Clouds a gatherin'

There is a very bad mood in this house and I have an awful feeling that it belongs to me. I have no real excuse other than hormones and that's bad enough. The man of my dreams is wandering around the house with such a look of trepidation that he puts me in mind of one of Scotland's oddest named crimes - that of putting the leiges in a state of fear and alarm. Believe me, Archie is one alarmed liege. The poor blighter has done nothing wrong but sometimes when the hormones are flying I'm only safe to be in the company of women who know what I'm on about. Which is odd because I'm usually the first one to say that people shouldn't be defined or constrained by their gender.

Maybe it's all down to phases of the moon or something, but it was in this encouraging state of mind that I stomped upstairs to do some sorting out and promptly found a book that I had written some poetry in. Other people's poetry luckily, not my own. I'd only written a couple of poems in it and it was such a shame to leave a notebook unfilled when I was in need of a garden journal for noting seed sowing times and the like ( March 13 first sowing of tomato-Ailsa Craig ). I've ripped the poems out of the book but here are a couple that fit today's frame of mind.

Man in Space

All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is begining to quiver,

and you will know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal disks.

Billy Collins.



He Tells Her ( For Ruth B )

He tells her that the earth is flat -
He knows the facts and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

Wendy Cope.


The man of my dreams has just asked me if I want a cup of tea. Now I really feel bad!!