Worcester Kaleidoscope [Part 3]
or, a busy April, and a story
Hello, friends!
It’s April! Spring is in the air in the northern hemisphere.
It’s also the end of a long road for me, as the official results have finally come through from my M.A. at the University of Hull. Although I was aware of the results in early January, it needed rubber-stamping from the Uni before I could finally feel that it’s done and dusted. And the result? I now have an M.A. with Merit in Creative Writing. It’s a big achievement. For the M.A. portfolio (equivalent of a dissertation) I had settled originally on writing the biography of a ground-breaking up-and-coming LGBTQ+ musician, and was planning on organising interviews, but I simply could not find the right angle to write the piece. Creative writing is like that; sometimes, you just can’t find the right words. It will perhaps be a project I will need to return to in the future. Instead, I wrote seven interconnected yet separate lyric essays on the journey of recovery from PTSD to Poet Laureate, inspired by each of the seven ancient liberal arts and sciences, namely: grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music. It was one Hell of a challenge. I grew from it, but emotionally exhausting. On reflection, the astronomy and logic pieces perhaps hold the most potential for publication, and I play to submit them to an academic journal.
Moving forward, I’ve also been thinking a lot about serialised fiction, and am still looking into exploring this through academic study, taking steps closer to bring this into reality.
I’m also taking part in the annual Worcestershire Provincial Masonic Lecture competition, more details below in the events section. It’s always a great opportunity to develop oneself and learn from others, as well as sharing the joy of what you have learned. This time, my lecture title is Masonry and the Moon.
Last month, I also got to take part in a reading at the Speak Volumes! arts festival, which also included some of my poetry imposed on a map of the county. It was a wonderful couple of days with a powerful calendar and amazing team running it; they deserve all the praise!
EVENTS NEWS
Coming up this month, I’ll be appearing at a couple of events:
Masonry and the Moon - Lecture for the Provincial Masonic Lecture Competition 2024
Tuesday 16th April 2024, 5 p.m.
Vernon Lodge No. 560, Stourport Masonic Hall, Stourport, Worcestershire
Members only event.
A presentation on the symbolism and importance of the Moon in Freemasonry, from 1717 to the modern day.
The Illuminati: Bane of Freemasonry - Masonic poem/lecture
Monday 29th April 2024, 6:30 p.m.
St Laurence Lodge No. 2724, Northfield Masonic Hall, Birmingham.
Members only event.
A rhyming poem-lecture about 15 minutes long, which gives in verse a brief potted factual history of the historical Illuminati, before then turning to dismiss the modern irritant, where nonsensical theories attempt to conflate alleged Illuminati conspiracy with the actual, factual good that modern Masonry does.
42 Worcester - April 2024
Tuesday 30th March 2024, 7:30 p.m.
Script Haven, 104 High Street, Worcester, WR1 2HW.
Damon will be returning to 42, Worcester's only genre spoken word night, reading the third part of his serial, Worcester Kaleidoscope. To catch up with the previous part of the serial, go to:
Story Time
Here are the rules I’ve set myself:
Each part will be told from the different perspective of a different character. Mirroring Armistead Maupin’s magnum opus Tales of the City, I aim to tell each part in 800 words. Each story can stand alone as an individual story in itself, or part of the greater arc. We’ll see how long it goes on for, maybe indefinitely, maybe only a few months, who knows? Here’s the next part.
Worcester Kaleidoscope [ Part 3]
Dan
Christ, what a mess. There’s a woman lying in the road, hit by a car. She flew up in the air, and down. Crash. It’s a busy evening here on City Walls Road. People are staring. I’m one of them. Someone should do something.
It’s normally about this time I need to get over to Mum’s house, make sure she takes her pills. But after yesterday’s funeral, I won’t go there ever again.
It was always the two of us. Before I left school, she told me: “One day, you’ll leave me.”
We were eating at the thin, green Formica table in her narrow kitchen. I had an art book in one hand, spooning Sainsbury’s own brand cream of chicken soup into my mouth with my other hand. I looked up from a page on Frida Kahlo. “I won’t leave you, Mum.”
“Dan, you can be anything you want to be. That’s why I work all the hours God sends, so I can pay for everything for you. Clever lad. Look at you, reading a book, and doing these new-fangled CGEs this summer.”
“Mum, they’re called GCSEs.”
“They called them O-Levels back in my day. I never got any though. Do your best, get good results, get a good job, find a girl, settle down, and give me clever grandkids, okay?”
Mum would go out early, catch the bus, over to St. John’s, stay out all day working at Kay’s, and then come home on the last bus in the evening. That was back when there were still buses in the evening in Worcester. These days I’m lucky to get home at tea-time on the last bus.
Did Mum ever really know me though? Tales of the City started showing on Channel 4 in September 1993, the newspapers vilified it, saying it would corrupt young people. But watching it, I was surprised that they were people like me, and they were ordinary people with ordinary lives doing ordinary things.
In the summers, I would sometimes get the train to Birmingham, and hang out in the bars and cafés in Hurst Street, sitting, reading The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal. I never spoke to anyone, except to order another Diet Coke or a cappuccino. It felt like home.
I did leave Mum. I went down the road to the local Worcester College of Higher Education to study to be a primary school teacher. I quit after two months. One thing preyed on my mind all the time: if I succeeded in my job, what if my colleagues or the parents found out the truth about me? My career would be over if that happened.
The woman in the road is still there. “Does anyone know first aid?” I yell. She’s bleeding from her head! Will nobody do anything?
Please, let there be someone. I did a First Aid class years ago, but all my training is gone; out of my head!
“Has anyone called an ambulance?” I shout.
The driver of the car that hit her looks in my direction, and lifts up his mobile.
Let’s do this, like they taught us in First Aid class. DR ABC. Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing, Circulation.
Danger. The cars aren’t moving.
Response. “Hello, I’m Dan. You’ve had a bit of a bump. What’s your name? I’m here to help.”
I helped so many people in London, volunteering on the switchboard, as I studied in fashion at St Martin’s College. I left my high-flying job in London when Mum had her first tumble. I gave it all up immediately to come home to Worcester for her to work on minimum wage in a warehouse on the edge of the city, like she did for me. I’ve been here for her the last fifteen years.
And now this woman needs me. Mum always told me to carry clean handkerchiefs; use that to stem the blood.
The woman groans. “Null.”
“All right, I think you said Nell, I’ll look after you. This might hurt; we’ll try to stop the bleeding.” I press the hanky to the wound on her head. I turn to the driver. “How long before the ambulance gets here?”
“Ambulance?” The driver squints at me.
“She needs an ambulance!”
“I’ve got to rearrange my appointments, can’t you see?” He rolls his eyes.
“You hit her! The least you can do is call her a fucking ambulance!”
The driver shakes his head, and turns away.
A woman runs over, waving her iPhone at me, shooting bitchy side-eyes at the driver. “I’m calling them now. They’re coming.”
“Don’t move, Nell. We’ll get you some help.”
The blood seeps through the hanky, covering my hand. I put another handkerchief on top.
My mother is gone. I’m not letting this stranger go.
And that’s it, for this month! See you next month!
Take care, everyone!
Damon