poetry

Occupying France

 

Lac Leman

Sometimes feels like

everyone’s saying it’s

Nazi Germany

But in fact we’re in

the Weimar Republic

with the internet

and superfast broadband

and actually no wars

in living memory … almost

nearby.

And I read about

the wartime occupation of France

on holiday in France

And my brain only

forms German words

and I live in that neutral land

between the two countries

and it hasn’t even been 100 years.

And I wonder what it all means

Are we

cursed to live in interesting times?

or are they so dull

we’ve overlaid reality

with Pokémon cartoons

and Trump and Brexit and terrorism and guns and refugees are just…

flotsam of news

jetsam of state control

And politics.

This sordid mess

still looks beautiful

from Lake Geneva

And I just don’t know

what to make of it all

Overblown

Summer heat

And old friends

drift out and in

shimmering, floating through my life again

carrying currents of warm air

caressing my skin

loosening my brain

Happiness, basking

in gentle-fierce friend-fire

banked round my heart

shored up for colder times

And we swim together

spraying drops of clear water

quenching a soul-parched dry

refreshed and clarified by

your shining eyes

seeing far below the surface

soul-deep, I gaze fondly back

But passing fast and lovely

vibrant summertime blooms

fleeting, beautiful, bounty

against blue, blue skies

And silvery moons…

Your tongues speak treasures

licking my loneliness

clean as a groomed feline

As worlds collide, combine

enfolding my family in kindness

While two little boys delight

in simple joys of a new friend, who’s an old one

Held in sweet stasis, so brief

the heady, overblown, ridiculous emotion

of high-summer moments

The Unicorn and The Lion

Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom / wikicommons

 

When I moved to London town

I saw unicorns all around

Trotting, prancing, showing off

Their silky manes, both street and posh

Amy Winehouse with her hive-horn

Too quickly turned to crown of thorn

The gorgeous, lovely and the torn

Who’d bring it on the Tube each morn

And outside London, thought I found

Unicorn habitat all around

The ancient magick of the land

Emerald glades and pebbley sand…

I didn’t spot the British Lions

Sitting noble at their pints

Wanting to protect their pride

Gath’ring power, biding time

Shaking out their mangy fur

Memories of what they were

So golden, graceful, deadly, sleek

King of the jungle is not meek!

Claws were sharpened, teeth bared

Lies were told, tempers flared

Fighting, snarls, self-righteous rage

Ugly beasts who won’t be caged

Cruel attacks from either side

Barbs that puncture both their hides

Boris, Farage, Cameron: cowards

Rich men turning lion’s gold sour

And finally the ivory spike

Overcome by fear and might

A heavy blow, ruthless, loud

And unicorn lies in a shroud –

A silly, worthless mythic creature

Dreams slashed of charm’ed future

Now I hear the lions roar

And nothing will be as before

Goodbye old friend?

Phone

 

How do I speak about you as your twilight approaches

The way you fit so smoothly

in the palm of my hand

So many times I’ve held you

My fingers caressing your surface

A reassuring presence in so many ways.

Have my eyes dwelt on your radiant face

More often than on the sweet heads of my children?

I hope not, but I fear

You’ve been with me, so near

In almost every moment these past five years.

Have my fingers moved across your surface

More than they’ve trailed over my husband’s body?

Undoubtedly. How unfortunate.

So how do I say goodbye

To one who’s been so intimate

So close

And yet, also, tethered me to tough times

a symptom? or a cause?

when the wet rope of anxiety

wraps round my wrist

cutting, painful, trapped

dragging down, suffocating

in your glowing depths.

But you were a beacon

on those long, long newborn nights

A conduit of joy

upset, rage and the mundane

So many Moments: captured!

A modicum of comfort in exhaustion and despair

A window to the world, it sounds so trite!

Friends spoke, smiled and sobbed through you

And now, my most ardent hope

Is that your stuttering, failing light

Doesn’t flicker out before I fickle find

Your replacement

(A new galaxy awaits!)

It seems absurd to eulogise a machine

But, my smug little Smarty

Mirror of a thousand selfies

You’ve been with me through such a time

It feels silly-sad to lay you to rest

without some remark

before you go to gather dust in a drawer

is it fitting to bid you

Goodbye old friend?

 

Rain

Roses in Zurich

Last time it rained like this

Rain, rain, rain

It was spring? autumn? In…

my share house in Newtown

the same rain, same, same

Some days it would stop

Then it’d start up

again, again, again

Uni textbooks damp and curling

lank hanks of velvet curtain

on my sliding bedroom door

over my barred window, hiding

the pane, pane, pane

Blocking out my hangovers, oh

the pain, the pain, the bane

Of my existence.

A lover called my room “the pit”

But I had a red rose

outside on the covered balcony

A little flame, flame, flame

One night another suitor

Left a small china dog on my doorstep

Racked returning from the pub–

a tender campaign, campaign, campaign.

I’d go to my beautiful friend’s house

Try to ease her sadness

with pizza, throwdowns, hairdye–

We’d laugh, tho her heart was

in twain, twain, twain.

I did my work, I felt sad and happy

I got drunk all the time.

It rained and rained and rained

Sometimes wonder how much has

changed, changed, changed

Missing my mother
The same steak knives in Zurich that my mother has in Sydney

The same steak knives in Zurich that my mother has in Sydney

 

Is it any surprise

We have the same knives

When our lives

Are so easily connected

By flight?

 

But complacency’s unwise

Because not all the ties

Are strong and it’s night

In your world, while in mine

The sun shines

 

And tho the lines

Of communication open lie

The sight of those knives

was a cutting remind

You’re not by my side

Over Heard and Cincinatti

 

Gorillas and Johnny Depp

Have we Heard Amber’s side?

You bet

And a million other commentators

So far from the action and yet

They know the situation intricate,

intimate, yep.

 

Those terrible parents, that awful zoo

Everyone knows

What else they should do

Jail the parents, shut it down

Make the kid get a gorilla-heart tattoo.

Lives destroyed online

and we relish the view

May be

May might be my favourite month

It may because it feels epic and beautiful and full of potential

Like an Arcade Fire song

Or because it’s the month my firstborn son

was born

It may be because it’s properly spring and

May flowers and Mayflowers must flower

And set sail…

Or maybe just because

it’s May

Don’t Stop

Underwater cake

So poetry month is over. Time to get back on that prose stallion. Put away my poetry hobby horse. Or something.

I really enjoyed NaPoWriMo. I went into it almost blind and very last-minute. I actually only discovered a poetry month existed about two days before the beginning of April and thought “I enjoy writing the odd poem, why not be in that?”

The results proved more absorbing, engaging, entertaining and challenging than I would have expected (if indeed I’d had any expectations!). I’d love to keep doing something like this or start another creative project but I’m going to attempt to give myself some downtime first and regroup (if indeed that is possible for me… ha ha)

It’s funny because the very first post I wrote on this blog was a poem – Moving Day – written on our final day in the house we owned in London before relocating to Switzerland. I guess this is my journey.

Some other unexpected benefits of poetry month included getting more blog readers and followers (there’s almost 100 of you now, hello!) and reading a lot of other people’s work. As things tend to happen in that kismet-way, the poetry month happened just a few weeks after I joined a local Bloggers In Switzerland group on Facebook. Both experiences have helped me become a better blogging “citizen”. I’m now reading, following and commenting on a lot more blogs and I’m discovering some great stuff as well as feeling like part of a nice online community.

I don’t want to do a blogroll at this stage, but in the spirit of being a good blogging citizen (Blogizen?) here’s three out of many cool poet/writer’s blogs I came across during April:

So what now? I was going to call this blog post Whatever Next?! in homage to some kids book, but then the Aerosmith song came on my iPod this morning and it seemed more appropriate. There’s a lot of moving parts in our lives here in Switzerland currently so I will just have to see where it all takes me. Part of me is super-excited, proud and maybe a bit dazzled about achieving 30 poems in 30 days and what that might mean for my future creative projects. The other part is not nearly so positive. At all. Luckily poetry is a movable feast and I guess I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon…

The photo is because some people mentioned they’d like to see the Underwater Cake mentioned in my final NaPoWriMo poem – Ende.

And, what the heck, another poem just so my new followers don’t feel they’ve been led astray

 

HOBBY WHORE

 

Some people pant pictures

Others play guitar

I’m doing poetry now

That’s who I are

 

Not a great fit with motherhood

Can’t stop to care

There’s no downtime anyway

I’m just being Claire