The Poetry of Lists

It's been a while since posts. To celebate my upcoming week of multiple poetry events, a few words to get into the mood:

The poetry of lists

I just want to feel better.

I say that and he laughs and tells me to put it in something, a character who throws her arms up in the kitchen.

I mean I sit around in one room.

Then I stand and move to another room.

I want so bad to turn to the TV on.

The house is full of books I haven’t yet read.

The Americans make such good TV drama, when they do it right they really do it right.

It’s autumn and we all eat more bread than we should.

The comfort of gluten fills our mouths and bellies.

Are you really in pain? he asked once, or are you just needy and neurotic.

I bought two brown pears but we didn’t eat them.

They turned sour and spurted fluid into the fruit bowl.

I wiped down the apple, it’s okay, but I might peel it first.

I wrote a poem about my failed novel.

It was about grieving something that never existed.

If we’re going to monitor what people say and do on the internet we should ban happy holiday photos.

That would be a start.

I have no car right now and the empty space out the front of our house is sort of exciting.

I’ve planned the train I need to catch and I’m ready to go.

It’s raining, it’s been raining so much, hence the spoiled pear and the damp wooden floor in the laundry.

And the need to take an umbrella with me today and wear sensible shoes.

Working from home

In the morning I have a shower, get dressed

and eat breakfast, usually tea and toast,

I brush my teeth and leave the house.

I turn around and walk back through the front door

say hello to my co-workers, the plant,

the other plant, my boyfriend if he is home

(not so much a co-worker as a co-habitant in my building).

At morning coffee time I stand near the kitchen sink

- it's the closest thing I have to a water cooler -

and talk to myself about what I watched on TV last night.

When it is my birthday I buy myself a cake.

When it is not my birthday I buy a cake anyway

as it is probably somebody's birthday somewhere.

At the end of the working day I shut down my computer

say good-bye to the plants (and the boyfriend if he is around)

and leave the building. 

I take a deep breath of the refreshing evening air

then turn around and open the front door,

I greet my plants and my boyfriend

pleased to be home after a long day.

At the GP

This snippet of conversation took place between me and my GP - who I have been seeing for around 6 years - yesterday, when I went in for a pap smear.

GP: Let me just check your social history.

Me: Okay. 

GP: Are you married?

Me: No.

GP: Oh.

Me: I mean, de facto, I guess ...

GP: Children?

Me: No.

GP: Oh. Dog?

Me: No.

GP: Oh. Pause. I guess you have a lot of time to yourself then.

Me: Yes.

Pause.

GP: My son has two guinea pigs. They take a lot of work.

Me: Oh.

GP: I'll lock the door now and you can take your clothes off from the waist down when you're ready.

Me: Okay.

On the table, pants off ...

GP: You're a ... writer. Yes?

Me: Yes. I just did a show in the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Pause (desperate for some kind of validation). It won an award.

GP: Oh. That must be good, to get some recognition.

Me: Yes.

GP: Just put your feet together now and let your knees drop out to each side. I'll try and be gentle. (Gentle laugh).

End Scene

Elemental

Inside all day

Stuck in the middle of the second draft

Something's not right and I don't know what it is

Can't keep going until I figure it out

Maybe a run will shake the answer from its hiding place in my body

Looks like a big storm brewing but I go out anyway

Thunder! Lightning! Hail! 

Running through the storm, being pelted by hail stones, the insight lands

Round and deep and complete

I arrive back home, drenched, small red bruises on my arm

Minutes later, the storm has passed, the sun is out

I'd created a huge plot hole unawares

And it was only by running into the storm that I was able to see it

Three good things I saw at Parliament train station on a Sunday afternoon

A woman with a kind voice helped a man who had fallen over and cut his leg. She didn’t know the man.

A man picked up rubbish that wasn’t his and put it in the bin. He didn’t sigh or complain as he did it.

A girl on the train tried to keep the door open for a man who was running to get the train. She didn’t know the man.

Yay for humans!

Getting wise

My final two wisdom teeth removed

a brief, brutal hammering of shattering teeth and ground out bone.

My face is numb.

Talking is difficult.

A friend asks me: How are you going in the Getting of Wisdom?

I'm not sure I can answer yet.

But being forced to keep my mouth more or less shut for a few days

may not be such a bad thing.

Speech Night

The future is bright! The students are talented! They win awards! They sing and dance and play their instruments! We clap! Little pockets of extra clapping eddy through the auditorium as particular sons and daughters win awards for being talented! We are excited that they are so talented and the future is so bright! We are lucky to know such talented, bright, futuristic students! We look forward to the time when they rule the world because then the world will be bright and talented and happy like Speech Night! This will be much better than the world we live in now! This will be much better than the world we created! We can’t wait! Grow up you young people! Take your brightness and your talent out into the world and save us from our mistakes! We clap fervently! We clap so many times throughout the night! They tell us to hold off on our clapping until the end of each section! But we want to clap for every bright, talented student! The students who didn’t win awards clap too! They are lucky to be near the bright, talented students! Some of it might rub off! We are all hoping some of it will rub off! (what happened to our lives, where did our talent go, when did our brightness start to fade, who did we let down, how did we fail to be brilliant and make the world a better place, what dreams did we give up on, we sit in the dark for two and a half hours and we clap and underneath our clapping lie the questions we don’t want to ask). That was very good! What bright, talented students they are! Hoorah for their awards! Hang onto it students! Hold tight to your bright talent! Don’t let go! Don’t let us down! Don’t let yourselves down! Stay bright! Stay in the light! Clap! Clap louder! Whoop if you must! (the drive home is quiet, we listen to 80s songs on the radio, we stop at McDonalds, we don’t speak, we have run out of things to say).



Me and you and Park Ji-Sung

Park Ji-Sung is your new

favourite player for Manchester United.

You like him because he zips around

the field with his funny run

and his flopping hair, and gives off

slightly less machismo than the other players,

young, arrogant and chest thumping.

I love your reason for liking Park Ji-Sung.

Watching you watch him makes me happy.

In this way, no matter how badly or well

Manchester United are playing (and I know

the team suffered a terrible, humiliating defeat

recently at the hands of Manchester City),

when you are watching Park Ji-Sung and

I am watching you, everyone is a winner.



Better than Gingerbread

Our neighbours have painted their house

yellow and white.

Not just yellow. Lemon yellow.

Each morning when I look out my window

I see their Lemon Meringue House.

It's a sweet way

to start the day.

Cool morning glow

Today the sky is cool grey,

glowing in the morning light.

Like the slate verandah we had

at home when I was a child.

It makes me want to

press my face against the clouds,

close my eyes, and fall asleep

with the warm sun on my back.



Sound massage

flint flick

flutters around my ears

tiny twangs

lament of miniature troubadours

brush of bracken

against my hair

brain matter bubbles and pops

tap of a molecule

my cochlea tuned

to a more delicate frequency

spa for the grey matter

symphony fluted just for me

the ultimate antidote

to white noise

Thank you Liquid Architecture and Pascal Battus

Listening for time

A door closes

It doesn’t slam

Shuts with a kind of

Red velvet hush

A moment passes

Maybe a clock ticks

Or a bird flies past

I don’t know which side

Of the door I am on

The inside or the outside

Do I need to look for a window

Another door

Or a different building

Stand still a moment

And wait

Time might tell