May 4, 2005
-
“Sleep, it is a gentle thing…”
Those who do not flippin’ work
Always seem to be asleep,
Their heads filled with dreams that
Will in fact, pass them by.
Me?
I make a cup of tea
And curse my watch
And how I’ve botched my life.
When you cannot sleep
At least, not deep,
You are half-asleep all day,
And in a corner of a bar you say
“I need to close my eyes”
And then you are away.
Your mind goes blank
And you do not thank
The customer who cries
“Tiffy’s asleep, bless her!”
Why can’t I sleep at night?
I do things right,
I pop my sleeping pills
Until I feel ill
And cry for them to work,
Knowing they never will.
Yes, I lie awake all night, it’s true.
Lie awake all night,
Worrying about you.
—
Tiffy Witherington.
————————
Yesterday buttercupped into today
as the cold rain fell onto my upturned feet
stuck out as they are from the soggy cardboard
that was my home
for another damned night.
I unwrap the mess.
I am filthy. But there
is nowhere to wash
no public baths no where
dossers like me can not but stink
it is part and parcel of my downer.
If only the hostels were not so full
of drug-crazed loonies that’ll
steal all of my sad little stuff
just cos I’m black.
I step out into the rain
squashing the ground with my sogged feet
and wait for the long boring day
to buttercup into tomorrow.
—
blackie fortuna.
——————-
freedom bus
____________
at last the bus is taking me away from the city,
the bus’s torn posters echoing the torn night,
for their ain’t no black dreams left in the city
with its rows of ugly shadows
there ain’t no decent black shadows
unlit by car headlamps,
and no blades of grass unglared by neon.
the bus is taking me away from the city
& the soft click of the ticket-machine
is music to my ears,
its gearpurring, its red uphoistery
& its grubby-stained floors
all seem romantic to my soul.
for the bus is taking me away from
the place where they stole my colour,
taking me away,
so I can kip in some field
& watch the blackness
smile inbetween the stars!
—
blackie fortuna.
————-
Some photos of Lord Pineapple have started to appear in THIS blog: http://theclownfromclowne.blogspot.com/
For full photograhs.
Sorry not been on much, it’s not that I am downloading photos as much as I can’t sit for long on the computer thanks to a thousand pains!
Comments (33)
i like the first piece the most…just because me and a friend talked about sleep and dreams this morning. and yes, sleep is gentle.
takes me to a different world, which will sometimes make me realize im lucky living in the real one.
im sorry you cant copy and paste what i wrote…i put the html in so that people couldnt take the pictures i put on my site. there is this other way to get them though, i saw my brother did it yesterday..i just dont know how.
thank you for your comment. although i dont actually take compliments, it is wonderful to receive a comment like that from a writer like you.
The suffering , the distress and the need of freedom and renewal are expressed in powerful way in those three poems . Congrats .
And thanks for your comment and its precisions . I share , my friend .
In friendship
Michel
interesting.
sad that people still feel that way……. on both sides… … i posted the poem on sarahs as you asked… but it seems that the sarahs are going away………….flight back home perhaps to the blackness between the stars…
and of course i spend all my time in a seedy bar drinking coffeee……whatever else is there to do here..lol…
ps. the dolls are plastic not china… they are real toys from way back… and are all marked with names etc…
I like these poems, they are very real for many people, my son would be one of the people riding the bus or sleeping under the cardboard and it’s a shame the world is such a place as to be so cold, damp and unsympathetic. Many of us are like the walking wounded and there but for the… whatever the powers…. goes me (go I???)
your comment made me giggle:)
I like the first poem; I can especially relate to this part:
Those who do not flippin’ work
Always seem to be asleep,
Their heads filled with dreams that
Will in fact, pass them by.
Me?
I make a cup of tea
And curse my watch
And how I’ve botched my life.
I love sleeping…heh
-Jos-
awsome site
Awesome poems all of them, but once you mentioned parcel my mind was overwhelmed by the importance of being earnest, not to say the poem is like it just the word triggered it, it is an awesome word. I especially loved the last one about freedom! Thanks for your comment, I plan on trying to be every kind of poet possible.
M.A.
I’ve missed being able to read these every day! Excellent as always.
I love the first poem by Tiffy. She’s amazing. I’m not sure I bought the other two poems because I feel like a homeless man might not have that kind of control over the language. However, I guess I don’t know his backgroun and it’s a tiny bit of a stereotype.
It makes you step back and think of who you could be missing.
my sleep poem! well, I’m glad you wrote it, because lack of sleep has made me incoherent.
These are wonderful. I can relate best to the first one. The other’s are too close to my fears for me to read them without my own fear and antipathy interfering with what the writer is trying to say.
The pain of wanting and trying to sleep does alot to an insomniac to the extent of popping sleeping pills…. worse one cant sleep when their mind is distracted
i know if im all alone at home, thats the time when i wont be able to sleep ..fear what the night has for me 
, i agree with sleep is gentle. the second poem sounds rather sad how blackie fortuna tries to look forward to the next day to accept how he is, how the scenario is around him and yet wishes for a change, i love the way you use the word ‘buttercup’
RYC: it was a one off when i saw that quiz, im not really into them but i thought what the heck
i rather do puzzles really, it gets my brains to work !!
Hope you are well !!
You’ve just been memed. Hope you don’t mind, dear poet. Be back later to comment… xo
Loved Tiffi’s poem. I feel for Blackie. One can be articulate and homeless at the same time-it might happen to me in several years! Come see my Love poem, see what you think?
I actually like the last two better.
Is blackie fortuna a new poet? I like his work. I like the way you can empathize with almost anyone, seeing their lives from the inside, they way they do living them. And the small details, like the feet sticking out of the cardboard, the posters on the bus, give a sensual reality in the outer circumstances to the inner misery…
ps you don’t have to do the meme if you don’t want – I struggled with it for days, not liking meme sort of things, but actually enjoyed it when I filled it out. It’s up to you. xo
Good work, Lordy. Love all three. I much prefer this version of “Freedom Bus” to the one you posted a while back.
like the last two, a lot.
lord i am a Tiffy fan & i am concerned for her ~ she may have Hoshimatos Thyroiditis ~ just an observation magi
very nice…then you should!
jase
Sleeeep. How I long to sleep. (I haven’t done that in a week now.)
ryc: actually that would be a perfect day to meet all your subscribers and who knows an ‘orgy’ could happen hehehehe ..your jokes can never fall flat !!
Back in the fold so to speak…..Knight and I met Timothy Leary and had some discussion with him…he was well on his way to oblivion by that time..it was about 10 years ago. Hope all is going well there as I have been gone and working too much
Nanny Nowhere
Haven’t heard much from you lately I feel like Tiffy i do not sleep well but who is blacky foruna? I hope you get well enough for your trip to America that Little Egypt writes about I don’t think I could take a long journey any more nice poetry as usual Cheers Maj
very cute pics
Are you abandoning Xanga for blogspot??
Well I just made myself a nice cup of tea! ! Nice reading! Ah! to sleep!
Karolyn
Terry, EVERY image is copyrighted to whomever created the image, whether it was by hand, by computer, by photograph, by throwing feces against the wall. Postcard companies purchase licenses to use the images.
Great pictures! I hope you are feeling great very soon!
Hey there. Sorry I haven’t been around in a while.
Take care.
Typed a note in your Guestbook but it went ~poof! GONE!
Hello LP,
I am always humbled when I receive a visit from one so grand of a writer. You are ‘right as rain’ when you commeted that we seem not to have the “TIME” to TALK. Seems few people take time out of their busy lives to just have a wee cup o’tea and a wee blether as my Mom used to say. (Remember my Mom was from Glasgow.) So here I always have the time to come and go… pictures, words and thoughts are in suspended animation here in Xanga….. Well off I go back through the looking glass to find new adventures and maybe return to old ones for another look see..
Thanks for commenting , Karolyn @-}-}-
Call me whatever you will – I only read the first one – and so much enjoyed it that I skipped the others to teel you, for the bazillionth time – your talent is amazing and fantastic– the product instantly familiar – as though it had been missing until you’d put things into words.
Quite the handsome chap you were with that cowboy hat!
You never disappoint with your words … As always, thank you for sharing.
~ X