Poetry Series Margaret Alice - poems - Publication Date: 2011 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Margaret Alice(The Crystal Age) 30 July 2009: Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you, won't you - join the dance? - I am sitting in my study – all surprised – PoemHunter actually accepted my Bio Update – How wonderful, how weird is that? ? ? ? ? ? ? 11 June 2009: In my freedom to decide how I want to feel, I started reading “No Time At All” by Susan Sallis, Corgi Books 1994, and happily relinquished control to the author and her mesmerising story. I boy in a wheelchair, a grandfather with a love for trains, a ghost train running on the old ghostly railway tracks passing through the bungalow where two brothers are staying, an embittered old man who has been blamed for the death of three of his mates – my eyes can’t focus, I’m floating a few metres above the ground, the only sound is the pages as I turn them; the physical world is shrinking, slowly disappearing - the only thing that is real is the book’s atmosphere, the warmth of brotherly love and the mystery of the ghostly train; it’s wonderful to use consciousness to drift into a new universe! 10 June 2009 – LATER - I love having lots of secrets, even when childish and naïve, they enlarge the scope of my imagination to infinity and that is glorious! I found a perfect recipe for happiness to cure me of all sadness and bile and replace anger with happiness: ‘Tell everyone: 'My happiness depends on me, so you're off the hook.' And then demonstrate it. Be happy, no matter what they're doing. Practice feeling good, no matter what. And before you know it, you will not give anyone else responsibility for the way you feel, and then, you'll love them all. Because the only reason you don't love them, is because you're using them as your excuse to not feel good.’ Nobody is responsible for how I feel and I can choose to be free and create anything. 10 June 2009: I was too happy yesterday, used up all the good fortune fate had in store for me, today I’m sitting here bereft with only the harsh, scolding voices of the rednecks to accompany the icy winds blowing outside. Yesterday my self- confidence sky-rocketed, I laughed and joked with everyone, cashiers and passers-by; today I can’t face the uncouth sentiments expressed by the self- righteous who doom the world and address the President as if he were an instrument to be exploited for their own selfish joy. I can’t work when my feelings of revulsion become so strong, how can anybody get work done when www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 1 they get so angry they see red all the time? 7 July 2009: Winter is spreading its charm – my fifteen-year old boots finally disintegrated after my fifteen-year old daughter started wearing them too; when we went out hunting for new boots, she found a pair that fits her small feet while I can’t find anything; the shop is full of low-quality stuff at exorbitant prices, I refuse to buy junk, so running shoes are all I have to wear. Static electricity is messing up my hair, changing them into feathers; hubby does not appreciate my brilliant book titles, “Huppelkind en Wintergras” [Happy Child and Winter’s Grass] for books I’m never going to write; last night I went through ALL my documents and found them an insult to the President; foul, insulting language and illegible handwriting – clearly all of them have been sent by rednecks – yuck! Last night Colin Wilson’s remarks on happy states of mind and new consciousness drove me to despair, clearly I’ll never reach that joyous state in this life – BUT I can construct fictitious characters who reach that state of elation I read about – though I distrust anyone claiming they have felt what it’s like, I can reconstruct in my mind the things they conjure and thus share their fun! 6 July 2009: Appointing Tiaan as guardian of my dietary regime was NOT such a good idea; he walks through the house like an avenging spirit and shakes his head when he finds me eating crisps with MSG – no other snack left - he comments on my eating bread yesterday and pizza the day before; my eyes are swollen into two slits, my tolerance threshold is gone; he watches me like a hawk – him, only thirteen years old – as if I were a toddler to be controlled… I tell him and Nici, fifteen years old, when I have an allergy headache so they can understand why I am so grumpy, when Nici made raisin bread, I ate one slice too much and they sagely nodded their heads – I love the feeling of energy and joy the allergy brings; but when I start feeling bad, I hate all the world, then depression clutches my heart – I escape by conjuring stories for fictitious characters – but I myself remain feeling out of sorts… My positive book says thinking positive thoughts will attract positive events into my life; that may be so, but it doesn’t take the chemical depression away, tonight I’m feeling scared of Colin Wilson who speaks of elation in meditation – and all I can feel is hell – I laugh about the allergy when referring to it; but while I’m suffering, I feel like crying… 5 June 2009: Gesticulating wildly, explaining passionate devotion to certain www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 ideas, June calling stop, red-faced and contrite, I realized the desk area is connected, registering movement from my side right to June’s computer Last week I cried when my head was burning, this week disrupting her work again; June so sensible and super-rational, she thinks me an idiot - I’ve given up my ideal of becoming rational also, failure is too painful My new ideal is to be myself, feelings and all, taking care not to inflict anything negative on anyone; only showing positive reactions while hiding shock, pain, disappointment and anger, the only protection from the power Other people acquire when they know how to injure and hurt us, power they use unknowingly… 4 June 2009: At least, I have finally figured out why our new hat-stands consist of a long pole with side arms looking like street signs – they were meant to be used for pole-dancing, then it went out of fashion (did it? - would a broomstick work? – then Terry Pratchett’s witches can also do pole-dancing…) and the poles were converted into hat-stands – and thus we have a new episode in our James Bond movie to be shot at work: The beautiful female enemy called Paula (get it? pole…) from Poland would try to lead James into temptation by doing pole-dancing with the hat-stand during the lunch hour, while her accomplices are turning the poisonous orgone gas in the deadly air-con vents full volume – and when Paula succumbs to the fumes, James will gallantly drag her off into the street while using the footrest as a shield – I have everything ready at my work station, the movie-makers need not worry about logistics. And I need this kind of inner conversation after reading about the Indian Bhopal toxic spill disaster in an attempt to study the differences between Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu; and translating a letter to the President in which a sorely tried woman complain her husband hits her frequently – we need James Bond to sort out all these disasters and bashings and things! 3 June 2009: I’ll start this offering with the conclusion: [Okay, I’m supposed to translate the letter of a lying, thieving beggar who wants to impress the President and my writing a fairytale is quite inappropriate – aha! but that is why I enjoy it, while it is illegal and out of sync with everything, it interests me as all challenges do! ] I shall return to my work anon, first my fairytale, all illegal and underground and www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 3 oh, so profound, sigh, what delightful flight of fancy… Continued the adventures of my debating lecturers about the function of romance and realism; Hutchinson from Wisconsin illustrated his version of realism as a reality so magnificent he did not need fairytale romance because he simply kidnapped the heroine. Scamoggia, the Neapolitan, interrupted Hutchinson’s whirlwind romance and showed how his interpretation of fairytales enhanced the life he led; he punched Hutchinson and grabbed the heroine by whom he had been enchanted… she was quite overcome by these fast-moving events… Before realism could turn into dark magic, her true love, Prince Roland of Romania, fought both the fiery Italian Scamoggia and twanging Hutchinson and took his love, our lecturer in classic romance with him; she was overjoyed because her love for and trust in fairytales were vindicated… Both Hutchinson from Wisconsin and the fiery Neapolitan Scamoggia had to agree that reality without an infusion of spiritual power, magic and romance was much too cold and empty; you could not simply steal away a beautiful dream on a whim… You needed dedication and time to build a longtime relationship that required sacrifice of time and thought; an arduous process only sustainable when based on love and hope and trust iron-clad, withstanding all the fiery arrows of doubt which assailed the trusting heart incessantly… While Roland laughed and rode away, his lecturer-love brandishing a sword at his side; they have been through fire together and the hardships of life have been moulded by their creation of magic through love and trust into a beautiful new edifice! Okay, I’m supposed to translate the letter of a lying, thieving beggar who wants to impress the President and my writing a fairytale is quite inappropriate – aha! but that is why I enjoy it, while it is illegal and out of sync with everything, it interests me as all challenges do! 2 June 2009: Rocked up at work, full of good intent, looking for things to appreciate – that would NOT be letters written by disgruntled citizens to harass President and Education about political inanities and bunking classes after five fruitless years at university – laughed again about Koos Kombuis and his Glenda Kemp fixation – her intense relations with boa constrictors and admiring men – www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 4 jumped on the Internet, nothing there; oh well, I’ll have to return to the story in my head, my main character is lecturing at university about fairytales and romance versus realism – two male protagonists, one a Hutchinson from Wisconsin and the other Scamoggia, a Neapolitan straight from Don Camillo’s Italy; I settle down behind my desk, ready to follow the developments; Hutchinson will lecture on realism, of course; then discover why reality is an illusion – to be interpreted as nightmare or fairytale… 1 June 2009 - LATER - Kenneth J. Reckford, Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina declares in Collins’ 1988 Mary Poppins book – the House next Door – his appreciation of comedy and life is derived from Mary Poppins because the stories illustrate two aspects of “Dionysian fairy tale” – Mary Poppins is a wonderful, transforming energy breaking into routine, suspending laws of nature, creating safe, reassuring fantasies because the Daemonic energies are always controlled by Mary Poppins, surrounded by magic and excitement, but never affected herself – a glimpse of magic transformed the world and the reader also! He declares he reads and rereads these stories – a Professor of Classics, a man, adoring the Mary Poppins created by P.L. Travers – I’m delighted, what a brilliant thinker this man is! 1 June 2009: I’m sitting here glowing like a candle and spinning like a cat and purring like a 1930 model T Ford! My characters came up with a most delicious, most atrocious, most delightful scene; it is so over the top wild that I don’t dare to write it down, quite protective of their privacy – never daring to subject readers to so much heat - fearing they might explode; jaded palates drooling! Little poems are mostly toned-down versions of the original scenes enacted by my characters; I’m much too decent to write down what they conjure. Could I ever write without fear and constraint? Hmmm, methinks my characters need a secret place to unleash wildness on the world and test-drive ideas anonymously… Let me listen to my intrepid characters who evaporated into an ecstasy from which they need to descend to start a new adventure! Oh glory be, I’m supposed to WORK here, read boring letters from self-righteous people! Maybe I should run away for a while – ahaahahaha! My feelings were suppressed when I was young, I could not tell what I felt, and the delirious joy of discovering feelings allows me to indulge them. I will not give up my childish delight in indulging my feelings, but I keep tight control over the sources allowed to kindle them. I don’t want to risk becoming desensitized by overindulging and allow fictitious situations to endanger my ability to enjoy the epiphany engendered by beauty www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 5 and wonderment. I want to do whatever is required to keep my sense of wonderment alive and retain the ability to experience delight; and deliberately strengthen my ability to experience hero-worship. I see feet of clay as the most beautiful aspect of my heros and heroines. Nothing – not betrayal, hurt, rejection, hate or anger - can reduce them to cynicism because they keep a spiritual perspective within which people are beautiful, irrespective of behaviour. My characters love unconditionally within a spiritual context. Love based on abstract ideals and words is the perfect source of wonderment to them. Their feelings are contained in a non-physical dimension where nothing anybody could do or say can destroy their ability to love. Their love always aims to protect and nurture its objects – never to fulfill their own needs, since their needs are met by their god. All examples and descriptions of physical love are but allegories of spiritual love, and they hope that disillusioned people will learn to see physical love in new, uplifting ways. My characters use the inspiration of positive poetry in their fictitious world. The ability of a poet to woo so well and my ability to be wooed are used to the great advantage of my characters; how’s that? Ta dah! 30 May 2009: My contribution to the Blue Bulls fighting – warring against – combating - playing against – the Kiwi’s Chiefs today – is to put up two posters in the kitchen: One in big letters declaring “MY BLOOD IS BLUE” and the first page of a newspaper depicting a Blue Bull on the attack and declaring “IT’S BULL-TIME! ” I love the feeling in the air, though banishing me to attending the game would have triggered a new attack of fairytales; whatever the cause, when people unite, I’m the first one in the queue shouting the loudest – just for the fun of it. Yesterday I discovered there is blue sausage called “Blue Bullewors” on the market, and hubby nearly had a heart attack when I expressed an interest in this – and he frowns on my posters, denoting a most lowly fixation on local affairs – and he a rugby fan – hah! I love the feeling in the air, people passing holding Blue Bull flags in car windows, a general fever – all for nothing – but the core lies in the solidarity of fixating upon a team of men who have to chase a strange- shaped ball and defend themselves against another team – my interest lies in the sociological phenomenon, the feelings generated, everybody having a ball – any excuse is good enough for having fun! www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 6 21 May 2009: Finished ‘The Philadelphia Experiment – Project Invisibility’ by Charles Berlitz, Souvenir Press 1997, happy to see the limits of possibility expanding with the conjectures made in the book. My interest started when I read Vincent Gaddes’ book ‘Invisible Horizons’ when still in high school and the mystery of the invisibility experiment seemed like an enchanting fairytale to me. How I loved and enjoyed that book, reading it several times! It seems a golden line is running from my first encounters with mysteries in various books, notably various Reader’s Digest publications, and Gaddes, to all the other books I discovered later - like Berlitz, Von Daniken, Graham Hancock, Richard Hoagland and Zechariah Sitchin. When I was in primary school, I used to stare at the photographs of Easter Island and the Egyptian pyramids in the Reader’s Digest book on mysteries for hours, fascinated by the declarations that nobody knew where these strange artifacts came from. It is so delightful to reflect that this golden thread is woven right through the tapestry of my life and thoughts – and is still weaving in and out. For a treat, I finished by reading a short, magical children’s book, ‘The Intergalactic Kitchen Goes Prehistoric’ by Frank Rodgers; what a joyous experience! A kitchen that flies into intergalactic space and inadvertently went back in time to the dinosaurs and an air aviation inspector who discovered he wanted to be Tarzan and flew off into the prehistoric jungle wearing the kitchen curtains with his bowler still on his head – brilliant, just what I needed to keep life sparkling and enticing! 20 May 2009: Last night filled in Dr Arnold Mol's “Let's Both Win” questionnaire to determine my temperament, again; did it in 1987 already, and each time the answers indicate I am choleric. BUT I don’t believe it, that means being more unemotional than the melancholic and sanguine, and it can’t be true. I act like an extrovert, talking and writing a lot, as a ruse to hide my true feelings behind a façade of insouciance and cold indifference – aha! – the seemingly unemotional count is due to my brilliant façade, a mask I have been wearing since I was small. This constitutes evidence that I’m melancholic - an introvert that survives by converting emotion into communication. Since expression of my true feelings is impossible, I survive the sublimation of feeling by talking incessantly like an extrovert, always channeling emotions into other outlets. It is either that or exploding, because if I unleashed my feelings of distaste for the boring, useless, time-consuming, horrible political article I’m supposed to translate, I would be put into a straightjacket and kept under sedation for the rest of my life. Not that it seems that bad an alternative, come to think of it. This Calvinistic shouldering of duty is absolutely awful, beyond description. May this world come to an end in a fabulous conflagration of exciting Armageddon proportions and may new life- forms take over that won’t even conceive of the terms of and “religion” and www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 7 “duty”! 18 May 2009 - LATER - I love this sentence in the Publisher’s Note found in “The Philadelphia Experiment” by Charles Berlitz, Guernsey Press,1997: “Here is the story of the Philadelphia Experiment. The authors leave it to us to make up our own minds as to whether we can believe it or not.” It complements this sentence: “Enough faith in its possible authenticity survives to lead the authors to SUGGEST that it COULD have happened.” I would like to emboss these two sentences in gold and send them to the overenthusiastic authors who clobber at the reader’s door claiming that what they dreamt of in visions and interpreted from ancient artifacts make them indisputably right and everybody else wrong. I can read Berlitz and happily dream about possibilities without feeling someone is trying to set fire to my brain and maim all proofs for veracity. On p.11 in the Introduction I read: “If the Philadelphia Experiment was stopped… one feels that perhaps it should be started again or continued.” Actually, after reading of the terribly tragic results of this experiment, one feels that this kind of thing should not be started again unless a sadist somewhere needs to torture people some more, what a strange remark to make when the possible results, melting with the ship’s ironwork, going mad, becoming invisible, going into “cold freeze” – are taken into account! What limited imagination can conjure images of this happening and not determine that there must be more humane ways to further science? 18 May 2009: Got up feeling tired, nose blocked, rocked up at work, heart in my shoes, picked up “The Philadelphia Experiment” by Charles Berlitz, needing a mystery to focus my mind; reading the truth about the secret WWII experiment that created new possibilities; well, if those seamen could withstand becoming invisible and then returning welded with the ship’s iron structure, some going mad and others fading in and out of existence, I can survive this day – I’m not visibly mad as yet, the cold symptoms will become bearable, and I haven’t melded into my desk as yet, nor am I become bionic woman and I’m not a desperately unhappy nun like Gabrielle – the erstwhile Sister Luke – who needs to confess every sin – I am a very determined little devil set on getting my own way, so this day is a gift that I mean to exploit in any way – ready to move my thoughts in and out of existence! 16 May 2009 – LATER –I’m making slow progress through “Night Watch” because Pratchett makes brilliant observations: We have many laws and keep on making more, and by outlawing humanity’s needs and desires – just as religion did by calling all natural urges sinful so that every normal human being becomes a www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 8 criminal – when there is a law against breathing, you become a criminal for the vile act of being alive. Making laws against smoking changes every peaceable citizen who needs a good smoke for their nerves, into an outsider, isolated from his non-smoking, but probably hard-drinking fellow citizens. Creating multibillion-industries based on selling sex and featuring sexy women as bait, the same idiotic society has laws to protect monogamy as an institution, and every man and woman becomes a criminal for all these urges kept at erotic heights and stoked all the time – and the most disadvantaged types, with the least intelligence, have NO protection against these onslaughts keeping them on tenterhooks – so they attack any object that can relieve their feverish urges and everybody condemns them for losing control – whereas the system is geared to make control impossible! To add insult to injury, women are encouraged to become representations of desirable objects and wear exciting clothes, and then lament when attacked by demented elements. Herewith a summary of what caught my attention - p.126 – “The city had plenty of laws but it didn’t offer many opportunities NOT to break them. Swing didn’t grasp the idea that the system was supposed to force criminals, in some rough way, into becoming honest men. Instead, he’d taken honest men and TURNED THEM INTO CRIMINALS and the police into just another gang.” That is what 21st century society is doing – taking honest people wishing to be loving and happy, and turning them into criminals by fuelling their material desires to feverish heights without providing relief – and outlawing all home- made reliefs like “negotiable affection” and drugs – thus society creates criminals artificially and pay thugs to be policemen to fight the other thugs. And most of the so-called thugs are just overgrown boys, totally lovable behind the puppet- masters who control them! And the “ladies of negotiable affection” are probably modern-day saints, leading a life of suffering to provide in needs that have been blown up out of all proportion. 16 May 2009: I did not allow my new socks to become accustomed to me and therefore, after wearing the first two pairs they disappeared, there is no rapport between us, now I leave the other new ones in the cupboard to allow them to acclimatize. Meanwhile hubby insists on pointing out to me how wonderful to cut down trees, pulling out the ivy so we have more light, our neighbour is at it too, cutting down the canary creeper, and I sigh, I LIKED tree canopies and overgrown ivy’s and canary creepers everywhere, my biggest wish is to plant yellow black-eyed Susan creepers and Morning Glories – white and purple and pink – all over the garden; but after hubby’s distress on my mentioning it, I keep quiet and agree with everything he says. The grey concrete walls are an affront www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 9