The phone call.

Rusty in lockdown with a sharp knife.

Rusty video-called from Lizard Bend Idaho.

I said: Hi Rusty. He said: Back at ya.

I said What goes Rusty and he said America has gone to shit since the feds decided to protect Trump rather than shoot the fucker. If the virus don't get us Trump will.

I said that it goes like that here with Johnson.

We both said "We're fucked" at the same time. We are too old to say Jinx.

Talking of fucking, I said, talking of fucking, how is Babs.

He said: Loving her is like loving a very sharp knife with a mind of it's own.

I said: You could leave her Rusty.

He said: Never turn your back on a very sharp knife.

Blunt but true.

Dead nurse.

She is gone, dead. Died,
not in the line of masked
and gloved duty
but in Poundland
shocked mortally shocked
her box of stale Matchmakers
two pounds
not one

And the sudden heart stopping realisation
that Tesco was better value

and none of the cashiers
were trained in first aid.

Panty liners. A poem:

:

She said: write me a poem
write about panty liners
I said: Nothing rhymes with that.

She said: Nothing rhymes with shit
but you manage it.

I wiped my quill on a strange
but absorbent thing.

Obsequiously.

Scarves, Masks and Sestra Moja.

Let's face it, Coronavirus is going to be with us for some considerable time. Face masks will become automatically worn, rather like seatbelts, and accepted.

Sestra Moja normally creates wonderful dresses, I'll be buying one for the muse if she will allow me to, but is making mask/scarves in the same fabrics as her clothes. A friend showed me her green number a couple of weeks ago, I asked if I could have a blue one, It arrived a few days later.



It is wonderful, comfortable and can transform me from Lawrence of Arabia to boho poet in seconds. There is a pouch in the mask bit for extra material or small marsupials. Oh, and it is washable.

It will be my constant accessory from now on.

https://www.instagram.com/sestramoja/?hl=en

The Tin Lodes, Andy Brown and Marc Woodward. Oh, and the magic of poetry.

This arrived in the mail today:

Then I needed to drive a friend to her home to sort some stuff out. I took the book with me. when she saw it she said: 'Good, you have a book'. Meaning that she knew she could take her time, no pressure, I was happy sitting in the car listening to Dylan and reading something keenly anticipated.

The Tin Lodes is a delightful book, the authorship of each poem is unknown but that very quickly becomes irrelevant, here are two minds in tune, they know each other well, they must. They know their river too.

By the time I had got to page 25 I put the book down, ripped open a CD cover on which to write notes of a memory from years ago, when anchored in the lower reaches of the Deben late one moonlit night waiting for the tide to take us over the notorious bar and out to sea. The water surrounding the boat became alive with small fluorescent fireworks; ragworm dancing at the surface, something I had never seen before and have never witnessed since.

The power of good poetry to invoke memory.

A wonderful book.

The colour of her eyes.

She said: Stop it, you are staring at me.

It is creepy.

I thought: I am memorising your eyes so that when you accuse me of not knowing what colour they are

I can tell you with absolute certainty

and hope to mend whatever it is that is broken.

Bad B Bop in the hood.

Last week a group of young people arrived outside and started dancing in the street. I went out and asked them what it was all about.

I was told that they were a bunch of dancers, who, during lock-down, were putting together a video. The asked if they could film outside the house.

You bet.

I watched from the safety of the first floor balcony. I was impressed by the hand sanitiser being used constantly, the respect the showed and the burst of joy that they brought into the day.

Coronavirus tales.




This is the result:

When PPE kills. Coronavirus.

I cannot wear a mask for any longer than a few minutes. My lungs do not have the strength to drag sufficient air through the fabric or filter. After 5 minutes in a mask I require an hour recovering my breath. The only mask I can wear long term needs oxygen piped into it.

This is why I am shielded and considered high risk.

This is why the place in which I self isolate is a sacred place. It is the only place where I can lead a normal existence whilst any trace of the virus exists in the community.

I have lived, and learned to enjoy living this precarious life for ten years and thanks to the stunning kindness and generosity of good good friends may continue do so in this Haven.

There are thousands of people in similar circumstances who do not enjoy such privilege.

Lifting shielding too soon is sentencing them to death.

Trump Loyalists, Beat the eye, bedroom ceilings.

Rusty McGlint (blog passim) writes from Lizard Bend, Idaho:

Tristan, hope you are safe, America is doomed and I'm packing a gun 24/7.

Met a woman today, said she was a Trump Loyalist, asked if I would like to look at her bedroom ceiling.

Ok. I'm a man with needs but my needs do not need that kind of need.

Just learned from a friend that she is a Tromp L'oeilist. Hot damn.

What lifting of shielding means.

At present I am Shielded. I am shielded because I have a chronic condition which would guarantee that the virus will kill me.

As I live in a RBKC flat where it is impossible for me to be able to self isolate I am living elsewhere. My landlords are pleased that I am doing this because, under shielding, they have a duty of care and cannot carry out that duty.

When, on an arbitrary date - August 1st - with no evidence that the Virus will cease to be a danger to me, shielding is lifted, my landlords will no longer have that duty of care.

My tenancy dictates that I MUST live at my flat, failure to do so will result in my eviction.

Therefore, on the first of August, I must move back into a building that the owners feel is not safe for me to live in. I will not be able to self isolate if I so chose. If I do not I will be making myself intentionally homeless and cease to be of any interest to RBKC.

If I decide to remain away from my flat my possessions will be put into storage by RBKC at my expense.

I would be delighted if Boris Johnson, Cummins and co lift not only my shielded status but also my condition, therefore rendering me safe to go home.

The virus is still in the community, there is no cure, a second wave is expected but it is safe to leave the trenches in order to protect the economy at the expense of human lives.

I am lucky. I have somewhere safe to remain and good friends.  Millions of others are not. They are being thrown to the wolves.

Alarm in the time of Coronavirus.

I have always hated alarm clocks and would always avoid setting one if I could.

Now, even when there is no need I set one. For the joy of tomorrow, what it will bring.

Dentures. Snow. East Croydon.

Snow in East Croydon,
turns to rain by Haywards Heath,
heading down to Eastbourne
in search of second hand false teeth.
Train grinds to a halt at Lewes,
flooding on rails ahead,
now a taxi ride to the seaside
and the dentures of the dead.
There is no snow on Beachy Head
nor on the strand beneath,
just one solitary fossil
in search of fallen false front teeth.