Toccata and Fugue

Hello. When I was maybe about 10 Dad got an organ. It was a great big beast of a thing with three keyboards, banks of stops and a full pedal board. To get it into the house involved four men and a carpenter to take out the bay window. I have written a little thing about this memory which I'd like to share with you. It's called 'Toccata and Fugue' and goes thusly:

Toccata and Fugue

I lay there on a Sunday morning,

An hour or four after sun’s first dawning,

And piercing through my yawning into my head,

Through two layers of floorboards and a couple of dog beds

Came a series of chords –

The sound of JSB arranged for organ and canine voice.

If the dog had had a choice we’d have had Toccata and Fugue as a ceaseless litany

To which I'm inclined to agree.

Nothing is finer than this tune in D minor

For sending me back through the years

To when, through naive ears,

These notes first astounded me;

They both lifted me up beyond the stars

And concretely, firmly, grounded me.

Those notes bouncing and soaring off hardwood floors

Will forever feed the spark of joy in my spirit

When I remember Dad saying “No, get off my keyboards,

I know the sheet music and there’s no mention of a feline in it!”

This piece will always send my brain back home,

Even when it’s not home and my parents move out.

Though to do that they’ll say “For sale: one organ. Comes with a free house.”

One hopes you're well,
yours,
ADWoodward

Be You

Hello. I have written a thing. I started writing it not knowing where I was going to go with it. Having just read it back to myself it seems to be a love poem to someone who might not exist. Either way it's call 'Be You' and I'd like to share it with you. It goes thusly:

Be You

My lady, I like to think of myself as gentlemanly so I don’t wish to be unsettling, but can I climb inside and be you? Poor choice of phrase. I don’t mean to say that I’m unhappy with my gender; I don’t remember that being one of my fears. Not least because I’m quite attached to this beard.

When I say ‘be you’ I suppose the intended inference is ‘be so close that it makes no difference.’ You see, I don’t like me but you do and if I could be you I might see what you do. I want to see why someone might or might not be with me. See, it’s a mystery. But if I could grow certain things within me and keep others in the shade maybe my hates and fears and loathings would wither and fade away and so give me more space for art and joy and unbridled laughter no longer afraid of who might hear.

 And if I could be you I could know the things that you fear. And then when I’m me again I could help with a chaise longue clipboard and pen and stroke my beard and say “Hmmm, und how does ziz make you feel?” and make your dreams become more real.

 Or, if that doesn’t work I could use bad jokes to while away your days as we sit on beer-stained bar-room couch asking “What sauce do you eat on your chips when you’re in a Frenchman’s house?” The answer’s Maisonnaise. It’s funny because it’s bilingual.

There’s not a single thing I want more than to be close enough that it’s hard to be apart or afar; like the heart of a neutron star. The force of our attraction could fuse our quarks together so that strange and charm seem to be spelt with the same letters so as to be indistinguishable, and our closeness would make a light that’s nigh-on inextinguishable.

Now, there’s a chance that all this gravity could implode and make a black hole, but truth be told that’s quite rare amongst the stars which is what I’m aiming for.

I wonder if I’ve already met you and if I have if I’ve not lost the chance to open up this ark I keep within my chest and forge a covenant with you. If I do do this in the future I hope it doesn’t melt your face off. Because I like your face.

Maybe these people I’ve met are just your shadow on the walls of Plato’s cave. If that’s the case then I say “Bring on the day of our meeting come what may along the way!”

But if I’ve met you or not met you or will never get to meet you, please promise you’ll always be you. Be you, not the person I may have imagined. And if you can, maybe love me after a fashion.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward

Old Pooh

Hello. My Grandad's favourite poem was Us Two by A. A. Milne. I've written a thing based on that which I'd like to share with you. It goes thusly:

Old Pooh

Wherever I go I think of Pooh

But Pooh’s not here with Me.

Whatever I do I miss old Pooh.

This is great, Pooh’d like it, too!
Dinner and chat and a drink or two

This is a poem for Pooh by Me,

This is a poem for Pooh.

“What’s wrong with the country?” I said to Pooh

(“With what?” said Pooh to Me)

“I think it’s the times and the people, too”

“Just what I think myself,” said Pooh

“You’ll sort it out one day, won’t you?”

And we planned our regime did Pooh and Me,

I planned our regime with Pooh.

“Let’s look for Fleurie!” I said to Pooh

“Yes let’s!” said Pooh to Me.

We opened the cupboard and found a few

“Yes that is Fleurie, all right” said Pooh.

“As soon as I saw the labels I knew”

"That's what they are," said Pooh, said he,
"That's what they are," said Pooh.

“Let’s drink the Fleurie!” I said to Pooh

“All right,” said Pooh to Me

I found some glasses and filled a few.

He wasn’t thirsty so I drank his too.

Lovely old Fleurie and down it flew

A bottle of wine with Pooh and Me,

A bottle of wine with Pooh.

So wherever I go I think of Pooh

‘cos Pooh was dear to Me.

“I’m nice bloke,” I said to Pooh

“And it’s down to you” and Pooh said “True”

I wish you all could have met old Pooh

So please raise a glass to Pooh for Me,

Please raise a glass to Pooh.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward

You Gotta Have Friends

Hello. I have written a little bit of therapy which I'd like to share with you. It goes thusly:

You Gotta Have Friends

Or:

Three Point Two Seconds of My Daily Internal Monologue

I don’t like me, never have, probably never will.

You might say that’s silly but still,

I think I’m a prick.

Not a nice idea, but I think it’s true because it really seems to stick

. Normally it doesn’t matter because this is great and you’re great and Hey look! I’ve got a beer.

But at other times it’s painfully clear.

A law of existence,

Indefatigable in its persistence,

Something that gives the world its tick –

Matter’s made from stardust and I’m a fucking prick.

You ask:

“Why don’t you go into your own head and figure out what’s up?”

Ah,

Now, there’s the rub.

See, my brain is like a night club:

Slightly sticky, a little manic,

Full of booze and if I spend more than ten minutes there

Liable to make me panic.

You see, I don’t think I’m a real person –

There are other problems but this is the worst one.

I’m a grey, insipid figure in a series of shoddy masks –

Things that I change depending on the task.

There’s this one for being funny,

This for being smart,

This one for being practical

And this for trying to share my heart –

Which never works

Because why

Would you buy

Something which even I,

The seller,

Don’t believe is worth it?

But the real bugger

Is no matter what I mutter

Or shout

I would not be without

My precious masks,

My poorly-painted papier-mâché shields.

For when I’m out in the field

And whichever mask I’m wearing happens to slip,

Even just a bit

I lash out with flailing verbal hits

Because I’m scared

That it’s only the masks I wear

That give me any value.

But there are bad days and good days,

And I’m not in the worst of it right now

And if you’ll kindly let me,

I’d like to tell you how.

I can make me feel like shit,

So it follows I’m a prick,

QED.

But if I am a prick, then why on earth

Do I even listen to me?

The world is full of pricks who do and say things I don’t like,

But I don’t listen to them,

I just turn up the heavy metal and have another pint.

But the main reason I can cope

And life seems mostly fun,

Is that although I don’t like me,

Others do

So at least the job gets done.

One hopes you're well,
Yours,
ADWoodward

A conversation verbatim

Hello. I've been in a dark mood for about a week now, and earlier today a friend got me out of it. There is no rush like the sudden contrast of hating oneself versus being happy. I don't know whether this will give anyone but me a rush, but it was an important enough conversation that I want a record of it. There's some phrasing in the conversation that to my mind smacks like literature so I thought it might fit in here. It helped me and might help you, so I thought I'd share it with you.It goes thusly:

Me: 

How does one go about shutting off that part of one's brain which delights in delivering a rolling litany that one's a cunt?

My friend :

BEER

What's up?

Why do you want to tell people of their cuntishness?

Me:

I don't know. across the last week every time when I've not been doing something else (and a lot of the time when i've been try to do something else) I've had a rolling mass of lists of reasons whose origins i don't know but whose veracity i can't doubt of all the reasons why I have no value

it's starting to get to me

My friend: 

My delayed response is due to having just choked on my own saliva for no reason other than I appear to have forgotten how to swallow. Sorry.

Why do you think that you lack value?

Me:

I'm not an actual person. i'm a series of shoddy masks - one that pretends to be intelligent, one that pretends to be funny one that pretends to be creative and they keep slipping or they don't fit any more which prompts an impulse to lash out venomously while i try to re-affix them for even a few moments. I don't like lashing out and so I sit hoping noone actually looks and sees the poorly-painted papier machee hanging limply from my face

And I'm a prick who apparently can only speak in overly-forced metaphor

My friend:

While that's very artistic Woody, it's complete and utter bollocks

You've clearly overthought your existence a little too much

What you have just described can be applied to any human being.

The fact that you are intelligent enough to recognise it makes you special

You are an actual person and you are a genuine and lovely person. And I know this because I like you, and I am very picky over people that I feel safe around

Me:

Hurrah

My friend:

The issue here is not what you think you are, it's that you have over thought who you think you and in doing so have broken down all the little tiny things that make you special into nothingness.

You've broken yourself down into tiny parts which you are focusing on

Which makes them meaningless

what makes them meaningful is when all of the tiny, broken down, insignificant little pieces of you join together

Because that makes a person

Just as the single atoms of my bedroom floor are meaningless as individuals

But put them all together and you have a floor. Which is important or else I would have fallen into the living room

In short, you are not a cunt. Some small aspect of your personality may be a cunt, but that part is an important part of you and you should cherish it and see it in context with all the other parts of you. Because without the good and bad aspects of your personality you really would have no value.

Does that help at all?

17:47

Me:

Yes.

Thank you.

A Small Recommendation

Hello.

Have you ever been sat in the corner of a room filled to the brim with emptiness of an unknown origin, trapped by a great black dog which with drooling yellow fangs snaps off the words “you’re a cunt” in near-continuous, rumbling litany to keep you immobile and scare off any visitors you might have?

I have.

I probably wouldn't recommend it to friends.

One hopes you're well,

yrs,

ADWoodward

Prometheus

Hello. Prometheus was the immortal who in Greek myth stole fire from the gods and gave it to his favourite mortal, humans. His name means 'forethought' and fire was often used as a symbol for thought and knowledge. Zeus, king of the gods, punished Prometheus for this by chaining him to a rock in the Caucasus. He also punished humanity by sending them a woman called Pandora ('all gifts') and  a box. Pandora, a curious person by nature was instructed not to open the box. She could not resist, of course. When she opened the box a great stream of plagues and sufferings and whatnot streamed out of the box to bedevil humanity.
I have written a thing inspired by this myth which I think I thought I'd share with you. It is a chained Prometheus addressing an exultant Zeus and it goes thusly:

PROMETHEUS

They were cold. They were frightened, flinching at half-seen phantasms in the dark. They were left wanting for even the most basic of necessities; left wanting by you, the all-powerful Father. Abandoned. Wretched. Hopeless. Forgotten in the dust by you whom they had been taught would protect them. By you whom they had been taught to love. By you whom they had been taught only became wroth with them when they deserved it. They believed themselves to be less than they were; to be children, subjects to the inscrutable will of the Father, slaves to the whims of the master. They were sad, scared, pathetic creatures, these humans. I heard them crying out and it wrenched my heart. I heard them say:

“Please, Father! I’m hungry!”

“Please, Father! I hurt and I don’t know why!”

“Please, Father! Some curse has fallen upon me! I’m weak, and I’m dying and I’m scared!”

I heard this. Night after night I heard this. I heard the panic, the wailing, the sobbing of these broken-hearted children. I heard it echoing off the sky until the very stars wept at their inability to help. I heard it, and I know you heard it – how could you not? You heard it and you did nothing. Nothing! You left them in their futile misery because “their nature makes them unsuitable for anything more!”

I pitied them in their pointless, helpless plight. How could you not? How could you hear their pleas and see their terror at a world not their own and not do everything in your power to soften their hardship? How could anyone refuse to give them a little bit of warmth and light?

You did, though.

So I gave them a spark, a few embers to distract them from their fears and how they marvelled. How they laughed to see that these demons they feared were nothing more than branches flailing in the wind. They fed the fire and it fed them and they started to stand a little taller.

Those few inches brought them too close to you, though, didn’t they? Too close to Olympos’ lofty heights. Secure in your storm-walled fortress you saw those scant few inches as an unacceptable threat to your power. Uppity servants need to be put in their place, don’t they? They need to be made small so they don’t think they have the power to rise further than the walls of their confines. You had them in their cage for a reason, after all. They weren’t good enough to try their hand at all the joys beyond the four walls you so thoughtfully put around them for their own safety.

You, o most myopic of deities, not only could you not see the wonders this little lump of liberty would make possible, but you actually punished them for daring to reach for it!

Did you really think, foul and impotent godling, that she would be a punishment? Did you really think she, this daughter of my heart, imbued with the self-same curiosity and kindness that saturates my own ichor, would be a burden to these mortals? She is a rock on which they can stand tall, a rocket to launch them to such heights that your Olympos will seem a squalid anthill.

Send your plagues, she will cure them. Have your wars to thin the ranks of men, she and those like her will compose epics on the joys of coming home. Sow your jealousy amongst their hearts; she will drive her race to seek pure and everlasting joys. She will light such fires in the hearts of mortals that the fear on which you depend for your power will soon be nought but ash, a poorly-remembered childhood nightmare.

So rattle the clouds with thunder, scrawl threats across the sky with lightning-charged ink howl with rage from your little throne; it will do you no good. My inquiring daughter will give them all the gifts you denied them. She will forge for them all the tools you feared they might wield. She will lead them to wonders that you in your arrogant ignorance never dreamed possible. She will end your loathsome reign.

One hopes you're well,
yrs,
ADWoodward