follower.trustworthy and almost victorian in his strictness but he was my dad and i adored him he wanted only the best for me. he strived to give my mum and i the best things in life. and he could be soft but he was no pushover.he could be fiery at a moments notice but never violent.he was too kindhearted for that.i remember a smack or two.and then there was my mother a then very beautiful well dressed outwardly confident ardent socialite and who was also the local head chairlady for some big hoo haa well to do ladies charity of kent she had the big chains like the mayor. a big boss and bossy lady who was addicted to shopping and galavanting and we lived 20 minutes from london. she shopped alot in the best shops even the food malls with her it was all about appearences and such. i was not spoilt but i had beautiful clothes and sometimes the latest toy but not always.you could say we had quite an enviable lifestyle 5 star holidays and daytrips and big parties n such. to the out side just a normal family.

but on the inside it was nt like that. it was a different story.if my dad wasnt working hard he wasnever really home.he would dash to the cash n carry and  he had family in the east end of london his parents were quite old then.he was an east end boy who infact drank in the same pub as the krays in the old days of his youth.i adored him and he adored me. he set me up in life with extremely high expectations i mean like seriously high.

he sent me to private school and made my life like a fairytale. high standards that dont even exist in this life anymore. hed tell me that one day a powerful prince would rescue me from the tower of this life and only a prince would do. a prince who would live by the same standards as him?and they were higher than high. he was such a powerful man and driven and almost hate to say it but perfect in every princely way except for his rare temper and fieryness. he instilled in me my search for truth in this life and justice for humanity and a love of animals and helping others. some pretty altruistic traits. and to always love my individuality.

my mother tho was very different. she was a very hard person emotionally and even her character and persona still is.she is polish as is her mother and they are very hard women....she never really was home either and when she was never really wanted anything to do with me. there was no real love or affection. my earliest horror memory goes back to about 3 years old, she would sit by me on the sofa while i was happily watching a cartoon hence my love of cartoons and she would look at me and say *i dont love you* and i was a sweet kid but born with an extremely deep sensitivity. i would burst into tears. she did that alot over the years...then she would walk out the room and do whatever she did and leave me upset.

she was unemotional and if you showed any emotion she would chastise you and tell you to pull yourself together. that is why my emotions are so turbulent i would say and erratic and everythingelse they are she wouldnt relate to me but her mother was the same she came from an extremely dysfunctional family. abuse alcoholism etc etc. so to her i was just an accessory she would throw on n off depending what her plans were tht week. so in turn i couldnt relate to her or others. over the years i found my sense of humour because every one likes the funny kid right...but the longer you get to know people they realise something is different about you and then theyd go off and find other friends.

but when i was 3 my father bought me a dog my bestest friend in the whole wide world.. i use to sing to her and chat because she would lay on me and listen to my woes and my chatter. no judgement just big brown soppy loving eyes...she was the best friend i ever had in my life. i was bullied alot and i could always run to her and shed listen. anyway when i was 10 and a half my mum told me we were moving to hereford and my dog had to go away to a farm.....heartbroken..