Rapunzel Retold

Walled in

inside the high tower

I find the young woman

('just a girl, really,' 

she was sometimes told)

who dangled her long golden hair

softly over the faces of her babies,

her babies who

with smiles and tiny grabbing fingers

travelled up those strands to gaze in her eyes,

hoisting their brand-new awareness

in through the open window

of mother love.

When then was now, 

she sat in a house on the ground

with not only windows but doors that opened.

And that was fine for many years

while the babies thrived and grew.

How could she know

one was growing wrong?

To her eyes, the traces were faint

mostly invisible.

The thing became apparent

gradually. Even in his youth

and early manhood

she didn't see.

An infection, of sorts, in the brain –

or a chunk of it missing?

She has her ideas by now,

but even now can only guess.

The youngest son in the tales

meets many challenges, no?

Makes amazing journeys.

His were into delusion.

His were into hatred.

Finally, after years of tears,

she performed a ritual of distant healing

for the troubled man who had become

fearful to her, and unknown.

Then she expunged him from her life,

as had many others.

It was not for cruelty that her Sorceress

blocked behind high walls of stone

a long-ago mother playing with her babies,

and that youngest, enchanting child

with his early gifts for drawing and poetry,

his precocious insights, and the smile 

that still, in memory, makes her heart turn over.

I felt there was more for me to explore in the Rapunzel archetype, and sure enough....

Wishing You Integrity, Compassion, Courage and Joy

I wish for you, my youngest son,

the things you had when you were young.

But you are now in middle age

and my sweet lad has been a long time gone.

The qualities that you had once —

I don't know where or when they went;

I don't know why you lost them all.

You'd think a mother should know, but I don't.

Sometimes I think it must have been

in childhood, in some gap between

day and night or school and home,

that these things somehow slipped away unseen.

Or was it slow and gradual,

unnoticed, almost invisible,

though evident later — the way that stone

erodes to dust, infinitesimal?

Integrity. You still had that

at 18, when you found out

the insurance you sold was paying for

your bosses' fancy cars and clothes — a cheat!

You visited all the clients you'd signed,

explained they'd gained no peace of mind,

unsigned them, advising that a bank

would give a better deal; then you resigned.

And I was prouder of you then

than if it was a medal you'd won.

Better than riches, the love of truth.

You own it now: truth shifts to your design.

Compassion? Even as a child

meeting smaller children, you smiled

and gently patted their little heads.

They and I were instantly beguiled.

How tender you were with animals,

how keen to help all troubled souls,

how generous. Last time we met

you alternated threats and bribes and yells.

If I knew what was good for me

I only had to do and be

whatever you dictated. Or else.

The comforter who held my hand, where was he?

You still have courage, I suppose,

for mountain heights and slippery snows.

But not enough to face yourself

without the daily dose of pills and booze.

And as for joy, I still recall

your father saying with a smile,

'Happy baby, happy adult.'

For sure you were a joyful little child.

But now there is no joy to see;

just anger, pain and misery.

What stole your joy? Your father's death?

Or something else you never shared with me?

The qualities that you had once —

I don't know where or when they went;

I don't know why you lost them all.

You'd think a mother should know, but I don't.

I wish for you, my youngest son,

the things you had when you were young.

But you are middle-aged and I am old,

and my sweet lad has been a long time gone.

Note: We are completely and permanently estranged, by my choice, and he is most unlikely to read this. If he ever does, it will be further proof to him of my evil and insanity.

Prompt 24 for 'Poems in April' at 'imaginary garden with real toads' is to write a poem wishing for one or more of the qualities named.  (Fairytale aspects optional, but scarcely applicable here, unless in the grimmest ways.)

Stalker

How considerate, how reasonable!
He tells me he’ll soon be nearby —
an opportunity in case I need
to see him; actually says that.

It’s a win-win (for him). I could give in
and agree, going against my word
and the reasons for it. Or refuse,
and demonstrate madness.

‘Look,’ he will show his friends —
‘my approach: so calm, so kind;
and her response: hysterical.
You can see that, can’t you?’

And they will. They see what he tells them.
Until they don’t, but that takes time.
Meanwhile he proves himself right
again. Why is that such a need?

I used to believe in his sweet reason.
I used to believe we could start over,
get it right finally. But not any more.
In private, the mask always drops.


30 Poems in 30 Days, 2010: 11
Prompt: A poem in which something gets faked or simulated.

I found his photo yesterday

... the big one he sent from America,
taken in the New York subway.

In it he’s already losing his hair
but he’s still slim, still handsome.

That smile reminds me
of the child he was. Lost, long lost.


30 poems in 30 days, 2010: 2
Prompt: A poem about getting lost or losing something

S

I never ask about him.
The shadows begin to recede
and the silence becomes peaceful.

I am only a little curious now.
Perhaps it’s assumed I forget,
as I never ask about him.

I have not of course forgotten,
but I give him scant space in my mind
and the shadows begin to recede.

The love of family and friends
is a nourishment. So are the trees.
The silence becomes peaceful.

(A cascade poem, as seen on Poetic Asides)

As Dark Falls

As dark falls,
running footsteps
up the street
draw close.

For a moment
it’s thirty years ago
and my son Steve,
aged 11, runs
up the street to home —

in a different suburb
in a different State.

Then the illusion
passes, and it’s night.


NaPoWriMo Day 28


Submitted 11 Dec. 2011 for the Arrivals and Departures prompt at 'imaginary garden with real toads' 

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He showed me how to swing a hammer, the right grip in the right place on the handle. I thank him again in my mind, every time I hammer a nail or a tent peg in. It must have been 1992; then he was twenty-three.

He was fifteen the time I turned from outfacing an abusive tradesman on the doorstep, and found him right behind me, ready in case I needed help.

After my huge, beautiful dog died, he channelled him for me one night on the phone. It was unexpected and a strain, but he stuck with it. I don’t know if that ever happened for him again. The message was good, and true. I was grateful.

He was just a kid, maybe ten, that night when his dad was away. He heard footsteps, furtive, down the path next to the house. A torch flashed briefly outside his bedroom window. “Dad!” he yelled, thinking fast (more deterrent than “Mum!”). I switched on lights and stomped loudly. The intruder ran. We heard him scrabble over the back fence, just as sudden rain came pelting, drenching down.

I remember him walking with me to the shops, chatting of this and that, nearly as tall as I was, casually hand in hand; how happy it made me feel.

Broader and taller by inches, coming off the plane after his student months in New York State. A cowboy hat and an Indian feather – a great honour, he said. His brother and two of his mates bursting in later on his jetlag sleep, grinning. “G’day, Yank!”

He finished renovating his father’s house after his father died. He went to Pam’s house too, to complete what his dad started there to help our friends. That didn’t last; he got kicked out. Gets kicked out of lots of places – even, at last, mine.

Visited his cousin Ellie last time he was home, and his Uncle Robert, the brother his father disliked. Both were glad; needed that family feeling he gave them then, so he said. Maybe he needed it too.

Adventurous always, on our journey towards Ayers Rock he declared, “I’m a born mountain climber.” He was eight; we smiled. He was a born mountain climber – soon out of sight of the rest of us struggling towards the top. He ran up the Rock! No use worrying for his safety; it was out of my hands.

Now too, his fate is out of my hands. He is moving, he says, towards his own truth, his own discovery of love. The final repudiation of Mother, the final claiming of self. So mote it be.


19/10-3/11/09

Never Fear (April Challenge 29)

Prompt: "Never (blank)" and fill in the blank.

“Have no fear,”
the angel said in measured tones.
"Have no fear. He is well.”

I’d been so frantic –
my youngest,
his first time away from Australia
entirely on his own,
the great world trip,and he’d hit trouble.

Mind you, he was 29
but all the same,
naïve enough
to get drugged and robbed
at his first port of call:
Bali.

You can imagine –
my lurid fantasies
soon had him set up and framed
and tossed indefinitely
into a dire Indonesian prison.
(Never mind that he was the complainant.)

Unable to settle,
I went and cast circle
in the big room I had in those days
as my home temple.
I did it the Ceremonial Magic way,
calling the Archangels.

Surprisingly, a voice –
yes, in my head, but so clear and strong
I was almost sure it was physical.
Well, and come to that,
it wasn’t in my head, it was over there,
only I was hearing it telepathically.

“Rosemary,” it said,
“We wish to speak with you.”
I managed not to pass out.
Trying to do whatever might be
correct in these circumstances,
I mentally designated Gabriel spokesman.

I turned to face West
and waited.
“Have no fear,” the angel said,
“He is well.”
That was it. End of message.
And my fear left.

It was enough.
It carried with it
clarity and calm,
an unusual, particular peace –
alert, awake, and very grounded.
“… that passeth all understanding,” I thought.

I have learned since
to know that quality, which is palpable,
as heralding the presence of angels –
angels in whose presence I feel
both peaceful and strong;
beings of few words but essential.

“Have no fear,” the angel said.
I do have fear. I am human.
Sometimes I forget.
I forget that I don’t need it.
I forget that the energy of fear
itself can cause problems.

(I don’t mean healthy, sensible fear,
like if a bull’s chasing you
you’d better run.
I mean that other kind
which is useless of course
and makes everything worse.)

“Never” seems so large.
Try it in the moment:
“Have no fear.”

Anti-Sestina Poem / Mothers and Sons (April Challenge 28)

Prompt: Write a sestina and/or a poem about the sestina form.

Anti-Sestina Poem

Kipling did it, Pound did it,
half the poets around did it –
but let’s not try doing it,
let’s not write sestinas.

John Ashbery did it, Elizabeth Bishop did it,
Dante, Petrarch and Philip Sidney did it.
But why should I do it?
I don’t like sestinas!


(However I did it, and here's the result:)


Mothers and Sons

The neighbour’s been out drinking tonight.
Now he is home, yelling at his mother.
My husband wants to call the police
but I hear her standing up for herself.
As far as we know he’s not violent.
It’s an old grudge from when he was a child.

I know what it’s like. I have a child
who used to drink late into the night,
sometimes barely restraining his violent
rage against me, the evil mother
who lied to him and even to herself –
or so he believed, becoming my thought police.

He’s the one I can never please,
although he was a sweet and loving child
and we thought had sufficient love for himself
also, but now his moods can be dark as night.
I’ve been in the place of that other mother.
Her son’s yelling is a kind of violence.

And violence unfortunately begets violence.
In my case I almost had to police
my reactions, remind myself I was a mother
and this loud, hard man was once the child
who used to cry himself to sleep at night
after his dog died. My neighbour herself

has told me a similar story. She says herself
that her son has a soft and a dark side. He’s a shy violet
when he hasn’t been drinking. But Wednesday night
is his night at the Club. The local police
drink there too off duty, he’s often chilled
with them before coming home to yell at his mother.

Was I indeed a very bad mother?
I suppose we all wonder that about ourselves.
Isn’t it the parent’s fault when something ails the child?
I remember him broken-hearted, sobbing violently.
Now he never says sorry, he never says please.
I’m reminded of all that, as I listen tonight.

He is the child for whom I’m a failed mother,
and I’m hearing tonight a woman like myself
abused violently by a son she can’t please.

A Boy's Will

(The next title in the Robert Frost Challenge)

A boy's will; how would I know that?
But I look at boys I've known
and think they probably didn't
will what they now have.

A child who ran towards life
ran everywhere, head up
laughing – how did he
become at sixty-four
the self-confessed curmudgeon
squinting into his glass?

The one who went exploring
into the bush at four,
who raced billycarts and scaled fences
and stole things, and always survived ...
what covered his scabby knees
in such conservative grey?

The tot with the owl glasses,
tiny astride a cannon,
but smiling safe and proud
beside his big brother and dad,
who dreamed of making his own pictures
with a camera – not words –
now spends all day writing,
except when his white head rests.

And the two I knew the best,
or thought I did?
That other child of laughter
other daredevil climber
loved stories of heroes with swords.
He spends his life at a desk.

The younger, with the smile
that got him whatever he wanted,
thought of a life on boats
and a perfect woman.
He travels by land and sky;
he travels alone.

These stories are not all sad.
Early desires change.
But a boy's will, what's that?
Peter Pan leaps and is gone.

Left: Boy 1. Right: Boys 1 and 2:

Boy 3 (Right):

Boy 4:

Boy 5:

Wrapping It Up

April Challenge 30: A poem about ending.

It is Samhain, a night of endings
and new beginnings.

How appropriate! Here I am
at the ending of this sad
long struggle for understanding
between we two
who love so deeply and yet
cannot find peace or joy
in each other.

I look back.
When you were a small boy
beautiful and bright,
you patted younger babies
gently on the head, absorbed
in the wonder of them.

The teenager, rebellious,
yet was sweet and thoughtful,
walking with me hand in hand
to the shops and talking.
You don't remember that now.

Even the young man
was full of light, turned out
in his smart suits, laughing
for sheer, exuberant life.

But that was yesterday.

Now you don't like me,
nor I you. Now we are done,
can't even live and let live.

You give me the gift
of new beginnings.
I have shed the influence
of your loud beliefs and opinions
and rediscovered my own.
Wouldn't have done that
so well without you!

I give you release.
May you have the full experience
of this wonderful game called life
as I shall.

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

1/5/08

Half a Phone Call

April Challenge 27: Today's prompt is to write a poem that is only one-half of a two-person conversation, or the "one side of a phone line" poem.

He came to see me, you know.
Knocked on the door one day.
I was in bed with the worst flu.
I dragged myself to the door.

I was pleased to see him,
I really was. But my legs ached.
I had to go back to bed
and talk to him from there.

No, he wouldn't mention that;
too wrapped up in himself.
I had to bribe Amy to see him.
'Find out if he's changed,' I said.

She didn't seem to think he had,
but I don’t know what they said.
Oh he did? We like it; otherwise
we would have done something else.

Yes, he does that. He tried
to do it to us too. I don't know
how to say this, but he's the most
manipulative person I ever met.

He's quite ruthless. I wonder who
he learned that from? It's as if he went
and trained in those techniques. Where
do you study brainwashing, though?

Do you think he's crazy? No,
I don't see you that way. I think he's
more autistic than you – the lack
of compassion. You're not like that.

He's like a sort of cult leader. Oh dear,
I hope he never gets any power
over people's minds! He's also very good
at making people love him.

Don't get me wrong, it was really nice
to see him, for a while. I was glad
he came, and I was glad when he went.
I feel deep affection for him.

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

29/4/08

I'm so over ... (April Challenge 26)

Prompt: Write a poem with the title, "I'm so over (..............)"I'm so over being improved!

And yes it's true what you say:
I like the people who like me
the way I am. You tell me
I should lose the red hair,
it looks like I'm trying too hard.
I check with my hairdresser.
"It's OK to be eccentric,"
she says, only slightly defensive.
Good, I'll keep it then.

You think I should stop
making poems. It's not as if
my poetry's all that good,
you kindly point out. And not
as if it makes me happy. Well!
Luckily there are those who like
reading all these inferior
verses I love to write. I don't
in any case know how to not.

I need to get a new husband,
the one I've got's getting old.
He never did suit me anyway,
you say. Funny that all those friends
who've known us over the long haul
disagree. "You're so united!"
"You're such a team!" Our lives
are dull and empty, you insist.
They: "You're so engaged with life!"

I ought to get rid of my books,
take down all my pictures,
sell my computer,
replace my defective friends.
My beliefs are all wrong
and so are my dreams;
my memories are outright lies.
Well, I can see one change
that's overdue. Goodbye!

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

28/4/08

The Pleasures of the Elderly

April Challenge 23: A poem about getting older.

The Prodigal Son and the Second Stepson
have both done their holiday visits and gone.
Finally it's just we two again,
enjoying indulgences they never saw
though they could have done.
"Behind closed doors," accused the Prodigal.
But no, it's just that each slept late
and the guestroom door was the one kept shut.

At breakfast time we feed the cats
then bring our own meal back to bed.
We lean on layers of pillows
and read to each other from "Conversations With God".
The bedroom door's wide open.
The cats come in and jump on the bed.
They snuggle up and smooch, they purr and settle.
When you're 40, this probably isn't exciting.

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

27/4/08

A Day for Love Poems, But

April Challenge 20: Write a love poem with capital-L. Not the greatest timing for me!

It was a day for writing love poems, but
I was too busy
praying for peace and weeping

asking the Great Mother
to take and resolve my dilemmas
with husband and son

defending family members
one from another
and keeping my own place with all

a day for being romantic but
I was helping one rehearse a talk for tomorrow
listening to another's daily dreams

and looking at a photo of my dead cousin
smiling as only she could
radiant in spite of pain

and somewhere behind my mind
I was asking how one might journey
to become pure spirit, an orb of light.


© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

22/4/08

New Departure of the Prodigal Son (April Challenge 16)

Gone again! Another five years
or more, before the next time.
Or maybe there won't be a next time.
He goes, I stay; who knows?

He has taken his big body
made fat by booze and chocolate
and sedentary living,
eagerly off after one last hug.

He has taken his white laptop
and the slim black mobile phone.
No more calls to America at 2 am
and we get back our dining table.

He has taken both old sleeping-bags,
patched and heavy, 30-year relics
of him and his brother as kids.
I didn't say no, but now I wish he'd left one.

He fixed the things around the house
that weren't working: electrical items,
carpentry jobs, the way we do the budget,
the irritating noise from the back of the fridge.

And he pointed out the lies
with which I've surrounded myself
and those that I've been telling; left me
with many questions and a new desire to ask.

I'm weepy. My head spins and jangles
after the car drives off with a cheery toot.
'We need a smudge stick,' his stepfather says,
'To get all that crap out of the house!'

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

18/4/08

Oh, and what was the prompt? The "Alfred Hitchcock" poem: a poem that has a twist near the end.

Each Time He Leaves

(April Challenge 17: Write a poem in the third person.)

Each time he leaves again
she can't help but notice
weeks of heavy rain set in.

She wonders if he knows
he sets the sky to weeping
every time he goes.

Anger Management

‘A Great Day For Women’ says the headline. It's the first time a woman has been appointed to such high office. 

His voice intrudes:

‘Ha! No more excuses, huh?’

I look blank.

‘No more excuses for all you women who say you don't get a fair deal – except that you do.’  

He grins with gritted teeth, and brandishes the newspaper in my face.

Later he wants to talk again of his childhood.

‘I understand it now. I came here to understand. I realise I had an insane mother. That shaped me. I had to get away. If I'd had the resources, that time I left when I was younger… It was only lack of money that made me come back home.’

He was eight at the time. I tell him he left in a rage because of not getting his own way. He'd wanted to stay up late, and his Dad and I said no. He came back defiantly a few minutes later, saying it was too dark now, he’d leave in the morning. In the morning, none of us mentioned it.

At this information, he yells: 

‘OH YEAH?’ 

and as I turn to do my online banking, he squirts water from a spray bottle right in my face and thumps my keyboard repeatedly, hard. 

Now he is 39.

Illusions of Permanence

April Challenge 10: Location poem

This is the space we created together,
this house, this room that we filled
with our daily lives. I look around
and see it's full of colour.

Walls of books and pictures, reds and greens,
blues and oranges, the tiled coffee table,
the armchairs and cushions, the winged fairy
atop the TV, the two toy cats ...

The two living cats are curled in the chairs.
The two people are tapping at keyboards
and frowning. Their huge double desk
overflows with papers. They are sipping coffee.

The dining table came from my friend Beth
30-odd years ago. It's teak and I always loved it.
I stained the raw pine chairs to match.
If you look closely, you'll see I missed a few patches.

My Alice in Wonderland oracle I made myself
sits in a big black bowl on the coffee table.
I go and pull some cards, but tonight
all messages are inscrutable.

There's something cosy about a familiar mess.
You feel you could dive right in and get warm.
The lights are bright, and the big old fridge
makes a comforting background hum.

The phone interrupts with a squeal.
The voice on the other end begins to sound pissed off.
It's cold out there and dark, and he's hitching home.
There's a long way to go, and we're all knackered.

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

11/4/08

All In the Interpretation?

April Challenge 9: Today's prompt is to choose a word (any word) and then write a poem either about that word or using that word in different ways.

'You're on crack cocaine!' he accuses,
or, 'What kind of crack are you taking?'
I am offended. He explains:
'Where I live it's a common expression.
It means, "You're in la-la land"
or, "What planet are you on?" '

This he said by way of exposing
the cracks in this edifice I call my life.
'Fair crack of the whip!' I thought,
'It's really not that bad,' but
when I opened my eyes
just a crack wider, I could see them too.

Now my questions are,
should I have a crack
at papering them over,
or let them fall apart with a mighty crack –
and which option
will see me crack up quicker?


© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2008

11/4/08