As we sit in the covid  Squallor at first i thought i'd never want to or be able to write anything about it. I was stuck in the house a lot as a kid and this time in our lives has made me feel like i was going back to that, just   slowly falling back. The closing down of old life i found too heavy  and miles too  depressing, and truthfully its still despressing but out of that came a great suprise for me, The zooms.  While  for years I ranted on about hoping to get better disability access in venue's and it remained painfully slow in changing . However zoom has bypassed all the faff and  enabled  me a guy who makes no secret of not being a fan of tech, illustrated in my poem computers..  amazingly  its  enabled  me to be anywhere in the country cos zoom doesn't have the restrictions of stairs and the like. its the mini tour i've never quite been able to put together. .

I'm still grappling  and  have really  mixed feelings about the lack of atmosphere and other drawbacks but i'd have never thought id be invited to places such as Woking, Coventry or sale, i' spent  so long just trying to get into venues in my own town let alone others.. I suppose whhat i'm trying to say in this first little blog entry on here for about 16 years is don't loose hope, particularly the younger people  wait it out,  and it might just give us an  unxpected  few things and turn around.. After all we can't see the future so hang on in there.. I've done a number of virus related poems and short  stories  to hopefully oneday publish  but here's one  pre covid  about   another person who i was fond of and who  helped me find my way.

 

THE PROMINENCE OF THE PENCIL WIZARD

 

Robyn was my art teacher at college, a man with a pleasantly, creative face, although his beard didn't care & was all over the place

 

Robyn was my art teacher at college and at every college do, he very often loved to waltz with a whiskey.

 

Somewhere between peace protester and a pencil wizard was Robyn

 

It was on just such a college occasion that he smiled at me whiskey in hand and so a song and ritual began,

 

The song signified something else it was sit down by James & every year without fail at every college party a circle would form with me in the middle and Robyn at the helm nodding merrily to me. At the time I felt quite awkward being the centre of attention, it's not what I like. I also wondered at first if this was a bit of sarcasm being a wheelchair user. That was squashed & changed quickly though when I began to realize what it really was. This a modern update on the oaky cokey was a simple and genuine heart warmed attempt at empathy. To say, mate, you are not this, we enjoy your company. Everyone in that room reaching for empathy through a song. .

 

A few years later the crazy thing was one of my disabled friends said the same thing happened to him at every college do as well, same song & same routine, whatever it was possibly maybe a generational thing, a disability rousing anthem, or just something very strange, I think now looking back it was a brilliant gesture. A gesture symbolic of life we are alone but somehow we're also together.

 

 

“ Those who feel the breath of sadness sit-down next to me.”

“ Those who feel they're touched by madness sit-down next to me.”

Sit down by James