I have less praise in my heart
less than I would choose
though the sun is always beautiful
though the moon rises and falls
I am weary of it all
and I am surprised I should be so indiscreet

I should seek a bed to lie in
a place to rest my head
soon the mornings calling prayer
will echo through my head

I am not as I would be
neither content nor so bitter
awaiting like a young girl
not a charlatan nor yet a quitter.

I am facing thoughts that haunt me
stuff so trite it comes to taunt me
contemplating a daunting future
drawn across my every feature.

I hope to find a way to share it
without pity or dispassionately
Irrational
eventual
ecstacy?

my chair has been moved and I am thus encouraged to float into the white side of the party, in the garden among the tables and chairs.

THe night is warm and dry and the sky is high darkest blue and starless. The security light floods the grass and the white people, mostly very drunk and a few smoking hash in badly rolled spliffs.

I find a table where a lone drunken black man claims me as his sister as if its been so long since he last saw a black woman..... HIs embrace is whisky fuelled and damp and I keep stiffness in it, so he keeps it light and short. Gladly through his drunken haze he can feel my ambivalence. "I have no need to judge you" my eyes tell him "just as long as you keep away." He is happy enough that I am not challenging his status quo and continues to drunkedly rail his friends and declare to one that the friendship is over due to some slight or insult.

He avoids eye contact with me after this, he and I both know that he's been putting up with shite like a cowering puppy just waiting for the moments of attention and indulgence from these white folk for so long, whatever has occurred will hardly matter in the morning.

He's gone with the white woman, who I belive is the 'no more my friend' white man's wife, to the dance floor. I sit. Lean back . Watch the sky , the trees, eat peanuts.

I am sure Husband tries to engage in some sort of light conversation.
I am sure I am not rude, but can't for the life of me remember anything we might have said to each other. Ah I remember his name was Jack.

Mel joins us with Daniel ( who may have been there earlier) I was just there for the chair, if you know what I mean?) But its Daniel who reminds me now that husband was called Jack, because I made a witty comment about the presence of Jack Daniel.

They all laughed, presumably with the shock at my ability at humour. I am naturally quite dry my friends, apparantly not something they were used to.

Mel declares me to be interesting.

Drunken people are difficult to remember they appear in such odd ways. One woman was lying on the grass. A man went to pee in the bushes and we could hear him.

Daniel is handsome. He wears a black leather jacket and is probably about 50. I spend the next hour or two in his company singing Bowie tunes he has never heard before and Scottish folk tunes I have never heard, HIs wife floats in a couple of times, she has a sweet singing voice and brings Ireland to the table.

Lady joins us, who I now remember was on the floor earlier and we sing Cry me a river and some Ella that I barely know the words to.

Sonia comes, checks if I want to leave. Thinking about it now perhaps she did? I am quite content with my singing companians and she leaves me to it.

Daniel and I are mostly just us. Others contribute silliness, " you should be on the Xfactor?" I hardly watch TV these days because of the blog, so don't realise its started again and tell them of my ambition to go on 'next year'. I sing them the song I would sing.

I remember nearly all the words.

Sonia is back and its 4am. This time I get that they want to go!

The evening is a success, Patsy has four numbers! Sonia has had her kiss. They believe my evening quest has failed, but I am content.

Daniel will love me for the rest of his life, the way you do, when you have enjoyed the company of some-one, when the flirtation is unsaid. Mutual appreciation, gentle eyed and uncompromising.

knowing I have a party invite and a plan, to be with Sonai for 11. We are going in convoy. I stay at work until 10.15. I'll not blame the blog for my irrational behaviour. But I have time to shower, hair and dress and jewel, then I'm off. This saves me from the perils of having too long to prepare..

Sonia has not had the luxury of too little time, indeed she has had time to sleep on it... the result; a choice to be made between two outfits, time to be woeful over the death of her favourite gold slingbacks and time to consider giving up on the whole venture and stay under the duvet safe.

Patsy is pretty , dark, unhappy with the visit to the hairdressers and missing a more promising night out in Blackburn.

We do not go in a convoy because in the end Liz, Len and Lydia arrive together and theres room in Sonia's car for me.

I am wearing jeans, a sparkling green vest top, big filigree silver hoops, curly hair and a green stone necklace. Lips barely bruised with dark red lipstick , I applied and hastily removed. No other make-up.

I have shared my plan to meet the man who will love me for the rest of my life. They have plans to help. I shake my head and keep smiling.

THe party opens in the back garden of a very large semi, the sort with 3 floors and a basement and a garden with mature trees and a fourteen foot back wall , neither of which swamp its size.

People occupy 2 or 3 tables and several chairs scattered across the grass not lawn.

More mill at the back of the house beneath a temporary green and white striped canopy. Here, the stairs to the basement are steep. 3 rooms. One with a wall of alcohol and bottles of pop. One with chairs and red lighting which I never am drawn to enter. One darkly lit pounding lovers rock and old skool reggae. Stairs back up to the first floor and a table of food spread in the hallway by the front door. Lots of dried up breadcrumbed stuff, breadcrumbed cheese, breadcrumbed chicken all skewered and withered waiting for consumption.

The reggae room is too hot and I am not feeling the desire to dance. Tina Tee is dancing close to the door and her face is stuffed up with stushness. With half hearted effort I outdance her and she can tell and her sournees intensifies. I am not interested in the contest, Tina.

Last time we met she bounded over to me with smiles and smugness, relishing in telling me about the standing ovation for her play in a city centre theatre. I am both genuinely pleased for her and tell her, and am completely confused why she so's pleased to tell me. We haven't spoken for years. I don't write plays nor do anything that earns me public applause. I am not part of the clique of creative brown and black women who, all in their later 40s, have much better figurs than I, smarter clothes, better hairstyles.

Anyway I leave my friends on the dance floor and head back up and out to the garden. I find a chair and sit , kick back and watch the folk.

The party is segregated. The white men are mainly OxBridge I am informed at some point and only interested in each other. the Black men are mainly seedy sweaty and mostly interested in the blondes.

Sonia, Patsy, Lynne and Len join me from time to time. Sonia adopts a scatter gun approach and says hello to every man who passes. They encourage me to emulate this and I call hello from time to time to the odd receding back and hairline. I am unconvincingly insisting that the man I am waiting for is not here yet.

Its half past two Patsy points out pointedly. I smile. He's a baker I suggest. Or a journalist still filing tommorrow's story. Patsy, Sonia and Lynne give me a look that indicates I am wasting both their good advice and my time.

Lynne has come with Len who is studying modern history and will then go back to earning suitably rewarding money as an electrician. Patsy already has 4 men lined up and waiting for her back on the dance floor. Sonia has little expectation and ends up with a snog from 'one of Patsys' castoffs' as she puts it.

They are up and down to the dance floor. I am persuaded to come down and stay til I begin to sweat.

I am not feeling it.

I am not unhappy, I've had my moment of 'get me out of here' about 10 mins into arrival, but I am chilled now, drinking water and lemonade.

Aww I have written enough I'll continue tommorow.
x

she sacrificed her thighs to turkey rashers between toast and lashings of cream cheese. Her vows are taken day after day. Today I eat only protein no carbs, or today only complex carbs separate from fats or no fats at all or lashings of cream. What does it all mean. Trapped inside her body trapped inside the heinous heart of yet another diet guru.

I am going to a party!

I have never written thus before in my blog because I have not had the opportunity!

Oh Sienna, I am lookimg for love, do you think I will find it?

I will be vigilant and optimistic. I will not quail from the flesh. Be it pale or pink, dark or dour, wrinkled or youthful. A lack of rythmn will not phase me. Nor the sweetest fanciest footwork undermine my sense of worth.

Oh Sankhara, I am looking for love.

I will pack away my world of work. Take time in the shower. Bless my brown eyes with powder, perhaps pink not red.

Oh Alec I am looking.

Love will come claim me, chase away bads habits and duty and arrogance and competition.

Oh Dink, I am.
I will love in return, with laughter and patience. My buring loins will lead me and I will not run with fear but with desire!

Oh Blog
I had better go now.
......mmmmmm what do I wear?

where did I steal this interesting essay?

http://www.hypno1.co.uk/sh_colour.htm

Colour can help or hinder mankind. It can modify a man's disposition, alter his career, cure his disease, prevent lack of presence of mind and so save him from accident. Colour is to be seen everywhere: in clothing, decorations, and in Nature which knows how highly sensitive our psychic organisms are to vibrations of colour.

Red stimulates; blue soothes; purple heals; green pleases; orange brightens; yellow pierces; grey deadens; violet kills abnormal growth of tissues; brown rests; pink develops; these references are to the effect of colour upon the mind-power of the individual.

White is not a colour and reflects all colours. Black is not a colour and absorbs all colours.

Bright colours in clothing and decorations have a wonderful stimulating effect upon backward and even mentally defective children, all producing mild hypnotic effects. Offices of all descriptions should have specific light tints.

Yellow pierces the mind-power machine of man and so drags him out of the slough of mental sluggishness and gives him renewed energy and inspiration. In Thibet the religious heads wear the golden-yellow robes for lofty meditation and inspiration.

Find out the colours which people like and let them wear those colours and live under such tinted surroundings, and in the few cases where such makes a person worse, owing to the fact that the wrong personality has over-developed (everyone having a double personality: a Dr. Jekyll of good and a Mr. Hyde of evil), then use the opposite colours and the result is dramatic and successful.

Having lost the ability to be diplomatic I am exploring the relationships around me.

The smilers.
The colleagues who say yes to your request for their contribution to a task to be timely. Who smile and nod agreement. Who then do nothing, break agreements and keep smiling.

The Rainbow chasers, baffled by the brilliance of an individuals plumage or arrogant strutting. Colleagues who only defer to people they have assessed as worthy. Who often mistake puffed up chests for real power. Ignore me if you wish, but I have muscles I will flex and you will feel the power I can weild in the kick I am aiming (metaphorically) for your backside.

The Innocent.
Whatever the charge they are innocent. Too pure to evaluate. Too chaste to explore the root causes of the incident. To powerless to envision change. To stunted to grow. Too completely shocked to take it when I tell them straight they need to be proactive not reactive and its impacting on how well they do their jobs. Oh my, oh no, I think I'll cry...grrrr

The Leech.
I've given enough, not one word more will I spend on your sorry self serving arses.

The Black woman in a position of authority in an organisation which prides itself on cultural diversity....
Who really has had to work 4 times as hard in her job to prove her effectiveness and her right to her job( no I am not here because I am black, I here because I have 25 years of effective experience under my belt) and (no I am not a coconut , I have not sold out to the man. I can do a damn good job for my peeps and for every-one else ( for that matter) from within, without kissing arse or sucking cock, Is that such a shock?)

Time to go?
Oh yes, I guess
it must show?

I have found pink. It rinses itself through my cheeks and dives into my hair so even my blonde to brown swells from a base tone of cerise.
I have hidden my eyes today. Behind sunglasses. the sunglasses are pink. My eyes are green ringed with a slatey grey. AS usual I have chosen too display my bosom. But I have never been provocative, Simply feshy and round. My breasts are still bronzed from a bottle as are my legs. I'll not share any secrets of whether this gift expands across my belly, though I expect you can guess. I am unlikely to leave bits untoned.

My pink encases me with ribbons which split me just below the bosom. Of course. I wear a dress. Cotton. Pink. No, not a dress, a top. I wear jeans today. Pink , no blue, open toed slip-ons. Small heel.

I have been in love for 3 years. For our anniversary we went to Cornwall. Abseiling. I am generous in my love. and though unnaturallu unadventourous,. I abseil. Cause he will love it. and he does.

I might have been a hussy. Falling in love on the second week in the job. With an actor on tour. For heavens sake. Who could judge.

I missed him. He lived in London and every day I did not go home but stayed in work and worked and worked.

Eventually I had to leave, to follow my heart.

We moved in together last year and we are so very happy.

and now he has a role, a series, an option til series 7, 3 years of work. Actor boyfirned can become actor husband and I'll have babies and we never wanted to raise them in London.

Come back then little one. Apply for the job. I am happy.

Choice is settling upon me
I am unused.
Decisions I am taking and planning I am making
Suddenly my life contracts
I have become 50 already, when I can still remember and feel so clearly turning 27.

Waiting for changes
Like the sky colours grey to blue and brown and black
My black pupils enlarge to take it all in.

Some-one is stepping closer
brushing my shoulder
pausing to guide me and then to call
whispering
affection.

I am not distracted,
injected with the warmth of hope
I really have time to be
time to wait and see
time to hope and
smiling whilst waiting
you'll recognise me
when I sit beside you and you'll
lean
and I'll lean and our hands will hold
breath

My path is other than I was expecting
though
I did not know what to expect
what to follow
or reject
I am
I can be
I am

I embrace the ability to be dutiful
seems a powerful and sunny place
to have the capacity to offer up
my work , my mind , to you

and in my turn
waiting
I will find a peace
love and loving and loved.

Wrapping my thighs around your head
hoping the desire for loving is not long dead
dismissing the biting pressure of steel
cutting into my palms and the back of my heel

watching my breasts with dispassionate gaze
is there arousal where your hands graze?
counting the cracks in the wall by the door
wondering why I came back for more.

Its been several months maybe more than a year
I've had no incentive to count them my dear
I'm glad that its past and I have no regret
but I hope I've now learnt there is much better yet.

Releasing myself from the pain and the guilt
believing my freedom rises up through the silt
Beginning to know where the horrors were hiding.
In place of the loathing, true love will come sliding

I'm lifting my head
and I'm seeing the view
and I am on the path
that leads gentley to you.

The person to Love me
Is waiting out there
and I have much Love also
inside me to share.

As the wind filled my head
and the temperature rose
I was lost for a moment
where
nobody goes
and inside me revealing
expressing and clear
were the words to describe the thing that I fear
I am glad that I have them.
I'll work out a way
to share the description with you lot one day.

Until then, whether I'm sharing happy or sad
behind every sentence
will be a writer who's glad.

"stop fretting"
if he pulls at the tablecloth one more time I'll whack him with my napkin.
"you look great...fine....lovely.."
I am not going to find the epitaph he'll accept, why am I bothering.
"Fall in love with me Dick head" I mutter ( silently).
Smile and for the sake of frienship continue to guide him through yet another attempt at disastrous love for yet another child, okay she may be 27 but he is 60 for heavens sake!

I turn my gaze to the red wine I'm swirling in my glass, my interest in coaching him through the final stages of the courtship long waned. I'm both bored and frustrated.

"I'll have rum and coke" he's too distracted to argue with me and just orders the drink. I'm mixing my drinks, dick head and I'm driving...thanks for all the love and concern.

He's going to mention his potential fortune. I can tell. How often I counsell him advising him to not talk about the potential for impossibly huge wealth he says he has when "all he really wants is for some girl to love ( or at least fuck) him for himself..."

I glance up at him, frowning as I refocus on everything I love. From the wrinkles in his brow to the steel gray hairline, to the logoless tshirt and artcollege lecturer jeans. Oh well.

"OKay, you okay?" He flashes a mildly panic filled smile. "Its 8." I say. Exasperation hissing the time from my lips. "Half an hour and you'll be ready to rock and roll?"

He nods and as he turns his head again toward the door to the restaurant, I know I have disappeared again from his view, from his consciousness...until he needs to debrief about the date - if it goes badly, later on tonight.

If it goes well, eventually he'll come up for breath from between her silken thighs, look into her beautiful blue liquid eyes and realise he and she have nothing to say. Then he'll call me again.

MuG.
ins

Fountain: soft water fizzes, sherbit stings my ears and I can hear,
Simple sample birdsong intermittent,
and the sound of lovers lips meting
as the gravel gives up a bass line crunching beneath bicycle tyres.

Two tone water swells its beat into a melody
and like a tongue flick, the sound of a football being kicked.

Car stereo: lingers too long yet its St louis rythmn plays a smile into my poetry.

hey, hey, pass along, leave me
to my sherbit hissing waterfalls and
soft sand sound of lovers skin on skin.

So it begins
Bright light warms my shoulder
eases and teases
at my aches and pains.
Lets my eyes wander,

One yellow, gold, ochre
leaf
floats
picks
floats
rises
settles
a fly landed
even as I write
it sits, by the word, LEAF?

and just as sudddenly is gone.

I needed to find my own space,
where the tiniest of flys, leaves, soft sounds
would come to visit
and to chase
my peace
ease
easy
and the sun and voices?
Picking words from languages
I do not know
but I hear warmth, laughter, enquiry and debate.

Niggling at the back of my head. Your comment. I am full of sadness and melancholy. I am full of joy and happiness. If my writing does not express the full range of these emotions. I must ask myself why? As I sit here escaping. I do not try and control. I let my fingers do the talking! ha ha.

Of course I set myself an objective sometimes. A subject to explore. Try and guide my writing, if I think or become aware that I am drifting too much one way or another.

But even as I read the words. I have been writing all these months. I too recognize. Certaim themes do reappear over and over again.

Am I letting this emerge. Like new shoots from a layering of snow. Slowly will my inner voice. Tell me, show me. Here's the way to go.

I am glad of the instruction. Trying to find the style. I need to place my writing. In the first person. Strange but true. Even if my words are not about me. Or you.

This is my chrysaslis . My blog. Inside here I am growing. Like others time will come . maybe sooner than later. When. I will be going.

Just recently, a feeling came to me. A sort of leaving. A departure. I am nolonger young. I have so much of joy, creativity and fun.

Time for me to become the older one. A version of myself yet unexplored.

Stop now. Time to reawake the boy. He too has a journey he is beginning. I need to wish him well and love him . and probably give him a lift to his first day at college!

I have no idea where I have put them. and even a multitude of washing later they have not resurfaced. I can live without blue jeans. I have red jeans. I have black jeans , well sort of , jean cut and stitched. Not jean material. I have combats in stretchy metal blue and another pair of stretching black. These catch on my trainers, so I have to slow myself down and start again.

I am taking up the time they need to get to the airport. In the effort to look like I threw on any old thing and still look good!

I am amazed at how much I will miss them.

She reminds me of me. Maybe hurting a little differently. But once we were sistren ,little dry skinned brown girls in clothes that neither blended us with our neighbours or graced identity into our cultural heritage. Little brown skinned girls skipping amongst the whitefolk. Folk that sometimes didn't want or like us. Just us. Or others like us.

I love watching her being loved by him and loving him back. Brings a tear to my eye , a lump to my throat and a desire to be loved!

Baba, next, the big man. Takes a while for height of him to register, he doesn't bust himself all ego and testosterone. There is something so beautiful about this man. He is love and warmth and passion and youth and intelligence and curiosity . He bought all of this to us this week and I am so happy for it. Such blessings will last with these young people for a very long time and to their children. A reminder, very timely of the need to go on daring to hope. For a future.

Dawn and Yako are part of this blessing, don’t get me wrong, . Its my relationship that is different. I would find it difficult to trust myself too close to such a beautiful person and I can’t quite explain why. I know that it is fear. I have just nothing to guide me toward resolving that fear. No loose thread in my memory to help me unravel the knot to my past. .

I will call this blog Digression, because I am so much . I am tripping myself up from saying goodbye all over again, perhaps?

Yako.

If I were braver. I would have told him. Your gaze breaks through me. and. I do not want the pain to end.

I want to honour your creativity. Your gentle gift of being. Your smile. The way you shared each element. Your drawings. Your Bass. I watched Baba seek out your eyes for support and feedback. I watched you  honour Dawn and her love for Baba.

I love you.

tears are crazy, spilling
wetting the giggle
hiding

I'm not long here.
Smile wants to play
blog
can wait for me and my writing
for another day.

sweet sorrow fools me yet again
blend
like the ripeness and richness
contains itself enough to
bless me
hear me

do you have any idea what I am saying?

I feel a flow which comes and goes
elephant forgetting
brings these tears
diamond blessing
wetting my cheek like a new
baptism
hear me speak

I am rising a new
face my future
try and become
true

whats new
my departure leaks
unlike the fanafare
like a rash of sadnees
spread a blush of new beginning
and I welcome a dawn
kiss and
stand me up new born.

ahh sweet musting here my all
late night husting
breaks my back
like a wild host
and gallops a tune acroos the whiplash of the rythmn
beating
through my blood

I flood and its food for the soul of me
new departure
creature
no habit could invest
and all the rest,.

sweet, time to go
slow
deep diving in between

I am not stranger nor queen
feel my ordinariness.

again
bless.

I feel the wave of hurt. Its something tears mixed with snot. It clings to the back of my throat. It strips headaches into the back of my eyes.

If I take the time to take the breath from the bottonm of my diaphragm. Close both my eyes breifly. Exhale. Forgive. Us.

I sometimes think it harder to learn. I am already a good parent. Don't get me wrong, but....

I can feel lightness in my fingers. A sensory connection with the keyboard. My own human pulsing. Pulsing out this breakbeat of word. Allowing it to summon up the imagery. Like the Harlequin.

I have eaten well and late. At my waist the tightness registers. My thumbs releive the pressure. I bumshuffle in my seat and dream of cushions. I let the smile play. Because I have not washed the dishes today. I realsie they are not mine. I have an inclination. It pays off and my son clears his own dishes.

There is an ache. Making itself felt. Beneath my right ribcage below my right shoulder blade.

There is an ache. Through my feet. pressingmy littel toe on my left foot. Too close into the boot. Though the soft leather could be embracing.

I need to get over the denial. Acknowledge that even though he is married. Young enough to be my son. My desire is based not purely on irrationality and hormones. I think I like the man. Too.

He carries himself well. With a grace and a maturity. Not common in a man of 25. He has beautiful eyes. His intense gaze. Is only challenging. Because of my ongoing inability to be at ease with the sexiness of men I do not wish to have sex with.

I am not failing. I am engaging with warmth. I am engaging with love. I am engaging with my offbeat sense of humour. I am engaging with my own nervousness.

I am learning to exhibit. I am learning to exhibit my respect for humanity.