Broken lamps at night
Soon after I began writing my husband was very ill.I had to fit it in between caring for him, washing many pairs of pyjamas and cooking.That means I didn’t read as much of other people’s writing here as I would have liked to do.And unfortunately, I still can’t believe /feel he is dead.I need to write but I’d like to read as there are some fine people here.Best of all, there are many good, kind and courteous people here on WP.It helps me to know that.
No nonstick pan shall grace my hob again
For, since my lover died, I have burned six
And, despairing of the love of any man,
I shall cook imagined meals on candle wicks.
In short, I tell you I shall eat no food.
I’ll live on seeds of grass and flowers sweet.
My friends think my starvation’s rather crude
They counsel me to eat grass snakes and newts.
I burned these pans because I am bereaved.
My mind was on my husband’s late, lost face
If I had been much faster to retrieve,
I should have saved the pans and not replaced
So shall I take my cooker at the dump,
And live on dandelions, which nothing trump?
I am a kettle made of stainless steel
I am a saint, for tea is brewed to heal
And ,unlike kettles on an old coal fire,
I am not dirty nor do I perspire.
My mirrored sides reflect you as you cook.
Look at me and read me like a book
I’m full of love and hotter than a man
Oh, dear lady, love me while you can.
Superior mother, yet inhuman I;
Even electric kettles sometimes lie.
I shall never punish you, my dear
For perfect love like mine shall wield no fear.
All I ask is that you polish me.
For, in between your hands, I yearn to be.
Since you died ,I’ve burned eight non-stick pans
But I have not passed out or fallen down
I have not hung more than a photograph
Though on my solemn face I wear a frown.
Since you died I do not want to eat
I put on silken camisoles that droop
As my flesh,my body ,seem to shrink
I tie the straps up in a knotted loop.
Since you died I wish to be with you
And yet my soul and body are alive
I do not wish to murder my own self
Be suicidal widow or ex-wife.
Yet in my dreams I feel your absence bleak
And of my days I do not wish to speak.
“The worst scenarios are ones occurring in conditions over which children have no control, such as the dangers faced by the babies in the still-face experiments. When we are powerless to prevent our nervous systems and psyches from being overwhelmed, our physical, emotional, and intellectual development is disrupted. We call this trauma.
As a metaphor for adult life in contemporary society, the “still face” paradigm—the helplessness intrinsic to it and the breakdown of empathy that lies at its foundation—aptly describes the experience of many people as they interact with the most important institutions in their lives, including government. And, as with Tronick’s babies and their mothers, when our social milieu is indifferent to our needs and inattentive to our suffering, widespread damage is done to our psyches, causing distress, anger, and hopelessness. Such inattention and neglect lead to anxiety about our status and value, and a breakdown of trust in others.
The pain of the “still face” in American society is present all around us.
People feel it while waiting for hours on the phone for technical support, or dealing with endless menus while on hold with the phone or cable company, or waiting to get through to their own personal physician. They feel it in schools with large class sizes and rote teaching aimed only at helping students pass tests. They feel it when crumbling infrastructure makes commuting to work an endless claustrophobic nightmare. And, too often, they feel it when interacting with government agencies that hold sway over important areas of their lives, such as social services, the IRS, building permit and city planning departments, or a Department of Motor Vehicles. Like Tronick’s babies, citizens who look to corporations and government for help, for a feeling of being recognized and important, are too often on a fool’s errand, seeking recognition and a reciprocity that is largely absent. “
A wonderful word is pentameter
Does it like to be rhymed with thermometer?
If the answer is, No
I will ask you to show
How you kept all the real poets quite outa here.
Pentameter iambic how sweet
That the line has got exactly five feet
So mathematics intersects
And sometimes it wrecks
The music of words as they leap
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/my-novel-finally/
“With my fiction I focused on chapters and overall conceptions, while in poetry I crawled along in the trenches of each sentence, examining every word for a sign of a deeper significance. Each finished poem felt realized, arrived at directly by way of an inner struggle between whatever emotion had inspired it and the nuanced thought needed to both express and propel its forward movement.
Was I on some unrealized level granting permission to the poet that the novelist was being denied? In any case, The New Yorker magazine, the place I most wanted my fiction published, started taking my poems when I was 28. When one, “Like Wings,” generated a great flurry of letters (including marriage proposals and requests for advice, equaling a record at the magazine, ….”
When Mary got home,she took off her coat and put the kettle on the fire!She got the tea caddy out and put some tea into the pot.Suddenly the door burst open and Annie her exuberant neighbour fell into the kitchen
Are you ok,Mary asked her gently.Those 4 inch heels are rather dangerous.
Annie was wearing a sky blue track suit,red stilettos and a big green pashmina. Her make up had melted all down her face as she was so warm with running.She had some waterproof make up but had the feeling it might be dangerous to clog the pores.So why had she bought it?
Where have you been?she asked Mary curiously.You were ages.
I forgot to get off the bus as I fell into a reverie.
That sounds like a black hole!
I was daydreaming so I ended up by the river and a policeman asked me for a date,sort of.
Did you have any dates with you?
No,I only had Stan in my bag,alas.
Where is he?Have you put him into the wardrobe?
It’s already full.He’s still in the bag at the moment.
The two women fell into a sad mutual silence realising Stan would never now teach Emile to swim in the bath nor return his overdue library books.
Am I liable for his fines,Mary wondered.
I can pay if you like,Annie,said generously.She got out some home made biscuits and gave one to Mary who was wearing a long black dress from Lands End which resembled a nun’s habit.
Are you thinking of retiring to the cloister soon ,she continued.
No,I don’t believe in Christianity any more.Christ.yes,Christianity ,no.
What about Xmas? Will you celebrate?
I shall pray and do out the kitchen cupboards.
Are they that bad,asked Annie curiously, twiddling her ringlets with her fingers.
Possibly,Mary giggled!
They didn’t teach domestic science at Oxford!And Mother was always busy cooking and cleaning the grate after she got home from work.
Talking about grates,I’d better look at the kettle.She lifted it off the fire and held it up in the air.It was very black on one side,just like the one Mary’s mother had had so many years ago.
Why don’t I make some tea,she asked.
I don’t know,said Annie.Is this the Xmas quiz?
No,you don’t understand.It’s a rhetorical question.
Oh,do stop showing off,Annie told her.I only went to Knittingham Polytechnic and we never did Greek,just Aramaic.I have forgotten it now.
Mary poured out the tea into two pint sized mugs and the women sat silently warming their hands on the mugs and meditating on the wilful backwardness of the local poly which now only taught Latin,Hebrew and chemical engineering.The latter was an error as the professors thought that was what Wittgenstein had studied before finding Bertrand Russell more attractive.
Russell’s paradox had taunted Annie ever since those unhappy student days.Whereas she being a lady with a very high libido would have preferred Russell to his paradox if she had been given the choice.Alas, he was already dead.But why let that stand in the way of fantasy.
How my heart sings 