Litter

It was an ongoing joke in one of my past schools that in morning assembly, if it was taken by a particular deputy headteacher, then whatever the ostensible topic was, the eventual message of the assembly would be, "Don't drop litter!"  Sometimes the reasoning behind the transition from one of the parables, or an improving story of personal courage, or whatever he had heard on the radio coming in to school that morning to "Don't drop litter!" could be a little involved.  But, as one of the few members of staff that actually listened to what was being said in the morning assembly, I always looked forward to the Heath-Robinson reasoning that would take us from the story of The Titanic, for example, to rubbish and the evil ways in which school kids dispose of it.

     I suppose it is impossible to listen to this sort of thing year after year without have some sort of almost instinctive reaction to the throwing away of rubbish in the street or playground or where ever.

     Personally, I find it impossible to throw a piece of paper on to the pavement.  I simply cannot do it.  I keep it in my hot little hand until I find a bin, or I put in a pocket to be disposed of later.

     I do not claim to be a saint in rubbish disposal, as my 'sorting' of household waste leaves much room for improvement - but the casual throwing away of a piece of paper in the street is something that I simply cannot do.

     My parents were stern guides in this department and schools also play their part in inculcating socially acceptable standards of behaviour.  And there were the campaigns, of which "Keep Britain Tidy" - with its stylized one armed man (it is a man isn't it?) puts a piece of paper into the bin or basket - is the one that comes most readily to mind.  It is a campaign that never really ended as Keep Britain tidy is a registered charity and is still going strong.

     But that campaign saw litter as un-tidyiness, it didn't really have the same sort of do-this-or-perish imperative that comes with the solutions to the Problem of Rubbish today.  It seemed like a problem that was more about unsightliness than survival.

     And, given that there appears to be a whole new continent of rubbish forming in the Pacific Ocean, the dropping of a small piece of plastic rubbish in the leisure centre of Castelldefels does not seem very important.  But, watching a kid throw the packaging of something away with an almost unconsciously instinctive movement of the hand was deeply depressing to watch.

     As I was having my traditional cup of tea after my early (very early) morning swim, I also had my trusty notebook to hand in which I had made a few inconsequential remarks on the weather, and so I was able to add my thoughts on the thoughtlessness of the kid.

Litter

It was a moment

of that childish mindlessness

that children do so effortlessly well:

discarded cellophane consigned to gravity

and to oblivion that’s far beyond

the immanence of youth.

That which has left the hand,

Is Other, out of sight, does not exist.

But I observed, and flinched a little

at the regal disregard for what was done.

They pick and choose

the calculations that they do

- the young.

They add up and they take away

within the firm circumferences

of urgent lives.

Adolescent algebra is still ahead,

as is the calculus of age, but

“Here and now, boys, here and now!”

is a belief enough by which to live.

Complex tenses, just like complex sums

lie ‘lives’ away in distant years to come.

But years and lives that they,

not I, will see.

“Keep Britain Tidy” is engrained

(and is a good exportable campaign)      

whose time has perilously

come round again:

as streams and rivers,

lakes and seas,

land-fill and people-filled

are found too full of

what . . .

But yes,

in case you’re wondering,

(although I merely watched

the rubbish fall)

I later passed the dropping point,

and passing, stooped and picked it up

and placed it in a bin.

For what?  For whom?

We need

a damn sight more

than “tidiness”. 

Any comments on this poem will be gratefully received and will get a response!

Daily run

Now that I rise at the ungodly hour of 6.10 am because public transport does not allow my partner to get to work for 7.00 am and I have to act as a grudging taxi service - it means that I get to the pool for my daily swim just at the time that it opens to the public.  Indeed, once or twice I have been, engine running, waiting at the gate for it to be opened!  It also means that I have 'done' my daily exercise by just after 8.00 am and the rest of the day, therefore, is mine and open to do interesting and creative things.

Some of those things should be poetry, and, although the gap of time between this post and the last is large, I have (honestly) been filling it with writing, I simply have not been posting.  And if you think that is some sort of "saving lie" then you could be partially correct.

However, here is a poem.  Freshly written and partially edited, it is at least ready to be laid to one side allowing it to mature, so that I can come to it later and read it with fresh eyes!  That, at least, is the theory.

After my swim, I go to the cafe that adjoins the pool and have a tortilla bocadillo and a cup of tea.  And I take out my little notebook and make notes.  Usually these are mundane to the point of weariness, but occasionally they contain a kernel of something that gradually mutates into a poem.

The seat that I usually claim in the cafe is not my usual summer seat that is in one particular spot outside.  In less clement times I take a seat facing the large floor to ceiling windows giving a view of the car park and the building work beyond.  this view also takes in the pathway to the door of the centre and, at the time that I am usually sitting there, I am able to witness the steady stream of parents who try (and usually fail) to find a parking space to deposit their children so that they can go to the British School of Barcelona (the BSB) that is next to the pool.

As with any Tesco's car park, you can tell a lot about people when they are presented with the need for a parking space that is not there, or at least not where they want it to be.

You can also tell a lot by the way that the deposited children leave the car and begin their walk to school.  As I do not know these people, it is easy to make sweeping assumptions about their attitudes and their home backgrounds.  It is very tempting to pontificate (at least in the privacy of your notebook) about what a scruffily dressed, slow-stepping, head down to mobile phone, earphones plugged in, no coat wearing, not backward looking child leaving a large people carrying Mercedes might represent!  And, yes, I am aware that it might well say more about me than about the 'victimes' of my observation!

This poem, however, was provoked by a child's smile as he accompanied his mum.  It was the sort of smile that said that all was well with his world and that indeed, it was the best possible or all possible worlds and that he was well prepared to go and cultivate his garden!

Added to the observation of the child was the serendipity of hearing part of a  a podcast from Classic FM by Tony Blackadder (his real surname will come to me) that mentioned a musician I had heard of and someone of the same name who I hadn't.  Within 24 hours I had visited an excellent exhibition in the Caixa Forum in Barcelona "Toulouse Lautrec and the spirit of Montmartre" that had a poster for a musical production of the composer that I had heard about the day before.  From that it was an easy step in my mind to remember times when a new piece of information had been given to one of my classes only to have the kids stop me and say that, amazingly, they had heard the word or idea or whatever spoken by someone on the television or on the radio or heard another teacher use it or whatever.  What they took as coincidence I recognized as the normal process of highlighting something so that you become sensitive to its repetition - a repetition that you have previously ignored!

Anyway, here is the poem, in its partially edited form.  I expect it to change before it makes it to a book, but I am pleased with the shape that it has taken so far.

As I always say (and always mean) I welcome any thoughts or responses - good, bad or indifferent!

Daily run

Hand held firmly in his mother’s hand,

the blond-haired boy is smiling

on his way to school.

Why does he smile?

Most children, mobile-eyed,

traipse sullenly

towards day-time captivity.

But he?  He smiles.

How often did I do the same

along the minutes’ walk from

Dogfield Street to Whitchurch Road and

Gladstone Infants/Junior School?

I tolerated school, accepting process

as a means to something

that the years of schooling were a ticket for,

for me, for years & years & years

of schooling more.

But now, with time to muse,

I like to tell myself that smile

on that boy’s face is one

anticipating something new

on offer, or at least could be,

from each fresh part of the curriculum.

The hackneyed, clichéd, everyday -

all are reborn in growing minds.

In all our minds?  Not so?

Three days ago I heard a programme clip;

caught, by chance, a surname that I knew –

but given name Gustave, not Marc-Antoine.

Another man, a  different time, composer too.

Within a day: a poster on an exhibition wall;

“Louise” a ‘roman musical’ four acts (with five tableaux)

Charpentier, the same Gustave I’d heard about the day before!

How many times when dealing with vocab. in class

I’d have the kids excitedly tell me next time

that they had heard “that word you talked about”

Amazed at the ‘coincidence’.  

What we don’t know, we may not sense,

until a word, a gesture, thought

shows up a this & that or these & those

as things together, not apart.

So we, like that young child, should smile

expecting unexpected truth.

Spending and Paying!

If only the purchase of an elegant new laptop computer guaranteed the production of a new and elegant writing style!  Alas!  How ever much one lavishes on technology, the writing still demands that the brain does the majority of the work.

So, with far, far too much expense under my fingertips, how will I justify the splurge of money that I cannot afford on technology that I do not really understand through the words that you are reading now?

Perhaps I can give you some sense of the breadth of the life that I live by letting you know that my new computer (Dell XPS 13 9370) was not the only purchase that I have realised (because I actually paid for the thing some time ago but I’ve only just got it in my hot little hands) today.  Oh no, not by a long chalk.  The other purchase I am wearing or perhaps displaying might be a better word.

Today started well with my waking up at a reasonable hour so that I got to the swimming pool bright and early and completed my regulation 1,500 meters in time enough for me to cycle home from the pool, have a well-deserved cup of tea and then prepare myself for my 3 months check up at the local hospital.

Parking in the hospital car park was a true nightmare.  As my appointment was for 12.10 everyone in the world had already parked there and there were not spaces to be hand, not even for ready money.  So, I began my lonely round of circling the parked cars in the hope that somebody, anybody, would suddenly appear and produce a space.  Perhaps lonely is not the right word as there were a number of us circling, like lazy Indians waiting for a weak spot in the wagon train to appear.  No weak spots did appear.  False hopes, yes.  A space would appear to appear and, as you eagerly made your way towards it, it rapidly became apparent that the space was illusory, the left-over space from a badly parked car overstepping the line and ruining two other spaces.

I eventually found a space into which the car could fit, but I couldn’t get out.  At the time the idea of crawling through the hatchback did not occur to me so I moved on.  The more I drove the more spaces did not appear until I was driven (so to speak) to return to the thin space and see if there was any way in which I could make it work.

By dint of driving&reversing&driving&reversing for few minutes I managed to create a space on the passenger side which looked doable.  I crawled over and eventually out.  I have to admit that I would not have been able to insinuate my way out a few months earlier, but the diet of low fat, no salt, little taste eating that I have endured did mean that my stockily svelte figure sashayed thought the gap with minimal (but significant) pain!

The hospital itself was packed: at least the bit that I was in was.  There was no seating available for patients in the area of the consulting rooms and I had to take a spare seat by the large windows in the corridor.  I was, to put it mildly, depressed at the number of people waiting to be seen and I knew from past experience that such numbers meant a long wait.

I kept my eye on the door to consulting room 36 and was further depressed to see no movement whatsoever: nothing!  From other rooms people emerged, some in white coats, called out names, and indicated an order in which people were going to be seen.  From room 36, nothing.  I had arrived in good time and it appeared that I would have been able to waltz in hours later and still not miss my place.

Three minutes before my scheduled appointment, a doctor and a nurse suddenly appeared and went into room 36.  A minute later the nurse reappeared and said those magic words, “Stephen Morgan?” and I was up like a long dog and into the room before anyone else with those unlikely first names took my place.

The main aim of my visit (at least for me) was to get the doctor to change my twice daily injections for a simpler pill.  If possible.  Please.

I had qualified success.  The doctor agreed that a pill would be better for me as my stomach (the site of 180 injections so far and counting) looks more like a fleshy war zone, with lumps, bumps and bruises, than a repository of fat and salt free comestibles.  Tomorrow I have to return to the hospital and have a series of blood tests to check the progress of the blood clots or rather their dispersal that are the cause of all my problems, and, depending on the results of those tests I will be able to stop sticking myself and allow my much-abused stomach to get its own back and dissolve a pill instead.

All of this sounds like good news, but one aspect of the meeting has had a colourful consequence.  For the first couple of weeks after I had been discharged from hospital I had to wear a pair of thoroughly unflattering pressure stockings.  It took the two of us to get the damn things on and I could not wait for the two weeks to go to get rid of them.  To my undisguised horror, the doctor that I saw today told me to resume their use.  The only concession was that I needed to wear only one and it could be just up to the knee rather than thigh length.

I am now the proud possessor of a bright blue (still unflattering) tight blue stocking.  Which I have to wear.  Until when?  I sincerely hope not long.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  Although my appointment tomorrow is for 9 am I would not be unhappy for it to drag on for hours.  The simple reason is that tomorrow is also my Spanish lesson day and in our last lesson we had a surprise test and I have absolutely no desire to find out exactly how I have done.  Because I know exactly how I have done!  

It appears that I am, after all, capable of shame!