In which asking for help is difficult, who knew

[kaberett]

I have just received a quotation of £500 for repairs to and return shipping of one of my wheels. This is particularly frustrating because the problem started when I was wheeling on a level, even indoor surface (rather than being obviously related to any of the kerb-hopping I do), and consequently is being treated as a mechanical/electrical fault not covered by my insurance. Plus the wretched thing is out of warranty.

This is something I can do out of my savings, with a great deal of stress and a trip to Cambridge and eroding my buffer. Or it's a term's worth of teaching, but I'm not certain I'm going to even get teaching (pay rates increased by a whole 30p/hr, which means that the number of graduate demonstrators has been dramatically reduced, with undergrad TAs taking up some but not all of the slack). And, yeah, I feel pretty dreadful asking for help given that I could cover it, but--

-- if you like my art & essays, and only if you have anything to spare without making things harder for yourself, I would be enormously grateful if you could chuck some money my way. My paypal is kaberett@gmail.com; if you don't like Paypal (entirely understandable!) I can also provide my details for bank transfer (or, you know, work something else out). Currently at approximately £500 - thank you so, so much <3

Regardless of whether you want or are able to chip in on this (really, I mean it <3), comments are open for prompts for poems. They'll likely be shortish and a kissing cousin to flash fiction, but this is true of most of the stuff I write, so.


eta aaaaaaaaaaaah ;____; <333

Comments

[exor674]

<3

[kaberett]

♥!!! ;_;

[exor674]

<333333333333333333 !!!!!!!!!!!!

[mair_in_grenderich]

I am embroiled in German studies again and would like to offer the prompt Heimat, should that speak to you in any way (but feel free to ignore it if not, obvs!)

The Threshold As Home

[kaberett]

How to express this indefinable quality
of otherness, this sense of being
three generations and three steps removed
from home-that-is-not-home?

Die Heimat (italics are apologies)
does not exist. I'm caught between
the songs & prayers that soothed me
gently sleepwards, and
the language I can write in.

I turn to poetry. I still hold hope
that somewhere in this tension
between meanings, between forms, between
half-glimpsed translucencies
it will at last come clear. I know
the work to build a home is all my own.

Re: The Threshold As Home

[mair_in_grenderich]

eh, I like it.

that was an unexpected gift in my inbox this morning!

Re: The Threshold As Home

[alexseanchai]

The last stanza is gorgeous.

Re: The Threshold As Home

[davidgillon]

Unexpectedly affected by this one, seems my brain has un-Corked parallels with being four generations removed from Ireland.

[alexseanchai]

pay rates increased by a whole 30p/hr, which means that the number of graduate demonstrators has been dramatically reduced

Well that sucks.

Poem prompt: your favorite gemstone.

Granat/Garnet

[kaberett]

beloved, you are flawed
in that you're clouded &
you're jagged &
you have been gouged, reformed
& you are bloody,
you are scarred,
& you've survived.

Re: Granat/Garnet

[alexseanchai]

Hurrah for surviving!

Re: Granat/Garnet

[birke]

I am going to look at garnet differently now.

Re: Granat/Garnet

[kaberett]

It's what convinced me to do geology - all of mine (collected from a pair of glaciers in Austria) are deeply flawed as gemstones, but I adore them and they've helped to make me me, hence this poem.

[dreamfracture.insanejournal.com]

Poetry prompt: Monsters that are also landscape features. I know the there is a dragon that is the Thames - I presume there are other beasts that are volcanoes, or peat bogs, or glaciers.

[davidgillon]

I know the there is a dragon that is the Thames

Come friendly dragon and reign fire and brimstone upon the Commons,
there's no humans there now...

(With apologies to Betjeman)

(the world will end in fire)

[kaberett]

That thud on ice across the valley floor
is just a stretch, is just to scratch an itch:
and boulders fall. You are not
un/welcome here. She does not care.
Tread softly, for you tread upon
her dreams.

Re: (the world will end in fire)

[alexseanchai]

Huh. That's an interesting enjambment across lines three and four. And the last two, I want to have something to say but I can't think what it might be.

[davidgillon]

Prompt: wheels within wheels, geared to annoy you! If you can translate all the infuriation into words, then at least that's something positive come out of it.

[content note: domestic violence, abuse] Love as praxis

[kaberett]

My Urgroßvater left
his wife & children to the war.
My best-beloved Papa hit
his best-beloved spouse
(but only lightly, only sometimes,
and he stopped when she got ill).
My mother suffers silences
and squalor and his sulks.

And I -- oh, I hope to do yet better
and (I will) to learn from all this pain;
decaying leaves leave autumn ghosts
on pavements slick with rain.

Re: [content note: domestic violence, abuse] Love as praxis

[birke]

:like:

Re: [content note: domestic violence, abuse] Love as praxis

[alexseanchai]

I would second the like but content notes. It's a very good poem, and the final image is beautiful.

Re: [content note: domestic violence, abuse] Love as praxis

[davidgillon]

Oh, wow, unexpected and powerful. The first stanza is disturbing in multiple ways, language and imagery both, while the final stanza is just gorgeously beautiful.