Wormfarm

I hope all of these earworms are feeding my brain in the same way that a worm farm feeds the garden, rather than eating it away. Too many this morning and it would be a day's work to identify some of them, which are in my partner's collection of classical CDs.
One thing about having too many is that they clear quickly when I get out of bed. I was struggling for inspiration for today's poem when I heard a great parody satirising a radio presenter that I like to listen to. It reminded me of a parody that I had begun writing to a friend who is critical of social media etiquette. The unfinished parody was based on Shakespeare's Shall I compare thee to a summer's day and has taken on another form. I have also employed the device where the last line defies the rhyme (for obvious reasons)

Shall I reply to thee with emoticons?

I think I’d better not

A smiley face is not your style

They don’t come with blood and snot

Better to use parentheses

To enclose some words of wit

Rather than the email silence

That says I’m in your bad books

The dark side of the street

This morning's earworm was just one line - 'The dark side of the street' - complete with brass accompaniment, running through my head when I awoke. It's from Van Morrison's Bright Side of the Road and I hadn't looked closely at the lyrics before. I like the light/dark metaphor and the references to time passing. Here's some great examples from poets who knew a thing or two about metaphor. This is my metaphor poem inspired by Bright Side of the Road

Ravelling

I pluck the thread

it spirals into a heap

a spaghetti of bumpy bits

worn and weary bits

plies made stringy and thin

by moths, silverfish and elbows

I am ready, it says,

my memory is sound

I will bounce back to be

rewashed, rewound, repaired, reknitted

each stitch kissed by knotted fingers

Bach raving mad in the morning

This morning's earworm was a fleeting passage from JS Bach, hard to identify and impossible to eradicate. Lovely and tangled at the same time. Here's a sample of a Bach piece by the incomparable Angela Hewitt as an example, a metaphor for a confused mind in an up mood. The earworms win today. Today's poem reminded me of the time that I spent in Leipzig, City of Heroes, birthplace of Bach and with other charms ...

She has no English
I have no German. We
smile and speak knitting
In the best woolshop in the world.

Decluttering the earworms - a poem a day

The definition of year at Year of Finishing Off is broad as is my definition of decluttering. I'm fired up to exorcise the earworms (those songs that get stuck in your head) that I awake to every morning. A poem a day for April is my weapon of choice. Today I awoke with one line of the words and music of an Angels song, Marseilles. 'Gimme the whiskey, don't think twice'. Here is my Whiskey haiku

Gimme the whiskey
don't think twice - summer is gone
and spiced tea beckons

One down, thirty to go. One earworm banished.

You-are-there reading

I'm reading an enchanting book of essays, Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman. These essays seem effortless, but like faultless craftmanship of all kinds, the appearance of effortlessness is the mark of something that is definitely not effortless. And like many great essays, these are a magic mixture of personal tone, research that does not announce itself and content that has the reader saying 'ah!'.
One of the essays is 'You Are There', an exploration of 'the practice of reading books in the places they describe'. As well as being a fan of the practice, Fadiman outlines her own, and the exploits of other passionate devotees in such places across time, including her friend Adam, 'who once read the ninth book of the Odyssey, in Greek, in what is believed to be Cyclop's cave'.
I've often felt the connection of songs to cities, but the closest I came to you-are-there reading was when I started reading Anna Funder's All That I Am while travelling through Germany last year. I understand the idea of 'you-are-there' reading, but I-was-there-when-I-was-knitting [insert name of garment or knitted object] is something that I am more familiar with.

Vegie knitting and more frills

While working through my stash I came across a ball of Morris Osten - clever name for those that remember Austin cars - that I had been given by a friend. It's very similar to a couple of balls of Katia Ondas, which I confess I had acquired at a great wool shop in Albury, NSW.
But how to knit using this stuff? There were printed instructions, and pictures too, but it wasn't until I saw the YouTube demonstration posted by the owner of the wool shop, K2Tog, that I felt confident to knit with those yarns.
Despite the awkwardness that I felt in managing the yarn in the first few rows, knitting with these yarns provides good 'veggie' knitting, the project grows quickly and looks pretty. One more scarf to go and I will have cleared these yarns from my stockpile.
Veggie knitting is mindless, rather than mindful knitting. If this style of veggie knitting is not for you, but you like veggie knitting with a purpose, each year K2Tog posts a simple pattern that can be made for Carevan, a charity in Albury.

Some things take time

This skinny scarf with a fat frill was a great disappointment to me. Yeah, I know that mistakes bring opportunities.
This one gave me the opportunity to decide that I have a way to go as a designer and I took two years off from the blog rather than post the picture.
The design would probably work well draped around a Christmas wreath, with the frills as a feature. Since Christmas falls in the hot Australian summer, a knitted wreath may look bizarre. But no more so than Christmas lights blazing in the heat.