computerless in life?

I was chatting on facebook with one of todays living poets last week about how haven't been able to write a shopping list, nevermind a short story or poem! I now know why. In a word Computer! This thing although back online is still knackered from what it was, not completely useless but not running on all thrusters! Hubby took this away to get 'fixed' and I picked up my pen and wrote! Okay wasn't the cheeriest poem I've ever written but the words flowed as easily as the ink did! I really love this pen. I still feel guilty buying it and not telling the lady in the charity shop it was worth a lot more than the £2.90 I paid for it. I feel so sorry that someone out there opened the present and thought 'whoopee A Bleeding Pen!' that they threw in with the old clothes and Lavender Bath Bomb. The person who bought this pen really loves/d the person they bought it for, obviously a lot more than the person got the gift knows! Perhaps it was the person that bought the gift was the one who handed it in. With good reason, just because I love pens doesn't mean they do. I think if that was the case though they would have said to the charity shop 'oh and there's a brand new boxed,never even tested Sheaffer fountain pen in there that cost me over £200!'
When I saw the pen I instantly fell in love with it. When I asked how much I expected £10-£15 (completely out of my budget!) it was probably best I was in a wheelchair when she said £2.90 or I'd probably have fell over. When I wheeled out the shop I already felt like a bank robber for paying just 3 quid for a pen I knew had cost at least £30/£40. I don't know if you can imagine how bad I felt when I found out how much it was on Sheaffer's website, just know that it had been in my bag for months untouched until some broadband thief got on my private network sending this new computer back to the stone age, where it will just have to stay till I can talk to Acer and find out how much the software I need will cost. So the internet is why I couldn't write. I'm going to have to switch off the computer more and pick up my new best pen a lot more I think.

Billy

Catherine Godfrey

Hey! You looking for Billy?
I aint seen him in years
Yeah! I remember Billy
Tall and thin
Wi Sticky out ears
A bottle of Buckie
and a gram of speed
A box of matches
Was all he'd need
Bundles of paper
Set them alight
See Billy's face
See the Delight
They say that Billy
Could set fire to bricks
Only had to look
At two dry sticks
He told me once
About his first flame
How it all started
How she whispered his name
How he fell in love
With his very first fire
Tasted her smoke
With burning desire
Hypnotised by flames
That grew higher and higher
Told me how he just sat
Completely entranced
Watched as she burned
Watched as she danced
Told me of his excitement
How she drove him insane
And how he couldn't wait
To see her again
Factories or shops
It really didn't matter
Not to our Billy
First Class Firestarter
He set the school ablaze
Torched the youth club
There was even a rumour
That he'd fire bombed a pub
But the last I heard
He was homeless and broke
So if your looking for Billy
Just look for the smoke.

Curse

I have quite simply just not been able to,
Stop writing prose, It has been going on for days,
So why all the weird and wonderful words?
Put together in so many weird and most wonderful ways,
Poems about love and pain, or the world and you.

I have not written like this for many years,
Don't know why, all of a sudden I've got all lyrical,
So from where did the words come?
Some of them are sad, some are funny and satirical,
Poems to make you grin, or drive you to tears.

I have forgotten the rules of lyric and verse,
Can't put in this word or that one doesn't quite sit,
So will it all just suddenly end?
When I come upon a word that just doesn't fit,
Poems that rhyme,on my page perhaps it's a curse?


Cath Godfrey
Aug 5th 2006

Billy ten years on

Hey, I've been thinking about you man, really quite a lot,
Wondering if you jumped out of the fire, back into the pot!
I watched them tear down a bit of my own private hell,
Didn't feel like I thought I would, not the way you would tell!

They tore a little part of your hell down too, you know,
Must have torn you up inside, no sparks, no orange glow!
I know how much you needed to see that place burn,
Let some of the scars inside and out, finally see the sun!

You dropped off the radar back in Two Thousand and Two,
I've wondered for years what the hell happened to you!
Your dad told you everything you did was stupid and wrong,
He was just a sad old git though looking in a mirror too long!

Wasn't sober long enough to look after himself never mind a son,
That monster was a lot of things Billy but a father was never one!
Dad's never brand their kids face with the buckles of belts,
Just as bad as the teachers who sent you home with those welts!

Then there was the track on which our nightmares both crashed,
My train of dark secrets getting me high, drinking to get smashed!
Your train of horrors so bad it needed to pick up some very high speed,
My train didn't run much when we met, yours? driven by pure need!

I miss our coal fireside nights they were cosy, safe and new,
That's a very exclusive club your in but that you already knew!
It's so strange that we know so much about each others pain,
Yet I never once asked you Billy, what was your last name?

I can't even remember who brought you to my party that night,
Only that you had a bottle of Mad Dog and weed so you were alright!
The rooms filled up, passed out mates like Alana and giant celtic teddy,
I started filling the black bags with cans, you cleaned the fire and got it ready!

Well gone five when we turfed the last Bernie and his bird out the door,
He'd his own place for what they wanted, across the road in the block of four!
Finally we both sat, lit the fire and thats when you started to really talk,
I just listened staring at the flames, the scars on your face, they started to talk!

I have hoped your life has changed for the better over the years,
That maybe the old sod had died and you were finally able to bury your fears!
You would have buried him too as to you he wasn't worth a single flame,
All that he did to you and still he made you think you were the one to blame!

You said you would take him in to the burning fires of hell and make him pay,
Some how though I don't think in your case mate that it gets to work that way!
Oh he will burn in hell all right for the rest of time for what he did to you,
Billy you won't get into hell. You get a room nearby with no more pain just a great fireside view!

Bad Weather

Today I am in a huge amount of pain, what else is new? I was fine until about 7pm last night which was when I was able to give the time the first of the rain would hit! It has been pouring down all day but the pain isn't getting much better because doesn't matter how much it has rained so far that was not my rain! I feel sorry for those who hate the rain but I really, really need it. Until it gets here I am being painfully squashed to death!

I suppose looking back it explains why I have loved storms since I was a young child, everytime I heard thunder I was always the first one at the window or out the door to stand in the rain, it always made me happy. Now rain makes my MS better.
It's not fun being a human Barometer!

Cath x