Seven kinds of sadness

I wrote this poem a few weeks ago, and have been putting off posting it, because it is about sadness. But that's allowed, as much as anything else I could write about.

Seven Kinds of Sadness

I noted down seven kinds of sadness

in case of confusion or mistaken identity.

Here is one: a child wailing is scolded,

dismissed in frustration until you spy

the tiny fingers pinched white in a drawer.

Another: your lover weeps a wound

that your presence cannot salve,

no matter how warm you think your hands.

A third: a story of thousands of faces and

miles away, cut down with the pepper-shot

of distant metal. Your tears are grey.

More: a hot wave of blood rage and you

whip out words as knives:

"It was good enough for her."

Here is a fifth: A casket, gash in ancient earth

a human hole that crams your nose and ears

with crumbled dirt in honour of the dead.

Another: An animal in pain, stilled by the thud of tyres.

His liquid eyes forgive what you know he

believes came to him by your hand.

And the last, the seventh sadness:

when you could have helped,

but you didn't know.

He had gone in person (Month of Poetry #31)

He woke into an unadorned morning,
nettled with unease, still unsure whether
the news had sunk deep into her.
He had gone to tell her in person,
was scolded for making the trip when
he could just have rung her up on ‘the blower’.
Will run on for thirty seconds at the mouth
about weather and the kids, then all
awkward lips and scattered breaths, say
the words about his brother, her youngest son.
Another graceful intention, another retarded action.
Adventure: side of beef roast wafted through
the floral suffocation of the room and caught her up
in the subject of lunch. “They overcook the beans.”
“Did you hear me, mum? About Robert?”
“I heard you. When you spoke, I turned around.”
Amid the acoustical preface, to Hotel California
he compared her retirement home. Assisted care:
you’ll be checked in any time your kids like.
She had been a looker in her day, legs like fish-hooks
to men’s eyes. She’d had a delightful way of being
able to stand, still in space but somehow out of time.
She was a prize, he thought. And so we beat,
- on boats against the current - each other to her love,
racing skiffs across the waves for her attention.
She had dulled swiftly in memory like wet silver,
still he had no joy to see her staunched in that drudge
of decrepit chats and daytime television. But she
had nestled, confirmed comfort, in her mismatched way:
“If life gives you lemons, you’ve got to crack a few eggs.”
He had gone in person, when the news had come.
And had told her, he reasoned. He should not find worry
with the peace of a paid debt. Of finished business
she knew nothing: each day fresh with unremembered
phrases the nurses would repeat in patience.
This is the hidden backdrop of our age destination:
parenting the parent, mourning the reversal of care.

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Today's final poem for Month of Poetry 2012 is based on suggestions from eight people:


@marklawrence: "This is the hidden backdrop of our age" (Wade David, The Wayfinders)
@jayjaycee: "the news had sunk deep into her" (short story by Tiggy Johnson, Crossing, published in Escape, ed. Bronwyn Mehan)
@anthonyeaton: "and so we beat on, boats against the current" (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)
@_camer0n: "Another retarded action adventure side of beef" (Kurt Cobain Journals)
@realnixwilliams: "The peace of a paid debt, of finished business" (B.R. Collins, Thyme's End)
@ernmalleyscat: "a delightful way of being able to stand still in space" (Frank Jordan, Create More Butterflies)
@timsterne: "I turned around amid the acoustical preface to 'Hotel California'" (Jon Cotner & Andy Fitch, Ten Walks/Two Talks)
@matchtrick: "The blower will run for thirty seconds" (Owner's Manual, LA Spas (Quest Series))

Who are not an excuse any more (Month of Poetry #30)

It is in many ways quite difficult to be everything
perhaps you should be. A fisherman, a poet, a chef
a priest, a politician of the sort you’ve watch Howard spin.
Block, prevaricate, sidestep your way into achieving
little more than shelter from the fallout.
Each of you freefall into the most important
decisions: children, jobs, which way the bed faces,
all these points of difference you gotta have.
Friendship and courage and whatever you’re going
to cook for tea – these choices mount up like newspapers.
I watched you all, but settled on a soul to crack open.
I had chosen him because in this house of his there was writing.
On every wall he played this paperchase, for each game
a fresh square is used. For drawing the Wog and the Dago
and other taunts from his childhood into the open,
he used a green pen. His mother had said they were jealous.
I watching him in winter as he snapped his icy fingers
around the words that blamed his life on each and
every other. I bricked in the quiet about his ears;
I did need six years to contruct and build the cone
of silent transference. When he had placed his
every dumb reasoning elsewhere, he felt that he was
alive again, forgiven for not struggling
against the undertow. Certainty is favourable;
unfortunately, massive overconfidence is not.
A survival trait learned from family who are not an excuse
any more. He wore his assurance as a false receipt,
for an advertisement in his pocket that sang his own
praises. The devil is not impressed by how fast
you can swim along with the current.

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Today's poem is based on suggestions from ten people:

• @jayjaycee1: "perhaps you should be a fisherman" (Natalie Babbitt, Jack Plank Tells Tales)
• @slimejam: “He snapped his icy fingers” (Daisy Meadows, ‘Nicole the Beach Fairy - Rainbow Magic #78)
• @jellyjellyfish: "You gotta have friendship and courage and whatever!" (Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life)
• @ernmalleyscat: "In this house of his there was writing on every wall" (John Galsworthy, The Forsyte saga)
• @matchtrick: "For each game a fresh square is used for drawing the Wog" (Joyce Thorpe, B.A., Successful Parties & Social Evenings)
• @eglantinescake: "We've watched Howard spin, block, prevaricate, sidestep..." (David Marr, Quarterly Essay: His Master's Voice)
• @mike_sh: "Unfortunately, massive overconfidence is not a survival trait" (Garth Nix, A Confusion of Princes)
• @crazybrave: "a false receipt for an advertisement in his pocket" (Delia Falconer, Sydney)
• @timsterne: "I did need six years to construct and to build the Cone" (Thomas Bernhard, Correction)
• @marklawrence: "he felt that he was alive again, forgiven" (Peter Temple, The Broken Shore)

Twitnic 2012 (Month of Poetry #29)

Keeping seven kids in place at a park
proceeded not from the circumstances of
geography, but from sheer will of one man
plus balloons. The call came electric:
come to a picnic. Because we are no longer
willing to remain imaginary and avatared,
we brought cheese and children.
I arrived first with a boy pre-grubbed into
the shade of an aardwolf, the earth-wolf.
Of South Africa he knows nothing.
For fuck’s sake, of South Melbourne
he knows nothing. We shut and opened
the creak of rotunda gates and I thought
of people I would soon embrace.
This is how space begins: with words only
bright on a screen, with @ and # and
tentative DMs towards IRL. And then ---
They flew in with blankets and arms
and arrayed themselves into points:
this star, is very easy to assemble.
God doesn’t love you, but friends might;
I know which pair of arms I’d choose.
I have settled on this that life was:
weakness, strength. Was the exception
the maelstrom of people I have found?
I asked my boy this question, he answered
me with a handful of almonds. One thing more:
I have missed you today, missed your
quick straight-teeth smile that proclaims:
there was my librarian, stern and infallible.
And silent, your eyes for me across the grass
threading past plates of chicken and bread.

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Today's poem is based on suggestions from eight people:

• @timsterne: "proceeded not from the circumstances of geography but from sheer will" (Joan Didion, Sentimental Journeys)
• @kirsty_l: "God doesn't love you" (Katharine Susannah Prichard, The Pioneers)
• @matchtrick: "We are no longer willing to remain imaginary" (Alberto Manguel, Into the Looking Glass Wood)
• @marklawrence: "Life was weakness, strength was the exception." (Peter Temple, The Broken Shore)
• @jayjaycee1: "This star is very easy to assemble" (Frederique Gueret, Magical Window Stars)
• @_esther: "This is how space begins, with words only" (Georges Perec, Species of Spaces)
• @_camer0n: "there was my librarian, stern and infallible and silent" (Charles Bukowski, Ham On Rye)
• @ernmalleyscat: "aardwolf, the earth-wolf of South Africa" (Arthur L Hayward, The Concise English Dictionary)

Decisions (Month of Poetry #28)

Fucking hell, I’m bones and then I eat a
sandwich and a woman appears from nowhere.
On Broadway, policeman vanishes with the call
of donuts. On Lygon Street, choice disappears
under a looped track of pasta. It’s a bit like starting
solids at 6 months: once I commence meals
I have to keep going. Three decisions a day was
the crucifix I had begun having nightmares about.
The reality of adult life: need to feed my child,
run butter across my dry muscles or I will
stagger dumb feet, crack knees on the foothpath
before I relieve him to daycare. Twenty kilograms
doesn’t lift any weights from this meaty decision.
Each frown is a case of balancing damage
and I will slap these words down blunt:
Dinner, then slam my head in the cupboard?
Skip it, then sob and shake for what counts as routine?
He slips and hits his knee; cries. I offer my arms
to him/you, and you ask for cheese. You behold
me in a horrible example. Of free thought I offer
a place in between these insignificant horrors:
my warm lap, a slice of comfort, a promise.

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Today's poem is based on suggestions from three people:

@spikelynch: "Woman Appears From Nowhere On Broadway, Policeman Vanishes" (Joanna Russ, The Female Man)
@timsterne: "I had begun having nightmares about the reality of adult life" (David Foster Wallace, Oblivion)
@attentive: "You behold in me a horrible example of free thought" (James Joyce, Ulysses)

Light behaves like waves (Month of Poetry #27)

She was expected to wash up a mermaid
with knives in her feet. They said I’ll bet
you anything she’s a damsel in distress of
the bottom of her foot at the bottom of the sea.

They neglected to notice she had read the
fine print, that ocean of tiny words that stream
in a champagne bead to the surface. They
forgot that light behaves like waves, too.

She had thanked them all in vast fish: you ought
to return thanks. In a neat speech wrapped about
in fins and slime she flopped her appreciation
out in stench. The whole world had a new smell.

Small and unadorned, a chamber maid slit
one open. Gasping still, the flapper heaved
out hot guts and gleaming metal in the middle there.
Opens up a field of infinite opportunities: one gold ring.

A footman, arrested about his death journey
on to the conquest of another snivelling hypocrite
found a string of seaweed hanging from a oak.
He stood a second, missed the crushing wheels.

One man saw her like a flying fish, escaped across
the sky. Stars flickered like salt crystals. He
said: It can’t be the moon, it’s going too fast
and wasn’t that a tail? Under one gaze, she won.

This isn’t the story? Not Disney or Andersen? I saw
that slick red-head Ariel, I know how it feels.
To have to begin speculating ominously about
a woman fish: it is to find her, warm about the rocks.

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Today's poem is based on suggestions from eight people:

@JayJayCee1: "they forgot that light behaves like waves, too" (Sam Kean, The Disappearing Spoon)
@jellyjellyfish: "I'll bet you anything she's a damsel in distress" (Rodman Philbrick, Freak The Mighty)
@marklawrence: "in the middle there opens up a field of infinite opportunities" (Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium)
@spikelynch: "It can't be the moon. It's going too fast" (Alasdair Gray, Lanark)
@matchtrick: "You ought to return thanks in a neat speech" (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass)
@ernmalleyscat: "the whole world had a strange new smell" (A S Byatt, Possession)
@attentive: "On to the conquest of another snivelling hypocrite" (Stendhal, Le Rouge Et Le Noir)
@timsterne: "I know how it feels to have to begin speculating ominously" (Joseph Heller, Something Happened)

I'm not sure why this combination of phrases prompted a Little Mermaid poem. Maybe each sequence of poems I write demands a Little Mermaid poem somewhere.

Every poem is children (Month of Poetry #26)

Every poem is children. I clapped words
together and every time: children.
These lines, they imitated
their basic shape and form, sprouted a
mimicked phrase, small-tooth grin,
never-ending mucus and poo.
Poetry is an abdomen, smooth with an
adolescent promise of everything
your belly will one day make.
A nice sheath for a sword, fine lines for
breaking. Nothing happens by chance,
to girls come pretty rhymes and words
all treacle shiny. Those glosses on
the human comedy of terrors, each one
a pentameter pretender, teasing out
pregnant stanzas: they got themselves up.
Killingly, those poems are untimely ripped
brought forth squalling. They scream
against the glare, straining umbilical against
the tethers of their tiny language.

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Today's poem is based on suggestions from six people:

@_camer0n: "never-ending mucus and poo" (Robin Barker, The Mighty Toddler)
@pinknantucket: "They imitated their basic shape and form" (Ed. Robin Myers & Michael Harris, A Millenium of the Book [slightly edited])
@ernmalleyscat: "Your belly will one day make a nice sheath for a sword" )Honoré de Balzac, The Droll Stories_
@timsterne: "Those glosses on the human comedy" (Jan Didion, Sentimental Journeys)
@spikelynch: "Nothing happens by chance to girls" (Italo Calvino, Baron in the Trees)
@kirsty_l: "They got themselves up Killingly" (Edward Gorey, The Glorious Nosebleed)

Today's poem is neither Australian nor unAustralian. This reflects my general stance of approving of public holidays, but not approving of daycare centres being shut on public holidays.