Effortlessly limber she entered
His room, his mind, and the rest
She appropriated, triaged, rejected
With cool gherkin competence.
Neglected to fashion belief in his eyes –
Best leave him to wonder and finally mourn.
She entered, effortlessly limber,
And impoverished us all.
Finally I make it in time for Open Link Night over at dVerse Poets Pub – one of the friendliest and most talented community of poets I have seen online. Or in person.
I was up early today and opened my window to the most amazing, glorious sound. And of course tree blossoms of any kind always, always remind me of Japan, hence the variations on the haiku format below.
Curlicued dawn calls.
My heart fills: joyful chorus
of effort not mine.
Only in our dreams
Do birds contemplate:
Singing, breathing become one.
Oh, to fly into summer
on the wings of mellow tunes,
nestle in pink buds!
I could have been the woolly Einstein, the genius keening at the stars,
the earthly power to devour all kind allegiance, unbound art.
Nefarious phases of the moon I could have harnessed, could have dazzled,
wowed, created spellbound trust.
Showed how to handle disruption and monsters, wild and unruly,
tamed with my mind.
I should have been the mad scientist, harbouring a supportive spouse in my shade.
Parented remotely, aloof with all answers, but no time to wonder, observe or listen.
And when knives have fallen, when chips have been laid,
asunder we surrender and wonder anew:
where power was parcelled, where prospects cut off.
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, the prompt tonight is ‘Anecdote’. So I decided to rewrite an older poem of mine, which very much arose from a personal anecdote. (P.S. I am now expanding my boulangerie vocabulary and sometimes get handed the right bread.)
‘A few months’, they told me,
‘Immersion is good.’
Just jump in the pool, fully clothed,
then swim, swim some more, swim for your life,
always almost, but never quite there.
Haunted by failure, aware of the dangers,
I navigate, anxious, between the extremes.
All blandness in word choice,
I crawl through the accents raining in all directions
submerged in hot water when phone brings rapid riposte.
My jokes are more plodding,
some meaning eludes me.
I paddle along even when I am lost.
Distracted by how I pronounce the word ‘pain‘,
the baker hands me the wrong kind of bread.
I think I’ll stick to baguette in the future.
Two thumb toes curled, eight subalterns squished
retreat in shoes too tight, rules too rigid.
Brain we mangle, stunt all words
to grape in odd clusters ’round harboured thoughts.
Don’t frighten the horses!
Heart stripped to stumps and cords,
lumpen mass, still beating,
confined to a love no longer felt,
a marriage of minds no longer true.
Unusually for me, a poem that rhymes, for the Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub. Even more unusually, this is composed on the road, in a hotel room, while travelling on business. Finding words for poetry when you are in business mode is like digging for truffles with an ancient, half-blind pig with a severe head-cold.
If you gather heather daily,
pluck one out for me.
Lay it softly on my dreamscape,
let its scent swoop me free.
If you walk the coastal pathway,
battle on its up,
harness west wind, chill the longing,
whirl the storms in a cup.
If you stop too soon, too often,
doubts creep in, seduce.
So race pulses, flash the radars,
cut down, cut out, reduce.
A classic anthropology book which really spoke to me was James C. Scott’s ‘Weapons of the Weak’, about the everyday, often hidden resistance by people who are forced to be subordinate, meek, obedient. They may – on the face of it – collude in their oppression, but they find ways to sabotage the powerful, to criticize and laugh at them. Whether rage expressed as sullen temper and foot-shuffling can work long-term is another question…
It was never gonna be like this:
the buzzing round households,
the map of the buzzards with areas shaded off by gratitude:
a thanksgiving imposed, demanded, not felt.
How I rage in futility then shush to keep safe
that cart full of apple-cheeked treasures.
The bat in blindness aghast swerves clear of the blame-traps.
The toxic scurry of newt back to the slimy pond
of self-pity:
there was a time when
kindness
or droopy flowers across the hedge
would have smoothed the harsh ping of reality.
Now…
nothing else than full parity will do.
Over at the dVerse Poets Pub, we are being encouraged to try out a different short verse form called cinquain. Here is my rushed attempt, but there are some far, far better ones out there, so be sure to visit there and have fun reading them!
Image from blog.legalsonar.com
No Limits
She dreamt
of fortune, fame,
freedom to beget worlds.
Beating head against glass ceiling,
she wrote.
It’s taken me nearly a week to chew over this one, so apologies for my slow reactions, dVerse Poets Pub.
On the 9th of March, Brian Miller and Gretchen Leary suggested two different types of prompts. One was to ask someone to give you a few words to incorporate into a poem – but my own family came up with such delightful combinations as ‘poohead’, ‘smosh-smosh’ and ‘supercalifragilistic’, so I soon gave up on that one. The second was to think of a seminal song from when we were growing up and I instantly thought of Billy Joel’s ‘We didn’t start the fire’. So, for the past few days I’ve been trying to add a few verses to that song, to bring it up to date. This has been far more difficult than I thought! [Perhaps I will write another time a post about the difference between hard-working form or imitation versus spontaneous poetic outburst.] In the end, my rhymes and verbal verve are not quite up to the original, but here goes:
One day like this or a few weeks of medal fever, cheering loud,
Being nice, a good sport, no rain falling from our cloud.
Dontcha feel unsisterly vibes at work or when you raise your child?
If you’re poor, endure the jibes, you’re universally reviled!
People killed every day at the click of a mouse,
Together we are forced to stay, shore up the value of our house…
Celtic Tiger lost his roar, gulf in Spain is golf no more,
Pension plans are sinking down, bankers screwing everyone.
Gladiator, Amelie, turned all blue in Avatar.
Lucky we can drive away in our silent Prius car.
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
US is divided nation, tsunami and radiation,
Greeks protest austerity, nought left for posterity.
I don’t know where to turn - is there anything left to burn?
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
The next time you pin out your life on paper
in butterfly sprawl – for all to finger and paw…
tread cautiously upon the buzzwords,
prepare courteously for the skewer.
Next time they ignore or reject you,
call you Mr. Annie if they remember your name,
when they boast of hundreds of outstanding applications…
feel the low tide of stand-in, a has-been, intently dim.
Next time they invite you to look in their eyes,
bring out the weapons, the fake and the true.
Though barbs pierce you dearly and scar tissues tighten
to scour your heart, build up bile, rot and decay.
Though you long to cauterise wounds in sheer lava,
As layer by layer they strip you of pride, esteem and hope.
Next time…
Curse them softly.
But don’t melt to brine.
Don’t let them define you.
Don’t you dare fall pigeon
into their hole.
Join me at the Open Link Night over at dVerse Poets Pub to enjoy many fine poems and some delicious company.
