Tag Archives: Love

The Perils of Making a Baby

In honour of yesterday’s UK Mothering Sunday, here’s a poem from my published collection, Hormoanal, describing pregnancy.

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What We Do

For Paul

***

Writers write and painters paint but artists don’t art
and musicians don’t mu.
Bikers bike and drivers drive, blimps go limp
but coupes don’t coup.
Coiffeurs coif, hairdressers dress hair,
but nail techs don’t nail techs (or perhaps they do).
Fighters fight, professors profess
but hatters don’t hat and surgeons don’t surge.
If you want a rest, don’t be a restaurateur.
Deference now will be deferred
for dukes might du and earls might er
but kisses and caresses will never ki-care
and lords don’t lord over anyone
the way I lord it over you.
Poets don’t po but they sometimes pout;
love is hard so now and then I want out
but love being love will overcome
and I’d like to…overcome you.
Darling, please, don’t misread my fuss:
this is not adieu, not toodle-oo, for the truth
is there, like shoppers shop and customers cuss,
like flies fly, like beetles beet, like bees just be,
that you
and me
equals us.

***

I am not a romantic so it won’t surprise you to learn that I forgot that yesterday was Valentine’s Day; this despite the fact that I was booked to do a poetry reading of love poems.

I’d put my memory failure down to my age except that I have form: I have forgotten the occasional anniversary and once, his birthday – having thrown him a party the previous weekend, I can hardly be blamed now, can I? It’s not like a 21st birthday is a big deal…

Happy belated Valentine’s Day, darling. I’m posting this poem as a sop to my romantic readers, as we’ve never celebrated it anyway: love should be shown every day, not just once a year.*

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*Where’s my gift?

And the other 44 I should have received, if you’re showing your love every day?

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Fun Poetry Fact #4

The poet George MacDonald wrote a poem with just two words:

The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs

Come. Home.

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As far as I can recall, I don’t have a poem made up of two words; but I do have a three-word poem, a one-word poem, and a poem with no words at all.

Here’s how we do it: we cheat. We use the title to do half the work. Consider MacDonald’s title:

  • He warns us to expect a short poem.
  • The words ‘Sweetest’ and ‘Songs’ soften our view of what comes next.
  • ‘Come. Home’ just screams love and yearning because of the title.
    The poem could work with alternative titles, but would it be as good?

Mother Screaming On Her Doorstep For Her Kids

Come. Home.

Every Football Team to the FA Cup

Come. Home.

Reluctant Split

Come. Home.

*

You get the general idea.

To answer my own question: no, the poem wouldn’t be as good with an alternative title. MacDonald’s skill is in being somewhat vague, because he leaves the reader to fill in the gaps. As all good poetry should,

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Our Christmas Candle

Our Christmas Candle lives in a clay candle pot,
a primary school gift from child to parent.
It has illuminated our Christmas Table for twenty years;
seventeen of them with the original candle.
It is extinguished the moment that last fork jangles
the last plate, that last napkin wipes the last mouth,
on My Orders: candles and crackers do not mix.
The candle must be dead before the prospective
kindling – mini-explosions and paper hats
and fluttering mottos and feeble jokes – flies
like sparklers across the half-empty dishes.

Our Christmas Candle is the first item I remove
from the cluttered Christmas Table: blown out;
dipped in a waiting bowl of water; pressed wick tested
for smoulders; and finally left on a specially cleared
kitchen counter, no tempting tinder in its space,
a miniscule nuclear wasteland of barrenness.
I make periodic checks for spontaneous combustion:
none so far.

The matches which lit our Christmas Candle –
the matches I cannot untremblingly wield to strike
the box to light the Candle to decorate the Dinner Table,
and which are yielded to my husband to activate,
glad to do it, for he is otherwise left redundant
by my Christmas Day Marshal alter ego –
those matches drown for an hour in the kitchen sink
before their green disposal, thus avoiding the probable
Igniting of the Bin which happens in lesser households
with laxer Match & Candle Rules.

Why do I even bother, then?

I bother because my child made that Santa Candlestick;
and I love my child more than I fear fire.
Love is the inextinguishable flame.

***

I’m taking a break over Christmas but I’ll be back in the New Year. Thank you for your visits, your comments, and your likes in 2021. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to return nearly as many visits as I’d have liked to, but it’s been a very busy year for me with one thing and another.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate; and see you soon to those who don’t.

Love, Linda x

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