By Gertcha Cowson

I hear what you’re all asking,

“Why does a bipolar-fuelled, loudly dressed, eccentric poet need to wear a wide-brimmed hat on a cloudy day?”

Well, for one thing, I am now 50-odd years old and my eyes work perfectly fine, thank you very much, proper 20/20 and, quite frankly, I would like to keep them that way. So I keep the sun out of my eyes using a hat, but I also have a proper pair of sun bins for that.

You will have to understand how easily distracted I have always been and when I need to focus on something when I’m proper ‘owt owt’ I get completely lost and find myself wandering in a different plane of reality called Gertchie World Island, hoping to find an archipelago called Random Thoughts And Ideas.

You see, any artist, whether they use a pen, brush, clay, metal or flesh, never just looks up at the sky and sees just sky.

So imagine, there I am with a shopping list, for example, and all I need to do is remember the list, as well as other doo-dahs that I need to do. Now those who know me well would know that I have always had a very noisy head (#RocksinaSpinDryer) and taking that noisy head out into a noisy world takes a heck of a lot of concentration and energy.

I can play music or set up mantras, mentally play through any works-in-motion I happen to be working on to help keep out the noise of the traffic, and so on, but that doesn’t help me seeing the little things that will always capture my attention, things that most people will just never notice.

It has been said many times to me or about me that I am very empathic, as in I can instantly read a room, or see how someone else is emotional despite them hiding it well, whether it be a friend or stranger. Which to a lot of people I have met gives them a sense that I have a very spiritual mind and gift, and I suppose I should see it as a gift for as much as my bipolar has given me much to curse, it has given me a gift to look at things at a slightly different angle to almost everyone else.

It is what I refer to as my BNR (pronounced baa naar) which stands for Bipolar Nuance Radar!

This means I pick up little nuances in a room and/or with people automatically, totally without trying; they just simply reveal themselves to me. I think if I tried to find these nuances purposely, I’d never find them in a month of strawberry sundaes.

When this occurs in a room or with an individual(s), it is at least contained within a small environment, but out in the big nasty, there’s a whole thousand miles of sky to distract and pick out myriad nuances that need to be processed, organised and put in one of my mind wardrobes, cabinets and odd sock drawers in the desperate hope that I’ll remember where I put them. Meanwhile, still trying to remember the shopping/to-do lists, as well as remember my Green Cross Code, PIN for my bank card, did I bring the baby out with me, did I remember to get dressed, etcetera etcetera.

So to help me, I wear a wide-brimmed hat, like a horse wears blinkers.

As I said earlier, to any type of artist, the sky is never just sky:

• It is a Smörgåsbord of foreign vistas and alien worlds.
• Huge castles defending against a large and very determined dragon.
• A massive cur with multiple heads guarding its master’s treasure.
• A charge of rearing horses thundering across the darkening sky.

Or it can be:

• A deep Pacific sea with ripples of frothing surf.
• A pirate ship in the distance searching for its next victim.
• Strange UFOs observing the ways of humanity.
• A whale and its calf swimming to more abundant waters.

And, of course, at nighttime:

• It is a sable cloak of grief, with minuscule dots of sincerity and peace.
• A wicked lunula grin in a dense, deep field of purpure.
• Dragons and other beasties camouflaged against a vast dark blanket, waiting for the time to pounce.
• A liner puffing away on a nocturnal voyage, with passengers pointing out the heavenly whales swimming alongside them.

Haiku 85

White clouds on blue sky
Lost in thousand-mile dream
Castles in the sky.

So, often I have gone out with me list but without me hat, with the main aim of remembering to buy some, let’s say, bog roll.

I’ve prepared myself with a few mantras and works-in-progress to help divert all the noisy distractions, but then I will get maybe as far as the bottom of my road before I look up and see a mass bank of clouds, with one of them glowering with a big face looking down on us ominously. Alongside that, I might see a celestial steam train puffing away, slowly being chased by a collection of dragons and massive hounds.

Well, any thoughts of procuring any triple-quilted toilet tissue will have disappeared before you can say “cumulonimbus”, which, when I get back, I have to yet again explain to MeKathy why I have come back with:

• Five tins of coconut milk.
• Some cuts of ox-tail.
• Some cheese.
• Some new wool for my locks.
• A pink dashiki.
• A collection of ideas for future works.
• A new jotter pad that I wrote down my cloud visions in.
• And yet another new wide-brimmed hat just so I can safely find my way back home!

To which my long-suffering wife has to purse her lips, roll her eyes and let out a deep sigh, while thinking, ‘Great! Another evening/morning of having to do handstands in the shower!!’

Of course, a lot of times I deliberately go out minus any hat but armed with pad and pen, so I can take in every nuance the sky, trees, people, etc. can throw at me. A couple of Februaries ago, I was sitting on a bench outside my building (during lockdown) and I was absolutely privileged with an amazing backdrop.

I live in a long low-rise building which is mirrored by a similar building opposite. When sitting on my pondering bench, which is at one end of the gardens between the buildings, I get this view of a tunnelh 5a1§ling, narrowing perspective as I look towards Mayesbrook Park.

In the park is a parade of tall, thin, column-like Lombardy poplars (Populus nigra ‘Italica’) and on this February afternoon they were bare of leaf, what with being deciduous, and behind them there was this amazing full-on sky filled with a bank of heavy fluffed-up clouds (cumulonimbus) sitting there. The phrase that came to me was ‘naked trees against a cotton wool sky.’ As I was admiring this gorgeous vista, I got to remembering other observations of people going about their personal existence with their own personal backstories – well, backstories I imagined for them, anyway.

This is sort of how things like skyscapes will influence me and it ended up with me writing a poem, Naked Trees Against A Cotton Wool Sky, about me watching imaginary people, based on memories and them walking past me, telling me their stories in a Mise-en-scène kind of way.

So hopefully this will gratify your curiosity as to, “Why does a bipolar-fuelled, loudly dressed, eccentric poet need to wear a wide-brimmed hat on a cloudy day?” and you can finally get on with your lives knowing why. And maybe (hopefully), you can start looking up at the sky and never seeing just sky, but all the stories and visions that artists like myself are bombarded with if we don’t wear our wide-brimmed tit-for-tats.

Be blessed.

Gertcha the Disabled Poet.

*****

Naked Trees Against A Cotton Wool Sky

Screaming mother drag their patient
child on their way to school
They swear it’s the toddler’s fault
they’re late, though the bairn is no fool

At brekkie child sat waiting while
parent’s face was stuck in phone
Toddler watches kiddies telly
trying not to feel alone

Bubbleleh is relieved to get to school
and enjoy some peace and quiet
While parent rushes home to stick
their face in phone with no regret

I see these things as I observe the
naked trees against a cotton wool sky.

Tired worker dragging feet
with a back twice its age
As they desperately plan their kids
meal earned on minimum wage

Gladly watching pickney eat
while their stomach loudly screams
Watching littluns sleep through tears
hoping for a night of good dreams

Waking up in the morning with
a head full of stress and fears
Going to work on an empty belly
so the rich can buy useless wares

I see these things as I observe the
naked trees against a cotton wool sky.

Drunkard in a dirty tracksuit
labelled lazy for not working
Strangers look on him with
disgust with their ignorant judging

They have no idea of his high skilled
trade that’s now come obsolete
Abandoned by his masters
by a machine to replace his feet

Depression’s now his greatest trade
with his skill in super strength beer
As he sits alone each day
drinking 9% without a care

I see these things as I observe the
naked trees against a cotton wool sky.

Teenage saucepan lids loitering
around using youthful phrases
Until someone phones the Rozzers
because it upsets the housing prices

They were talking how to help the
poor and make themselves matter
But the Rozzers insisted they move on
for daring to use youthful patter

Now they’re wondering why they
bothered and boil with resent
But they’re anger soon goes
away as they humbly repent

I see these things as I observe the
naked trees against a cotton wool sky.

© Gertcha Cowson, 2021

*****