Monday 17 October 2016

circuses and carcasses


I've always been a bit of a circus girl. I don't know which bit - heart probably.




I often weave a circus or two into some of my stories and when I was very young I had an imaginary friend who for some odd reason was a female juggler who I called Mrs King Kong Kelly. They are interesting imaginary friends. According to Psychology Today, imaginary friends can be a source of comfort when a child is experiencing difficulties. Difficulties in running away to join the circus probably. In fact if the truth be known I had two imaginary friends. The other one was a very small Scotsman called Jock Mac Hockercock who wore a tartan cap.  Don't ask me where he came from but writing it down now I can see I was interested in rhyming words at an early age. Perhaps having imaginary friends helps in the creation of characters when you become a writer. I wonder how many other writers had imaginary friends?

me and Trude dressing up for Country Living Magazine. Photo Craig Fordham.
Perhaps the circus thing is the dressing up coupled with my love of horses. Here is Harry looking very un-circus like. He's a willing horse but a bit clumsy and he can't count. Not that I know of anyway.



If I had a pound for every time someone said to me about Pixie "you could put a saddle on that.." it wouldn't be worth much in this present political climate. I think the saying probably is " I've been told you could put a saddle on that more times than you've had hot dinners." A curious notion. None of us can count how many hot dinners that would be.



 Pixie's Very Interesting Fact she tells me is that the leotard is named after the first star of the flying trapeze who was called Jules Leotard. She's asked me to put the word Very in front of her Interesting Fact column. I told her she didn't have a column just two lines.

 Here are the ducks! The babies are the same size now and they all run around in a column.


As Beezle and Jesus would say " "Consider the lily for it toileth not."


 There have been quite a lot of carcasses left on the door mat, outside the bedroom door, on the landing, in the bathroom and under the table. Some still unidentifiable. Because of this I am not putting up any Cat pictures.

When I gave up the theatre and settled into a domestic life, the poems I created reflected this. I used to perform them in local art centres and pubs and inspired by the rap artist EMINEM I called myself Em U Em - which stands for MUM. I wrote a series of poems called The Dust Collection. Fluff in the Ideal Home being the first. But I see now I wrote one about the circus which seems apt for this blog post.


The Circus



So it’s three thirty five and I’m at the circus
and one child keeps saying they can’t see
and the other is still crying
because the icecream was all sold out
and we’ve had the clowns and the guy
on the slack rope
and then this beautiful black horse trots in
its neck so arched its nose
touches its chest and it is so shiny
the mirror ball flares off its coat
and practically blinds the fellow
playing the violin and I think of Gordon
and the trip to Paris
where we saw the man being a robot
and how I’m not wearing the greasepaint
or the tutu or riding the beautiful horse
and I’ve practically got my bags packed
to run away and then I look down
and see these two children and remember
it’s school on Wednesday
and we still haven’t bought the new trainers
or the geometry kit with the spare eraser
and I look down and wonder
who’s going to sweep up all that sawdust?


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