A Salopian in Suffolk to paints and writes herself into existence …
Inspired by the poem ‘Little Tree’ by e e cummings.
How could I hope to comfort you?
You with your feet hacked off,
your roots left behind –
left behind to be nourished –
fed by your mothers and aunts,
by those unwilling to let go
of the remnants of an existence that once
was you.
Whilst I?
I have nothing to offer you
by way of sustenance – just
cruel heat,
toast, and
death.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2020
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
As cold as cold,
as hot as hot,
shivering through and through,
her skin burns
to ice.
Frostbitten and
scorched,
she rehatches.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool
Image by Tania Van den Berghen from Pixabay
Relevant no longer, and
no longer relevant,
I revel in the moment of a truth accidentally spoken,
feeling all the weight of me lifted;
lifted up and taken away by the accident
of a truth, at last
now spoken –
my irrelevance having
in that moment, at last,
become relevant.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2020
Please note that this post contains commission-based links to Waterstones.
‘The Ginger Survival Guide’ by Tim Collins.
A must have for any redheads bookshelf (and for anyone else’s).
Very informative and fully responsible for the confirmation of my long-held belief that, being a ginger myself, I have a beyond-this-ginger-life future carved out for me in Vampirism. This must be a proven fact because it was put about by the ancient Greeks. How could a theory penned by Hippocrates, who takes up an awful lot of space in the History GCSE syllabus with his four humours, be wrong?
Seems I am missing bits of my humours here and there. Could be why, after one attempt, at being a stand-up comedian, I went into hiding. Have to say that the act of being hidden, when one is a ginger, is not altogether straightforward. Sure, it helps when one’s ginger top takes on a greyish hue, but when one is indoors all day, one has plenty of time for hairdressing and experimentation with the old paint palette. To keep things simple, as always, the message I am trying to get across to you, fellow redheads and fellow-wish-you-were redheads, is:
Okay, so the book I’m supposed to be reviewing doesn’t mention Schwartz hair dyes, and I’m not on commission from the latter, so perhaps I need to refocus.
Did you know? Marilyn Monroe was born a ginger (lie – surely she was bald at birth like the rest of us fair-skinned folk?); Malcolm X was a ginger; and no less than seven US presidents were ginger. Just goes to show that us carrot-tops are a passionate breed, and that although some of us hideout in our caves for the occasional Sabbatical, this is because we are owed plenty of well-earned timeouts, after expending so much of our energy sticking up for worthwhile causes. You name it, we can either back it, or do it: knock-out singing; human right’s campaigns; holding up nations; red hair-dye mixing; blogging; cave-living, etc., etc.
So, … if you are a ginger, or even an aspiring ginger, please consider purchasing said book via this link to Biblio ( I will not earn a commission, but being a generous ginger, am happy to help promote sales with this ‘ethical profit’ bookseller), and you could read the books linked to below (from Waterstones – from whom I do receive a commission) to find out more about these ginger characters:
The orangutan in Kensuke’s Kingdom, Anne in Anne of Green Gables, the Daphne Blake and Red Herring in Scooby Doo, and …..
.. when you’ve finished the read, just make sure you return to this real and genuine ginger’s blog, to find out what you should splash out on next!
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, 9th January 2020
Savvy Poem – A Storming Morning
Inspired by Jessica Rae Bergamino‘s poem ‘Did Rise’.
Didn’t get there in time. Didn’t get finished. Didn’t perfect it. Didn’t quite do what others seem to do wholly all of the time.
Didn’t anybody else, ever, in the whole of human existence ever get any didn’ts?
Don’t get it! Don’t get it at all! Why so many didn’ts? And all of them, every single one of them, every little didn’t that didn’t, and all of them getting to me?
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, 8th January 2020
Other posts by Jay Cool:
Silly-Savvy Article – Cats & Media Turds
Reducing parts of myself to give the world more of myself,
I find, when I look down at what’s left, there’s
not enough left for
myself,
so I step out for a while to give the other half of me time enough to
remind me that I am more than
and no less than
enough.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, 8th January 2020
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay
Suffocating space
stretching out into sea of crushed moments;
ideas of futures undone, now gone –
Slowly killing me.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, 9th January 2020
Image by Holger Schué from Pixabay
A word.
According to Sheryl , author of The Creative Life, us writing folk should all pick our own unique word to guide us through the coming year.
I’m not entirely sure I want to be rushed on through to 2021 at any great speed. It’s one thing knowing that in 2020 I turn fifty! Fifty! It’s quite another to have to contemplate the idea of being fifty-one. Fifty is middle aged and that’s fair enough. Life does, after all, begin at fifty etc, etc.. But fifty-one? To be fifty-one is to dive headlong down Moonface’s (1) slippery slope and to find oneself in a dark-damp hollow, confronted with a not-to-be-shifted trap door.
A real wrinkly face to grainy face moment. An end moment.
Still, I’ve been told to select a word, by a highly-successful writer in the know, so here goes.
Persist.
It’s a stubborn and determined word, with all the power that goes with the repetitive hammering home of the obvious. It’s a word I lifted straight from the website of my beanie pal, and role model, Dominic Cummings:
‘If you think I’ve insanely ignored you,’ wrote the old bean, ‘persist for a while’.
It’s a beautiful word with so many inspiring connotations, the best being:
Already, I’m feeling it. In this year, 2020, I will:
And, having dealt with all the word stuff, I will set myself my own personal (achievable) target. In 2020, I will further my free-range writing career and exceed the last quarter’s earnings of 40p.
Persist. Keep going. It’s only 80p!
Copyright owned by The Silly-Savvy Salopian, 7th January 2020
Image by Jeff Kingma from Pixabay
Savvy Book – My Sister, The Serial Killer
Silly Book – Fairy Tales for Millennials
(1) Do not dare tell me you have no idea who Moonface is. Everyone’s read Enid Blyton’s ‘The Enchanted Wood’, haven’t they? Yes, of course, you have.
This year I will reach the grand old age of fifty. Double fifty, makes one hundred, doesn’t it?
This week I have averaged at fifty daily views on my blog. Do I have to be one hundred years old to achieve one hundred? Do I really have to wait that long?
Okay, so the last nearly fifty years have whizzed on by, but why wish away the rest of me?
Fifty is as fifty does. Fifty’s here to stay.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, 7th January 2020
Image by Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay.com
A Savvy-Something Poem – Patiently Waiting
Towns.
New towns.
Telford.
A new town crushing the old.
Dawley? Madeley? Both gone.
The people? New.
Brought fresh in.
Fresh in from London.
Fresh in, complete with new blood, still to be spilled over.
Spilt blood in Shropshire’s fertile fields. Fresh growth.
Potentially.
Instead, yellow bricks and concrete slabs, stained blood-red pink with new blood.
New blood calling, taunting, playing with the old.
Old blood.
Old blood, buried – starved!
New life killing, again, the already dead.
New life unanchored and unfettered by the old spills over and leaves …
The old towns cry.
Copyright owned by Jay Cool, The Silly-Savvy Salopian, 7th January 2020
Image by Markus Distelrath from Pixabay
Savvy Poem – Cracked Wallpaper
Savvy Poem – Left-Right Invaders
Chapter 1 – The Half-Girlfriend
The Silly-Savvy Salopian in Suffolk: read, believe and write ... 