While

· Leave a comment ·

NaPoWriMo 2024, day 3 – The prompt was to choose a shortish poem that you like and to write it’s opposite. I chose While by Christopher Reid, one of the first poems I really loved. It’s about a man going for a walk while his wife stays behind, too ill to leave the house. I love the imagery in this poem and the sense of freedom beyond the confines of a sick-room.

My version considers the feelings of the wife – her world shrunk to one small room. I’ve drawn on my own experience of chronic illness.

I’ve included the original first for context.

While by Christopher Reid

While you were confined to the gloom
of our hushed and shuttered room
I stepped out into the sun
olive trees all the way down
to the hidden, then sudden valley
where I hoped to see things more clearly.
Each tree with unique, twisted grace
asserting rights in that harsh place,
hugging its shade to itself
while flaunting an enigmatic wealth
of drab yet glittering foliage
under which – and this was the knowledge
I’d come for – it formed its fruit
from a pressure like unspoken thought.

While

While you step into the light

And shrug off the memory of night

I stay here with dog and chair

In this place beside the stairs,

Listening to the little sounds

A house makes when no-one’s around.

We laughed when we saw this place –

The gloomy florals, the lace.

Leaded windows, closed fast

imprisoning the house’s past.

A dusty picture of femininity

A glimpse of someone else’s memories.

All my movements forced and slow.

I’m trying not to wait for you.

The Day After

· Leave a comment ·

You don’t know what to do –

when your days have been

defined by visiting hours and

your thoughts consumed by

the care of her – of getting

drinks and food and worrying –

and suddenly all that’s gone.

Suddenly her soft salt-and-pepper

hair is no longer there for you

to touch.  She no longer needs

you to call the nurse.

Your thoughts are no longer

consumed by numbers on

screens or the colour of her

water or how warm she is.  And

then you have to begin to try

to remember what else there

is besides that small room

into which you poured

so much of your love.

This Is What I Know About Blessings

· Leave a comment ·

Something which from a distance appears to be a blessing

may easily turn out to be a curse.  The reverse is also true.

Sometimes they go unrecognised.  Sometimes they are

invisible.  The good fairy isn’t always good, or competent.

Sometimes walls crack and dandelions grow in the spaces

that are left.  Bread runs out and isn’t often replaced by cake.

Daylight hours are not enough.  One day you’ll hold my

hand and wonder how it got to be so old.  Time is both

a curse and a blessing.  So is love.

Day 25: Forever Young

· Leave a comment ·

Today’s prompt was to write about the experience of live music. I think this will be my last of this year’s NaPo – I’m lacking energy and inspiration. But it’s been good while it lasted!

Somewhere several rows back I’m there, in

black Doc Martins and a blue dress (probably)

my long hair plaited to my waist (definitely).  I’m standing in

mud.  We’re all standing in mud.  I don’t know these

people and they don’t know me but we’re there

to see the man with the hazy brown hair and the

electric guitar.  Bob Dylan.  Glastonbury 1998.

I’m wide eyed and half starved and I had to wade

to get here, and now I’m standing in a dirty dress in a

flooded field surrounded by strangers and

I’ve just watched Nick Cave belt out Do You Love Me? 

We did.                                                                                                       

Now Dylan’s guitar is chopping through

Just Like a Woman.  A dark, muddy sound.

I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.

The rain doesn’t stop but nobody cares. 

The guitar, acoustic now, plinks a rhythm

and Dylan’s voice starts to creak out Masters Of War. 

Later I’ll remember listening to Forever Young in that field

and it’ll become a self-defining moment, my Woodstock.

I was young.  I thought that would last forever.

He never played that song.  

Day 25: Let’s Write A Song

· Leave a comment ·

Let’s write a song together.  We’ll soak

the world in a feathery blue dye.  You strum up

a riff steeped in They-Might-Be energy

and I’ll scribble out some words

with a Giants vibe.

Let’s write a song together.   We’ll build

something new that clacks and jumps

like a robot army.  We’ll stitch in notes

that divide and spill and run

into the cracks we’ve created.

Let’s write a song together.   Throw it

against the wall of the birdhouse and we’ll watch

it sloop down, leaving a silver trail.  You’ll

finger-pick the remnants which have

gathered on the sandpaper floor.

Let’s write a song together.  Let’s wring it

out for good sounds and intentions, which

puff out from it like blue spores.  You’ll

provide a fine bass-line and I’ll rustle up

a crunchy lyrical side salad.

Let’s write a song together.  We’ll create the

thing that lights up somebody’s shore.  It’ll have

the rhythm of rocky sand and glow

like a night light.  Let’s write a song which buzzes

and sings and fizzes on the tongue of the world.

Day 23: Birdsong

· Leave a comment ·

The jumble of song – that’s the sign I wait for.

There’s such a stillness about the canal through

winter, and then this release, like breathing – a delicate

lacework of sound above the quiet.  They don’t

care that I’m here.  There are more important

things to think about than a human with heavy feet.

Nests to build, lives to grow.  It’s comforting, this

world that keeps on going.  New leaves, yellow

and green, catch the shaken song on its way down

and hold it there, thrilling in the life that thrums

from it.  An opera of spring. We’re here, they say,

and the trees are full of our music.

Update

· Leave a comment ·

I haven’t posted for a few days because I’ve been busy over Easter weekend, but now that’s finished I’m feeling unwell with my usual health issues. I think for the rest of April I’ll just write when I feel up to it and not pressure myself, as right now I’m pretty exhausted. Such is life with a chronic illness…so watch this space basically.

Day 18: Singing

· Leave a comment ·

Ritual.  The swapping of the same jokes,

the same gentle jibes.  Wrapping yourself

in the familiar and its sense of continuity,

all the while knowing that things are about

to change.    Singing in the car.  Card games

at the table.  Vestiges of your childhood

more for me than you these days I suppose.

Every now and again a glimpse of the

child you were, when you’re overtaken

by uncertainty, some new experience

you haven’t quite mastered.  Sometimes

you still turn to me, less often now.

But your sky is wide open and flying is

what I trained you for.  So I’ll let go, when

I need to. Perhaps we’ll still sing,

differently.  

Friends

· Leave a comment ·

I decided to write a villanelle for this. It was surprisingly easy, as the prompt was vaguely surrealist so it gave me loads of word options! It’s about the friendship between two surrealist painters, Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington.

My dove, my love, my pot of jam

My sister witch, my ginger cat

You understand me as I am

My rocking horse, my friend, my lamb

My freedom call, my bowler hat

My dove, my love, my pot of jam

My open door, my window jamb

My horse, my house, my tit-for-tat

You understand me as I am.

My life, my leaf, my wild yam

My unicorn, my chew-the-fat

My dove, my love, my pot of jam

My sorceress, my give-a-damn

My vagabond, my caveat

You understand me as I am

Amusing muse, my epigram

My Sunday best, my laundromat

My dove, my love, my pot of jam

You understand me as I am

Day 16: Disappearing

· Leave a comment ·

A memory.  February 2016.  Walking the

streets of Salford through skewering winter

rain, on a hopeless errand.  I’m listening

to music.  Something by Radiohead –

a plodding acoustic strum rhymes with my steps. 

That’s not me

Two pharmacies already, turned away from both,

like an addict trying their luck.  But this isn’t for me.

It’s for my Dad – something to help him sleep while his

body slowly drowns him. 

The song sighs into the chorus. 

I’m not here.  This isn’t happening.

Walking, walking.  Keep going. The next shop has to

have it.  It has to. Up the hill, past high concrete walls. 

Past the women’s centre with its steel grills.  Past

the shops. I used to walk here with him sometimes. Back in the days when i was still his child. Before we became broken and separate.

Sweeping electronic crying fills my head. 

The moment’s already passed. 

The rain doesn’t stop. I already know

what they’re going to say.