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]

♥!!! ;_;

[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!)

[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.

[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.

[exor674]

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

[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.

[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 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.

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.

(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: Granat/Garnet

[alexseanchai]

Hurrah for surviving!

Re: The Threshold As Home

[mair_in_grenderich]

eh, I like it.

that was an unexpected gift in my inbox this morning!

[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: Granat/Garnet

[birke]

I am going to look at garnet differently now.

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: (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.

Re: The Threshold As Home

[alexseanchai]

The last stanza is gorgeous.

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.

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.

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.