Tag Archives: don’t give up

Keep Running (Don’t Give Up)

24 Apr

Gone all out
demon slayer,
whole self sold;
sprinting surely,
streaming smooth –
 hell bam, 
 betrayed!
No siren
or notification,
to re-strike, no time   
or to withold.

On the floor,
fiend fighter,
vision skewing,
limbs spilt wrong.
Can’t uprise or self utter,
can’t figure what just passed
or what you should have done –
to have cursed,
or mere blamed,
to have ran
or faced, headlong?

Up jump
fiend conqueror,
  wearied, bloodied one
don’t be fooled.
Keep on your
 wily, never quitting scheme,
no mummy for the mud;
slice, brute strike forward
and lynch this disingenuous intimidation,
shifting sorrow to motivation
and shit to jewels.

Fire sword slayer

 

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The Reject

15 Nov

Pretty Kite
injured,
trampled into salt battered stone;
lone, unloved
today’s sweepings
left for trash. 

 I’ll detangle your tail,
unknot your ribbons,
your strangled cord,
lay you
smiling faced neon
over sun hotted weed.

Lurch shake kite,
cloud billow fill,
wind bound loop over and above;    
sun streamered dragon,
slink over sand,
euphoria blissful, revitalize. 

 

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Now Today

1 Jun

Silence tomorrow,
Exit yesterday,
I’m living for the now,
For what I’ve here in my hands,
today.

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Between Worlds

14 Apr

It’s snowing again,

And I’m trapped

Between the place I’ve left behind

And the new.

We’ve been here  five seconds;

Too many years spent in the old,

Building visions apparently unrealised.

Here is virgin,

 Unfamiliar,

Mint raw as the snow layering our back lawn,

Immaculate –

Yet to be stamped upon;

Exciting, perplexing,

We’ve not been this way before.

And the memories of our past burn glacier hot,

Stiletto sharp, trying to prise us both apart

Inevitably pointless,

Like the icicles suspended from the house next door,

Soon to thaw in the fever of long lusted after Spring rays.

Photos: Ru

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What it means to live or being out there in the arena

7 Sep

Life has slowed considerably and is peaceful. It’s stupid that it takes something massive happening to you to make you put your feet up good and proper and to reflect. A couple of weeks ago I was grappling with the idea of going back home and getting back into life. I suffered many sleepness, anxious nights. What if I went back and started to get anxious again and couldn’t cope?

Then whilst I was sorting through some work I came across an e-mail a friend sent me at the beginning of the year  It was a quote by Theodore Roosevelt from his speech, “Citizenship in a Republic at the Sorbonne in Paris in April, 1910:

“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 not 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.“

It hit me like a truck.  I haven’t been on the wrong track. The person “out there” doing battle is cool – out there doing the their darndest for something they consider worth while, even if things do seem to keep ending in defeat, at least they’ve done their utmost.

My Chemical Romance’s set at Reading this year made me think much the same thing. The first time they played there they were bottled off and though initially discouraged in the end, it only made Gerard more determined. Taking Freddie Mercury as inspiration – it also happened to him in Paris with Queen – when they next played there Gerard vowed it would be as headliners. And so it proved to be. And their show was utterly incredible – don’t think I’ve seen anyone put so much into one performance – it was passionate, it was outrageously OTT, sexy bombastic and darn good fun – even they consider it to be the show of their lifetime.

As for me –  I’m saying no to doubt and what the future will bring, it might well become a self fulfilling prophecy. I’m getting back into life and not looking back,  keeping focused on the things that build me up. I’ll keep going forward with hope and courage.



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Don’t Give Up: There are Plenty of Stars

25 May


“Don’t give up.” Was that the last thing I wrote?  Seems a damn blooming stupid thing to have said.  The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more it seems like it’s the right thing to do. Some days you wonder why you bother.  You try your darndest to do and say the right things – but find yourself in a worse mess than when you started.

Well, here are some “stars” that have been helping me through:

Muses’ “Neutron Star Collision” was released last week.  A galloping, OTT slab of pomp rock (not forgetting the Rachmaninovian piano solos,)  about the break up of Matt’s relationship with his girlfriend, in the guise of a love song, delegated to a film about a vampire and his underage lover, whose dearest wish is for him to kill her. Perfect.  I play it over and over again.

Muse: Neutron Star Collision (Love is Forever)

Last week Muse announced who will support them at Wembley. Wow, triple threat! One band I’ve been desperate to see, but haven’t yet: White Lies. Well that had me jumping up and down ecstatically for a few seconds, at least.

The Glaswegian trio, Biffy Clyro are going to be playing too. Looked them up on My Space and am addicted. How come I’ve not noticed them before?  A vertiginous fusion of monstrous rock, soulfulness and melody -they’ve sort of blown me away.   So I’ve a new favourite band.  Things can’t be that bad. Can they?

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Don’t Give Up. You Will Succeed.

10 May

The caption on my fridge.

All things considered, it’s been a rough few months. I haven’t felt connected to anyone or anything. Been writing madly, as if trying to write myself out of a hole. Which I think I am, maybe: miserable weather, endless doubt and confusion about what I’m meant to be doing or if I’ll ever be good enough, crippled back, stomach bug that won’t go away, things ending, choppy relationships.

In the midst of my bad back crisis, I blagged a lift from Mr. F and staggered up the steps to City Hall to see Mr. Wainwright.

It resembled nothing so much as an elaborate funeral for his beloved mother, Kate McGarrigle (who died in January.) The lights were dim, we were told not to applaud and there he was, sliding silently onto a bare stage, seventeen foot train trailing behind him, feathered, be-jewelled, grieving. His accompaniments were fiercely complicated, like mini piano concertos, as though he was trying to make it as hard on himself as possible, his voice rose and soared to reach impossible notes, showing no signs of strain. A giant eye – his – appeared on the black screen behind him; at one point tears began falling from it.  The eeriest hush, laid across the audience.

Photo by Kasia Bobula. Shot at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London.

That night those songs were in my dreams. I felt calmer than I had in weeks, which is quite bizarre.  How can something so melancholy create happiness? I don’t know but I’ll hold that thought.  Mr Wainwrights’ new album is “All Days are Nights” but I’m renaming it: “All Nights are Days.”

When things are rubbish, I’ll think of it. How does the saying go? “The darkest time is just before the dawn.”  Isn’t it when you’re on the verge of breaking through into your dream that you hit rock bottom? Or to put it another way: “Never, never, never give up.” (Winston Churchill.) What a mess we’d be in now if he had! So anyone out there who’s struggling with their dream (self included) :Don’t give up.

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