Mantelpiece Krakatoa

I’ve been playing around with old exercises from A215 to see how they could be improved and this is one of them; find an object and write a poem comparing it to something that it reminds you of.  So apparently my living room candles remind me of volcanoes!  I’ve played around with the original poem so it (hopefully) has some rhythm now and have also tried to fit it into an iambic pattern (the number of syllables are different in the verses), although I haven’t managed that completely.  I have to say I found it a lot easier to re-visit a piece that already seemed to lend itself to a form rather than to start from scratch with a form in mind.

The red polished summit
Is encased behind glass.
A smooth sided outcrop
Of waxy igneous rock.
Forming to melting fingers
They flow to reach skywards.

Crackling;
The blossom scented lava
Bubbling;
In the perfumed caldera
Spilling;
Down the malleable flank.

A quick puff to snuff out
The flame, now pliant magma
Can solidify to
Fragrant obsidian
Its bulbous ridges formed
From smooth, waxy granite.
A cherry blossom scent to
Substitute for pungent ash.

Five Days

So I’ve finally gotten around to posting again!  Here is the first TMA I did for A215, it stemmed from a freewrite on a prompt of “breathing hard”.

 

Five Days

 

Five days I’ve been here now and the only thing worse than the pain and lack of sleep is the isolation.  All the other mums have a constant stream of visitors who bring news from the outside world.  As I lie propped up by pillows in this hospital bed I don’t think I’ll ever see outside again, I feel like I’ve been reborn alongside my son to stay forever in the sterile, humid wards of this alien hospital.

It is gone midday and I catch the scent of gravy and overcooked vegetables on top of the disinfectant smell of hospital.  As I move my gaze to the doorway one of the younger nurses arrives with my medication and silently places the small plastic cup on the bedside table.  Perhaps she has decided, as I have, that words are a waste of her breath when the recipient cannot understand a word you are saying.

I followed my cousin Erica to Berlin seven months ago.  She came to work and I came in order to put half of Europe between my mother and me when I told her that I was pregnant and that the baby’s father was a one night stand.  That phone call has never happened and now a whole new person has come into the world and only one member of my family knows about him.

In the clear plastic crib next to me Alexander stirs and I begin the laborious process of manoeuvring off the bed.  Slowly I roll onto my side.  I thought that nothing could be more debilitating than the ninth month of pregnancy but right now I feel more like a geriatric elephant than a woman of twenty six years.  I try to ignore the feeling that my insides are being torn out and cautiously begin to move to a sitting position from which I can lower my legs to floor.  Slowly, slowly my feet touch the cold smooth tiles and I gradually uncurl to an upright position.  From there it is just two steps to my now screaming child.  Two steps aren’t very far.  I even managed to get all the way to the toilet by myself last night.

“Bist du in ordnung?”  (“Are you alright?”) A portly nurse comes bustling through the door.

In my experience it is always easiest to nod when you are not sure and I do this now.  She comes over anyway chattering incomprehensibly, gathering up a nappy and baby wipes from under the cot as she speaks.  She is like lightening with the nappy.  I tell myself she has had a lot of practice and try to suppress my frustration and rising annoyance at the intrusion.

She is now miming a drinking motion and pointing at her ample chest so I nod again.  The nurse disappears only to return almost immediately with a feeding bottle.  She points to the chair by the bed and I lower myself gingerly until I can grip the armrests and take the weight of my body through my arms.  She bends down so I can take the baby and he drinks greedily.  The nurse nods “Sie können nach hause gehen, wenn sie heute wie” (“You can go home now if you like.”)

I hear the German word for home and hope I have guessed correctly.  I nod and with words I have practised say “Ja hause bitte.  Danke” (“Yes home please.  Thank you.”)

 

A few hours later and Alex and I are ready to leave.  Sat in the chair I turn my mobile phone over in my hand.  Now is as good a time as any.  If it goes badly I can make the excuse that Erica had arrived and hang up.

The telephone rings three times before she picks it up.  I wish I still smoked; I could really use a cigarette right now.

“Hello?  Is it Catherine?”

The words float across the continent from somewhere and someone as familiar to me as breathing.

“Yes, mum it’s me,”  I forced out.  This was hard.  I took a breath and let it spill out “I should’ve told you months ago.  I’ve had a baby; it was horrible.  I had an operation.  I really wish you’d been here!”

“My God!”  she breathed, “you’re not joking are you?  What made you keep this from me?  Take your time and tell me everything.  Your always welcome here with me, you know that.  I’ll always be here”.

I look at my son, so peaceful in his nest of blankets, and know the truth in her words.

Module Result Time!

And very pleased with it I am too!  Here is the short story I submitted for my final EMA.

EDIT:

I have just found out this story is going to be published in Sea of Ink; Ink Pantry Publishing’s anthology of work by former students of A215 October 2011 :-).

My last assignment has gone…

Well my efforts for the EMA finally went on Wednesday night which means no more A215 for me.  I have to say I feel quite sad now; I think we had a great group and the deadlines kept me to task – I’ll really miss it and will have to seriously improve my self-discipline now!

On a brighter note I have bought a new notebook and have been noting already – so onwards to new ideas, poems and stories and hopefully a decent mark to show for this year 🙂

An Epiphany

This is another poem I re-worked from an exercise asking us to write about a memory.  This is a tongue in cheek recollection of my teenage self going to see my favourite band for the first time.

An Epiphany

Crushed together in a mass of bodies, I feel the sweat
Beading and tricking down my back.  Its surreal, the thrum
Of the sound check feels unreal; a vibration through my limbs.

Clad in leopard print and purple feather boa – placed
Together they put Bet Lynch to shame.  Sharp ends of
Cheap feathers cling and dig into clammy skin and thick
Black eyeliner melts.  However much I try to be cool
I am a damp, feathery panda who can no longer lift her arms.

The lights dim and a roar rises from the crowd.  Unfamiliar;
A mad dance begins in my stomach.  As if suddenly allowed
Bodies push forwards in unison and there he is, standing proud.
Below Nicky Wire I feel cowed; I am staring up at God,
Allowed to gaze from here; and I have never seen anything quite so
Beautiful, as that six foot man wearing inch thick make up and a red tin hat.

My Kind of Place

I adapted this from an exercise I did early on in A215 asking us to write a passage or a poem with cultural references.  I used the late nineties as a backdrop and now feel brave enough to adapt this into poetry form.  I will probably keep working on this though as everytime I look at it I decide to change it again!

My Kind of Place

I never felt tension in that queue; the faint
Whiff of potential violence was always there
In other nightclubs – enough to subdue a bellyful
Of vodka and lemonade.  Here that was rare –
The badly constructed line winding through, slowly
Descending the staircase; Doc Martens and
New Rock boots stuck like glue to a carpet,
Turned from blue to brown through years of wear.

Fusty, smoky, dry ice blew to infiltrate our intoxicated
Procession as we crept into our lair to hear The Smiths or
The Manics spinning on the venues CD player and
I would think, ‘this is my kind of place’.

It would come later in the night of course.  After
Copious amounts of cheap lager and vodka.
By then we were too drunk to care or feel remorse.
United in our self imposed difference, asleep to
Outside; the course of Clinton, Blair, Iraq and Kosovo –
Only individuality and music mattered, no matter how bleak.

Our discourse wasn’t true though.  Not entirely; All skin-deep.
No bloodbath here every Friday night, but we would compete
To be diverse.  It just took a while for the glitter to fade
From our eyes that’s all.

Onwards and Upwards…

Finally home again after my impromptu hospital visit (many thanks to the staff at Dewsbury Hospital for basically saving my bacon at very short notice!) and off to polish off my overdue TMA now.  I will be very glad to see the back of this one but then onwards and upwards to a huge brainstorm for the final EMA so far my ideas for this one are equalling to a big fat zero – no stress though it’s only a full 50% of the mark for the whole year!!

Matryoshka

I wrote this when experimenting for the poetry TMA.

Matryoshka*

A traditional Russian nesting doll the matryoshka is a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other.  In Russia they have come to be known as “Little Mother” being symbols of fertility and motherhood.

Her shiny red smile,
Is full of life.  Nurture
Reflected in curves.  Bulbous,
A red bouquet blooms upon
Her middle.  Sterile
She shatters into pieces.

The smile decreases on
Her tiny daughters.
Bright red petals fall from
Her abdomen.  Resting on
The mantel, her wooden
Façade remains unchanged.

 

*(Pronunciation:  Mat-ree-osh-ka)

 

The Night I Was Born

I wrote this as a tongue in cheek effort for a life writing exercise on A215.  Now I really should get on with that TMA….

On the day I was born, it was actually
Night-time.  Late November also, not
Quite Christmas, and my Dad has sworn,
That six foot of snow had settled on the
Paths outside.  The paramedics had to warn
Not to trip (or possibly drown) through the blow
Of the wind and ice that came from the storm.

This is a lie, although it has stuck.  Such a
Luxury of snowflakes would make the record books.
Although my little myth is nice to look upon;
It makes me glow a little and smile – that people
Remember; the mistook flurry that night
When I was unborn and important enough
That I partook, albeit unknowing, in a family fairy tale.

The Rattle

A poem I wrote a while ago – I felt quite sad writing it as it reminds me how quickly my son is growing up.

 

You enjoyed four of him – received as gifts
In the early days.  Each new frog warranting
An “Oh!” of surprise and a quick shake.
Two years on – four fat frogs sit silent
And still.  They go in the bag with the
Unemployed booties, dummies and bottles.

His lurid, green body you would pound
Against blameless wooden chairs with
Chubby hands.  Multi-coloured beads
Beating inside his transparent tummy, in protest.
His solid cranium rebounds, a painted face;
Childish smile frozen there, always on his face.