Country of My Skull

Life is hard for me these days and it’s difficult not to want to give up. I never thought working for yourself would be this tough. People say to me “but what did you expect?” and all I can say is “I don’t know, but surely not this?” There is nothing heroic about it at all and I wish I could believe in happy endings but God only knows what the future holds.

My take on the Eric Miyeni style of poetry ...

I love your smile baby

I love your smile baby
I think it’s beautiful
I know I haven’t told you so
And I don’t need to
I really don’t need to

I would give you a flower

I thought my blog had died and that it was the end of an era and time to find new pursuits, but I’m glad it’s back and I will recommit to writing more and getting out of this funk I find myself in. Anyway I saw this on Charlie Mackesy’s facebook profile and thought it was awesome …

There is still something to me almost incredible in the idea of a young Galilean peasant imagining that he could bear on his own shoulders the burden of the entire world; all that had already been done and suffered, and all that was yet to be done and suffered: the sins of Nero, of Caesar Borgia, of Alexander VI., and of him who was Emperor of Rome and Priest of the Sun: the sufferings of those whose names are legion and whose dwelling is among the tombs: oppressed nationalities, factory children, thieves, people in prison, outcasts, those who are dumb under oppression and whose silence is heard only of God;

I see all these girls

After reading richardct’s update on his life (congrats on your Phd btw!), I felt sufficiently motivated to post my own update as to how things have been going for me 1 year and 12 days since my return to South Africa.

I still love being back. The scenery here is just too much to take in and I feel so spoiled getting into my car and heading off to any number of beaches. That makes me happy. What doesn’t make me happy is that I’m still not as integrated as I’d like to be. Initially, I was so preoccupied with finding something to do I resisted getting involved with anything because I didn’t want to lose focus, and now that I have something to do, I have no time for anything else. That just kills me.

Last week Carol Ann Duffy was appointed as the UK's first female Poet Laureate since the tradition began. I've posted a couple of her poems on my blog before, but just in case you need to be reminded about how great this woman is, read this ...

The Words Of Poems

The words of poems are nails which tack the wind to a page, so that the gone hour when your kite pulled you over the field blows in your hair.

A friend of mine posted this link to an article written by A.N. Wilson, who is a columnist for London's Evening Standard if I remember correctly. It's definitely worth a read.

Why I believe againC.S. Lewis once wrote, “I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best.” Several years later he became a Christian as the most “dejected and reluctant convert” in all England.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Enter the empty streets
Of the moonless night swept in
Screaming sheets of rain soaked air
In stairwell halls of ghost light lamps
Lit in haunted halls and houses warm
With fireside laughter and supper time
Magic breathing in the corridors of
Dish-washed kitchens packed with bodies
Bathed in oil and scent smelling incense
Turned in beds behind day tired doors
Shut to sleep with fairytales told