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My deeepest dearest darling Jeffrey. First, let me say, i do love you as a fellow human being, as i love all wo/men. I am only having a larf mate coz really, poetry, yer know, it's all shite innit? I mean of course it's incredibly important and vital and really, really serious - nay, a vital and central componenet and concern of our existence. However, as something that will fill the tank with gas, put clothes on the kids backs and help us navigate the seven hour slog down the M5 to Newquay, it isn't centre stage. You see, my thing, has always been the bards, since the days with Bob S in Edge Hill when the lore of the filidh was not even a skeleton, merely a mass of gloop and funny looking names like Conchobar, Cúchulainn, Partholón, Nemed, Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé Danann. I was learning of American modernist poetry on the official course and had this other learning funning extra-curricular, doing 12 hours a day and more, all through love of learning. And do you know, not unlike yourself, no one is interested in the bardic lore now in any serious way, even though they link to the druids and not Ezrastotle pooh ah nadz who loved the linguistic invention. This is an annonymous bard from 12-14C Filled with sharp dart-like pens Limber tipped and firm, newly trimmed Paper cushioned under my hand Percolating upon the smooth slope The leaf a fine and uniform script A book of verse in ennobling Goidelic. I learnt the roots of each tale, branch Of valour and the fair knowledge, That I may recite in learned lays Of clear kindred stock and each person's Family tree, exploits of wonder Travel and musical branch Soft voiced, sweet and slumberous A lullaby to the heart. Grant me the gladsome gyre, loud Brilliant, passionate and polished Rushing in swift frenzy, like a blue- Edged, bright, sharp-pointed spear In a sheath tightly corded; The cause itself worthy to contain. S/he *learnt the roots of each tale* You see Jeff (if you're still awake reading this dreck) my dream when with Sheppard, (it's ok, it took me tears to get it right and i was with him twice a week) was to be a *real* poet, and wanting to know I to go about becoming one. I thought, what is the way to do it, to set about it in such a way, no one can poo poo me. A doctor of poetry say, who didn't like me but who would dress it up into dismissal via gobble dee gook. And it struck me as obvious. There was I the child of irish parents, it was staring me in the kisser. If I could learn what the bards did - *really* did, then that was me a real poet, in the purely stricest sense of the word as that hand, is unbeatable, innit? I mean, if you wanna chat poetry proper, Poetry the big one, what have we got for proof? Poundie? Well Ez was a tip top mental basket with a one man religion who ended writing his best stuff in a cage, and he had all the new fangled theories, like Megles and the eugenics crowd had perfectly lovely and logical theories. But no history, no tradition apart from, well, coz *I* say innit? To arrogate that Jeff, to say, no all you are wrong, I am right coz, well coz I say so - this is laughable. Being a bard, learning what they did, when I first started no one knew, because the course was lost on the pages time (almost) forgot. Douglas Hyde had the most comprehensive guide, but the nits and bolts, the pieces had to be retrieved, and luckily, online, now is the first time in history it's possible. And that's what i've been doing since day one. Me, the idiot, the lunatic, the thick one. And amidst all this, there is a document I found four year back, first translated in 1983, a 7C old irish text attributed to Amergin, the Merlin and Taliesin of ireland. It purports to explain from the pov of a 7C bard, what Poetry is and how it works, and is fascinating reading. However it takes a bit of background info to fully understand, which amounts to learning the basics of Irish myth, which took a bard about 7 years before they had the skeleton working. So you might see it as rubbish, say, worthless because it has all this stuff you think has no poetic value. However, this text, is the most important text of the bardic enterprise and was handed out on day one to the focloc beginner at bard school on Samhain, and do you know, not one person from the poetry community has engaged with me on this, even though it clearly is the most exciting and important text in poetry. ~ Forgive me, I am rambling. I haven't been taking the tablets for my sex addiction and have three Brazillian rent boys here waiting to service me. The camera is pointed at me, Monica is rubbing coconut oil into my shoulders and I am getting rather excited thinking of how I will respond to the call for total nuclear disarmament. I do love you Jeffrey, very much and just hope you get your good humour back. If i have upset you or anyone else reading in any way, i can only apologise and plead stupidity. I was born a thicko, and spat as a child, dreaming of top trumps and playing out with the other louts in my area ofr Ormskirk dearest darling Jeff. Also, i am part way through a transgendering process and suffer heavy pmt. Basically Jeff, I am a waste of space and hope any unpleasantness, discomfiture and whatnot my writing occassioned within your mind, heals and we can go on being fwends. and litle man Tim Allen Jeff, can you get it, do you see it yet. Tim it m - Allen litle man, a word game mate, same as Desmond's words. Swords is my mothers maiden name. Being a transgendered ex-male, mama is the most important woman in one's life and I thought up this nom de guerre wheeze in Bob's class, and it was only after I got published in a student rag adn they left the S of swords, Desmond Words, that i became conscious my name is also desmond's words. This was one of those *moments of satisfaction* H speaks of, a sign the Muse is on our side. Poetry you see, is not an exact science, but make believe and magic, as you well know my mate. good luck, at least we are gassing, and as the man said, in the grand scale of eternity, this really is nothing. That is why i can say I love you jeffrey side, and freely, laughing, because there are a lot worse things ion the world than two bores tussling over poetry.