Every Day Is Yours To Win . (REM song from album ‘Collapse Into Now)
With the walk and the talk and the tick tock clock. With the rock and the roll and the bridge and the toll. With the brilliance and the light and the stink and the fight. And the road ahead of you, I cannot tell a lie, it’s not all cherry pie. But it’s all there waiting for you, yeah you. With the warp and the wooze and the subterfuge, does it all look bitter and blue? Well I’m nothing but confused with nothing left to lose and if you buy that, I’ve got a bridge for you. Every day is new again. Every day is yours to win. And that’s how heroes are made. I wanted to win. So I said it again; that’s how heroes are made.
A tide of words, only of mine, lap at an unwelcoming world. And therein the rise and fall is the most masterful play for place. Where, within its shallow strip, I catch my ‘self’.
The want to ride way up high reveals much less. A moment in the middle that can’t be held. A view from above stolen from beneath. I go PLONK. Caught by the place where soles meet soil. Much nicer than hanging by a longing for a lift.
This little soldier had a history of plonks. Each time she played with someone she’d end up getting hurt, which left her wondering if she’d be better off never playing with anyone again. One day, dumped in yet another plonk, too weary to bound from the stillness that forever taunted her, she sat. And she sat. And she sat. It was in the sitting that she began to wonder if maybe her escape from the plonk would not come from never trusting again. Maybe the answer lay in trusting herself. Or perhaps playing only the games that held a balance. And knowing when it was time to go home before it got too dark.
(Reposted from 2012. Originally from handmade book, ‘Rock The Boat’, handwriting by Mags. Now in Clunk & Jam book, 2019)
A very uplifting watch about not being defined by labels – or by others. Video by the Citizens Community On Human Rights. Please pass this message on ….
For a time when …. billboards fall flat on their perfect faces. Golden arches buckle at the knees in shame. And we’re free from going anywhere “Quick!” …”While stocks last!”….”Before it ends!” …. so we “Don’t miss out on that must have!” And fat was used to make gravy not deemed as ugly and unsightly lumps to be hidden, sucked out (and in), massaged away, jogged off, measured and cut out – or provided a menu of celebrity cooking shows for those surfing for something to escape world news.
Kids associated ‘board’ with Scrabble and not nothing to do. Offers weren’t limited and we accepted fixing wasn’t quick. Buses had people going up and down through windows not wrapped in wrinkle free banners promoting the same. Googling was staring in wonder at the sky or the sound of a blocked sink – not entry into a world that home delivers an unsavoury feast for curious young minds to consume.
A time when watching the sun sizzle into the watery horizon was a celebration of the end of another good day – not a sear on the conscience of already burdened young souls we leave to carry with them into the future. And seagulls went fishing and stopped squabbling over chips.
