Poetry Month 2012. 12: On the Day that you were Born

Posted on April 12, 2012 by impeus

I haven’t got round to ordering anything from my massive Easter list yet, so don’t feel too naughty adding Kathryn Simmonds’ Sunday at the Skin Launderette.

I share with you this cheerful gem:

     On the Day that you were Born

     The angels got together and decided to create
     a dream come true.
     Sorry, no, that wasn’t you.
     On the day that you were born
     it rained incessantly.
     Three potholers were carried to their deaths
     by flashfloods in north Wales.
     In Manchester a man came home
     and set about his wife
     with woodwork tools.
     Everywhere the sky was dark by four o’clock.
     There might have been an air disaster too –
     in fact there was,
     two hundred people dropped into a field.
     No one survived.

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Poetry Month 2012: 11. The Customer’s Complaint

Posted on April 11, 2012 by impeus

By John Hegley

The Customer’s Complaint

In the caff
swapping some of her spaghetti
for a bit of his moussaka
she considered what a benefit it was having a partner
when you both wanted the same two
separate meals on the menu.
Unfortunately she considered it
to be the only benefit.

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Poetry Month 2012: 10. Recipes for Marriage

Posted on April 10, 2012 by impeus

By Carol Rumens

Recipes for Marriage

In the days when we made our own yoghurt,
Perpetual motion seemed within our power.
The recipe was simple, but it worked.

We stirred a few live drops, the ‘natural’ sort,
With scalded milk cooled in a glazed white jar,
In the days when we made our own yoghurt,

And set the oven low, a tick past nought.
Slowly it thickened, grew just nicely sour;
The recipe was simple, but it worked.

A fresh yeast odour always filled our flat.
One magic spoonful spawned a litre more,
In the days when we made our own yoghurt.

Yaorti me Meli was our just desert
At breakfast: homey made the desert flower!
The recipe was simple, and it worked.

Somehow, the bacillus died, the milk ran out,
There was less time… We use the local store
These days, and buy our Greek, or fat-free yoghurt.
Friends still say we’re the recipe that worked.

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Music: Songs about Mary

Posted on April 9, 2012 by impeus

I rediscovered a song I loved the other day, and was almost tempted to post its lyrics as one of my poems in Poetry Month, but it just felt like a cheat.

Instead, I will share the lyrics, and a YouTube video of it – and then do the same for ANOTHER song with the same name (Mary) in the title.

The first one is Mary from Lou Barlow’s album Emoh, and suggests that the immaculate conception, well, wasn’t. It’s a cute love song – I think it’s utterly lovely.

     Mary

     Immaculate conception, yeah right.
     Crazy Mary it’s good that you lied,
     A test tube baby, seed of the Lord,
     Breaking the law with the man next door.

     Blame it on an angel, they’ll believe.
     Joseph will wonder but you know he won’t leave.
     They all love you, I still do,
     Magic in the air, swirling all around you.

     Mary, Mary under veil of stars
     You changed the world, you broke my heart.
     Thank you Mary, you saved me too,
     They’d stone us both if they ever knew.

     Sold out the manger, well all right,
     The mystery baby got a supernova spotlight.
     They say that He’s the One
     Brother Joseph got a king for a stepson

     Mary, Mary under veil of stars
     You changed the world, you broke my heart
     Thank you Mary, you saved me too,
     They’d stone us both if they ever knew.

     Mary kissed me and we lost control
     The oldest story never told
     Crazy Mary you’re forever divine
     They’ll never know the baby’s mine

Next up is a Chumbawamba song. I first heard it in the film Stigmata – Patricia Arquette stars as an unlikely victim of the stigmata, and Gabriel Byrne plays a priest who discovers much unsavoury in the depths of the Catholic church.

     Mary, Mary
     
     No virgin me
     For I have sinned
     I sold my soul
     For sex and gin
     Go call a priest
     All meek and mild
     And tell him, “Mary
     Is no more a child.”

     It’s raining stones
     It’s raining bile
     From the luxury
     Of your denial
     So I don’t deny
     I don’t make do
     I’ll press alarms
     Place bets on truth

     I’m so up and down
     And I love what’s not allowed
     I was lost, now I see:
     And now I’m growing old disgracefully
     Whatever happened to Mary?

     I’ll spit on floors
     Get drunk on love
     Wear next to nothing
     In the pouring rain
     Be a bad example
     And do it all again
     I’ll be uncareful
     I’ll cause such scenes
     And I’ll never talk
     Of ‘used-to-be’s
     Tattoo my face
     I won’t go grey
     Be a dancing queen
     I’m growing old disgracefully

     I’m so up and down
     And I love what’s not allowed
     I was lost, now I see:
     And now I’m growing old disgracefully
     Whatever happened to Mary?

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Poetry Month 2012. 9: Atlas

Posted on April 9, 2012 by impeus

Here is one by U.A. Fanthorpe – another poet whose work I’m sadly quite unfamiliar with. Incidentally, whenever I see a poet who uses only their initials, I assume that they are female but from an era in which that meant they wouldn’t get published and/or any actual respect. In this case, the poet is female.

     Atlas

     There is a kind of love called maintenance,
     Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

     Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
     The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

     Which answers letters; which knows the way
     The money goes; which deals with dentists

     And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
     And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

     The permanently ricketty elaborate
     Structures of living; which is Atlas.

     And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
     Which knows what time and weather are doing
     To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
     Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
     My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
     My suspect edifice upright in air,
     As Atlas did the sky.

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Bradford Photo a Day. 8: egg

Posted on April 8, 2012 by impeus

Part of @HiddenBradford‘s #bradfordphotoaday challenge – see intro.

image

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Poetry month 2012: 8. A Bad Princess

Posted on April 8, 2012 by impeus

I’m not a fan of children’s poetry (I tend to find it stupid and pointless), and I’m not really a fan of princess stories either.

The thing about princess stories is that they are ubiquitous and disturbing. Why was it ok for the prince to kiss Sleeping Beauty? She was asleep! Likewise the “dead” Snow White after eating the poisoned apple.

The stories, along with other fairytales, are part of our culture and heritage though – essential knowledge to understand so much else which alludes to them.

Here’s a silly kids’ poem about a silly princes, but I’m sharing it because my jaw dropped at the end.

It’s from Carol Ann Duffy’s The Oldest Girl in the World.

     A Bad Princess

     A Bad Princess stomped through the woods
     in a pair of boots
                                  looking for trouble –
     diamond tiara, satin dress, hair an absolute mess,
     ready to bubble.

     Imagine her shock and surprise
     when she bumped straight into
                                                          her very own double:

     a Tree Girl,
     with shiny holly-green eyes
     and a crown of autumn leaves on her wild head,
     the colour of both of their hair.

     Don’t you dare, screamed Bad,
     walk in these Royal woods looking like me!

     I shall do as I please, you grumpy old thing,
     said Tree.
     Give me those emeralds that hang from your ears
     or I’ll kick you hard
     and pinch you meanly.
     Then we’ll see which one of we two
     is cut out
                    to be Queenly!

     Oh! The Bad Princess turned
                                                     and ran,
     ran for her life
     into the arms of the dull young Prince
     and became his wife.

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Poetry Month 2012. 7: Things

Posted on April 7, 2012 by impeus

I don’t really know much about Fleur Adcock – possibly because I couldn’t really be arsed reading Four Women Poets properly. This poem of hers actually reminds me of Selima Hill.

     Things

     There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
     There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
     committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things
     than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.
     It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in
     and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.

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Bradford Photo a Day. 6: tree

Posted on April 6, 2012 by impeus

Part of @HiddenBradford‘s #bradfordphotoaday challenge – see intro.

image

Holly tree in our garden. This helped Polly discover the meaning and feeling of “spiky”.

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Poetry month 2012. 6: Full Moon and Little Frieda

Posted on April 6, 2012 by impeus

I am mean about Ted Hughes. On reading his poems my first thought is usually “Yeah yeah, whatever, shut up.”

This may be unfair but it’s true.

I like this one though, even though I find it so very irritating that shrunk and clank don’t rhyme when it would have been so easy. He must have had a reason, right?

     Full Moon and Little Frieda

     A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket –

     And you listening.
     A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch.
     A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror
     To tempt a first star to a tremor.

     Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath –
     A dark river of blood, many boulders,
     Balancing unspilled milk.

     ‘Moon!’ you cry suddenly, ‘Moon! Moon!’

     The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work

     That points at him amazed.

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