naughty bacteria, the iron lady & a poetry acceptance - england day 7

so, a trip to the sandown health centre this morning for my 09:40 appointment. the verdict: chest infection. nasty little buggers in my chest had to spoil my well-deserved, much-needed holiday! for the second time this year i am on antibiotics. the last time i took antibiotics before 2013 was in the early 90s or even in the late 80s! crazy. apart from antibiotics - rest. i asked about flying out on thursday: not recommended. well.

pharmacy, breakfast, www to do something about my flight. eventually found a rather cheap flight back, cheaper than changing my ticket at any rate! so i will be here till sunday. i hope by the end of the week i will be fit enough to venture out for some hours or i'll get a different kind of fever - cabin fever!

i rested, then went for a 15 minute stroll before getting something to eat. the short walk and a trip to the shop left me more tired than my 14 km walk on saturday! but then, i still have a temperature.


broken sun


the good news of the day is that after a couple of rejection notes, i got a "yes" from red fez magazine, accepting my poem inspired by the element magnesium. i am glad it has found a home - and red fezes look stunning on poems. ;)

of course, the big thing everybody is talking about here is the death of the iron lady, margaret thatcher, who passed yesterday. there are reports of street parties, of people rejoicing in her death. i understand where some of them might be coming from (though i believe many of them are too young to actually remember, or were not even born back then), but i still think it is wrong. (i'd actually like to ask them a simple question: let's say your mother is a controversial public figure. or let's just say the neighbours didn't get on with her. let's say she dies after a long struggle with cancer or a demented old woman. how would you feel if the people in your street had impromptu parties, singing songs about the wicked witch being dead?)

the margaret thatcher who died yesterday was not the margaret thatcher of the 1980s, she was an old and very sick woman. and yes, thatcher steered the country into an entirely wrong direction, from my point of view - and obviously from the POV of many, many british people - but she did not do so single-handedly, and those who have come after her ... well ... they haven't exactly helped, have they, to put things right. thatcher might have started it, she might have messed up a lot of things ... scratch that, she DID mess up a lot of things for a lot of people, but what about her successors? will partying in reaction to the news of an old woman's death change anything, anything at all? 'fraid not. what it would take is for people to get organised instead. have they got that in them?

still, i had to chuckle at the typo on some media website: "margaret thatcher died after a strike". if it was a typo, that is ... it might also have been cleverly sneaked into the article ... ;) and - i don't believe in an afterlife, but ... if there happens to be one, perhaps margaret t. can get stuck in a neverending miners' strike. *g*

and okay, i can't resist choosing the following as my ...


song of the day: stand down margaret by billy bragg.

pills, pains, poetry & pictures

i've been on the full dose of 20 mg citalopram and 150 mg trittico retard for two days now. i haven't had any more of those early mini migraine attacks, but there is still plenty of nausea and dizziness, especially after getting up, no matter what time it is. i feel leaden, very tired and subdued in the mornings, as if i were wading through molasses or some such. i sleep well, but after taking my trittico ret. i still need an hour or so before i fall asleep. today i set my alarm for 07:15, got up about 25 minutes later, the earliest (by between one hour and six hours) in quite a while, and now, at 09:20 i still have problems keeping my eyes open, and i feel as if i'd just crawled out of bed after a particularly late night. my eyes, now, they still feel weird. i am no longer constantly conscious of them, but still frequently. and there are times, like this morning, when it's as if i were looking through mist or a dirty window (and no, it's not my glasses!). very unpleasant, that. i am trying not to think about it too much, but if this doesn't change (the tiredness, the problems with my eyes), how will i ever manage to get up at 06:20 and be fit for work at 08:00? they might as well employ a zombie!

but now, of course, i am on holiday! i am leaving for the isle of wight tomorrow - the plane leaves at 06:20. don't ask me how i will go about staying awake long enough to get up, let alone get ready! the neighbours might object to blaring music at 04:15 a.m. ... also, i may have been a tad optimistic about england in april. but from my experience it had always been much nicer there than here around easter. this year, however, most of europe seems to still be firmly in the grip of winter. more snow is on its way to vienna, looks like i will be leaving home in subzero C temperatures! at least i take it for granted that the south of england will be warmer than THAT! i just hope it will be dry. and if not, well, perhaps i should just take another plane to somewhere warm once i arrive at gatwick ....

the good news of the day are mostly poetry-related:

stone highway review has recently accepted a previously published poem (a rare occurence), one that has always been very special to me, "Open Letter to a Poet". it's very personal, and i remember reading it at vienna lit festival in 2008. it was perfect, i think you really would have heard a pin drop, the audience was so attentive - i really "had" them.

yesterday susan yount of arsenic lobster poetry journal told me i was top of her list of nominations for best new poets 2013, asking me if i qualified - and i do. so, i am now a best new poets 2013 nominee! i am very grateful to susan for her support, and whatever comes of this, i am honoured to have been nominated!

i've arranged to meet a dear old friend - my girl in istanbul, özge - in passau later this month, and i'm looking forward to that.

i've also finally edited the photos taken in venice in november 2011, my 40th birthday mini-break! editing pictures seems to be a perfect task for me at the moment, keeps me focused, and my hands busy. here are a couple of pictures, you can find more over on flickr.


ghost gondola



ghostly sun



prostrate



winter cabins



reverence (s. diaghilev's grave)



speedboat



blue



feline-human contact



a different kind of tricolore



h&m in burano



candy colours & ubiquitous tower



tabletop bird


song of the day: wasteland by woodkid.

i'm absolutely thrilled ...

... to be part of dancing girl press's love letters project - a box full of poetic goodies, no doubt - due to be released on valentine's day. i'll definitely post an update closer to the release date; it will be a limited edition (100 boxes with "love letters" by 14 different female poets), so you'd better be quick if you want one. and you know you do. :)

good things, part 2

two acceptance notes in one day! i'm really happy that press 1 wants to publish three of my poems - a mini-series - in their upcoming issue. now if only my poor old brain would come up with some clever "process notes"!

and i don't know what the world is coming to, but some of the chapbooks i sent out have reached their US destinations within a week. surely that must be an accident. *g*

oh, and ms cartwright-denison, dgp's december girl, is a darling. :)

song of the day: the song remains the same. *wink*

good things

one good thing about having a chapbook out is that one can swap it for other people's books. in the mail today: andrew shields' bilingual cabinet d'amateur. i look forward to reading it. in the mail yesterday: payment from my friend chris - bill bryson's shakespeare.

my students really got into their restaurant role play today - one team ended up having to "call the police" to kick out a bunch of "drunk guests". :)

after work, my colleague nathan said to me: "you're hot, michi."
okay, i made him say it.
and we were really only talking about temperature. you know, hot as in "not cold". but it was still nice to hear it from a man. :-p

loch raven review accepted four of the nine or ten poems i sent them for their winter issue! editor chris george asked me to send my chapbook so they might do a review. yay!

aaaaand i just found out that my favourite live band ever, kaizers orchestra, are playing at arena in vienna in april! woo-hoo!! another chance to see their singer take off his jacket. and shirt. and who knows ... *g*



song of the day: ompa til du dør by kaizers orchestra.