Skip to content

Penmanship

I warped my writing, made it glow,
forced wobbles, upstrokes, uneven ohs
to set it apart from the springs of copper
my family coiled on paper;
every word a scrolled epistle
every letter a disciplined art.
No spontaneity in the slowness
of vines of fancywork lettering.

To resist inspections and deconfine words,
I spider-scribbled-inksplat-scrawled;
I forced down habits of coil and flounce,
to backscrape my pen and force strokes upwards;
to drag and make my writing my own.
Dedicated to dismantling the filial fixation
with polished glyphs, with no less fervour
I pursued the squashed and quasi-legible.

But to flout convention by embracing
the counterbalance is to u-turn, refacing
the obsession I sought to subvert.

2012 04 19 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

Another memory

I yearned for glasses;
envied the elderly and myopic,
tried them on if allowed
and watch the ground swivel away.

I wanted the wisdom,
the aura of the library
and authority implicit;
I wanted the facade
of quirky brainy quiet kind;
unthreateningly smart,
reserved and able.

Blighted instead
with stupidly cheerful normal vision,
I had to genuinely earn
my smart and quiet badge.
A process so slow, claiming triumph
coincided with glasses after all.

So now, with double authority,
believe me: such is how it goes.

2012 04 18 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

Process

I’m supposed to more greatly fear
the decline of the book and tape —
fear for those younger than me,
and all that it could mean.

They will reach my age without having my background;
Context-different and rounded strangely;
so (so I understand): regret?

No more tapes and books: crippling divide, and social divorce.
— Never been bored! Never dogeared a book! —
Ruination, ruin, from the telegraph and gramophone

And yet, but yet, the burn seems strong:
to make stories, to make songs;
There seems to be no lapse in tellers
with words to weave and bend.

The tools will change, the ways dissolve:
but the singers keep on, the writers evolve.

2012 04 17 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

Bruises

I sat down quietly, in a darkened room:
I closed the door; I poked my bruise.
I gasped a little, and a few tears came —
But couldn’t help it, and poked it again.

This time was easier, but still I flinched;
since no one was watching, I had a full wince.
To get a better look, twisting the skin around
I pinched it: it stung; I made no sound.

It’s not the last time; it wasn’t the first;
It’s always interesting to see if it hurts.
I make sure the door’s shut, make sure nobody sees,
When I poke my bruises to see how it feels.

2012 04 14 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

Pearls

I tripped and ripped:
the string around my neck surrendered
and your gift turned into many.

The pearls released, divided and rolled:
collected by crows and kids, picked up,
by random walkers far away,
by joggers and wanderers weeks beyond,
and briefly by a mistaken lizard.

Your gift: split and splintered
and suddenly shared; a distributed delight.

2012 04 13 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

To winter!

Do not regret packing up summer things:
for winter, with jumpers and mittens, oh my,
brings frosted beauty, feathered mist and gemstone cobweb lace;
bring bright eyes all excited, afire with chill;
brings snuggling, woolly hats, brings mulled wine;
symbols of the chill time, the still time,
the come inside and be with us time!

The time of sharper stars and longer nights;
feel the sweep of the season system swinging
the arresting morning frost-air stinging.

Be driven inside; come to us and wait.
The planet sweeps roundward to the cooler state.

2012 04 12 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

Dance of the umbrellas

Rain comes, and with it
a rush of polychromatic polyps!
Bobbing orbs; brollies aloft;
folks perambulate protected.
Bump and bounce off one another
while bumbling down the soggy street.
The grey world crowded out
by bright and portable mushroom rooms:
a plethora of polyester blooms!
Synthetic domes of confined climates,
entitle each to their own dryness.

2012 04 11 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

A Mystery of Character

Fat and slothsome, my uncle’s cat
sprawls among the pillows of the couch
and scowls if you sit down too close;
and pisses on the washing if annoyed.

Asthmatic and grim, my uncle’s dog
wheezes while patrolling circles of the porch;
lap upon lap, ignoring the heat,
exhausted and dazed, it sleeps under cars.

Overgrown, scumsome, my uncle’s pond,
a glazed testament to backyard neglect,
occasionally shimmers, hinting at life,
and resets into silent immobility.

My uncle blends into the armchair he sits on,
a browning and onion-scented old man;
a mystery, then, his immaculate chirp of a wife,
lively and trim, playful and bright.

She sings while scouring pans;
and says "poor puss" while mopping up sick;
my Uncle won’t smile, but relaxes his features
into something as tender and soft as a kiss.

2012 04 06 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

Peckish

Trying to ignore the quiet chaos
that creeps into the distracted mind
she fidgets and rearranges; she reorders;
she shuffles her desk and realigns
in the hope of forcing her thoughts away
from food, from lunch, from pining pain,
neither overweight nor malnourished,
she fears the creeping fate of gain.
She sees her elders and fears the spread;
she sees the youth and fears eclipse;
and so she tries to ignore impatience
and firmly shuts her ravenous lips.
She wastes an hour, she waits for home,
she wonders if it’s always like this,
or if someday she’ll learn the secret;
to relax where there’s food: what bliss.

2012 04 05 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink

Timeless

Twenty years ahead of me, a pianist
dances with an instrument ninety years and holding;
follows black dots that tell a story centuries-old.
An eight-year-old recording trickling through
the four-year-old earphones on
my two-year-old ipod in
my one-hour lunchbreak;
while I walk under trees growing past two hundred years
rustling briefly
with ageless wind.

2012 04 04 bethini poetry Comments (0) Permalink