A poem by me...

 

Microcosm

in the cupboard under the sink where

we keep an assortment of plastic containers and lids

we find a silverfish swimming

in an empty box – later

I read they are commonly found

in kitchens and libraries and often eat

the glue in book bindings

in the polytunnel on the farm where

we shelter from rain and eat lunch off a wooden pallet

we find butterfly wings and the dried body

of a dragonfly – finishing

our food we use the box that

had the cashew nuts in

to carry our specimens back home

in the car singing silly songs where

we are happy and dry and chat about the orchard

we find a spider crawling upside down

above our heads – capturing

it in an old bottle we let down

the window and tip

the creature onto the road

in the days that follow after where

we spend brief moments discussing the mini episodes

we find time drifts along peacefully and

everything moves on – strangely

I cannot forget about these three

chance encounters but

find it difficult to say why

Writer's Block

Writer’s Block?

•  Is not a high-rise building where struggling authors reside.
• Is not an aid placed under tired arms in order to support the scribbling hands of inspired poets.
• Is not what you knock off when a journalist prints something inflammatory about you.
• Is not worn underneath the shoe of an essayist who has one leg shorter than the other.
• Is not a game.
• Is not the autobiography of the world’s worst constipation sufferer.

So what is it?

Well according to Wikipedia it is ‘…a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work.’

Q. How do you know if you’ve got it?

A. You can’t write anything.

Solution?

In the pre-techno days, before the internet, some writer’s committed suicide, though this is not recommended, others simply stopped writing, which in most cases was a great relief to the general populace.

 In one instance, a certain, Edward Thornton, the reputed scribe of such works as ‘The Case of the Missing Link’ and ‘Bell End Manor’ took a boat to India, wandered the streets as a beggar and lived out his days in a cave in the Himalayas. Where, according to various sources, he managed to produce one last line of script.

It read ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ Many mystics have pondered the meaning of this phrase and of course it lead to the invention of the punchline, ‘To get to the other side.’ Perhaps a profound reminder once again that less is more.

These days of course all one needs do is type ‘writer's block’ into a search engine and myriad remedies appear. Below are my favourite five suggestions to beat it.

Five Ways To Beat Writer's Block

Remember, We Die. "Memento Mori". Make it your mantra. Scribble it on a post it note and stick it on your monitor. Whatever seriousness you think has you in its grasp, like dust, will soon enough be carried by winds into infinity. We are small, and what lies beyond is infinite. Use this as an anchor to the present whenever you are taking yourself too seriously, and as a strategy to connect you into the spiritual realm beyond this existence. That realm being, ironically, filled with the very components that inspire us to ever write at all.

·  Find God. Whether or not you believe in God, it may be time to pray to that higher power.

DETACH YOURSELF FROM THE OUTCOME

5. Eat a book. This is only to be done as a last resort, because it’s irrational, unhealthy, and completely and utterly useless. But it sure will make you sound cool when you talk about it at parties. And by cool, we mean deranged and digestively challenged. YUM. Now get to chewin'.

Revive Dead Ballpoint Pens with a Lighter

If you ever have a pen that just won't write, a bit of heat can get it working good as new again.
Oftentimes, that "dead" pen isn't dead at all, just a little clogged up—usually with dry ink. By holding the tip of it to a lighter for just a few seconds, you can melt the ink on the ball and bring the pen back to life. Alternatively, if you don't have a lighter around, some hot or boiling water should do the trick too.

NB. This last one isn’t a known cure for writer’s block but I think it could be, if your block is due to your pen not working.

And finally, just be thankful...

It's never the end...

Is Less More? or Further Explorations of the Minutiae*

In Primo Levi’s book ‘The Periodic Table’ a series of short stories inspired by the chemical elements, there is a story called Carbon. In it he recounts the journey of a carbon atom as it flows from one existence into another.

I therefore procured a copy from the reserve section of the local library, in order to re-read it.

This story made a great impression on me when I first read it because of its beautifully succinct and profound ending, and now once again I am moved by it, for its clear message of interconnectedness and impermanence.

In an attempt to capture the story’s essence, I have here, briefly recounted the atom’s odyssey.

Limestone struck from the rock-face by pickaxe enters a kiln is roasted and becomes part of the air. It is inhaled by a falcon, expelled and travels with the wind. Then it joins the leaf of a vine, enters the sap, the fruit and is turned into wine. From here it is drunk and remains inside the human being who swallowed it until being breathed out. Transported again by wind it comes to rest in the structure of a Cedar tree. Eaten by a woodworm and transformed into part of the insect’s used carapace, it falls to the forest floor and decomposes back to gas form. Eventually, after a number of years, it finds itself in a glass of milk, which is consumed by the story’s writer. Finally, through the author’s bloodstream, it is absorbed into a nerve cell in the writer’s brain, where it is engaged in the creation of this very story, and

‘…guides this hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one.’

Primo Levi, The Periodic Table, 1985

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• All the carbon in the universe was made inside stars
• A diamond is made of pure carbon
• So is graphite
• Most drawing pencils contain graphite not lead
• A pencil will write in zero gravity, upside down, and under water!

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Diamond and graphite are two allotropes of carbon: pure forms of the same element that differ in structure.

* small, precise, or trifling details