A Secret

© Turtle Caps Art   Queens Boro New York City.. street art, painter, muralist, graffiti, illustrations.

The beauty of poetry surprises me again and again. Even though poetry is not mainstream or something one could earn one’s living from, its about love; love of words and ideas and just love itself. The well known poets are good, to be sure, but it is gems like this poem below that makes my heart skip a beat and fall in love, all over again, with poetry. Long live the poets!!

ps. this poem was posted on Allpoetry.com, find it here , go check it out.

A Secret

When I was a young man,
with no more sense than patience,
I found a sort of backstairs, backstreet
love that bloomed only in
the cul-de-sacs of alleys
at the rear of shops, or the shade
of churchyard linden trees.

I would go to her at nightfall
when the summer’s dust
was still warm on the roads
or rain had sweetened them,
keeping always to the dark pools
between the street lights,
the gloom of avenues
where tall spreading planes
occluded the watchful moon.

I concealed my love, as a child
hides a treasured find
in a sequestered place,
stealing out to caress it, careful never
to confess it to priest or teacher,
police or parent; I sealed
our secret from all prying eyes,
denied her by burial
under a hundredweight of silence.

The years between have tombed
her name like the sunken bowsprit
of a ship long graved
beneath the sea’s immensity;
only I know the quiet of those old
night pilgrimages to see her
and yet no dearer thing to me
than the remembered likeness of her face,
so that in dreams I find myself
running down moonlit streets
in search of our lost love.

- by EugeneM

Free Association Day

Photo by Darya Tryfanava

@darya_tryfanava

Free Association Day

Free association day:

Words tumbling

Like water off a cliff

And still no shape,

No form, just freely

Associated, like people

In a lost cause.

Are we a lost cause?

Do words and association

No longer matter? Are

We just matter, having to

Calm down brows and colons?

Take deep breathes,

Not deep sea mining.

Mind the extinction,

Cause it’s ‘this gap’

That’s the problem.

Free words in a computer

On a march to censorship.

How to celebrate free

Association day? Disassociate.

- by Michael Stolt

#208

Home

Photograph by Matteo Paganelli @matteopaga

I had the privilege to see Somali-British poet Warsan Shire at the 55th International Poetry Festival 2025 in Rotterdam. She shared this poem in her reading. Powerful, indictment, manifesto, reality, rally, war-cry. This poem is all of these things and more. Please don’t look away.

HOME

I

No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. You only  
run for the border when you see the whole city running as well.  The 
boy you went to school with, who kissed you dizzy behind the  old tin 
factory, is holding a gun bigger than his body. You only  leave home 
when home won’t let you stay. 

No one would leave home unless home chased you. It’s not 
something you ever thought about doing, so when you did, you 
carried  the anthem under your breath, waiting until the airport toilet 
to  tear up the passport and swallow, each mournful mouthful making  
it clear you would not be going back. 

No one puts their children in a boat, unless the water is safer than  
the land. No one would choose days and nights in the stomach of a  
truck, unless the miles travelled meant something more than journey. 

No one would choose to crawl under fences, beaten until your  
shadow leaves, raped, forced off the boat because you are darker,  
drowned, sold, starved, shot at the border like a sick animal, pitied.  
No one would choose to make a refugee camp home for a year 
or  two or ten, stripped and searched, finding prison everywhere. And  
if you were to survive, greeted on the other side— Go home Blacks,  
dirty refugees, sucking our country dry of milk, dark with their hands
out, smell strange, savage, look what they’ve done to their own
countries, what  will they do to ours? 

The insults are easier to swallow than finding your child’s body in  
the rubble. 

I want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark. Home is the  
barrel of a gun. No one would leave home unless home chased you  
to the shore. No one would leave home until home is a voice in  your ear 
saying— leave, run, now. I don’t know what I’ve become. 

II 

I don’t know where I’m going. Where I came from is disappearing. I  am 
unwelcome. My beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning  with the 
shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin  of memory and 
the absence of memory. I watch the news and my  mouth becomes a sink 
full of blood. The lines, forms, people at the  desks, calling cards, 
immigration officers, the looks on the street, the  cold settling deep into 
my bones, the English classes at night, the  distance I am from home. 
Alhamdulillah, all of this is better than  the scent of a woman completely 
on fire, a truckload of men who  look like my father— pulling out my 
teeth and nails. All these men  between my legs, a gun, a promise, a lie, 
his name, his flag, his language, his manhood in my mouth. 

© 2022, Warsan Shire
From: Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
Publisher: Penguin Random house,

Branded

Photograph by Austin Chan

@austinchan

Branded

He sees cars barking their

brands in the streets;

oblivious to the noise they

make, the line they draw.

Branded owners stepping

out of branded cars.

He wonders if it hurts to be

completely branded top-to-

toe? He hears the owners of

the branded people carriers

talking about their branding,

proud that they allowed it,

even prouder, louder about

how much it cost them.

 He jumps at the barking bite;

branded, running out of sight.

- By Michael Stolt

#63

Burning Drift-Wood

by John Greenleaf Whittier

Photo by Benjamin DeYoung @benjamin_deyoung

Burning Drift-Wood

Before my drift-wood fire I sit,

And see, with every waif I burn,
Old dreams and fancies coloring it,
And folly's unlaid ghosts return.

O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and hopes that failed?

Did I not watch from them the light
Of sunset on my towers in Spain,
And see, far off, uploom in sight
The Fortunate Isles I might not gain?

Did sudden lift of fog reveal
Arcadia's vales of song and spring,
And did I pass, with grazing keel,
The rocks whereon the sirens sing?

Have I not drifted hard upon
The unmapped regions lost to man,
The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,
The palace domes of Kubla Khan?

Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers,
Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills?
Did Love make sign from rose blown bowers,
And gold from Eldorado's hills?

Alas! the gallant ships, that sailed
On blind Adventure's errand sent,
Howe'er they laid their courses, failed
To reach the haven of Content.

And of my ventures, those alone
Which Love had freighted, safely sped,
Seeking a good beyond my own,
By clear-eyed Duty piloted.

O mariners, hoping still to meet
The luck Arabian voyagers met,
And find in Bagdad's moonlit street,
Haroun al Raschid walking yet,

Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams,
The fair, fond fancies dear to youth.
I turn from all that only seems,
And seek the sober grounds of truth.

What matter that it is not May,
That birds have flown, and trees are bare,
That darker grows the shortening day,
And colder blows the wintry air!

The wrecks of passion and desire,
The castles I no more rebuild,
May fitly feed my drift-wood fire,
And warm the hands that age has chilled.

Whatever perished with my ships,
I only know the best remains;
A song of praise is on my lips
For losses which are now my gains.

Heap high my hearth! No worth is lost;
No wisdom with the folly dies.
Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust
Shall be my evening sacrifice!

Far more than all I dared to dream,
Unsought before my door I see;
On wings of fire and steeds of steam
The world's great wonders come to me,

And holier signs, unmarked before,
Of Love to seek and Power to save, --
The righting of the wronged and poor,
The man evolving from the slave;

And life, no longer chance or fate,
Safe in the gracious Fatherhood.
I fold o'er-wearied hands and wait,
In full assurance of the good.

And well the waiting time must be,
Though brief or long its granted days,
If Faith and Hope and Charity
Sit by my evening hearth-fire's blaze.

And with them, friends whom Heaven has spared,
Whose love my heart has comforted,
And, sharing all my joys, has shared
My tender memories of the dead, --

Dear souls who left us lonely here,
Bound on their last, long voyage, to whom
We, day by day, are drawing near,
Where every bark has sailing room.

I know the solemn monotone
Of waters calling unto me;
I know from whence the airs have blown
That whisper of the Eternal Sea.

As low my fires of drift-wood burn,
I hear that sea's deep sounds increase,
And, fair in sunset light, discern
Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace.

This Lapse Of Time

Photo by Dan Cristian Paduret @dancristianpaduret

This Lapse Of Time

Bordering on the benign

this lapse of time;

that another wrinkle sets,

or a lost memory gets.

That adds its subtractions

To our longevity fabrications.

The moments of summer are gone,

Wanting them forever, is that wrong?

It brings joy just sitting and reading on the grass,

Letting life and the warm summer sun pass.

Feeling the whole amazing universe

Well up in me, holy moly I’m ready to burst.

And yet this same sun that our life measures,

Mixes in the sadness with life’s pleasures.

It takes us calmly and surely  to our graves,

And in so doing, a place for someone else saves.

Without forethought or grief, time is a belief.

Knowing that it isn’t personal, may be a relief.

Bordering on the malign

This lapse of time,

That forever marches on

Until  we are all very gone.

- By Michael Stolt

#88

The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Photo by Priscilla Gyamf @priscillag

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Planets and Stars

Photo by Greg Rakozy @grakozy

Planets and Stars

Because you move me,

You turn solid into liquid,

Vision into emotion.

You move me, in me.

A thousand miles

I have moved inside.

Because you move me

Towards you, planets

And stars pull. You rule.

You move me to places

I never thought existed.

I don’t resist. I move.

Because you move me,

I move boundaries;

Existential boundaries.

Moulding a new me

To a new you. Concrete

Jelly moving mountains.

To be moved. Conceived anew.

Because you move me

I move in all ways possible.

- By Michael Stolt

#227

Rainbow

Photo by Jorge Fernadez Salas @jorgefdezsalas

Rainbow

A rainbow is a message revealed.

A rainbow is a story told.

A rainbow is a symbol inprismed.

Within those tiny raindrops concealed

Is an important message revealed:

White is only a  man-made illusion!

Give it up, stop the bloody confusion.

In the sky throughout all our history

It’s always been there, saying, “Mystery!”

Through the splitting of the light

Women have seen the message bright.

All people are womb born – it’s magical

And love a threat to war – it’s practical.

Yet, this message remains in a bottle,

One that man can easily throttle.

The sky says, ‘Tame not the elements so,’

For even the eternal rainbow may go.

A rainbow is a story told:

At the end of which, a pot of gold.

Of animals in an Ark and fables

That we still believe through cables.

And in it we fashion a pot of luck

In which our modern world is stuck.

It tells a story of dark clouds and rain

And the moment we see the sun again.

It is the story of a mass extinction

and the urgent need for human cohesion.

Sadly, it will never come, and so we run

Headlong into disaster for our fun.

A rainbow is a symbol inprismed and

From the elements of pain chiselled.

In labour of people as a symbol of rights

Infringed upon by white men’s frights.

Get real, white men will always steal,

Because they do not know how to be real.

And so a flag must fly for the silenced voices

WHO cannot make their own damn choices.

The rainbow did not want to be this,

A thing of hope in a world amiss.

It just wanted to be alone in the sky,

Projecting beauty - its colours, not asking “Why?”

- by Michael Stolt

#101

After Eight

Photo by Noor Younis @nooryounis

After Eight

It’s after eight my love, a time when we are seated

Together, thigh bones touching. It feels kinda right

That our flesh wants to touch at night. The heat

where our thigh bones meet is our body’s

Way of saying what we cannot or will not.

The tongue tied twisting of words in skulls

Instead of tongues in mouths. When even the

Simplest things like, “I am here, here my love,”

Cannot be said. Unite is just untie rearranged.

How to unknot the rot that our thigh bones

know nothing of? Our flesh’s longing is

the answer I say. It’s not all about sex you say.

I want our bodies to knot together like rope,

Your dick is talking and omg there is no hope.

I say your name like the way it used to sound.

You stop and look at me, what did you say.

I say your name like the gentle sweet person

It beholds and a smile comes across your face.

I lace my fingers into yours, a knot of

Another kind that binds and preserves and

lets butterflies fly. Your long boned fingers

Come to my face and trace the lines

Of everything you know it to be; imperfect

And human and creasing with each passing year.

We pass up the urge to move fast. What we want

We can wait for, because the moment has caught

us both unawares and makes us perfectly aware

that it is after eight and sometimes knots are a gate.

- By Michael Stolt

#112

Spring

Photo by Arno Smit @_entreprenerd

Spring

The joy of spring makes my heart leap.

The newness of the air into my lungs seep.

Long ago seems the fall, now shaken.

Mother earth’s gentle words, “Awaken.”

You can hear the trees yawn and stretch

Opening up veins, for living water to fetch.

Last year’s growth in new rings found,

This year’s growth slowly running around.

- By Michael Stolt

#3

Despair Within Me

Despair Within Me

When despair of the world grows within me

I remember being young and the bumble bee

Buzzing around flowers in the summer heat.

The sound of water flowing, hearing its beat.

When despair of the world grows in me

I bring you into the front of my mind

And in your laugh and ways, peace I find.

When despair for the world subsides,

I realise that life is just like the tides.

Good and bad things will come and go,

It’s useless to try and fight the flow.

Youth seems to be where happiness lay,

Somethings are better now, who can say.

There is no despair in the love that we share

For two souls in love is black Rhino rare.

- By Michael Stolt

Over The Edge

Torre Egger in the Pantagonian massif

* this poem was inspired by the Netflix docu The Alpinist

Over The Edge

In some

Inexplicable way

You’ve moved

Over the edge

Of the wild

     -  and -

now you have

To learn how

To live there.

There is no

Going back.

You are over

The edge,

Removed from

The place you

Once knew.

Now  you

have to learn

To live here.

In some

Inexplicable way

It needs to

Be the place

You come to

Love.

- by Michael Stolt

Think Beauty Into Thyself

Photo by Anita Austvika @anitaaustvika

Think Beauty Into Thyself

Think beauty into thyself

And kill those thoughts of old,

Those that have such a hold.

Think the best of thyself.

Lay waste to patterns and such

That whisper, ”You’re not much.”

Think bravery into thyself.

Kick down the doors of disgust

And say, “I Love Me, I must.”

- By Michael Stolt

#197

Layers

Layered

I am rock, I am sand. I am land layered.  There is land not everyone gets to see.  I listen to the voice inside whispering, “I don’t want to live without love,” :

 Layer 1:

          On the outside, beautiful:

Sculpted white, balanced and square jawed.

          Blue eyed and a body to die for.

How often has that been the ticket?

          Too often he realises.

An object to be admired by the world.

Layer 2:

          Just under the skin, superficial:

Wanting to please and be pleased;            

          With himself, insufferable.

Lying ways are skin deep.

          It’s just talk when its talk,

Light still shines through from the outside.

Layer 3:

          There is less light, more reality.

The hurt of childhood is of no use;

          Mentors that were tormentors,

harry potter abuse. What if all

  Children have it in one form or another?

Get over yourself and don’t let it surface.

Layer 4:

          The thinker, Rodin. Measured weight

Of thoughts that want the surface.

          A deeper place, protected and beautiful.

Her thoughts dot her existence

          As the stars the infinite universe. She smiles

At their varying degrees of brightness.

Layer 5:

The brightest of all layers. Only love is here.

Love encircles and nourishes and deepens

          All the connections she sees around her. Love

Smiles, knowing that she cannot resist coming

          Back here again and again, a deepening vessel.

Every moment of love makes the next one possible.  

Layer 6:

          The untethered soul. Free of the bonds

Dictated by the surface. Free of

          Terms and places and things and labels.

Freedom to be her true and best self:

a nakedness of soul unmeasured and password

Protected. “Belong to yourself,” she whispers cheerfully. 

Layer 7:

          Infinity lies just beyond, there is no counting

Layers here. The poet’s desk is black,

          The penned words the colour of the rainbow.

If it were up to the poet ,

          All places and layers would look like this

And she would turn the inside out

and let the outside be the last thing we see.

- By Michael Stolt

Paper Will Take Any Ink

Photo by Nicolas Thomas @nicolasthomas

Paper Will Take Any Ink

Paper will take any ink.

And ink will make any word.

It matters not the mind,

In love or gnarled, that writes.

Signs of the mind inked out

On the beauty of blank white

Paper. Pure and purposeful.

Words come loaded : love, hate

fidelity, faith, war, peace - peace.

Words inked out. Blotched or

Botched does not change them.

Paper will take any ink.

Skin will take any ink,

Any notion of beauty

And valour and honour.

It takes any desire and

Manifests itself forever.

Secret thoughts known

and turned inside out

Like a mind being read.

Is there a word for telling

people what’s in your head?

The writing of the soul

On skin. Skin will take any ink.

  - By Michael Stolt

Believe In The World That Must Be

Believe in the world that must be;

Sunrise, orbit, the coming of seasons.

Some things are just meant to be,

Pointless to chase after reasons.

Who knows wherefrom love comes,

That seed that grows in the dark:

Without consent in the breast hums.

The big bang, the fire, the spark.

Like water gently flowing, let it flow,

And do not try to fight the tide.

For there are things we just don’t know.

Let go, trust and the waves ride.

Believe in the world that must be

(Even) if tomorrow starts without me.

- By Michael Stolt

What Goes Glow in the Dark?

Scorpions glow in the dark. Did you know that?  I didn’t until I did. This enlightenment happened on a dark, stary night in an African bush camp.  I was well and truly snuggled into the ring of coziness emanating from the campfire. The flames dancing to that universal music we can’t hear and I am mesmerized. I’m called out of my reverie by cries of excitement from the kids. Their Uncle, Shaun, the Steve Erwin of our family, has roused the kids’ imaginations with stories of glow-in-the-dark scorpions. Being from the generation of the film The Predator, I feel less enthusiastic to go out into the pitch dark. I think I can hear some strange clicking in the distance.

I stand up and stretch and feel the cold creep around my warm flesh, making me conscious of the fact that the cool night air quickly replaces the warmth. The night sky is cloudless and, as I stretch my body, look up to the heavens that are alive with stars. More stars than any city dweller can imagine. The milky way stretches across the sky like a thick spatter of white paint. Cities cannot see any of this. What a shame. I stare at this scene, craning my neck at an impossible angle. I will not be able to hold it for long.

The bushveld is not silent this evening. When is it ever? The nocturnal animals have been woken by their circadian rhythms and are now feeding and talking and moving and loving in the deep dark night. The dark is absolute here in the bush. Beyond the camp fire and the lights from the Lapa, it’s pitch black. The torch will light my way to the hut, but I have to be careful and look out for what creature may have found its way to where I sleep.

The darkness can seem overwhelming for anyone not born into it or grown up with it. It speaks of so many things that terrify the city dwellers: the unknown, being out of control and rooted in the uncertainty of nature. To me the dark is comforting, the unknown is comforting. I can work with what I cannot see. It allows relief from a world that thinks it knows everything and can shine light into every corner of the world. The darkness is not an absence of life. Life goes on in the dark, just not for humans without light, and this I must admit, is the most attractive part of being in the bush: living from sunrise to sunset and then resting in the dark.

It can be a terrible time for city dwellers who want to fill the hours of darkness with activity and social media, updating, influencing, or anything but sitting and contemplating. Darkness brings people together. The campfire is that little light where nothing useful to modern people can happen: slow conversations, magical stories, connection and rest. It is a special place where we detox from our electronic lives. Back in the city, I will long for the darkness to encircle me around a campfire and keep me safe from the frenzy.

The wild animals can see and smell better than we can. I wonder what they think as they see the dancing light of the campfire in the distance? They know not to approach too closely as man’s fears are a terrible thing. It will destroy their life, that much they must know. They know it all too well I imagine, but they cannot stop us. They are themselves, that’s why. As themselves they are non-violent (even those who use violence to eat) and benign to their surroundings, unlike us. “If they could, would they stop us?” I wonder. Who can stop us from destroying this incredibly beautiful world? No one!

The kids are bouncing up and down as I come out my hut putting a jersey on. The static electricity sparks off miniature lightning bolts as my body rubs against the wool. The crackle and pop remind me that there are forces unseen in this world that make it beautiful. The kid’s excitement is not matched with my own. I would rather have stayed by the fires’ side. I feel less adventurous tonight – what is my intuition telling me? I ask Shaun if there are any predators lurking in the dark. He nonchalantly tells us that there is a Leopard on the property somewhere, but that there is nothing to worry about. It hasn’t been spotted for a couple of days and it is a very shy creature that will not come near such a big group of people. His confidence is infectious, I think no more of it.

Of course, the kids need for adventure is youthful excitement. It takes me a moment to remember mine. That ants in my pants desire to always be moving and being moved by my curiosity comes back to me. My body has done a lot of moving and answered so many questions for me.  I am consciously grateful. I have no aches and pains really, a swimming career protects knees, ankles and cartilage. There is a growing heaviness though in the body. I call it existential drag. The longer you live the more drag is my theory. Maybe it is just the body slowing down through age. I am not sure but I feel it. It is a blessing to me that I am so in tune with my body and feel all of it – the good and the bad. 

Uncle Shaun, aka Steve Erwin (without the Australian accent – but with the Afrikaans accent) gives us each an Ultraviolet (UV) torch, also called a blacklight. I ask why it is called such, my curiosity getting the better of me. Shaun explains that humans can’t see UV and hence why it is black. It emits a purple light and so I am confused but leave it there. The UV light does nothing to illuminate the darkness – now I get why it is called a blacklight.  

We walk in single file down a trail that starts at the back of the camp and the one we use to go to the bird hide. The torches of white light illuminate a patch of ground in front of us. I recognize the ground beneath my feet, yet I cannot look up. The dark unbalances me and I feel as if I am in a completely new setting. I want to look up. We walk for five minutes, then branch off to the right, on a path I hadn’t seen in the daylight. Another couple of minutes and then we stop. Shaun tells us this will be the best spot to start looking. An endeavour that I think will prove fruitless. It does not take long to find the first scorpion. A squeal of delight is emitted from one of the young ones. As quickly as the terrain and darkness can allow, we all file over and see what all the fuss is about.

There on the ground the most glorious sight. A scorpion glowing turquoise. Of course, it wasn’t actually glowing, but it felt like it. Shaun showed us the difference. White light and one can barely make out that it is anything but a rock maybe, throw the UV light over it and it lights up to a colour and brilliance that dazzle the mind and eye. Oohs and aahs gush out of us. We can’t take our eyes off the beauty of the thing. Looking like a piece of jewelry. Jade carved in the form of a scorpion; we lose any feeling of danger that had shadowed us on the walk out. Shaun bends down and picks it up and puts it in his hand. We all take a step back. He tells us not to be anxious. Its ok to come closer. We move a little closer. He asks who would like to hold it. My fearless child is the first to stick her hand up. What have I done to deserve this creature? Shaun calls her forward and places the scorpion gently on her hand and tells her to stay still. My child’s face lights up and even in the dark is almost as radiant as the scorpion’s skeleton. The scorpion wears its armour on the outside.

 We continue to search for scorpions and find half a dozen under rocks. There is no need to call each other over now as the surprise of finding one has worn off, but not the surprise of their beauty. A noise silences the night and our delight. A throaty sound, like the sound of sawing through coarse wood comes to our ears. It is a strangely terrifying sound. We all freeze. A cold sweat comes to the back of my neck. I look at Shaun, there is no hint of the white of hope.   

Turning Lamp Posts Into Sweet Talk

Ironman Frankfurt July 2017 - Anything is Possible

Turning Lamp Posts into Sweet Talk

The road stretches out before me. The odometer reads one hundred and sixty kilometres. I still have twenty to go before the training session is finished. I am having a good day out. The sun is shining, a treasure in a place renowned for rain. I feel lucky. A light wind has accompanied me. It has blown the sweat cool to my skin. It’s the small things that keep you going on the grueling days. Keeping a positive mindset is a difficult thing to do. It needs to be practiced and honed. Endurance sport is a great arena to learn this skill. It is very useful in every facet of one’s life.

I have to be honest; I haven’t always talked nicely to myself or been the most positive person in the room. I spent the first few years of my triathlon training beating myself up and hating most of my long sessions. It seemed like too big of an obstacle to get over. I had signed up to do a long-distance triathlon to prove somebody wrong. They’d said I couldn’t do it. Not the best advertising you might think and yet, Triathlon pushed my body to the limit and my mind even further. This is the story of learning to sweet talk myself.

I don’t know what’s going on in your mind. I really don’t and no one else does either, except for you. I hope it’s a nice place. It isn’t always. What do you do when negativity is the captain of your head?

We are all in a process of change or flux, and so nowadays I think of self-talk as a pendulum that moves on a spectrum from one side to the other- positive to negative or vise-versa. That’s how it works for me anyhow. Triathlon taught me how to control the extreme swing to negative thinking and now most days I am in the positive half of the spectrum.

Nature vs Nurture?

So, here’s a question you might like to ponder. Are we born positive or become positive? The research (Røysamb et al.,2018) suggests that hereditary factors determine 30-40% of our outlook. That is a big piece of the pie we have absolutely no control over. Luckily the genes leave 60% to other factors. Røysamb et al.,2018 conclude that the life we lead and the environment in which we live are the other major contributing factors to your self-talk and outlook. Victor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and author of A Man’s (Women’s) Search for Meaning said, “Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.” Apparently, he was only 60% right. We don’t choose our parents or genes they give us, but we can learn, as Frankl puts it, “to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” And herein lies the power of triathlon to teach us to choose our attitude.

The Effect of Negative Thoughts ☹

What are the effects of negative thoughts? They delay recovery, promote injury and restrict performance. A couple of weeks before my first long distance triathlon I picked up a calf injury. I was still learning how to talk nicely to myself and the injury took me back to a place of negative talk and thought. Besides going to the Physio and getting all the treatment I could, the injury would not heal and I believed it never would. I think this attitude contributed to me keeping this injury for a long time in one form or another. When I learnt to sweet talk myself the injury not only healed for good but running became a pleasure and positive thoughts replaced negative ones.

How I got into Triathlon

I didn’t like running and hated cycling. This is how I started my triathlon journey. This isn’t the best attitude I know. I got into triathlon because of a snowstorm. In the winter of 2008 a snowstorm in North Holland, the Netherlands brought all public transport to a halt and I had to get home to pick up my kids from daycare. No buses and the roads completely blocked; I decided the only realistic way to get there in reasonable time was to run. This was my first 10km run. It was fun and cold and well an experience to say the least. I stopped half way to help some people with their stranded car. What I learnt from this day was that running wasn’t so bad and I could do it. I was already swimming at the local club, cycling daily to work and with this last piece of the puzzle, someone suggested I do triathlon. Today, I enjoy running the most, isn’t it funny how life works?

Chrissie Taught Me About Lamp Posts

Chrissie Wellington dominated triathlon from 2007 to 2012. She was undefeated in all thirteen of her ironman distances. She won her first Kona world championship less than a year after turning professional. To say the least, she set the standard for the rest to follow. In her autobiography A Life Without Limits, Chrissie spoke to the fact that she struggled staying positive when thinking about the race ahead of her. She would get out the water and dread the bike ride to come. I can relate. One hundred and eighty kilometres is daunting, even without the marathon to come. So, what did she do? She would make a deal with herself to ride to the next lamp post, tree, marking on the road etc. and see how she felt. She described how this got her not only to the next lamp post but to the end of the race. She could manage emotions and physical fatigue one lamp post at a time. In Kona there are no lamp posts when you get out on the Queen K highway, but she had her markers that pulled her in and kept her going at a pace nobody else could follow.

Turning Lamp Posts into Sweet Talk

If you only need to get to the next lamp post, you can sweet talk yourself there. “it’s not far,” or “You are doing great, keep it up,” or “Focus on technique until the next lamp post,” or “You’re doing great, keep it up.” There are a million small bits of nice things you can say to yourself if it’s only to the next lamp post. It’s not looking too far ahead. You are not looking at the suffering or the mountain still to be climbed, only the next small section to complete. With practice you can learn to use one mantra repeatedly or different ones. The power of this method is that it is very difficult to not celebrate getting to the next lamp post and keep going. There are enough lamp posts to go around, you just have to notice them. Be conscious of the lamp posts in your life and let them sweeten your talk.

The 12 Minute Rule

Another way of talking well to yourself is committing to doing your set training or task for 12 minutes and then checking in with yourself to see if you want to continue. The first 12 minutes is a great way to have a free zone, where you can build positive thoughts and vibes for the hard training ahead without commiting to it. If after 12 minutes, you’re not feeling it, you stop and do something else. Nine times out of ten, you won’t and you will be talking sweet to yourself all the way through your training and the rest of the day.

3 Benefits of A “Lamp Post” Attitude

1.      You smile more. On the longest bike rides and run, after I had learnt about lamp posts, I smiled more. It’s just to the next lamp post anyway, what did I have to lose? Enjoy the ride.

2.      You learn and practice reframing. The art of seeing a problem or obstacle from a different and more positive perspective. Instead of being upset at the headwind slowing you down or decreasing your average speed, you appreciate it as a handy training tool, adding a little more resistance to your training load. Instead of stressing about the hours of training ahead, you use the time to listen to your favourite music or podcast and learn something new each time.

3.      You build resiliency. You accept change as part of life. How you feel now may change at the next lamp post and that’s ok. The weather or your race strategy might change, its ok. Resiliency will help you deal with these changes and make taking action easier.  A flat tyre is a change you don’t want, but it’s not the end of the world. And most importantly, when things change you know you can influence your mind positively to that change.

My mind has become more positive over the years and now leans towards making every day an eight out of ten. These days, even though I am no longer training for triathlons, I become conscious the moment my mind and thoughts turn negative and I use the tricks from Triathlon to move them into a more positive realm. The lamp posts are in my head now, and the road ahead is as it should be, whether I like what I see or not. Happy training and thinking.

Witch Way Now?

“Having expectations of others means you are trying to fix their lives. Fix your own life – that is freedom.”  - Sadhguru

Witch Way Now?

“Well-behaved women seldom make history,” is the prison men have made for women. When women break free of their supposed ‘good-behaviour’ their power frightens men and men call them witches. In this blog I write about my thoughts on this slogan and why I think it upholds a long standing patriarchal narrative that has killed and shackled women for centuries. Long live the witches!

I am walking through Amsterdam early on a Sunday morning and it is a pleasure. The streets are quiet, the party goers have returned to their dens and the streets to the early risers. There is a lovely peace to a city slumbering and numb from the reveling of the night before. The sun rises lazily into a clear blue sky and a hint of warmth touches my cheek as I amble through the streets. The architecture of the Amsterdam School surrounds me, keeps me company and echoes of times past. Times have changed or have they? I pass a house on the street and look at a poster hung up inside the window. It reads, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” (see foto above) It is a curious thing, isn’t it? Interesting. I stop and take a picture. Later, when I am thinking about the poster and the book I’m reading (In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet), this post starts to germinate. I am glad I took the picture. I think the person who hung the poster there had good intentions and on the surface these words seem well intentioned. Well-meaning words can support existing male narratives and propaganda about women. I think this slogan does and it makes me angry. Let me explain.

These words play into a very old and long held patriarchal belief of what a woman should be. And what is that? Well, well -behaved of course. What does that species look like? Wife, mother, a faceless being at the service of others and the common good without sexual or intellectual desire. A ‘thing’ that does not have autonomy over herself or her body because that is not what the world of men want for her. This is a well-behaved women of not only then, in the shadows of history, but also now. Anti-abortion law in the USA speaks right into this narrative. Ill-behaved women on the other hand are characterized by their ‘refusal of motherhood, rejection of marriage, ignoring traditional beauty standards, bodily and sexual autonomy, homosexuality, aging, anger, even a general sense of self-determination[i],’ and are also the symptoms of witchcraft as Carmen Maria Machado Explains in her foreword to In Defence of Witches. Women who want these things for their lives were once labeled witches, ostracized and burnt at the stake. Women today are not hunted or burnt, yet the male narrative today portrays these women in a very negative and controlling light. The stakes are lower these days but women still have the pressure to conform in our patriarchal society.

The word witch has been sidelined into the imaginations of Disney viewers and the power it wields over us today is minimal. But once the witch bewitched men. Women outside the control of the patriarchal society in which they lived were called witches. Today we might call them Feminists, liberals, bitches or assertive. They were seen as the ultimate threat to the order and stability of societies. They were women just wanting to live their lives on their own terms. They died for the wish to be free. Just having a cat was enough to get you burnt at the stake.

These words in the window, they touch me in a different way than the sun, they leave me feeling cold. They are words of men who want to control women. And things men want to control, they destroy. “Nowadays despite being legally and practically sanctioned, women’s independence continues to elicit general skepticism.”[ii] Why is that? Because freedom, independence and volition is different for women than it is for men. A free woman is not a free man – for women, freedom comes at a price.

“We strongly sensed that with the pill, life would never be the same again, we’d be so free in our bodies it was frightening. Free as a man[iii],” Annie Ernaux says with certainty in her book The Years. But is wasn’t to be. ‘Free as a man’ is for men only. Women were shamed into not using the pill for many years after its introduction. Witches, in the broad sense of the word - women who had agency and self determination, were the only early adopters. It came as a surprise to men that women were sexual beings who had sexual desires and needs and yet who didnt want babies to show for it. It frightened men that the pill gave women the freedom to meet these needs without taking the responsibility of child rearing, just like men. The word witch was antiquated by the time the pill came along. A much older one, however, was used in its place to dissuade women from using the pill. Whore. Women wanting to be free in their bodies, in whichever way they wanted, suddenly became whores. It stopped most women from taking control of their sexual pleasure and bodies.

Why was a married woman wanting to take the pill? Was she wanting to be unfaithful to her husband and four kids? This is another way that the patriarchal socialization war machine has turned against women in a big way, labeling things that are ok for men as not ok for women.  Of course the pill brought freedom to women across the globe, freedom to have control of their bodies. Freedom to have sex without getting pregnant. Freedom to decide not to have children. But it came at a cost: the cost of being labeled whores in the beginning; men taking away the ability to use it through law making and still, today, the cost of violence against women for wanting to make decisions about their own bodies.

There is a “deeply embedded tendency in our society to hold women ultimately responsible for the violence against them[iv],” says Karol F. Karlson, a specialist on the new England witch trials. Being a witch, and by men’s definition – ill-behaved,  is a dangerous thing for a woman. It means women lose the ‘protection’ of the patriarchal structures around them and sometimes the support of the matriarchal support in place. Practically this means a woman will lose the protection of her village or the men in her life or the police are slow in responding to yet another report of partner violence. For the women involved, it feels like a target has been put on their backs. The male narrative that a woman wanting freedom is a target for violence should be the first on everyone’s list to eradicate. We have to hold the men who are violent against women accountable, not the women seeking to be themselves. As Mona Chollet says, ‘there is no need for witch hunts anymore as the trial and tribunal that condemns women to death has been privitised, death coming in the form of spousal violence.’ Why are the death of innocent women, then and now, still not a priority in the modern world?

Mona Chollet gives a very succinct answer to this question. “Truth be told, it is precisely because witch-hunts speak to us of our own time that we have excellent reasons not to face up to them. Venturing down this path means confronting the most wretched aspects of humanity. The witch-hunts demonstrated, first, the stubborn tendency of all societies to find a scapegoat for their misfortunes and to lock themselves into a spiral of irrationality, cut off from all reasonable challenge, until the accumulation of hate-filled discourse and obsessional hostility justify a turn to physical violence, perceived as the legitimate defence of a beleaguered society[v].” The answer brings us to another: When will the patriarchal society fall? The answer: not soon enough.

As Simone De Beauvoir reminds us, “Representation of the world, like the world itself is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth[vi].” And this is where this poster goes wrong, it is describing something from the world view of men, who want women to be well behaved and subservient. The poster should read, “Women in captivity seldom make history. Free women sometimes make history. To make history, free all women.” It is about freedom, not good or bad behaviour. Well-behaved speaks of an expectation that will always be a judgemental hook.

I walk away from the window and it’s message and turn down a street that’s brighter and breezier than the last. This street carries the hope of the architecture holding it in place.  The sun is bouncing off windows and dancing and shimmering on the street before me, like the road of gold in the Wizard of Oz. The light breeze carries smells of life and life smells delicious. I am conscious of my feet walking, one step at a time. With each step I walk away from the poster, distance myself from its message. The road leads me to a T-junction. I stand at the junction and look left and right and ask myself, “Witch way now?”

“Having expectations of others means you are trying to fix their lives. Fix your own life – that is freedom.”  - Sadhguru

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[i] Foreword by Carmen Maria Machado pg. vii In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet

[ii] Pg. 16 In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet

[iii] Pg. 30 The Years by Annie Ernaux

 [iv] Pg. 16 In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet

 [v] Pg. 7 In Defence of Witches by Mona Chollet

[vi] The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir