Category: poetry

Categories
exercise memoir poetry

Drawing, life

Later, in the break, I am not what I expect.

She, my aunt, supplies the robe. It is white, towelling, lemon bitter soft. I change behind the Japanese screen. I am wider than the Japanese women, but not split three ways. Not yet. I tuck my knickers into the pocket of my jeans. Fold my bra into itself.

The uncovering is awkward. They are careful not to look. Not looking, carefully.

They, five of them, have signed up for life drawing, and I, just me, have signed up for £15. I am twenty-two, recently dumped by a soldier boyfriend.

You told me to go back to her, he said, so I did.

What do you do with a black wooden hat stand with its felt array of goblin hats that you bought for the boyfriend you no longer have?

I stand beside the chaise longue, stretch my toes. My toenails are unadorned. I don’t look at myself or them.

How to disrobe? Untie the belt. Coil, coiling.

Uncoiled.

They are sharpening pencils, flattening paper on easels, pulling up sleeves. They are whispering. There is mention of how cold it is out.

Most of them will be dead now.

They are in caramel and beige and navy and white. Close-knitted fishermen’s sweaters, big jewels, thin necks that crease, pince, fold.

The room smells of turps, lavender, mineral, lead pencil, artists’ paper.

The art of seeing. I am naked.

She is the nude.

The tutor, my aunt, a painter, and someone important at the Edinburgh College of Art, directs me into a pose on the chaise longue.

After fifteen seconds I twitch, I itch, I pull, I stretch. Count down time on my toes, my nose, noes, so many knows.

Fifteen-minute bursts. Bursting to move.

The men don’t draw my face. The women shade my groin. I tour, in the robe at half time, a regal inspection, a glittering eye.

They use charcoal and pencil. Sweep the page. I am belly thigh chin calves. Some of them fill in the strawberry pattern of the chaise longue, the fabric more comfortable than a breast or nipple.

I feel them blunten flatten distemper perspective.

Sex doll, centrefold, still-life.

They catch the clutch of my clavicle.

I have nothing on my skin but shifting air. She is nude and I am naked.

Would you tank that canvas?

Object or subject. Take your pick.

I do not yet have the language of war.

In the break they circle me, close in, offer a custard cream. Take two, someone says.

I tongue the crumbs out of my teeth.

Why did I tell him to go back to her?

He holds his crayon up, measures me with a skewed eye. I am three inches. He calculates perspective. Block by anatomical block. There is gin on his breath. And olive.

Thumbelina.

Crawling shame where there is no shame and no need for any crawling, not at all.

My sighs hue and thigh.

Cindy Sherman in fractured flesh.

Disembodied, disempowered, disingenuous. Is it over yet?

I once drew the head of a dachshund, just the ears nose throat. I was rather pleased with the result.

In the flat next door a baby cries. The baby will cry for ninety minutes. The howls set teeth on edge, tighten wrists, diminish scale.

Five mannequin heads on the top shelf. Two without wigs. All with bats for lashes.

He said I put the idea into his head.

The ear that hasn’t been cleaned, the eyes veer swerve bend.  

The woman at the near end of the five isn’t holding back. Her arms sweeps her mouth opens her hips wide and dancing. I want to smile at this woman.

I could give the goblin hats to the mannequin heads. Two each to the ones without wigs.

I don’t. Of course I don’t smile.

                                                Never smile during the pose only at the end when I’m dressed and have three notes in the brown envelope.

And the tips.

This piece is written from the prompt ‘portrait’. The photograph is a section of a graphite and charcoal drawing ‘Sitting Woman’ by Jude Nixon, Edinburgh (2015).

Categories
blog diary poetry

5 January, 2022

I have nothing useful to say

say nothing useful

I have nothing

I have to say

say, have I nothing?

useful nothing

have I?

useful, say I

I say

nothing useful

useful nothing have I

to have

I have

have to

I have to say

nothing

say I

Categories
poetry

the colour of our war

hell mend you for not understanding never understanding not even trying to understand what you must understand for fuck’s sake what’s wrong with you

hell mend you for blustering boor swaggering your suit dragged through deranged pocketing our all

hell mend you for locking us up sending us south your cankerous finger cocked up roaching castigating

hell mend you for the gape of our shoes the scruff of our skirts our out of data again mum please mum please

hell mend you for our sour milk spilt our foodbank snake it’s you again alright love same as usual love recoiling

hell mend you for our pushed out bellies our pus piped gums our coughs to the beat your filch of our guts

hell mend you for your mildew your fires that moulder that crackle that slay sorry missus nothing else available

hell mend you for burning not burying not even a lily a wake never enough for anything not even a passing

hell mend you for the new blue dress the red tissue paper the white box the dress the paper the box the colour of our war

This poem has been published in GRUB, one of four pamphlets in the Four Letter Word (FLW) project. The project is artists responding to poverty, the climate crisis, and worldwide inequality that the pandemic has brought into sharper relief. The series consists of four limited edition printed pamphlets each containing 25 texts/artworks by different writers and artists. The full purchase price will go to four charities dealing with these issues. You can buy one or more of the pamphlets here.

The image is Banksy’s mural Slave Labour.

Categories
musings poetry

Rate My Late!

Rate My Late – Buy Your App Here!

The trouble with Late is that she can’t exist on her own. She’s not a thing to point at, to put on a mantlepiece, to dress up with pearls (fake) or a sympathetic diamond (real).

Late requires clocks, calendars, appointments, cycles, physiology, intent, heartbeats.

Late needs lovers, children, employees, unprotected sex, traffic jams, a fatal collision on the M6, a flat tyre, a lightning strike, a network outage, a forgotten password, a printer out of ink, a dead battery.

Late loves unreliability, pompousness, disrespect, people who don’t read the time, people without phones, without watches, without effective chairs (the people, not the furniture).

Late wants capitalism not socialism.

Late wants liars not truth seekers.

Late wants socialites not loners.

Late thrives on wankers and low tyre pressure, on mislaid keys and handbags left in cafes, on getting on the wrong bus and buying a last-minute soya chai latte while running for a train.

Late is normally with Wait. But not every time. Sometimes Late shacks up with Early.

Early is anxious, Early doesn’t’t sleep well.

Early is fatal with safety catches and red traffic lights and dynamiting derelict housing association towers.

Early is fatal at baking Victoria sponges and making mayonnaise. And sex.

Early worries. Is Late under a bus, in jail, got a better offer, been tasered?

Early has Velcro instead of laces, studs instead of buttons, and a purse always full of just the right change.  

Early has spare bus tickets, tampons, a water bottle, tissues, lip salve and a wad of toilet roll all to hand.

Early pants and sweats and waits and swivels on bar stools and is talked to by waiters and memorises menus and bus timetables and is hated by her late friends, really hated.

Early hears secrets at the end of other people’s meetings, catches mistresses leaving management offices, learns the lives of cleaners and clicks her fingers click click click.

Early doesn’t need a dinner plate, eats out of saucepans, and has never eaten her lunch off a table in her own flat, never, never as Early must eats on the move when she can.

Early is thin and in a rush and bites her nails and forfeited the last question in her final exam, what with the need to get the right train home.

Early is pinged and notified and sent reminders on apps apps apps.

Early is ANXIOUS with capital letters and no full stop. 

Early didn’t arrive in a bulrush basket. Early exploded out after ninety-seven minutes of labour at thirty-five weeks. Early is small and fluttery and clings to edges. If Early could crawl back in and cocoon to full term she would.

Heh Early! Take some deep breaths, love.

Early waits for Late like we watch Planet Earth. Squatting behind the couch with fingers over our eyes. Lion stalking Zebra, creeping creeping, ready to pounce and bloody. Early is black and white striped with a fly-blown swishing tail.

Early is rushing for the ad-breaks to make a cup of tea and always misses Lion’s final gouge or Zebra’s just in time escape. Early cannot stand to know what happens in the end. Ever.

Early is not a completer finisher. Early is so fast off the blocks she’s constantly disqualified.

Early turns up to fetes while the bouncy castle is still flaccid flat.

Early attends the funeral of the earlier corpse.

Early witnesses the wrong wedding and throws confetti at the wrong couple.

Early stands shivering on empty platforms and Early leans shivering in empty ballrooms.

The trouble with Early is that she can’t exist on her own. She’s not a thing to point at, to put on a mantlepiece, to dress up with pearls (fake) or a sympathetic diamond (real).

Early requires clocks, calendars, appointments, cycles, physiology, intent, heartbeats.

You can see where this going. Except on the App.

There is no Rate My Early. There could never be a Rate My Early.

Categories
musings poetry

blue

I take the kettle to the sink, flick open the lid, turn the tap on. The tap is stiff, needs fixing but of course I’ll never fix it. I never fix anything. The bulbs from the two hall lights died within seconds of each other three winters ago. They sit, after a friend who is good with his hands took them down for me, gathering dust and guilt, on a piece of white paper on the upside down printer’s drawer that operates as a table in the living room. The printer’s drawer, in turn, sits on the Iranian carpet I bought in Wellington out the back of a white van from three men with warm eyes, in grey anoraks and beige sweaters, cash only. It was a lot of money in those days, that carpet. I ummed and ahhed and ummed and ahhed before offering around 80% of the asking price. They accepted immediately. Exchanged smiles with each other and slammed the van doors shut. Drove off with a surely illegal puff puff of diesel exhaust. I spluttered, and kicked myself for months afterwards. The reds of the rug have faded now, but the blues have stayed. Staying blue, stalwart, true.

I fill the kettle just under a third full with whatever temperature the water happens to come out of the tap. I can see it’s just under a third full as it’s an eco-kettle, transparent, or would be if I cleaned it. A third full is enough for a mug of hot water with a mint sprig and just enough water for the hot water bottle I keep on my knees eight months of the year when I’m not moving. The hot water bottle has printed the pale thinning skin of my stomach and thighs a pink tartan cross-stitch. It would be hard to explain this pattern to any doctor or nurse. Sometimes I tell people about it and they laugh and I laugh but I don’t show them the pattern. The hot water bottle is itself reddish pink, which is ironic in a way. Feeling its way onto my stomach and leaving its mark. Staying pink, private, stalwart, true.

I flick the switch on the kettle. Kristine gave me the hot water bottle and the cover seven years ago. She was dying of a cancer that started in her eye and worked its way down to her stomach and everywhere else. She knitted during her various therapies as she thinned and misshaped and she knitted me a hot water bottle cover. She said the pattern was easy and she didn’t need to concentrate. Green and blue and yellow and pink, sock wool, I think they call it, so that when you knit the socks they come out stripey. The stripes are a kind of miracle. I cried a little when she gave it to me. Held it to my cheek. It was rough smooth, two plain two pearl, and smelt of lanolin. There was no miracle for Kristine.

I pinch the top of two mint sprigs from their glass on the window ledge. Drop the leaves into the mug.

Neither was it a miracle that the moth babies ate Kristine’s hot water bottle cover three or four years after she died and I spent three months working up the courage to drop it into the bin in the kitchen. The bin was a Christmas present from a lover who lived here once. We agreed on the bin present so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The bin was after Kristine’s eye cancer but before it woke up and tore her apart.

In the meantime the moths did what moths do and bred and flew and travelled and bred and flew and travelled and the moth babies moved onto other precious articles – a Mediterranean blue cashmere sweater once owned by a now dead aunt – and a black Icebreaker t-shirt – a present from Bronwyn in New Zealand. Bronwyn took me on a tour of Christchurch after the earthquake, after I’d been to my father’s memorial tea party in Hobart, and showed me what was left of the houses that weren’t insured, and the houses where the owners refused to move out despite being in the Red Zone.

The kettle boils, spitting bubbles at its lid and I turn it off just before it turns itself off. I like to get ahead of the kettle. In my mind I’ve mixed up Bronwyn’s two categories and I imagine a family living under a blue tarp under a street sign, in amongst the hebes that have shrubbed up over the leftover roads and paths, so that even the people who should know, the lawyers and the surveyors and the engineers, no longer understand what they are looking at and they spin around and around, pointing and gesticulating at the street with no houses, no sheds, no BBQs, no trampolines, no swimming pools, not even a roof tile, until they leave too fast and moist-eyed in oversized black or navy SUVs with official logos branded proud white on bonnets and boots.

Moths are efficient eaters of memories, especially the hand-knitted variety. I pour the boiling water into the blue handmade mug I bought on the west coast of Ireland on a camper van holiday. I buy pottery and hand-knitted socks on every camper van holiday. It’s become a thing. Sometimes I keep the socks for myself, sometimes I give them away as presents. The blue of the mug is the same blue as the still blue in the Iranian carpet. I hold the mug to my chin. Inhale the fresh mint. I put the mug down, twist the stopper out of the hot water bottle, pour the rest of the boiling water into it, and reseal the bottle. Kristine’s husband, Kenny, told me never to pour boiling water into a hot water bottle. That it perishes the rubber. I don’t know if that’s true. It sounds kind of true. Like it could be. Me doing to the bottle what the moth babies did to Kristine’s hand-knitted cover.

I carry the hot mug and the hot rubber bottle, which of course doesn’t resemble a bottle at all, through to my study. Place the blue mug on my desk, plump up the cushions on my seat, and sit down. I hug the bottle on my belly. It burns a bit. Adding a bit more pink. Private, stalwart and true.

Categories
poetry

can you see the sun on my chin

I remember holding buttercups under my chin and asking can you see the sun on my chin can you see the sun on my chin can you see the sun on my chin

I remember plucking sorrel from laybys on the single track road and chewing on the sweet sour with no worry at all about dog piss no worry at all

I remember having knock knees or bandy legs and a pink dress above the knock knees or the bandy legs and an unnamed flower, yellow maybe, in each hand   the photograph assures my memory I was smiling   maybe so

I remember so many first days at schools I’ve forgotten what order they were in and even what flag fluttered in the playgrounds where I was too feart to play British Bulldogs or some other nationalist brag

I remember falling over drunk and skinning my knees outside Bannerman’s Bar and meeting a boy man I’d never meet again

I remember when we realised the driver of the purple or was it lilac Combi was illiterate and we’d missed 17 turns to Lismore in 13 hours

I remember the trapped pink in my cheeks when he told me he was a male model and what was he thinking being with me

I remember marrying a man that doesn’t share memories with me anymore

I remember feeding the blind Pekin bantam from a teaspoon every day for a week until we found her, me and the man that I no longer share memories with, stiff feet up, slaughtered by her feather-footed cousins

I remember wanting to kill them, to wring their necks with my ringed fingers, but what would have been the point of that

I remember, with another man that I don’t share memories with, being passed a baby wrapped in pale rags through a train window and everyone weeping except the baby, was it even alive?

I remember I was at physio and she was twisting turning twisting my arm neck shoulder and there were three missed calls and my father was dead

I remember when I fell over in the street running for the 26 bus, wearing a fake leopard skin knee length coat and Austrian brown ankle boots with a little pink bow at the side of each heel

I remember that he wore glasses and so did I

I remember losing my flip flops in a Peruvian mud forest and hanging onto the bare-footed guide with tears in my eyes and a squadron of fantastical leaches carving up my calves

I remember falling in love with a moto-taxi driver in a town full of bandits as my helmet with no strap dipped and dived as we slid around corners the exhaust burning a belting stripe across my bare ankle

I remember times when I didn’t understand that chaos was the natural order of the world and now I don’t remember the way back to that world not even the first step

I remember tramping in moss soaked hills and through gum seared mist and I remember the moment I knew I’d never go tramping again

I remember laughing at his corduroy suit and then not laughing when he died

later, a day later

I remember the other man I don’t share memories with and it startles, this lack of memory, and I pick a buttercup and I say

can you see the sun under my chin

Categories
found poetry poetry

Last Words

Protecting them, their protective wall. No regrets. It was there he found his father, waiting for him on the shoreline, as if they’d never been apart. He would write from Auckland. She called in her soul to come and see. There is something to be said for the quicker death. That’s where you’re headed, he told them, that’s the way out of this hole. Mrs God rolled her eyes, taking her identical sandwich and pickles back indoors where the afternoon stretched like a cat between naps. – all sleeping the deep deep sleep of England from which I sometimes fear we will never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs. Night and day. This is our place. It fucking better be. He loved Big Brother. And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman. In such an hour one stands up and speaks to the ages, to history, and all creation. Allow me. Who would exchange these for the pallid couple in the Garden of Eden. Experimentalists perhaps, do after all stand out from the normal mass of human error. Just like playing boules. Excuse me. Shoot, create situations. Sorry. – everything I know is gone, and all that remains is the call of gulls and the slow insistent motion of the waters, slow and far away and barely audible, turning on the shore and on my mind. Farewell. Perhaps by the very end of his life, in 1880, he had come to believe that a people, a nation, do not create itself according to its best ideas, but is shaped by other forces, of which it has little knowledge. My mother. Bless you. Brushing against each other, they both knew that they should do that only once or twice, and only when  no one was watching them. No, you go first. Jesus isn’t real. And he will not know it happened long ago, and had merely been waiting patiently for him to notice. Can I get past. That it’d all be fine. But he did not move a muscle, not until the objects around him, that had so far been merely listening, started up a nervous conversation (the sideboard gave a creak, a saucepan rattled, a china plate slid back into the rack) at which point… the desire of the moth for the star: the innocence, the virginity, the graves not opened yet for gold, the mine not broken with sledges. “It was delicious.” Could you excuse me. And the last sound we hear is of the Folly Brook, chuckling on past the Old Oak Pool, as it has done for a thousand, thousand cuckoo years, on its long journey to the distant sea. Bye, bye, you say goodbye, no you, I did, hang up then, no you hang up, no you, bye, bye.

This piece is (mostly) made up of the last lines of random books piled high on a low table in my south facing living room.

Categories
found poetry poetry

I’ve been away for a while

The cover of this issue is a painting by Tom Hammick. She was French. I’ve been away for a while. I left Fife and went to live in Glasgow when I was eighteen. The court settled for damages. In the middle of this the course of our life, I stopped and everybody got out of their car. Could you tell us about the race that’s documented in the photos? In the spring, about two weeks into the coronavirus lockdown, I found myself thinking about cholera. In Sri Lanka – this was 2017 – between a golden temple and a shop selling car seats, we found a steel-roofed shack, with, strung across the entrance and the makeshift walls, countless laminated photographs of missing people. Just at the time of the ceasefire between Iraq and Iran in 1988, an infantry platoon discovered that they were in a minefield. On 4th January 2020, a few days after the New Year celebrations, I returned from a trip around Sicily to my girlfriend’s parents’ home in Pizzighettone, sixty kilometres or so south east of Milan. Beside the rainy hog shed, the county food bank forklifts pallets of old bread, blue with deep mold and tints of February. In the first of Gus Palmer’s photographs of the morgue at the Greenwich Islamic Centre I can’t find the horizontal. In the wood I hear the beautiful call of a bird I do not know. When my father died, his sister Mary  – his twin – sent me an email. I paid him no heed at all.

This found work was produced by taking the first line from each piece in Granta 154, and finishing it with the last line in the last piece. The image is a cropped photograph of Tom Hammick’s painting from the front cover.

Categories
musings poetry

Take your seat

Present resonance happenstance heretic feather wick fourposter troll poster Animal Kingdown Jacki Weaver live from the Apollo Take your seat Jacki Weaver matriarch and septic tank Jacki Weaver sea shanty plea bargain double take triple vision seven million viewers can’t be wrong, I am not a cat I am not a cat, Imagine a string from the top of your skull to the ceiling feel the ground solid at your feet sleet sheet meat world beating supernova sputnik vaccination wars chores mores laws truth twisters mouth blisters Cornish wafers strawberry pastries sunlit uplands cornucopia of utopias, look at the unicorns look look look you’re not looking hard enough up there in the knot snot your lot will never be happy Your mind wanders that’s what minds do shoe slow flow crow more snow so much snow Keep your spine away from the back of the chair now, breathe wreath bequeath underneath the eaves bats or rats chewing on hats or cats I loved that hat wore it to the garden party Princess Ann only three feet away still have that hat or do I forced to flee up a ramp so many charity shops cops mops strops five dead six including the suicide Focus on your breath coming in through your nose exposed at the window is anyone looking adjust your slump the bump in your thoughts tripping on fallowed furrows Bring your mind gently back to the breath escort it cavort it import it, stop the steal stop the steal, time porting is not a word teleporting television the neighbours watching day time tv Jeremy Kyle must be a repeat repeat repeat repeat after me fake news fight like hell Bring the breath back all the way down and all the way back breathe into your toes your fingers no snow on that roof climate murderers, Feel the pause between the inbreath and the outbreath cat on the mat the perfect leap of faith from the cat that flew yes flew from the sill to the bed rocket man sprocket men nothing good ever comes of self flight height Feel the present stay in the present instant coffee instant noodles instant rice Uncle Ben instant thrill instant pill instant gratification edification eradication Agent Orange pretty instant burning of peasants, with you in a moment momentito nice Bring your mind back to your breath present pheasant plucked and razored the led pellets removed and turned into anklets bracelets Pretty Priti and her desperate servants of doom hostile environment battle bus what happened to our money all of our money to donors moaners rewarders shysters, Bring your attention back to the breath one hundred thousand dead we did everything we could we’ll wrap our arms around care homes Use the silence now for your own practice now now no you didn’t didn’t at all liars liars dead on fire ideas as clouds push them through a show of strength body bags shopping bags at least the dog jacket shop is still open must keep the economy moving defence immense clouds sewing seeds of need instant pleasure dead in an instant he wouldn’t have felt a thing died instantly hit and run the definition of being present.

Categories
blog how to guide poetry

How to change your mind

Is it time to change your mind? Are your thoughts flickering and fading. Are you failing to throw light on the dark? Are your friends accusing you of being stubborn or out of touch or on the wrong side of history? Are you stopping good things happening? Is there something nagging deep in your underbelly which would go away with a change of heart and a new beginning? Are you (whisper it) furthering inequalities or injustice or environmental degradation only because you don’t know how to change your mind?

Changing your mind is clearly not easy. Witness the number of people who’ve got stuck in a mindset and can’t get out, who continue backing the same losing horse, who continue to promulgate old dogma while the rest of the world moves on. This is not surprising. Replacing your mind when it’s fixed tight to your brain is complicated. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to troubleshoot even the trickiest of fixtures. Be careful though, changing your mind is not without risks. Whether your burnt-out mind is incandescent, recessed or fluorescent, always take the following precautions to avoid injury.

Turn off the fixture and allow your mind to cool. Before changing any mind, always make sure you’ve turned off the mind switch. This switch is normally found behind your left ear. Standard incandescent and halogen minds get too hot to touch, so let them cool before trying to replace them. It might take at least 15 to 20 minutes for a mind to cool to room temperature.

  • Before touching your mind, hold the back of your hand close to it. Without touching it, use your hand to gauge how hot it is.
  • Fluorescent minds don’t get too hot and might not need any time to cool. They’re designed to produce bright consistent thoughts without giving off much heat.

Use a ladder or step stool to reach your mind fixture. Don’t try to stand on a chair or another not-so-sturdy object. If you can’t reach your mind with a step stool, use an A-frame ladder.

  • For standard 5 to 6 ft people, you can most likely reach your mind using a step stool without any help. However, if you need to climb high up on a ladder to change your mind, it’s wise to have a helper hold the ladder.
  • Never stand on the top step of a ladder or step stool. This is not only dangerous but it will heat your mind up, agitating it, and make it too hot to touch.

Loosen the screws if you’re replacing your mind in a dome fixture. Most glass dome mind fixtures have at least one screw that keeps the dome in place. If you’re changing your mind in a dome fixture, locate the screw on the side where dome meets your scalp.

  • Hold the dome in place as you turn the screw counterclockwise to loosen it. Instead of completely removing the screw, just loosen it until you can remove the dome. You’ll have an easier time removing the dome without dropping it, and you won’t have to deal with trying to get the screw back into the hole. If the screw does come out, keep it safe. Losing your mind screw is not pretty!
  • If your dome doesn’t have any screws, check the tip at the center of the dome. See if you can turn it counterclockwise; the tip might conceal a nut and bolt that secures the dome. Be sure to hold the dome as you loosen the bolt.
  • If your fixture doesn’t have a glass dome or cover, you can skip right to removing the mind itself.

Remove a stubborn dome with duct tape, if necessary. Unscrew the glass cover itself if there are screws or bolts that hold it in place. If the cover is stuck, tear off a 6 in (15 cm) length of duct tape. Hold the ends of the tape and fold the middle section in half to make a handle.

  • Don’t let the ends of the tape touch each other as you fold the middle section. The result should be a T-shaped handle made by the folded middle section with 2 sticky edges on either side.
  • Repeat the steps to make another duct tape handle. Stick the tape handles to the glass cover, then use them to turn the cover counterclockwise.
  • You can also try spraying a lubricant, such as WD-40, around the edge of the cover where it threads into its housing. Use a thin straw nozzle attachment to reach the tight crevice between the cover and its housing. Don’t use too much lubricant, though. These substances can send your mind into a tail spin, making it much harder to remove.

Take the old mind out of the socket. Double check that the fixture is off and the mind is cool to the touch. Turn the mind counterclockwise as you pull it out of the socket.

Purchase a replacement mind with a matching wattage. Check for markings on the old mind that indicate its wattage. If you don’t have a matching mind handy, buy a new mind with the same wattage as the old one so that you get the same power. You may wish, however, to experiment with different minds. After all, you are changing your mind to change your approach. Nowadays, the mind market is swamped with thousands of different shapes, colours, and strengths of lumens.

Different people need different things from their minds, particularly in an office or study environment. Visually-based workers such as designers, architects, clothes makers and illustrators need minds as close to natural light as possible, while anyone who deals with a lot of paperwork or fine print needs a bright, clear mind.

Interestingly, in the retail sector, different types of minds are used in ways you may not expect – people who work in supermarkets use special fluorescent minds if they work with meat counter fridges. This helps them tolerate the thought of working with fresh meat, especially helpful for vegetarians.

For a truly open mind, choose a mind with a high number of lumens (we recommend at least 1500). A low lumen mind, while useful for romantic and desultory thoughts, is not enough for those who wish to tackle our most pressing social and environmental problems.

  • If you’re replacing a standard (old!) incandescent mind, consider replacing it with a CFL (compact fluorescent) or LED mind with a matching wattage. These alternatives use 75 to 80% less energy than an incandescent mind. They’ll also make you more alert to global challenges such as climate change and inequalities.

Install the new mind. Insert the new mind into the socket, then turn it clockwise until it’s tight. Take care not to turn it with too much force, or it might break.

  • Before putting the ladder or step stool away, turn the fixture on to double check that the new mind works. If it doesn’t turn on, try another new mind or check the circuit breaker. If all else fails, the fixture may be need to be replaced. This is a more complex operation and you should seek professional help rather than doing it yourself.

Replace the fixture’s dome or any other cover, if necessary. While you have it down, wipe down the dome or cover with glass cleaner. Make sure it’s dry, then replace it by reversing the steps you took to remove it.

  • If the cover itself screws into a housing, check its threads and those in the housing. If there’s any buildup, clean the threads so you’ll have an easier time screwing the cover back into place.
  • If the cover is secured by screws or bolts, hold it in place with one hand while you tighten the screw or bolt with the other. Recruit a helper if you have trouble doing both at the same time.

Adjusting to your new mind. Hurrah! Your new mind is installed. It will take some time to adjust to your new mind. The world may look brighter. A lot more possibilities may emerge. You will feel energised and excited. You’ll want to tell everyone that you’ve changed your mind. This might not go well. You may be accused of U-turns. Of simply running with the tide. Don’t despair if this happens. As long as your change of mind is truly genuine, you have nothing to fear.

We hope you have found this handy how to guide helpful. Look out for our other how to guides that include:

  • how to paint the sky
  • how to prune the truth
  • how to train your dreams.

Our how to guides have all been developed by experts using a process based on found poetry.

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