Intertextuality

Censorship

Person in a black hoodie with face covered and mouth taped shut at sunset.
A hooded figure stands with a taped mouth in this powerful depiction of silenced expression.

Image generated by AI

Ryan and Don Roger

6

Censorship

            Censorship plays an important part in many societies and can take multiple forms. The Spanish Inquisition, for example, along with book burning, played a powerful role in the printing industry. Every book had to be examined and approved by a member of the Inquisition. Political correctness is itself a form of censorship. It encourages people to think about what they say and how they are saying it. Many sorts of political correctness arise from the feminist movement that began to question the male domination of the English language. Actors and actresses became actors. In cricket, wicket-keepers, bowlers, and fielders passed the linguistic test, but batsmen and batswomen became batters. I sincerely hope that glove men, for wicket-keepers, do not turn into glove persons.

            Nowadays, some people feel that the correction of language has gone too far and this has resulted in the anti-woke movement, as it is called. This rejects both the correction, and the hyper-correction, of what some people call imbalances in language, culture, and society. I will self-censor myself, rather than being censored by another person or persons, and refrain from what I personally feel about these ideas. Here, I merely point out that they exist.

            Lazarillo de Tormes, for example, was heavily censored by the Spanish Inquisition. All anti-clerical references in the original edition, and there were many of them, were removed. The resultant volume, heavily redacted and much smaller, became known as Lazarillo Castigado / Lazarillo chastised.

            To the best of my knowledge, the only piece removed from Don Quixote was the episode in which he made a rosary from the tail of his shirt, by tying ten small knots in it, and one large one. Since the shirt tail was used for many purposes, including wiping oneself, the censor thought this idea was indecent. Cervantes replaced the shirt tail with ten acorns and a chestnut in later editions.

He also managed to escape censure by placing all his questionable statements in the mouth of a mad man. Whenever an anti-clerical comment was made, readers (and listeners, for in those days, not everybody could read), chuckled at the enormity of the statement and rejoiced in the fact that only a madman could say such things.

            Together with censorship comes correction. Thus Sancho, who is illiterate and can neither read nor write, is also unable to spell. In this fashion, he offers a series of incorrect pronunciations and phonetic equivalents that Don Quixote joyfully and carefully corrects. We see this in other characters too. In DQI, VII or 7, the devil named by the housekeeper, becomes ‘the sage Muñaton’ in the mouth of the niece. Don Quixote changes this to ‘Freston’. The housekeeper continues with ‘Freston’ or ‘Friton’ and adds “I know only that his name ended in ton.”

            In our modern society, I see an enormous change taking place. Where I was educated by reading books, many books in my case, today’s younger generation teach themselves via AI and Chat. They watch videos. Watch TV. Text on cell phones. They listen to multiple podcasts. All this is audio-visual, little of it is written down. As a result, essays I received from my students were filled with phonetic spellings of words that they had heard, but not seen in written form. In addition, schools are no longer teaching cursive. My grand-daughter can print. She can neither read nor write joined letters. However, she can text faster with her two thumbs than I can with my index finger! The new generations have entered an electronic world that is totally alien to me.

            Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? Who shall guard the guards? Who shall police the police? Who shall program the programmers? And with what shall they program them? A long time ago, the BBC in England banned Sesame Street because it was too simplistic. Today, Sesame Street equivalents rule. So, let us extend our questions – “Who shall censor the censors?”

            Sometimes, it takes a madman to do it, in our case, a madman called Don Quixote! He, in his madness, encourages us, nay (or as Rocinante might say ‘neigh!’), he forces us to re-examine our links to language, to reality, to illusion. Reading his text, we learn to ask questions of the world around us. How many of our realities are illusions? How many of our illusions are corruptions of reality? How many times has Don Quixote been banned by figures in authority because of its attacks on authority?

            Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? Who shall guard the guards? Who shall program the programmers? “Who shall censor the censors?” And who will protect us if we speak truth to authority, and authority doesn’t like the truths we offer? The author of Lazarillo remains anonymous. Cervantes distanced his words from himself and put them in the mouth of a madman. Other people have taken evasive action in other ways.

The alternative – stay silent and bleat with the sheep – “Four legs good! Two legs bad!” And when the Mastiffs with their spiked collars come for us, we can always, like the sheep, change our chant. “Four legs bad! Two legs good!” After all, all sheep are equal, even when some sheep are more equal than others, and all of us can imagine we are animals on George Orwell’s Animal Farm – and then we can say what we want and nobody will listen, nobody will pay attention, and nobody will understand. And remember, somebody, somewhere will want Animal Farm banned. And 1984.

Book Burnings

Hooded figures holding torches surround a bonfire of burning books and scrolls.
A group of cloaked figures stands in a dimly lit stone courtyard as they burn ancient scrolls and books in a large central fire.

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Ryan and Don Roger

5

Book Burnings

            In 1492, the Spanish Jews were given the choice of conversion to Catholicism or of being expelled from Spain. Many chose to leave. Those who converted, and remained, were kept under constant supervision. In an effort to stamp out their faith, their books were condemned to the flames by the Spanish Inquisition. A similar burning of the books in Don Quixote’s library occurs in DQI, 6. Is book burning effective? Some people think so. Other people aren’t so sure.

            The Spanish conquest of Mexico, led by Hernán Cortés, concluded on August 13, 1521, when Spanish forces and their native Tlaxcalan allies captured the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and emperor Cuauhtémoc, marking the end of the Aztec Empire and the beginning of Spanish colonial rule. The country was then called New Spain. 

Mexico is famous for its codices. These are fan-fold picture histories, drawn on vellum covered with gesso, of tribal conquests, social norms, tables of the gods, in fact a whole cultural and historical record of pre-Hispanic Mexico. The Zouche-Nuttal codex, for example, sets out the conquests of Ocho Venado / Eight Deer, nicknamed Garra de Tigre / Tiger Claw, a Mixtec warrior, who lived between 1063 and 1115. Five of the Mixtec codices survive. Many, many more were burned. The cover of the Vindobonensis shows the burn marks where some daring person pulled the codex from the flames and saved it. Without such saved codices, we would have much less knowledge of pre-Hispanic Mexico.

            Why is this anecdote important? Because prior to the invention of printing, in 1474, manuscripts were written by hand. Yes, some were copied, but many copies were single and unique. Burn the manuscript, destroy the knowledge it contains. Post 1474, with the printing of multiple copies of books, the individual book might be destroyed, but some books would survive from the printing sequence. Apply this to Don Quixote’s library and we note several things. First, Don Quixote’s copies are destroyed. Second, other copies of his books survive elsewhere. In addition, although Don Quixote’s books are burned the ideas in those books survive in the knight’s head and he lives by their rules. Those ideas are spread throughout the history of his adventures to everybody with whom he comes in contact. Conclusion – you can destroy the books. You cannot destroy the ideas that those books contained.

            Ray Bradbury, in Farhenheit 451, describes the burning of books in his dystopian novel. 451F incidentally is the temperature at which paper burns. The books are burnt in Bradbury’s world, but the book people survive. The book people are those who memorize their books and are able to quote them from memory and pass them on orally to other people.

            And people protect their books. How? By placing them in small rooms within their houses and walling up those rooms so that the books could not be found. This happens in DQI, VI – 6. Don Quixote awakes, goes to find his library, but it has disappeared. The housekeeper swears that a sage enchanter descended on a dragon and the library vanished in a puff of smoke. Don Quixote believes the metatheatrical lie and acts as if it were the truth. He then bemoans the fact that he is pursued by malignant sorcerers. These evil enchanters will pursue him throughout the novel whenever he wakes up from his illusions and is faced by reality. Clearly, the sage enchanters have robbed him of his moment of glory (illusion) and reduced him to sorry (the truth).

            Curiously enough, a 16th Century walled-up library was found in a house in Barcarrota, Spain not so long ago. The books were hidden, probably from the Inquisition, so that their owner could escape prosecution. The discovery sheds light on how individuals hid literature from the Inquisition during the 16th century in Spain. It also illustrates how closely Cervantes followed the reality of his times when writing the Quixote.

            You can destroy books. But it is very difficult to destroy the ideas they contain. In this fashion, although the burning of that one book ends the life of that particular volume, it rarely ends the life of the ideas contained within its covers. We might not recognize the names of the characters that Don Quixote quotes from his memory of those histories, but many of the people who encounter the knight during his adventures know them and remember them. Amadis of Gaul is never dead, not when his name lives on. The same is true of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. King Arthur is said to fstill be alive and can be seen in the shape of a White Crow, bran gwen, in Welsh. And even Walt Disney knew, and profited from, the legend of the sword in the stone.

We will also see, as we continue our journey, that in the same way that tall oaks grow out of small acorns, large parts of later events found in the Quixote already have their seeds sown in these early chapters. Metatheatre, illusion and reality, authorship and censorship, truth and falsehood, waking events and dream sequences – and that is just the start.

From Stage to Page

An unrolled parchment scroll showing a sunset windmill sketch on a wooden desk with a quill and inkwell.
A beautifully detailed scroll depicting windmills at sunset rests on a classic wooden desk alongside traditional writing tools.

Image generated by AI.

Ryan and Don Roger

4

Stage to Page

            So many questions – so much to say. Let us begin by stating that Cervantes is one of the most original novelists the world has known. Then we can continue by stating that, in spite of that, like Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, aka Molière, he is not above borrowing his material from other writers. When Molière was asked where he found sources for his plays, he replied “Je les prends où je les trouve.” Cervantes might well have said the same thing.

            The source of the first sortie of Don Quixote is a short play, an entremés, called El Entremés de los Romances. These short, entertaining pieces were often installed between acts of a longer pay to keep the audience amused during the breaks. In this particular one, an old man thinks he is a knight and travels forth quoting the old border ballads and ballads of chivalry as if they were historical truth. Mind you, some of them were, or pretty close to it, especially those that carried news of the reconquest, but not all of them were true by a long way. The old man goes too far with his chivalry, gets a beating, and comes back home, draped over his horse which is led by a neighbor. Sound familiar?

            In classical rhetoric, imitation – imitatio in Latin – was the highest compliment one could pay to another author as it meant he was worth imitating. Today, imitation is considered more a scourge to be avoided, although if you follow the crime and spy shows on TV you will know that the same, or very similar, incidents recur again and again, played out in different stories by different actors.

            So, Cervantes starts out by imitating an older stage play and turning it from a play into a short story. This is creativity, beyond imitation, in itself. In this theory, the first story is in fact a short story, meant originally to stand on its own. This is not my theory, incidentally, I have borrowed it from my own teacher, Geoffrey L. Stagg, the man who introduced me to the scientific study of the Quixote. Stagg took as his evidence the first edition of the book in which he discovered an anomaly. The last sentence of Chapter Five ends in a comma (in the original, and certainly not in my translation by J. M. Cohen. I first read this book in 1965 – 61 years later, it is held together by glue and Scotch tape, a bit like Don Quixote’s helmet and armour!). To continue, the first word of Chapter Six begins with a lower-case letter, as if that word were joined to the last in the previous chapter. The heading of Chapter Six also runs smoothly into that first word as if they were joined. This suggested that in fact the two chapters had been united in a single story and had later been separated as the idea of turning the story into a novel dawned on the author.

            But who is the author of Don Quixote? Miguel de Cervantes, obviously. But who is the narrator of the story? In the first sentence, this first person narrator states ‘a village in la Mancha that I do not wish to name – de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme in the original Spanish. AI helps us out here. I quote – “Miguel de Cervantes was likely imprisoned in Argamasilla de Alba (specifically in the Cueva de Medrano) around the turn of the 17th century due to disputes arising from his work as a tax collector, or potentially a local dispute with a nobleman. This confinement, stemming from financial irregularities or local drama, is traditionally believed to be where he began writing Don Quixote.”

No wonder Cervantes, the initial narrator, does not wish to name that particular town. A little later, in an effort to embrace the readers and draw them into the text, the narrator uses the first-person plural- our text, followed by we make take it … we do not depart.

We will return to the narrative structure of the novel on many occasions. For the moment, we will leave the matter there. In narrative structure, the real Cervantes is the author. Cervantes, named or unnamed, is the narrator and becomes a part of the narration. I should add that the 1605 version of Don Quixote contains many short stories, that have nothing, or very little to do, with Don Quixote himself. We will return to these intercalated novels, as they are called, when we meet them later in the text.

What’s in a Name?

Ryan and Don Roger

2

What’s in a name?

            Don Quixote was first published in Spain in 1605. In 1609, Thomas Shelton translated it into English. By 1611 / 1612 the adjective quixotic, was already in use within English society. An AI search tells us that “In the 17th century, the term quixotic was used to describe a person who does not distinguish between reality and imagination. The etymology of the word began after the publication of Don Quixote in 1605.”

But what does quixotic mean exactly? Another AI search reveals that “Quixotism (adj. quixotic) is impracticality in pursuit of ideals, especially those ideals manifested by rash, lofty and romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action. It also serves to describe an idealism without regard to practicality.”

            Why is this important? Quite simply because in English we say Don Quixote / Quick-sot, not Don Key-hoe-tay a bastardized version of the Spanish. Please note that the adjective, in English, is quixotic not “key-hoe-tay-ic” which is too chaotic to be practical. Note too that the French translators offer us Don Quichotte, while the Italians suggest Don Chisciotte. Both these languages conserve the original pronunciation – a voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/, which is the same sound as the English “sh” in “ship”. This is clear evidence that the X of the original had a different pronunciation in the seventeenth century than it does today.

            My wonderful friends on AI confirm this as follows, and I quote:

In 17th-century Spain, the letter ‘X’ primarily represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/, which is the same sound as the English “sh” in “ship”. During this period, which coincided with the Spanish Golden Age and the “readjustment of the sibilants,” this sound underwent a transformation, shifting from the “sh” sound to the modern velar fricative /x/ (similar to the German ch in loch or the modern Spanish ‘j’). 

Here are the key details about the pronunciation of ‘X’ during that era:

Initial “Sh” Sound: Early in the 17th century (and before), words that are now spelled with ‘j’ or ‘g’ were spelled with ‘x’ and pronounced as “sh.” For example, Don Quixote was pronounced “Don Keesh-o-teh”.

The Sibilant Shift: During the 16th and 17th centuries, the sound /ʃ/ (written as ‘x’) and the voiced /ʒ/ (written as ‘j’) merged into a single voiceless sound /ʃ/. Later in the 17th century, this sound moved backward in the mouth, evolving into the modern velar /x/ (the modern ‘jota’).

And this is just the beginning and what’s in a name? For example, what is the real name of Sancho Panza? Is it Sancho Panza or Sancho Zancas [DQI,9]? How about his wife? Is it Juana Gutierrez or Mary Gutierrez [DQI, 7]? In the same chapter she is called Teresa Panza, the name that stays with her throughout the novel.

And what about Don Quixote himself? Is his real surname Quixada, Quesada, Quexana [DQI,1] or Alonso Quijano el Bueno [DQII,74]? Don Quixada de la Mancha aka Don Quesada de la Mancha aka Don Quexana de la Mancha – and we won’t mention the alternate names he takes – the Knight of the Sad Countenance or the Knight of the Lions!

Fascinating, eh? So, after all that, tell me – what’s in a name?

Riding Buddies – Reading Buddies

Ryan and Don Roger

1

Riding Buddies – Reading Buddies

            Don Quixote makes three sorties. The first is very brief, about five chapters. The second is much longer. And the third is 74 chapters in length. Each sortie is different. For now, I would like to take a brief glance the difference between Sortie 1 and Sortie 2.

            Sortie 1 – Don Quixote sets out on his own. He travels to an inn, has adventures there, gets knighted by the inn-keeper, albeit falsely, and after an unequal combat in which he is bruised and battered, he is brought back home by a neighbor.

            When the inn-keeper asks Don Quixote for payment, the knight replies that knights errant do not carry money with them, nor do they pay for their food and lodging. The inn-keeper recommends that Don Quixote find a squire to attend, one who can carry the money and the other things that a knight needs. Our knight takes this recommendation to heart.

            Sortie 2 – In this second sortie, Don Quixote has a companion. One of the main differences between the first and second sorties is that the knight now has a squire with whom he can talk. This dialog between knight and squire, master and servant, is key to the understanding of the novel.

            Their contrasting points of view, Don Quixote literate, a believer in reading, with a firm belief that all books of chivalry are true, contrasts immediately with the illiterate Sancho, his squire. Where Sancho sees reality – the windmills are windmills – Don Quixote sees illusion – the windmills are giants, waving their arms, and threatening to attack. This is a simplistic summary, but we will leave it there for now.

            Graham Green understood the nature of dialog when he penned his novel, Monsignor Quixote. In the film, available free of charge on YouTube, the Catholic Priest (now a Monsignor) and his friend, the Communist Mayor (now defeated in an election and unemployed) leave the little town in which they live, and set out on a journey of adventures, much in the same way that Monsignor Quixote’s namesake sets out in Cervantes’s novel.

They do not have a horse and a donkey. However, they do have Monsignor Quixote’s car, nicknamed, of course, Rocinante, in which to travel. The key to Green’s novel is the constant dialog between the mayor, knowledgeable in the ways of the world, and Monsignor Quixote, innocent of the world outside his church and full of illusions about the reality of that world. It is easy to think of them as riding buddies who converse.

            So, what is a reading buddy? Well, Don Quixote is a long book, over 1000 pages, with 127 chapters. Many readers set out in search of adventure, but do not keep reading. However, a wise reader will set out on that journey with a reading buddy, who will travel with him, step by step, chapter by chapter. Each will keep the other company, and one of the delights of the journey will be the constant conversation between the reading buddies.

            I am Don Roger. My reading buddy is Ryan. I am short and stout. Ryan is tall and thin. We have reversed the Sancho / Quixote image, but we are both equally insatiable in our search for knowledge. The curious thing is that I have read Don Quixote 28 items, mainly in Spanish, but also in English and French. Ryan is reading it for the first time, but he is an expert in AI access and is helping me to understand the wily ways of that electronic world of short cuts. Of course, it helps you to sort the chaff from the grain when you know what you are looking for and just use AI to refresh your fading memory!

            I am full of the illusions of the academy. Ryan reads with a sharp mind, a keen wit, and no illusions at all. He sees only the reality of what is there. Together we have embarked on a journey that is in the process of opening our eyes to two different realities his and mine – Ryan’s and Don Roger’s. The conversations that we are having along the way, will be the subject of this little discourse on Cervantes’s novel.

Rage, Rage 43

Rage, Rage
43

The truth,
unwelcome as it is,
is that the day I was born
I took my first steps
on the path to death,
my own death.

Death –
an inescapable law
that tells me that
body and spirit
will be forced apart.

My flesh will wither
and perish,
and the person
that the world and I
know as me
will no longer be able
to hold together.

Commentary:

“The day I was born I took my first steps on the path to death.” An echo of a line from Francisco de Quevedo, of course.

And the photo above? It is the old Roman road that ascends the Puerto del Pico in the Province of Avila. Hard to believe it was laid down nearly 2,000 years ago and still carries the transhumance cattle and sheep from the valleys in winter to the hills in summer. It is also a part of the Camino de la Plata, the silver road that brought precious metals from Spanish America to Madrid after the discovery and conquest of the Incan Empire.

The treasures of the Empire – what joy. Yet what weight around the neck of the Spanish nation. Wealth so abundant, spending so rife, money-lenders always lending, filling in the gaps between the arrival of the treasure convoys from the Colonies. And yet that borrowing became a millstone around the borrowers’ necks. So much money borrowed that there came a moment when each convoy only served to pay off the loan debt of the last set of borrowings.

The cattle and sheep struggle to climb to those heights. Yet it is not difficult to imagine how much easier it was to walk downhill, beside the creaking wagons that held the gold and silver to pay off the monarch’s debts, en route to the king and his court.

Think also of the squeals of anguish heard when the treasure fleet did not arrive. Captured by the English pirates, or hurricane battered and lost in the Caribbean or closer to home. This meant even more borrowing on the back of earlier borrowing and always the cost of living and the lending rates rising higher and higher.

Bleak Mid-Winter

Bleak Mid-winter
from
All About Angels

The reverse side of a tapestry this fly-netting,
snow plugging its tiny squares,
clotting with whiteness the loopholes
where snippets of light sneak through.
Black and white this landscape,
its colorless contours a throwback
to earlier days when dark and light
and black and white held sway.

Snow piled on snow.
The bird-feeder buried and buried, too,
the lamps that can no longer shine
beneath their cloak of snow.

The front porch contemplates a sea of white,
wave after wave cresting whitecaps,
casting a snow coat over trees
with snow-filled nests standing
shoulder-deep in the drifts
while a slow wind whistles
and high and dry in the sky above
the sun is a pale, thin penny
drifting through ragged clouds
hat threaten to bring more snow.

Comment:

A Golden Oldie, or rather, a Black and White Oldie, from when New Brunswick winters were colder and much more snowy. The iterative thematic imagery in the poem links to the hymn, In the bleak mid-winter. There are several reminisces of the hymn within the above lines.

It used to be sung as a an entry hymn in the Christmas Carol Services at King’s Stanley Church, along time ago, when I was in school. The procession would exit the vestry and move slowly though the church towards the altar. The first verse of the solo was sung solo. Then a duet followed. Then the whole choir joined in. I remember doing the solo one year, when both our lead singers were stricken with some form of laryngitis. We drew lots and I got the short straw.

The unique drum accompaniment that day was the sound of my knees knocking together, backed up by the loud beating of the heart in my chest. I preferred hiding in the choir, to stepping up out front and leading it.

Last year, we used our snow blower on three occasions. This winter, we have yet to use it. If during the next month or so I am forced to wake it up and shake it out of its cobwebs, I will be sure to sing “In the bleak midwinter” as I plow my drive. Alas, there will be no choir to accompany me. Those days are long past, and in the past they must remain, as the Flower of Scotland reminds us. They will be singing that in Edinburgh on Valentine’s Day. And Scotland will need a strong brave set of hearts to upset the invading armies from south of the border.

Wild Life

Wild Life

I see green grass
Small ponds
Winding roads
Patches of sorrow

Turquoise blues 
Hills to climb
Softness
Strength 

Flowers blooming
A small animal
Covered in feathers 

An eye
Keeping watch
Purity of white

Ekphrastic Poem
©
Yolande Essiembre

Comment:

My good friend Yolande Essiembre sent me her Ekphrastic poem after viewing this morning’s painting by Moo. Wild Life II is a better representation of the colours of the original. However, Moo added in some (what he calls!) helpful touches – the black shapes that reinforce the suggestions of the original. Yolande wrote her poem based on Version I – but with the stronger colors of version II. Magic – oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. And all artists weave their webs of deceit. As Cervantes says – Tanto la mentira es mejor, cuanto más parece verdadera. / The closer it approaches the truth, the better the lie.

Imitatio – imitation – one of the bedrocks of classical rhetoric. “Imitation is the best form of flattery”. Flattery, yes, but what we find, in art above all, is that there exists only one original. However good the copy, the flattery – the imitation, if you prefer – it is never as good as the original. The original of this painting exists in one time and one place. The two deceptions are not the original. In fact, Wild Life I no longer exists because Moo has repainted it. It has turned into Wild Life II.

So many questions – which version do you prefer – I or II? De gustibus non est disputandum. There is no arguing about taste. Which is the better version? Well, each viewer must choose. But remember, each version is a deception, and each deception is a lie. And there is only one original. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

But we can, I hope, agree on one thing – Yolande’s verbal version (which I publish here with her permission) is verbally picture perfect. It is how she sees the painting. It is what the painting means to her.

Thank you so much Yolande. Moo and I hope to publish your words and visions more often. With your permission. we will do so.


Rage, Rage 20

Rage, Rage
20

Words emerge
from the silence 
of blood and bone.

They break that silence
the day they are born.

Silence, once broken,
cannot be repaired
and a word once spoken
cannot be recalled.

The greatest gifts –
knowing how and when
to sink into silence,
knowing how to be alone
in the middle of a crowd,

So many word-worlds
smothered at birth
and those worlds, dismissed,
forgotten, still-born,
their names never spoken.

Comment:

So, are you paying attention? Did you notice anything? Has something gone missing? Moo tells me that he doesn’t think anyone will notice what I have. Can you prove him wrong? Good question! Whatever, as they say, or “So what?” as Miles Davies plays. Or, as Buddy Holly once sang “I guess it doesn’t matter any more.”

Moo wants me to tell you that he painted this painting last night. He calls it No More Blues. Guess what? There are no blue shades in it. Cunning, eh? And daylight hours are back up to 9:30 – 9.5 hours sunlight on this cold, wintry day. And it is cold at -14C. On the other hand, Moo’s painting is toasty warm and you can hold up your chilled fingers and warm them on his painted fires.

As for me, I am having great fun preparing my writing for competitions that I never win. I am also paying to enter them. But I choose carefully nowadays – so many publications and competitions want so much money just for sending them a manuscript they will possibly never read and probably (nay, almost certainly) reject. I am so happy that I do not have to live off my earnings. I have 17 books on KDP Amazon and guess what? I received $3.61 in earnings in 2025. And I must declare it on my tax forms. I hope it doesn’t send me up a tax bracket!

I guess it’s a case of Fly me to the stars and let me see what writing pays on Jupiter and Mars. Not much probably. I bet they don’t read poetry in any of those Mars Bars I am always reading about. That said, I wonder what language Mars Barmen speak? And do they have Mars Bar Flies, like we have Bar Flies here on earth? Oh the wonders of language and the Joy of Words. The Joy of Six, as well – and that’s Sex in Latin. Get the joke? Oh, to be multilingual, now that spring’s a coming. Easy now. Don’t get too excited. And look at all those little white angels flying in Moo’s painting.

Rage, Rage 10

Rage, Rage
10

My body’s house
has many rooms
and you, my love,
are present in them all.

I glimpse your shadow
in the mirror, and your breath
brushes my cheek
when I open the door.
Where have you gone?

I walk from room to room,
but when I seek,
I no longer find
and nothing opens
when I knock.

Afraid, sometimes,
to enter a room,
I am sure
you are in there.

I hear your footsteps.
Sometimes your voice
breaks the silence
when you whisper my name
in the same old way.

Comment:

Rage, Rage – and still I rage against the dying of the light and, like Dylan Thomas, ask the ageing of this world not to go gentle into that dark night. Yet, as my beloved and I age, we watch day’s shadows growing longer, and night stealing steadily along. What can we do?

Well, since the winter solstice, we can start counting the minutes as each day adds a minute or two and gifts some more light and strength to the sun. Sunrise today – 8:03 AM. Sunset today – 5:09 PM. That means 9 hours and 6 minutes of sunlight. Well, it would, if it weren’t cloudy, with a cold wind, and a dropping temperature. My guess is that it will get dark much before it ought to. And that’s not nice – no respect!

Of course, my beloved is a sun bunny and a Leo, and she perishes in these shortened days. I was born in them and they don’t affect me as badly as they do her. But I can still Rage, Rage, because there is so much to rage about – icy streets, the usual potholes, roads that hide ice beneath a thin covering of snow, some strange drivers who don’t seem to have bought winter tires. Oh yes, I love them. One came twisting and turning down the same side of the road as me only this morning. Luckily he hit the snow bank before he hit me. But, I ask you, what was he thinking?

So there’s Rage, and Rage Rage, and also Road Rage. Way to go! I think we should call a national rage day and all stay home for 24 hours, just to cool us all down for a bit. Oh dear, that might lead to cabin fever – and that would be an out–Rage.