https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857 Welcome to the works of U668857 en 2005-2012 shakespearesmonekys@gmail.com 42.65593 -71.33391 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 23:54:13 GMT yacs http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 70 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13277-at-the-hospial https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13277-at-the-hospial Limbo-land, halfway house where past and future disconnect; a place of wheeled-in beds and bed-ridden age full of bleeps and tubes and monitors. And waiting for nurses, waiting for visitors waiting for lost dignity to return; a place of moans and mops and closing curtains and strangers with gloved hands; and frail bodies murmuring to nobody. A timeless place were day and night drip by in a daze of formless thought, were the hardy brave a zimmer-frame and the weak are levered into wheelchairs like wrinkled children devoid of joy. Our visit punctuates the stale hours with proffered grapes and chocolate. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:38:45 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13277 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13277 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13277 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13238-iceberg https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13238-iceberg 15th April 1912 - 100th Anniversary u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:11:18 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13238 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13238 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13238 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13209-travels https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13209-travels Our travelling days - that trip to Heidelberg - atop the Kohnigstuhl funicular, snow-cold skies cutting like an iceberg; while far below, along the river Neckar, it's Spring. I frame the ahlte-bruke, snap your blushing pink and hint of black lace. And then that drunk who spoils the Leinpfad: "I make you angry," he grunts with florid face. Or KillyGordon - you ensconced in a field beside the river, picnic-snug and reading, while I'm upstream intent with rod and reel. Until the farmer hails his evening greeting, concerned about the bull, with looks askance - "Honest, Love. I wouldn't take the chance". ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:14:51 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13209 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13209 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13209 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13208-chemistry https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13208-chemistry Lithium or Ritalin or something 'xazid, or 'azole - intensifies a lover, accentuates a smile; will out the spirit, overwhelm the wary new-comer and make a summer of wondrous inhibition. Or was it love's own chemical snare - dopamine, serotonin, vasopressin - that dilated our star-struck stare? Yet something more to this cocktail of want, our raison d'etre of desire: the void extant. My late night boozed-up returns to aching emptiness, and your yawning vista of stark Sundays in little rooms. How ripe we were for hoping, clasping, falling.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:16:00 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13202-valentine https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13202-valentine I'd pluck a red red rose for you to cynically deride; buy perfumed scents to thrill your nose before you snort and set aside. I'd write you sonnets spilling tears for stolen summers, vanished days, to make you mock and block your ears, denying foolish memories. I'd kiss your lips to cure their curse but strangers do not tender kisses: innured to spite, for better for worse we masquerade as Mr and Mrs. u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:13:21 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13202 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13202 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13202 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-10948-becky https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-10948-becky "oon up in ky!" she yaps, agog for confirmation; imparts further marvels: "eyes!" marked by miniature digits, and furthermore, astonishingly - "two!" Teeters on my affirmation then waddles off to new wonders. Trussed in a highchair will scatter tit-bits, blueberries and pipe for "more". Cuckoos for spilling spoons, delights in dribbles, smears and splats; engages with "goos" and "gaas"; endures an aftermath of wet-wipes. Penguins are "mi-mis"; trains are "noo-noos"; cats are "meow-meows"; We speak in blobs, blurting sound, discovering stubs and stumps of words. I rummage in her rattle-bag to voice my heart. Hush now.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:59:17 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/10948 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/10948 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A10948 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13154-waking-tomorrow https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13154-waking-tomorrow Waking in this bed, you stir beyond my reach; no arm can span the frozen sheet that gapes between us; waking each to each we lie alone and hear the ice retreat. Your glacial shoulder, your permafrost skin is bitter wasteland. Habitual Winter numbs our waking; these barren days of pallid suns solidify the freezing seas that churn within. A thousand miles away you check the time. Another ice-age day resumes. I turn to sleep and warm my Arctic dreams with ancient sunshine: the light of fiery summers we failed to keep.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:37:07 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13154 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13154 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13154 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13137-a-wee-dram https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13137-a-wee-dram “The Gainsborough” Victorian pub, Strand road: engraved windows, mahogany, brass rail, gilt edges. A late-morning sparseness and subdued hum as the old man ushers me in. A brief banter about under-age admission, the old boy quips his excuses, ordering beer and a whiskey chaser. Cornered in a snug under the smoked-window, the traffic-loud exterior fades. He's keen to make things easy - no fuss, no trespass, just an out-take from the hurly-burly going on outside. His “just one snifter” slips away and then he's up again, bar-bright, gibber-loud, firing wit at early locals. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:34:24 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13137 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13137 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13137 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13072-family-man https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13072-family-man  I find myself admiring the pen rather than words, its variegated casement or nib-flow; and this backlit screen of electronic wizardry: I ponder its fonts and textual functionality. I'm all for analysis these days: deconstruction, modelling, proto-typing. My triumphs are financial reconciliation, home economics, savvy investment. I can understand why the old man was prone to talk over my teenage melodies; pass comment on vocal style or production rather than sit until the music moved. I prefer parkland to moors now. Seldom stray from paths. Have forgotten the sad starry gutters. Find the suburbs soothing. Prune roses. Moderate and mediate. Abandon my bloody outbursts. I grow politic, vigilant for any advantage. I've bitten my tongue. Unclenched my fists. Knuckled down. Faced facts. Stiffened my resolve within a weathered skin. So I can watch my children dance. Be content. Clap-happy at their antics. It's not denial but containment: some utterly fierce and final beauty must surely still lurk beneath it all just prohibited and inappropriate: for their sake I learn to drip-feed love; sure and slow-burning, I self-regulate by measured degrees my relative truth, custodian now of the sweet bird of youth - kindling old flames to fire the future, doused by a new-found ocean of tears. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:37:00 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 10 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13072 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13072 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13072 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13060-splitting https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13060-splitting A smug relief to hear he might be cheating: not me; not us; not yet. We had our doubts when she dissembled at the Resident's Meeting, concocting "business trips" for his whereabouts. They lose; we win. Is this how you compare? Perhaps, if us, you’d merely mouth good riddance, resigned, relieved; too cold to have a care; your "C'est la vie" a last indifference. But if you did ask why, I’d sigh the need to fabricate a time - a distant day some random summer hence; when meeting, we’d be strangers struck beside a river, say, or under parkland trees; amazed to find our lost beginning shock us into rewind.  ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:42:10 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 10 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13060 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13060 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13060 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12927-two-in-a-boat https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12927-two-in-a-boat Two seagulls front a gaping moon Apollo-big over Erne’s wide horizon; their soundless drift rounds its pitted rim. The lough calms to a lapping slick, shifts and shimmers to first-stars ringed by trout sucking spent gnats.   Anomalous moon! Such facial proximity is too close and clear in the pallid blue. No fish or the wrong fish snatch our lines. We wait for lost connection, essential depth beneath the brazen waves. Only a perch’s dorsal ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:14:34 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12927 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12927 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12927 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12618-hampstead https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12618-hampstead   Halos punctuate the gloom - Victorian lampposts recede into fog, the stillness thickens.   Am I the street-ghost? half-heard footfalls disturbing silence?   The cold closes in, shrouding Georgian Terraces, Victorian Mansions.   Am I lost in time? seeing gig-lamps corner the gloom from a horse-drawn tilbury, sensing the clop and snort of a phantom phaeton. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:01:28 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12618 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12618 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12618 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12445-place-names https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12445-place-names Through Derrygonnely and Glenasheevar to Navar; from Magho clear skies to Slieve League. Is that Cuilcagh I ask ? Shall we go to Inish Samer ? Glencreawan was a summer trickle. At Meemameen the wind was a knife, so all day we fished Achork. But we're far from Ardlough and Fincairn; Scalp and Eskaheen are hidden by the Blue Stacks. What's in a name: a rose by any other rose... But remember the woods at Ardmore and lost roads through Kilnappy and Gortree and Gorticross.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:02:09 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12445 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12445 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12445 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12412-song-bird https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12412-song-bird The robin sings, poppy-breasted in leaf light - a moment of sky warbling is an out-take of quiet air before the traffic's drowning blare. But if you topped a fairy glade above the murmur of blue bells still your song would stall and fade: you're a beady-eyed killer full-throated, bloody-breasted, piercing the breeze with beautiful threats. I know your many guises: the shining valleys of discontent, the face of heaven darting fire. Beauty is not truth: ephemeral, the lie of ages; we are ever Time's agitators building motorways through Eden.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 13 May 2010 23:36:02 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12407-return https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12407-return The sky has pricked its cloudy finger: look where a tear of blood beads the nettle leaf. It takes a puncture to sigh release. Look where fork-tails scythe the air, their silent homecomings lift like prayer. u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 06 May 2010 23:01:30 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12407 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12407 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12407 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12395-thorpe-park https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12395-thorpe-park Is it because we are potted plants in Acacia Gardens, a little green lung on the manicured streets, when what churns, core-deep, is molten desire, the lion-loud dark of wildebeest and veldt? Is this what drives the theme at Thorpe Park: the gut-wrenching rides of “SAW”, “Colossus” and “Nemesis Inferno”? That stomach-pit haul and thrust of corkscrew madness, clunk and gust of everything spun into oneness, the serenity of annihilation when now is all or nothing. I've adapted to this roller coaster. Life's little cart, chain-pulled into position then accelerating, through the nursery and spilled down the school-corridor, shunting and jolting through familial swerves, to the apex of love and floating free of cares before plummeting on the down-draft of disillusion, breathless and panting up expectation's thrilling groove only to spill again and again on the turning waves- cresting and burning on the sparks of our rails. All my loves, your faces sublime at momentary peaks, let me caress our balancing instant, pause to touch the sky cradling your cheeks and wind-washed hair before we descend into rushing hours, on-the-turn, bottoming-out of a strained ephemeral intensity, aligning to the drag of chains, contained, shrunk. Gravity is mortgaged bricks and mortar; sleepless nights and nappy-filled bins; a tired bedroom's cold-shoulder - until we rise again, weightless and alive to each other.    ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:31:57 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12395 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12395 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12395 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11991-disclosure https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11991-disclosure The day done, long and blustery as a winter strand, now the snug sofa held you, knees drawn-up in fetal repose. The womb-room settled into silence while coffee-cupped hands gestured a sort of prayer- and then you began to disclose:   like a tidal surge stirring-up submerged and restless obsession - how she grew cold and sullen, pre-occupied and quick to snap at mis-judged faults; how soaring bills frequented the letterbox day after day demanding payment, explanations, ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:23:14 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11991 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11991 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11991 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12382-interlude https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12382-interlude   Supine on the sofa, a propped slob, glued to the box, snuggled down, cushioned by fluff and passive smoke from the old boy's roll-ups. It gets too hot in the airless room, a slow fug exhaled, ingested. Stained fingers clang the tobacco tin; he gets chatty with coffee and rizlas. I'm a stay-at-home deterrent, a passive watchdog, cloistered, dour and docile, comfortably ensconced - he'll stay dry and housebound while I laze out the evening: 70s sit-coms, "Alias Smith and Jones", kettle whir from the kitchen, fire-raking and shoveling coal; till home-coming laughter outside announces her return, and she's back with fish supper and meat pie, and we're scrambling for plates and salt. Three sweats and that marker is useless; Joker Finley won a line; the snowball's carried over again; what are we watching? She'll sit a while then retire with Mills and Boon. He puts on the OU after midnight- mathematical models, atomic structures. I hear whispered footfalls before sleep, the street shouts in the night, snoring, foxes, late cars, lamppost light ghosting the curtains. I dream I am at home, will wake to a smoker's cough and the clink of milk bottles, while tomorrow starts another yesterday.     ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:16:50 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12382 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12382 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12382 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12381-the-morning-after https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12381-the-morning-after This knife inside your head is called remorse: O God it won't come out! and reaching up to stem the pain, your nausea's growing worse. You reach and retch again. God make it stop! It ends in bilious drool; you moan and curse, and vow you'll never drink another drop. And then a dawning fuzz of the night before: broken glass and reckless flailing arms in sudden sordid brawls; the boozy blur of fists in heated moments; drunken storms that flare and die in meaningless furor and leave you nursing self-imagined harms. Or worse: a violated aftermath of crumpled sheets and forceful pressing weight, insistent half-imagined hands and breath on disadvantaged stupor, late at night. And now this morning's stab of guilt and growing wrath - O God turn back the clock for time inviolate!   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 10 Apr 2010 21:21:25 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12381 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12381 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12381 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12379-easter https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12379-easter In faithless years the growing doubts dismiss the meaning of my father's father's son- though greater love hath no man than this. I betray heart-felt delusion with a Judas kiss in a comfortless zone of three-score and ten faithless years when growing doubts dismiss. For logic dictates redemption is ridiculous: a sin-obsessed dream from earliest dawn though greater love hath no man than this. It rained this Easter's walk of witness. We stopped to look before moving on through faithless years when growing doubts dismiss. And as they sang beneath a cold cross I was struck by deep waves of being human for greater love hath no man than this. For a moment some paradox of human holiness restored the God of Love in Man in faithless years when growing doubts dismiss that greater love hath no man than this.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 03 Apr 2010 02:09:15 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12379 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12379 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12379