Betws Mountain

A thin line of birds
pencil drawn in the dawn sky,
abstracted clouds glow.

The town still sleeping
in the lee of the mountain,
grass prickles wetly.

Yellow light unfolds,
washes the slopes and the hills,
bathes them all gently.

Gorse throws spiky shapes
tumbling over sheep tracks,
dips them in shadow.

The last orange lights
wink out in the town below,
a lone bird circles.

First day nerves

I laugh in the face of first day nerves!

I started my new job today - Volunteer Officer at RNIB Cymru. What a culture shock. I am amazed at how different two offices can be, naming no names (Lloyds TSB *spit spit*).

What a friendly, open, relaxed place this is - and how happy the staff are. Big organisations should take note of these working practices, happy staff mean a well-run, profitable company.

I am really enjoying all the extra responsibility I get here, along with the respect. Something I'd forgotten I deserved - 5 years in Blackhorse nearly kicked it out of me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: they shoot horses don't they.

Manflu

Been two weeks now, so I don't feel bad about moaning.

Breakdown on the weekend, Bev worried, phoning Mam, Mam phoning every night, bless her - bruises on her arms from where we were (joking) fighting when we got pissed on Saturday.

Meeting my new boss tomorrow morning to go over the job. So nervous I can't even eat.

Back (in black)

Back once again, but not a renegade master.

Back, but not quite better.

Today:
Don't Cry Out - Shiny Toy Guns, wrote 10 Pages of my play Sleep/Jungle when I was in work (but I'm leaving in 6 days), Kath made me cry, more things made me cry, I have flu. Thought of owls, then of Ryan.

Re-reading Sarah.

Dolig EP

Free to a good home.
Just click here.

Or go to last.fm/music/FFLWCS/dolig+EP

Nadolig Llawen/Happy Christmas

Love from FFLWCS xx

A Promise (a list)

Here is a list of promises that I am going to keep:

I will be unrepentantly queer
I will be strong
I will sing
I will practice my musical instruments
I will speak Welsh
I will take more photographs
I will remix Caroline’s Eyeball
I will write more
I will publish a book
I will release a single
I will have more exhibitions
I will be happy

Top Ten for Thursday

10. Creedence – Bad Moon Rising
9. Gwen McCrae – Tainted Love
8. The Avalanches – Since I Left You
7. Dolly Parton – Mule Skinner Blues
8. Bearsuit – Itsuko Got Married
7. Radiohead – Exit Music (for a film)
6. BMX Bandits – Kylie’s got a Crush on Us
5. PJ Harvey – Down By the Water
4. Yardbirds – For Your Love
3. Super Furry Animals – God! Show Me magic
2. McAlmont & Butler – What’s the Excuse This Time?
1. Linda Clifford – if My Friends Could See Me Now

CARDINAL VIRTUES/CARDINAL SIN (Extract from Antiville)

I've decided to write more about Debzel and Chlorina. This is a little insight into their relationship, and some kind of Town Hall-funded initiative.

The lesser moon was visible behind the gently smoking chimneys of the industrial park, but the main moon had not yet risen; its slow curve into the sky did not begin for another hour or so. Chlorina kept to the shadows as much as she could, her dark coat blending into the dusty walls and alleyways. Her poor heart thumped itself wildly against her ribs as if trying to escape, though there was nowhere it could go to – she had a fleeting image of it squeezing out and landing on the filthy floor, while she watched powerless as it rolled around in the broken bricks and dirt.
She breathed slowly and ducked into an old shop doorway to light a cigarette, glancing up before she clicked the button of the lighter, no helicopters or cameras watching her. The lighter had been a gift from Deb, for her birthday two days ago. Twenty six years old and still ducking into corners, ‘Rina sighed gently, she was getting too old for this. This was a teenagers’ game, they healed much faster.

Masculine women, Feminine men

Lyrics from an hysterical song from the 1920s, back when being gay was a bit cool.

Masculine women, Feminine men
Which is the rooster, which is the hen?
It's hard to tell 'em apart today! And, say!
Sister is busy learning to shave,
Brother just loves his permanent wave,
It's hard to tell 'em apart today! Hey, hey!
Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot,
Now we don't know who is who, or even what's what!
Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide,
Nobody knows who's walking inside,
Those masculine women and feminine men!

Shoot Buju Banton in da head (til he dead)

Is true, broadly infancy, girl fondled what might be said not true of male children, male and female homosexuality. She found killed. "Others were at far from a well-known dancehall was like a parade," says be a certain logic in sexual proclivities in by their acquire sexual affection for their to me that there is singing and dancing. One man get them one “sin". Othes line Buju Banton about shooting basically partying. Female homosexuality. For if it children who are petted and to be a "normal" is so fundamental difference between called out, "Battyman he get time". That's what you get song by Jamaican star "It Schleifer. They there seems to speaking, we acquire our first mothers, nurses and female relatives own sex. But this seems a very a small crowd celebrating, laughing and shouting "Let's sang "Boom bye bye", and burning gay men.

Softies update

Had a great day charity shopping. I got: a red fleece, eight ties, and a book I'd been looking for for ages.
I then spent ALL weekend making softies. I'll post pictures of them soon, but 'til then, here's what I made.
Monsieur Octopus (from the Plush-o-Rama book); a yellow-clawed red monster with a BIG mouth and a tiny monster in his mouth (that he had eaten); some friendly bacteria (complete with kipper ties as flagella), 6 of them with little eyes and nuclei; a little owldog, the bastard offspring of an owl and a scotty dog; and anothe big mouth monster in a lovely denim-coloured gingham and orange claws.
What a busy little sewing bee I have been.

Dusty water blues

Trying to get in, to being cut yet again, than smoothness shadow inwards.
His uneven like he did they’re still years, grey sky’s rolling again. Deeper valleys of raised skin from dusty water and swallowed can’t stop crying.
It’s takes years bad. The grey sky’s rolling yet again, the same ones can reach. Valleys of raised inwards.
The boy had woken drank some dusty water and he did every morning slowly towards me, trying to stop crying.
Today is getting worse; me, get this bad. They are the sun can reach. Unbroken sleep, drank some pills – crawling slowly towards years and lines, the same ones cut and boy had woken up every morning and I ate years to get this again. Lines are being cut deeper than the sun/skin and broken shadow up from his uneven sleep, swallowed the pills – like getting worse; they’re still crawling get in. And I can’t stop crying.

Haiku (Jacqui/me/Lyn)

Two haiku that I made today. Jacqui wrote the first lines, I wrote the second and Lyn wrote the last.

Cloudbanks

Fluffy white, grey dull
Billowing, fluid motion,
Shapes moving in sky.


Gun-shaped

Gun, shiny silver
Bolts of hardened steel alloy
Solid forged in heat.

More lines

Lines have appeared, they don't bisect. One end is stronger than the other, fainter towards the thin end. Gouged, almost.
They hide a gateway, probably to another world. A world where lines don't exist, or maybe only exist on other peoples' gates to remind them of how to get there, as mine remind me.
A line is worth, if not a thousand words, then at least five hundred.

Buffets

Do you know, I actually hate buffets. There' s something really British about them, but the kind of British that is grey and depressing and 1950s.
The kind of weird British that is good and fab, is seaside towns, rock, car boot sales …

And people always seem to get het up about buffets too, like they are the most important thing in the world. "Ooh, we have to get the vol-au-vents out of the fridge. Somebody take the clingfilm off the chicken dippers."

Revolting.