Sweetheart

At the bottom of the High St
the smell of fish and chips
rattles over the cobbles
like a obility scooter
as the last of the year’s
battered leaves, light in the sun
but full of summer’s scars
fall in that terse, unconnected
way an uncorrected letter
fell from the sudden clatter
of the letterbox.
 
She stoops to pick the best
of those leaves, hold one
gently by the stalk
just as he once did, twisting it
to the shape of the sweetheart
brooch she keeps beside her bed.
 
She does this every year,
shawl about her shoulders
like a shoal of fish
almost unnoticed by the state
and a community that claims to care
because he has no grave but the sea
only a name they fail to spell
correctly even on the memorial
at the bottom of the High St
where the smell of fish and chips
rattles over the cobbles

Much Too Clean

In my mother’s kitchen, there was no adventure to be found. Basic food was bought and prepared following the recipes in the Joy of Cooking. Potatoes were boiled and steak was fried. Lettuce was ‘rabbit food’ according to my father. Pie was apple or cherry, cake was chocolate or Angel Food. A galette or a mousse would not be attempted. My mother made everything we ate, and when she was sick that one time, and my father warmed up a can of soup and burned the grilled cheese sandwich. She was her mother’s daughter. Experimentation did not belong in the kitchen. I never complained when dinner was boring or vegetables were overcooked. I did not volunteer to cook instead. I didn’t know I could do either. I only learned that when I moved out to attend university in another city. Among many, many other things.

later, much later

He never spoke <about the war
and we never asked.
Mum said his bad chest
was because of the gas.

He used to shout out in his sleep
when he dozed off by the fire
but we could not make outwhat he said.
Sometimes, after a pint or two,
he sang army songs and laughed. 

His medal was kept in the drawer
of Mum’s treadle sewing machine.
I used to take out and play with it
before I knew out it was.
My son has it now.

Later, much later, i made a family tree,
Looked up names I knew,
Dad’s brothers killed in Ww1.
discovered that war medals
 were inscribed round the rim
 with name an d regiment.
Telephoned my son. 
Well done, Dad.

I am back from my on-line 5 day retreat! It was an extraordinary time with Jonathan Edwards and 11 poet students..

I wrote 9-10 long poems, too!! A record for me..

I loved this prompt. I hope you like what I wrote, as much as the person I describe in the poem.

BLOOD OF MY BLOOD

Oh dear, I thought I’d managed to catch up a bit but I’m now weeks behind again (short holiday, virus, visitors – but even so I should have managed something!).  Anyway, here’s something for week 27, and then the pleasure of reading what everyone else has been writing.

In my grandmother’s kitchen

She’s thinking about choices. Lucky to have a kitchen of her own, lucky not to be living with his family.  But it’s a meagre space. Cooker, sink, two cupboards.  Not what she would have chosen.  She’s 16, wants to go dancing, not stand here cooking dinner. Lucky to have food to cook.  But no choice about what.  Whatever he grows.  Potatoes, carrots, swedes.  Cabbage and stringy old beans.  She craves summer peaches and strawberries, but there are only endless apples from the tree in the yard.  Small sullen fruit.  Which must not be wasted.  Lucky to have a young husband who wants to please her, paints the kitchen to cheer her up.  Muddy pink walls.  The colour reminds her of old corsets, old flesh.  But the pink paint was cheap.  She’s lucky to have a healthy baby.  Before long, she supposes, there’ll be another.  And another.  She watches her choices shrink and shrink.

I haven’t overheard anything inspiring recently so I turned to that well of randomness the internet and this is the story I chose to tell. It tickled me, because the speaker is so convinced they are being logical but it is so weird a conclusion to come to. I hope you enjoy it as I did.

Overheard on a forest road

Whatever it was, it was gibberish I heard
when I stopped for coffee, riding to work
in Devore, California. It wasn’t real words
but two distinct and different voices who
were not exceptionally loud but very close.

How did I know it was Sasquatch?

I grew up in and around Fontana city, I know
the stories and the sightings around the area.
I thought it best to act like a gorilla;  I made
ape-like growls and the jibber-jabber stopped.
I made very loud grunts, threw dirt in the air
after thirty or forty seconds it all went still
and I quietly drank my coffee.

When I heard another Bigfoot call out
I thought It best to leave my muffin as a gift.
In the following days I went back many times
and left more muffins which also disappeared.
But after a few days my gifts were no longer
taken and I guess the Sasquatch moved on.

In my aunt’s kitchen

I am really behind. So sorry. Went away for a week and it was wonderful. I had begun working on this before I went away. It’s a rewrite and still rather unwieldy. I know what I’m trying to get at but it’s not easy.

A girl is singing Ed Sheeran’s Perfect on the Summer Solstice at the Lighthouse on Hoedic

A girl is singing Perfect.
Her French voice trips
on the consonants
falls over the vowels
rounds them out
holds them too long
in her mouth.

She knows the words
just not how to say them.
The same way I know
the vocabulary in french
but not when to speak
and when to be silent
which letters are swallowed
and which are loud.

Our children drift forwards,
surround themselves
with people they don’t know,
bewitched by the music
the swim of the crowd,
the sun setting over the harbour.

We have no childish grace
to mingle with strangers
But watch from the edge
Awkward and self-conscious
We are both outsiders here
though me more than you
for I am not only a mainlander
I share no common mother tongue.

Just half a lifetime of trying to fit in
to breathe inside a language
not my mothers or my fathers.
Inside rules I do not understand.
Rules of language and rules
of other things, more subtle
more confusing, less defined.

We are both visitors here
you for today and me for forever
even with the piece of paper
that says I am reborn. Even
with three children with droit du sol
and droit du sang. Even after
so many years of trying.

I suppose it’s a comfort
To watch them shape-shift
between languages, melt
into even this crowd –
now they are dancing in a line
now they are holding hands with kids
tehy did not know an hour ago
now they are laughing and being fed
food and drink, a seat to rest.

They are happy here as if they
have spent their lives islanders,
as if they were native
as if they belong.

Sorry Ma’am

The parking lot was empty Wednesday morning just past 10am
As I passed the blueberries from Peru, I saw that they were
Still on sale, plump and large
The misters kept the lettuce fresh, the green onions bright
I heard a woman ask the clerk, shelving new Ambrosias from the Interior,
If there would be more Canadian Brussel sprouts,
He said “No, the season’s over, you’ll have take the ones from Mexico”
To which she responded, “Well, at least they’re not American”.
I think I heard him laugh.

I wrote this, and then read the prompt again…prose poem. Doh! I mean, it’s pretty blank verse, but it’s not prose…

In My Favourite Kitchen

poem nr 2

I have confirmed with Wendy that it is my turn this week. I recently did a Zoom workshop with Carrie Etter on prose poetry, so I am using her prompt. Please write a prose poem with the first line: In my …… kitchen. It could be your kitchen, your mother’s, grandmother’s, friend etc. It is helpful to think of conversations, smells, colours, and layout.

I am not sure this poem fits the prompt.

Another Way Through Winter
 
Midday. The garden reaches 20°C,
Summer’s scent refuses to fade.
The tortoises on the patio,
half-asleep, seem confused.
It is time to hibernate.
 
This year a new fridge stands
in the garage, gleaming black.
It will keep them cooler
than tea chests in the shed.
 
We all have to move on
to something new.

Hello everyone,

Starting tomorrow till late Friday night, I will be taking an on-line writing retreat with Jonathan Edwards from ZOOM.

It will be 12 of us as poets in the course with 3 workshops every day.

That is why I won’t be able to write to this week’s prompt and won’t be commenting on anyone’s poems this week. Please excuse me.

I am also very excited about this retreat. It will be the first time I will be doing such a thing.

It Isn’t Very Posh

What exactly is a samosa?
One Rugby School girl to anther
in a town-centre shop.
Need I say more? 

This is such a good prompt, Patrick, and it proved to be very inspirational..And my poem is based on a real event, I didn’t make it up.

MARSHMELLOWS

I was walking through town yesterday, when a man with a very refined RP accent said to his wife…’it isn’t a very posh High Street, is it?’ Which I thought would make a good poem. So this week, write a poem based on something overheard. But if, like me, you don’t get out much, Google ‘overheard’, or similar -or make it up. Did that judgemental man really exist?

Now I also wanted you to know that some parts of Canada (yes I know it’s weird) are not falling back this year (or until the many governments change their minds). Check the link in case you’re interested.

Stateless

Rough and ready. But trying to not drop out again. x x

If we are the pinnacle, god help us!

If we are the apex of creation
I worry for the future.

If we are the best guardians
of this beautiful, rainbow green
and mother blue spinning mass
of improbable life, all I have
to offer are my tears.

Evolution is supposed to
adapt us for survival.

Evolution is supposed to
make us better at living
in our environment.

Evolution is supposed to
create diversity.

Evolution is about populations
not individuals.

None of us can do this
fragile thing alone.

It’s not that we cannot be great.
It’s not that we do not have potential.

It’s not that we do not do
wonderful things every single day
like giving our blood or bone
marrow or organs to save another
Like loving and loving and loving
some more. Like forgiveness.

But is it enough to stop
this beautiful planet burning?

Evolution – a Mothers  Version

One stitch   like a seed   and another
needles click    time ticks
hour by hour     row by row
Increase    decrease   slip stitch over
dropped stitch glitch      ripped back to repair
continue         knit one purl one      cabled arran
fair isle      colour      patterns growing.
French knitting’s hope
a small girl with her tongue sticking out
earnestly looping her unicorn’s rein.

Evolution

A change that creeps slowly into time
Never bright or hard
A whisper of a difference,
crying out for understanding
A tear rolling down a cheek
A breath, short and graceful
What was unnoticed becomes a flash
of genius every other living thing
wishes to copy but cannot
A change when change is all but impossible
An unexpected expectation

Funnily enough, ‘belonging/unbelonging’  was also my prompt in Week 20..I was worried because only three people wrote to it..

I am glad it came up again and as part of Verve’s annual competition. I read Susan Howe’s words on this theme and of course she is much more articulate.

So, this is my poem inspired by Sarah Howe.

LANGUAGE

I should write about the tortoises who, for the first time, will hibernate in a larder fridge. Blame climate change. I have been decorating all afternoon, so here is a poem that I have been working on this week to send to Brian at Poetry Parlor. It is about a change in circumstances.

Removals

I made some notes months ago about peppered moths because I liked the name and wanted to write about them.  This isn’t the poem I thought I’d write, but it’s what arrived this week!

Lessons in Evolving

The peppered moths
rest like scraps of lace, like freckled parchment
exquisitely invisible against pale bark

until one morning it’s the Industrial Revolution
the bark is soot-black, birds can see them

all this has something to do with Darwin but
I can’t grasp details, cannot concentrate
because Tom Murphy
has not said hi, has not glanced my way
is staring at a girl perched two desks down
who’s fluttering her hair and laughing

Tom Murphy
will never look at me again, pale wings
are being snatched up, mauled and eaten,
it is the end of everything

to my surprise I’m wrong

the peppered moths refuse to become extinct
shrug, breed themselves a dark disguise instead

the moths adapt
survive

and so do I .

Blue-green algae

Welcome 
to your great- great to the nth
Grandparent.
Blue-green algae – 
that slimy stuff 
on  the fringe of the sea
Yuck
And to  that snap crackle and  pop
that started you off
In your long day’s journey
Into light. 
Hello and welcome.
Who’d have thought
that nasty something 
that the tide brought in 
would have such future in it. 

Missing you already

 From the fourteenth floor
I looked down on the road
stretching straight and wide
towards  town and the tiny bakery
with loaves baked the traditional way,
the queue cluttering the pavement.
The squeals of kindergarten  children,
across the road, competed  with 
occasional calls on the carpark 
loud d+speaker system next door.
Home again   to  Sunday silence,
the hedge muffling passing traffic,
and for a moment I missed my old room.

i am back at home at last. Being inyndated by all the health and welfare authorities. Gorgeous scunshine streaming-through the window.  I just need to get my head together.

I’m posting this before I change my mind -I can’t believe we’re halfway through the year, and that I’ve written so little.

Garden and Gardener