Sheep - a poem in one sentence

Just looking out for you Spendi.

Aidan,

Didn't we make a wager some time back?

Wasn't it regarding coins?'

I do believe I won, consequently you owe me.


Spendius, I will not admonish further bollockings onto your thick skull. However, if you don't behave on these pages, I want to make it perfectly clear to you that for the remainder of your life you will need to go up your arse with a tooth brush to clean your teeth.

I have absolutely no memory of that.

You know Aidan, if you can't recall me mentioning the bad penny always turns up, I must be dreaming.

Oh yeah - you did say that - but we didn't bet on it.

Try to be serious - I don't want him to feel we're beneath his dignity or anything over here.

*Just kidding Spendius. I really do wish you'd help Mathos and I with this project. We need someone who's serious and dedicated enough to get the ball rolling.

What direction would you like the ball to roll in Becks?

I can't be expected to be responsible for getting the ball rolling if I haven't had instructions on where it is supposed to end up. Balls have a tendency to move unpredictably. Especially on uneven surfaces which are being rocked backwards and forwards. Even gently.

Try it with a globule of mercury on a smooth white tile if you don't believe me.

Yes, Spendius - even though science is not particularly my thing, I do understand some of the most rudimentary concepts of physics - especially those that I might have been observing from experience since the age of about 6 months, which is probably when I first learned to sit up by myself (as most normally functioning babies do) and someone first may have rolled a ball to me.

Although I do find experiments interesting, and I probably would enjoy watching the drop of mercury wobble around, I don't need to experiment with a drop of mercury and a smooth tile to figure out what I already know. And I'm not disparaging your method of gaining knowledge or
commending mine. I'm just noting the difference.

Now, see that I find fascinating. The differences in how people learn what they learn, as well as their preferences and natural tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses in terms of how each individual not only acquires knowledge, but also what inspires a person and determines which knowledge he or she will choose to acquire and/or feels most comfortable acquiring- you know child development, learning styles, gender or personality differences and the resultant areas of cognitive strength or weakness..
Let's write a story encompassing some of those subjects.

I don't know what the story's going to be about. You should know better than me - Mathos keeps going on about one you've already started with a doll and some ears or something...maybe you guys would like to finish that one.

Well Becks think on this-

Imagine Salammbo as a miracle. Flaubert walking on the waters of language and taking 26 letters of the alphabet and feeding millions on them.

The miracle takes place between the blank sheet of paper on his desk and our staring at the page and though there are many instruments within that space his is the key one.

In examining the page we are studying an extrusion ,some might say an excrement, of Flaubert's soul or,to be more up-to-date the "real" him and trying to discover whether this extrusion is the production of a healthy soul or a diseased one. It is not a middle-of-the-road soul.And if it is the former to embrace what it represents and if the latter to reject it.

If one takes Mailer's characteristics of a diseased soul as "waste","slovenliness", "sloth", "treachery", "cowardliness", and "monotomy",( Cannibals and Christians Part Four), and most people might agree, I think it safe to acquit Flaubert on all counts and thus posit the notion that his productions are good clean stuff and beneficial.

As Dylan has it- "Wasted words that prove to warn that he not busy being born is busy dying."

To follow Mailer again, is not the beauty of Salammbo connected to the fears it exposes a careful reader to. But Mailer can't do gallows humour.
A sense of resignation and futilty is missing in his otherwise fine works.

Our seeming delight in horror, either fantasised or in real life seems to confirm such an idea. A Darwinian might say that evolution gave us a delight in horror so that we saw it and could thus learn to avoid it and that it is healthy in the main and where it isn't healthy that's just a price we have to pay like with road accidents.

Can nothing be really beautiful unless it inspires some fear. A recipe book maybe because it caters for another natural drive or, in the case of the posh ones, drives.

Is the Carthaginian girl's portrait beautiful because the thought of such a woman inspires fear in Flaubert, and its consequences and the book beautiful because it transmits the fear and allows us to share it a little and thus grow.

That's a bit miraculous to me. That's what I meant with "read". To read it once is like having one conversation in the pub.

It's Gustave you are meeting not yourself.

And who would ever want to write a book that was not intended to be beautiful first and foremost except as a job.

Five lines of the Da Vinci Code told me that such an intention was not on the agenda and I saved some precious time which would otherwise have been wasted.

I don't ache for Dan Brown to come in the pub like I do for Gus. Oh what a jolly night we would have.

I'd sooner have another night in a bar with Oliver Reed matey boy if he was still alive.

Talk about a smashing time:- March or April 1982 St James Beach Barbados. I will do my best to remember the name of the bar.

I think the most diseased souls are often those that are most repressed and the healthiest are those who feel free to express what and who they are -however strange or different -thus enabling themselves to live the life they were born to live. And a lot of times, the realization of who you really are and the courage to live that particular life instead of the one someone like you is "supposed" to live - comes with age.

I feel myself getting healthier and healthier with every day I age- because I feel freer and freer. I know you won't believe this, but I used to be so repressed] and it was hard - because the real me was weird as **** and wanted to do all sorts of crazy things - but I just had this part of me that had to be good, and make people proud so I stuck to the path that had been laid out for me from the day I was born.
I remember telling my friend Danny, when I was a housewife in Maine that I felt like I was dying on the vine. And I looked around me at all the other women and they seemed fine - like they were having the time of their lives - and I just felt awful. I'm not disparaging that life if that's the one you want - but if it's not meant to be for someone - it's hard to keep doing day after day- just watching the world you want go by without you.

He (Danny) knew exactly what I meant. He used to be a session guitarist in New York and then in the next breath it seemed like, he was a suburban dad with a mortagage and four kids. He's put that old guitar away. It's sad - life is so weird.

I don't know what any of this has to do with Salaambo - because I haven't read it - but yeah, I can understand how the other side of things (the path not taken by very many) can seem dangerous and scary - but at the same time very seductive.

Hey Mathos - how're you- you alright?

I'm fine thank you Miss, have to admit I find your and Spendi's postings a load of dribble though, boring in fact.

Must be my meagre education levels. Ah well, I'll stick to my Tiger thread, I am working on a poem at present, you know tossing verses over in my head whilst I'm working away. I don't mean a silly Nellie Grump and Trampy Spendi Chucklebottom type poem, this should shake the foundations of my mate Wilf's mothers terraced house.

I can't wait to read it.

Would you mark it for me Miss?

I'd be happy to assess your poem and assign it a grade Mathos.

Do you give any treats for outstanding work Miss?

How about a nice gold star?

It sounds like you're still remembering your time with Miss Pilkington, Mathos. Fond memories? I was wondering though - when you were engaged in your extra curricular activities - did you call her Miss Pilkington, or something else?

First loves bring back fond memories. In a way I think they spoil us for later relationships because we're always trying to get back to that initial excitement and passion and the absolute bliss one feels when he or she realizes his or her attraction and affection will be returned. There's nothing like the wonder of that experience.

And for someone like you, who happened to have an experience that combined that first heady feeling with the forbidden and illicit - I can only imagine what emotions thinking of your time with Miss Pilkington must conjure up.

Maybe you should write a story about that.

A gold star Miss?

I don't want to be a sherif.

I had to call her by various names Miss, she would be different people and dress up accordingly, it was lots of fun though.

I couldn't write a book about it Miss, she told me it had to be a secret, and if I told anybody at all, I would have to be locked away in a dungeon.

If you were in my shoes or hers, I bet you wouldn't want to write a book about it would you Miss?

You don't want to be a sheriff? I'm surprised to hear that. Imagine the fun you could have dressing up and assuming such an authoritative role Mathos.


Sounds right up your alley. You love characters and role-playing, don't you? It always amazes me how people with similar predilections seem to find each other. Must be fate, karma- something...


She sounds like a pretty freaky teacher all the way around.


If I was in your shoes, I might write a book about it. If I were in her shoes, no- I wouldn't want you to write a book about it.- but I might write a book about it if it was years after the fact and I had some fond memories or insights I wanted to share or express.
But I'd never put myself in her shoes. Nope- that's always been one of my hard and fast rules - no innapropriate contact (sexual or otherwise) with children.

If you ever do write a book about it and they make it a movie or something - I have a great song you could use as theme music as the opening or closing credits roll though - it's a favorite of mine. I've been listening to it because I'm trying to get all my cd's organized in my new house so I'm listening to stuff I haven't heard in a while. This is a compilation cd I made a few years ago and I put 'Brand New Set of Rules' on it. Mick Jagger is singing it. He must have put it on one of his solo attempts- I don't know which- I can't remember where I even first heard it. Have you heard it? It's one of my very favorite songs, kind of melancholy and I love his voice and tone on it - because he's usually such a bad boy and he makes himself so vulnerable on this song. It goes:

' I will be kind, won't be so cruel
I will be sweet, I will be true
the flames of love, you quickly learn
are (something, something- I forget the words right now)
and quick to burn

I got a brand new set of rules
it's just like I was back in school
I got a brand new set of rules, I got to learn'

You'll be so proud, so proud of me
You'll see the change, so plain to see...

and it just goes on from there. It's a great song. Reminds me of you with Miss Pilkington. Now whenever I hear that song, I'll think of you Mathos.

Well, gotta go. Have a nice afternoon and stay out of this heat- buddy. Do some paperwork or something inside or run around under the sprinkler or something. Talk to you later.

I see Miss, I didn't know you wanted me to dress up for you, it wasn't really well explained initially was it?

So let's get this right Miss, you want me to dress up as a sheriff, then you give me a sheriff's badge, and then what Miss?

What do you dress up as Miss, Calamity Jane would be alright I suppose, do I get to show you my pistol Miss?

I suppose if I am Sheriff, and your giving me the authoritative role Miss
you would really be letting yourself in for it, wouldn't you Miss?

Oh, I see now, you have been subjecting your Karma towards finding someone to play funny games with Miss, as you say it's quite amazing that I came along.

Your talking a little freaky too Miss, if we do these games, you don't want me to write a book about it, you simply want some fond memories or insights to share or express.

Who the hell are you going to share our games with Miss?

I don't want to be embarrassed with Sunday's News of The World for instance.

I mean, we haven't even started properly yet and your talking about books, movies, a theme song already a theme song, don't you think your pushing it a bit too fast Miss?

I know I'm a handsome, muscular sort of guy, but your going at it like a bull in a china shop Miss.

Oh Miss, I don't want to run around under the sprinkler, it dampens things down cold water, didn't you know that?