The Progress-bar of Sisyphus

Well, I found something out yesterday: you can’t blog in the library.  Who knew?  There was I, imagining myself to be broadcasting to my people from the reading-room, when not only did it fail to publish, it didn’t save the draft either!  I clicked on ‘publish post’ and the progress bar ground slowly across the screen and halted a millimetre from the end where it stayed until my time was up.  It’s like those things you install that have progress bars which, when complete, give way to more and more progress bars.  What’s the point of a progress bar if it doesn’t tell you how you’re progressing?  You can just imagine Basil Fawlty jumping up and down in rage at that one: and it made me think of Sisyphus, the guy in the Greek myth who was condemned to push a heavy rock up a mountain.  As soon as he got to the top the rock tumbled all the way down to the bottom again.  I guess you could call that a bar to progress…

So what I was going to tell you yesterday was that, further to my post on people I see every day (and Steve’s response) I actually met one of the guys in person!  I was at the Sound Cafe (see last Wednesday’s post) when Chopper Guy turned up!  He proved to be very cheerful and personable, and he told me that he used to have a motorbike but had to give it up, so now he has his chopper instead.  Look out for him in town and say hello: he’s got gingerish dreads and a huge green chopper.*  Sound Cafe was great this week: it seemed to gel a bit more and we did some communal singing (the aim is to get a homeless choir going) before I went up to do my homeless poem about the anti-homeless spikes.  It’s called ‘Spike’ and it got a great reception: one bloke said it made him cry.  Afterwards we had a poetry table and several people came along to write: one or two even read their poems out!

So after that I had two hours in town before the Left Unity meeting: hence the library visit.  On parking my bike in Humberstone Gate I got caught in a ridiculously fierce shower and got soaked because I couldn’t get my bike-lock out fast enough.  Earlier I put my bike in the bike-park: I’m pleased they’ve opened this up again.

And so to bed…

Kirk out.

*Please refrain from sniggering…

 

Don´t say you don´t…

…get value for money on this blog. Yes, another poem! This one is a poetic version of the short story I posted earlier, Spiral Stair.

Spiral Stair

Pink bedclothes, flowered wallpaper oppress

I long for poverty, turn to the view;

He, showered, says “Cathedral”, goes to dress

Down on the street, the word acts as our cue:

“Dimly lit” – words flicker, and go dark

I search for messages among the dead:

Nothing. My need grows sharper; calling Mark

“I have to climb the tower; clear my head”.

This spiral stair like hell goes on forever

the spine of some rough beast our steps will waken

I, Sisyphus, still hoping to be clever

but finding every thought already taken:

at last, a burst of light: the parapet

I lean and gaze: I’ll cheat this karma yet.