Teaching Abstinence

The following two poems are ones I've enjoyed for a while. They are not related to anything in particular going on in my life right now, but I felt like sharing.

She said:

Suitcases

Piled high in a corner of a second-hand store
in Toronto: of course,
it's an immigrant country. Sometimes

all you can take is what you can carry
when you run: a photo, some clothes,
and the useless dead-weight

of your mother tongue.
One was repaired
with electrician's tape—a trade

was all a man needed. A girl,
well, a girl could get married. Indeed
each case opened like an invitation:

the shell-pink lining, the knicker—
like pockets you hook back
with a finger to look

for the little linked keys.
I remember how each held a wraith
of stale air, and how the assistant seemed

taken aback by my accent;
by then, though, I was headed for home,
bored, and already pregnant.

Kathleen Jamie


He said:

Pregnant you sit, and pale,
How you have changed, poor girl.

Plucking at your dress, you sit
And you want to go on weeping, weeping. . .

What makes you women spoil us
And, falling, give us your lips,

Then run beyond the platforms,
Outstripped by speeding trains? . .

How hard you tried to keep up
With the blurring carriage windows. . .

Trains rattle by, express and mail,
Trains to Khabarovsk and elsewhere. . .

From Moscow all the way
To Ashkabad, like numb idols,

Women stand as if turned to stone,
Their bellies proffered to the moon.

And swinging into the light,
In the unpeopled life of the night—

How well the moon, with her
Big belly, understands them.

Andrey Voznesensky

Over My Head

I guess I must be feeling a little overwhelmed at work these days because I've been re-reading the following two poems.

He said:

Robin Robertson

Waves

I have swum out too far
out of my depth
and the sun has gone;

the hung weight of my legs
a plumb-line,
my fingers raw, my arms lead;

the currents pull like weed
and I am very tired
and cold, and moving out to sea.

The beach is still bright.
The children I never had
run to the edge

and back to their beautiful mother
who smiles at them, looks up
from her magazine, and waves.


She said:

Stevie Smith

Not Waving, But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Pour chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.


It's been a while since I've done a "he said" "she said" blog, comparing poems by male and female poets. Yes, Robin is a male poet, and Stevie is a female poet.

Barbie is 50

I never had a Barbie doll. I did go to a Janis Joplin concert once.

Here is a poem for Barbie:

Hippie Barbie

Barbie couldn't grasp the concept
of free love. After all, she was born
into the world of capitalism
where nothing is free. And all she had
to choose from was a blond or dark-haired Ken
who looked exactly like Midge's boyfriend Alan.
Ken wouldn't even get bell-bottoms
or his first psychedelic pantsuit
until it was way too late, sometime in the mid-seventies.
And then, whenever Barbie tried to kiss him
his peel-off lamb-chop sideburns loosened
and stuck to her cheeks. There were no black male dolls yet
so she guessed a mixed-race love-child
was out of the question. Barbie walked her poodle
past the groovy chicks who showed their bellybuttons
and demonstrated against the war. She couldn't
make a peace sign with her stuck-together fingers.
She felt a little like Sandra Dee at a Janis Joplin concert.

Denise Duhamel

Signifying Nothing

I planned to write about Rush Limbaugh, but decided he wasn't worth the trouble. He's just a celebrity, like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, only he eats more. He claims to have 20 million listeners. A lot of people read the Star magazine, too, but that doesn't make it gospel.

A bit of Shakespeare seems to relate:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

From MacBeth

Small Pleasures

My father has always taken pleasure in small things.
He loved sardines in a can that opened with a key.
He loved the way a well-crafted hand tool fit in his palm and did its job.
He loved a mug of steaming black coffee.
He loved shoes that fastened with velcro.

For many years he took pleasure in having a job and working.
After he retired, he took pleasure in that.
He always lived within his means - never had a new car, never had a car payment.
He took pleasure in what he could afford.

The following poem is about one of life's small pleasures. In Bermuda they call it "tinned cream" and put it in tea or make Ovaltine with it. I like it on a bowl of cereal or fruit.

Carnation Milk

Carnation Milk is the best in the land;
Here I sit with a can in my hand—
No tits to pull, no hay to pitch,
You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.

Anonymous