Shadow Selves

She is Ms Nasty,
I am Ms Nice.
I am all virtue,
she is all vice.

She’s in black leather,
I’m frills and lace,
yet some people tell us
we ought to embrace.

Do opposites attract?
No, not in this case.
And yet it’s so strange —
we wear the same face.

Although we feel
so separate,
we’re told it’s best
to integrate.

Will I allow
myself to swear?
Can she discard
that surly air?

We’ll have to do it
bit by bit.
In tentative swaps,
we find the clothes fit!

April PAD Challenge #9: Shady / Shadowy.

Also submitted for Poets United Poetry Pantry #96

However

It came on me out of the blue
after seven years (only
it wasn’t an itch).
One careless thing he said
about a third party, and suddenly
I heard clearly at last his utter
lack of compassion.

I heard the way
he always justifies.
I understood in a flash,
as if explained in great detail,
the game he is locked into
and does not wish to stop.
All that in an instant.

On the instant,
I put down the phone.
It was unpremeditated but
if I’d had a deliberate thought
it might have been, ‘I’m done.’
I ran out of puff just like that —
out of anything more to give him.

No, I don’t think
I behaved well.
I’ve tried to explain.
I‘ve apologised, I’ve reasoned.
His recriminations go on and on.
I know it hurt. I didn’t mean or expect
to end our long, fond friendship. However....


April PAD Challenge #8: Rejection

Invalid

Noises off.
Has he fallen?
Dropped something vital?
She runs to the bedroom.
It seems he has just been
turning noisily.

He scowls
brandishing his hot water bottle.
She receives it
from his outstretched hand
and exits,
heading for the kitchen.

Returning it refilled
she shoves it at him abruptly.
He hunkers down in the bed
closing his eyes.
She sighs, and rolls hers.

April PAD Challenge #7: A wordless interaction

Irony

In their hidden world
on Barrow Island
the ospreys look after each other,
so it has been observed,
and raise their young.
The native island mouse
and golden bandicoot,
and our biggest lizard,
the handsome perentie,
go about their business
evading introduced predators —
now that those predators
have been reduced.
Graceful green turtle and dugong
glide and turn in the clear water near shore.

Oddly enough,
when the oil extraction stops,
all these fragile species and more
may be worse threatened
by eco-tourists. The conservation workers
work while they can. And possibly pray.

April PAD Challenge #6: Hidden

Also submitted for Poets United Poetry Pantry #96

Himself

He sits astride the cannon. He is five.
At that time, I was not even alive.
This is my favourite picture of him:
such a joyous child, with so much to give.

His head is high; the wide, delighted grin
is echoed more restrainedly by the man
and the older boy, father and brother
sitting smiling behind him on the gun.

Their heads lean towards him. He does not see
their protective attitudes; family
he remembers as undemonstrative,
and himself repressed, but here he looks free.

His eyes are crinkled behind the round specs.
There’s a pride in the way his head’s thrown back —
a little-boy smugness: he’s in the front,
his chubby bare legs stuck out straight as sticks.

Now he’s my husband. He is eighty-three,
and the laughing child is still there to see
with that same spontaneous joy in life
as he smiles at me ... as he smiles at me.

April PAD Challenge #5: Something before your time.
Also submitted for dVerse FormForAll: Rubaiyat quatrains (mine using syllabics rather than metre).

100% — Does It Exist?

For instance, this is now Autumn —
except some days it’s more like Summer
and other days bits of Winter creep in.
You can’t say ‘100% Autumn’,
not with real meaning; you can only say,
‘These are the official dates; the season
is this long, between here and here.’

Something more measurable, perhaps?
‘He ate 100% of that orange.’ No,
he didn’t. Not the rind, not the pips.
‘She lost 100% of her money.’ But
money is this imaginary thing
that we pretend is real. We even
give it physical form (sometimes;
for now) and yet what you lose
is the value it represents — which
is variable, artificially created. And truly,
someone will probably feed you, etc.

What about absolutes? 100% of nothing
is absolutely nothing. Only, like money,
there’s no such thing as nothing.
Go on, point to it! It is merely
an abstract concept with no reality.
Find me, if you can, one skerrick
of nothingness. It can’t be done.
And don’t be trying to blind me
with quantum physics. We live
in a Newtonian universe, which is all
filled up with something: many
pieces and kinds of something,
everywhere you look or listen or touch.

100% of everything? Ah —
that has credibility.
That’s logical (magickal). Look!
We can’t see how far
the Universe extends, and maybe
there are others beyond.
Maybe it never stops. We can’t
apprehend every detail. Nevertheless
everything, all there is, all of it,
100% — that makes sense. We can grasp it.
(Some of it literally.) It’s really there.

The building material of the Universe,
so we are told, is Love. I believe it.
(OK, this you might have to
take on trust.) Everything, then,
is Love. It makes the grass grow
and the planets move. And for sure I can say,
I love you — 100%.

April PAD Challenge #4: 100% [+ word or phrase]

Also submitted for Poets United Poetry Pantry #96

Sorry / Not Sorry

I got your special soil.
The instructions were scary:
handle only with gloves, do not breathe in.
But if that was what you needed....

I draped long strands of coloured beads
around your pots, one each,
set crystals on top of the earth
and bright statuettes nearby.

I conversed with you,
tended you with Reiki,
gave you both water and wine.
It wasn’t my fault.

I even brought you inside at night
to keep you safe from nibbling gekkos.
When I stopped, for the dirt on the floor,
I used magick instead. Not one bite!

But after a certain point
you not only failed to thrive,
you developed wet black marks
up your sides, a kind of rot.

So I took action. Now your carcases
lie in my cast iron cauldron
waiting to be ceremonially burned.
I’ll accord you that respect.

Was it because I never
took things one step further?
Did you crave intimacy,
that ultimate merging of selves?

Yes, I know your sacred purpose,
but I’m sorry, I don’t do that.
I’m such an addict! Therefore
restraint is my middle name.

I’m sorry you sickened
but I didn’t do it. Tomorrow
we shall have the burning time.
I won’t be sorry to finally get it done.


April PAD Challenge #3: Apology and/or Unapologetic.

Also submitted for dVerse Open Link Night #38

The Visitors Who Took Over

Some house-guests (like these)
are hard to get rid of.
They move in, just for a few days
which become a couple of weeks,
and next thing you know....

He was handsome
and seemed such a charmer:
always so friendly
and so obliging.
She —

truth to tell, she was always
more of a problem. So ill
soon after she first arrived
with that dreadful tick bite.
Well, we’d hardly turn her away.

And she grew on us.
Tough little soul, but
affectionate in her way
underneath the loudly-voiced
opinions and shameless greed.

Yes, we got stuck with them.
In the end, we didn’t
have the heart. They were
destitute; where could they go?
They’ll be company, we told each other.

We’ve seen the worst of them
by now — like the raucous fights.
Domestic violence in which
she gives as good as she gets.
Though it’s always him that attacks.

Then it all calms down
and they’re all over each other again.
They keep us entertained
with their antics, I will say that.
And they in turn tolerate us.

We’re getting on a bit now
and they try to boss us around.
But we couldn’t do without them, after
twelve years, can you believe?
When they came, they were just kittens.

With him: March haiku 2012

hidden laugher
behind the green door
pyjama games?

24/3/12


peaceful evening
I stayed home all day
with him

30/3/12


the way he twists
moving his body
against the pain

walking slowly
in pain —
despite the pain

sighing
when the pain is worst
involuntary

seldom complains
I forget the pain
rarely absent

yesterday morning
said, ‘It’s so nice
to be without pain!’

31/3/12

Show-Off Limericks

A fellow was trying to show

his girlfriend the right way to blow.

You are silly,’ she said,

‘I adore giving head.

I could teach you a thing or two — so!’

A woman was trying to show

an alky how to go slow.

‘Don’t up-end the jug

with a glug-glug-glug!‘    

So he lined up ten bottles in a row.    

A polite young man wanted to show

he’d make a sweet, sensitive beau.

But when he took her to bed,

his girl filled him with dread —

she was so wildly gung-ho.

Limerick-Off Monday prompt from Mad Kane's Humor Blog.

Communication

Snuggling up.

Laughing together.

Exchanging a look.

Needing only half-sentences.

We still have days like that.

I settle into this fond old age,

treasuring the sweetness

of time with you. Your hands

are eloquent —

holding my shoulder, 

stroking my hair.

At other times 

you disappear.

A hostile stranger

swears at me, yells orders,

asks the same question

over and over,

regardless of answer.

I am learning that this too 

is communication —

an indirect message

of pain and fear.

Nevertheless,

at the end of the day I snap

and communicate wordlessly

in tears.

April PAD Challenge http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/poetry-challenge-2012  #1: Communication


Also submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #95