Poetic Therapy!
Nothing wrong with a little feel good poem from time to time…
Back to Me
This my nothing-happy,
my stone-faced bliss,
this is my sweet release
from grinning artifice.
I am floating on zero,
life-sloughed and stuff-free,
I am guileless, I am tribeless,
I am back to me.
For more poems in your life, follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry, or follow me on Twitter @ninaparmenter
You are supposed to mellow as you get older. I have not. I am barely able to watch the breakfast news any more, for fear of whichever condescending windbag politician is to be wheeled out at 7:30 to trot out the party line. For fear of the rage they will provoke!
So! Today, instead of breakfast news, I am posting my little poemy rant. Enjoy!
Bellows
Hand him a twitch to wake the bag,
breathe him a wind and watch him blow!
His leathery skin will show no marks,
the flames need fuel and bellows.
Offer him up to breakfast news,
pipe him a phrase and watch him blow!
his spasming mouth will puff and squeal –
the flames are fuelled by bellows.
Now cycle it out to the populace!
Pump up their passions and watch them blow
and blurt on their garrulous timelines; feed
the flames with fuel and bellows.
And when some commission arrives to prise
his apertures open – watch them blow!
Why, empty has nothing to answer for.
The flames need fools and bellows.
This poem was first published in the May 21 edition of Snakeskin: www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk
For more poems in your life, follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry, or follow me on Twitter @ninaparmenter
Dating dating dating. Ah, the fun, the joy, the humiliation, the hollowness of rejection. I met my husband fourteen years ago so it’s been a while – but I’m sure if you’re single it also feels about fourteen years since you were able to date normally. Rubbish.
So, to remind you of the ups and downs, here’s a poem about the tedious joy of being attracted to someone who’s most definitely not marriage material. Much has been written about falling for the bad boy – but what about falling for the dull boy?
A Short One
You’re not much to look at
My body says hot
Borderline dull
My libido says not
My friends think you’re average
(I checked)
I’m literally aching
I’m wrecked
We kiss in a nightclub
I’m painfully willing
Our fling is like curry
Spicy and filling
My body’s a twist
A sigh
You bore me to tears
Bye bye
If you enjoy poetry, why not follow me on Facebook www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry on or Twitter @ninaparmenter
Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash
A little poem I wrote upon discovering that Our Beloved Leader messes up his hair before speaking to the press. Glad he has his priorities right. I mean, I’ll grant him, it’s been a quiet month.
A Tousled Boy
This is the hair I used to mess
to win round Nanny. “Oh God bless
that tousled boy,” she used to say
It made the bad stuff go away.
When cricket balls met greenhouse glass,
I’d muss my hair in one quick pass –
“There there,” she’d say. Or, caught pants down
with Daddy’s maid, I’d play the clown –
she’d smile and pass the girl a scone!
It’s different now that Nanny’s gone.
Quite baffling. Take Barnier.
I went FULL RUFFLE. Could not sway
the man. Now even Murdoch seems
immune! The stuff of lurid dreams!
The markets fall, the lorries queue,
I tease each foppish strand askew,
the bodies pile, the untruths stack,
Rees-Mogg is smirking at my back,
the germs mutate. Oh, save me, mop!
Please Nanny? Nanny? Make it stop…
Enjoying the rhymes? Why not follow me on Facebook? www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry
Of all the forms of poetry, the bizarre “double dactyl” has produced some of the most wonderfully bonkers poems. And for that, I love it.
Here are a couple of my double dactylic efforts. If you would like a go (and who wouldn’t?) the rather odd rules are provided below. I’ve also added some links so you can read some more examples.
Queen of the Dancefloor
Ooyakah Booyakah!
Dear Queen Elizabeth’s
ninety third birthday
turned into a rave.
She did the running man
extraordinarily,
crafting a move from her
famed royal wave.
It’s been a blast
Agedly sagedly
David F Attenborough
said we were doomed
with a very sad face.
We dragged our knuckles round
uncomprehendingly,
wrapped him in plastic
and launched him to space.
And Here Be The Rules
And there you go. Simple. Right?!?
If you’re loving the double dactyl, by the way (and what’s not to love), Snakeskin Poetry recently did a rather marvellous DD special feature, which you can find here.
And if you’d like to find out more about the origins of the form (ie who on earth thought this was all a good idea and why), take a look here. There are some more examples to enjoy too.
And finally, if you’d like some lovely, or fun, or slightly odd poetry to pop up on your newsfeed now and again, all you have to do is follow me at www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry
Many of the poems I write are on the lighter side, and they are quite obvious in their meaning – deliberately so. But where I write less clear-cut poems, I try to avoid explaining what they mean to me, unless asked. This is partly because I don’t want to be a spoilsport. But it’s also because I know that each reader may take something completely new away from a poem – different to what I intended, yes, but nevertheless equally valid. And that is a glorious thing.
Now, I have carefully explained that rule because… I am now going to break it. This poem featured in this post is an attempt to convey something that I have tried to get across to people in “ordinary” words, but cannot. Poems can be good at throwing a light on things that we don’t have decent everyday language for. It’s one of the things they’re “for”, after all.
So does this poem convey what I wanted? Well, judge for yourself. The explanation is below the poem. And if you don’t want me to be a spoilsport, then stop reading at the end of the poem!
The Exhalations of Stones
We are the exhalations of stones, they said.
We know it because we know.
Tell your children of the cool breath
that fashioned their bones.
We are the sense of senseless things, they said.
We feel it because we feel.
Let the faithful shape the new law
from their imaginings.
You who blow doubt across creation, they said,
should quiet your tawdry lies.
Ours is the rock the air the spirit the peace the world.
Yours the damnation.
This poem was first published at The Hypertexts.
So what’s it about?
As an atheist, I find it difficult to explain to people with religious faith how their beliefs sound to me. It is really hard to explain this without tripping over language that may seem dismissive or insulting, or any of those things I don’t want to be. Even writing this paragraph is fraught with pitfalls!
People’s religious beliefs baffle me, to be honest. And I do get so frustrated by assertions such as “Ah, but you should have faith.” But why? Why should I have faith in this particular out-there suggestion, rather than any other out-there suggestion? What possible reason would I have to “give faith a go”, as has been suggested to me previously, when the thing you suggest I have faith in is so utterly unbelievable to me?
So, I decided to fabricate my own out-there suggestion and present it in the way mainstream religions are presented, to hold a gentle mirror up to faith and say, look. This is how it looks to me, and you saying “We know it because we know” isn’t really helping me out.
That’s a pretty long explanation for a pretty short poem. If you still don’t get it, well, that’s probably down to me. I’ll get my coat.
If you enjoy poetry, you can find poems from me, poems from people who are not me, and other poetry stuff at my Facebook page www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetryWhy not give it a follow?
Image by Frank Winkler from Pixabay
I’m fascinated by the possibilities of the universe, and by space exploration. But it always strikes me as odd that we get so excited about possible places which are “fit for human habitation” on other planets. These “habitable” places are, of course, still fraught with the most horrific challenges.
It was recently suggested, for instance, that humans could live in the massive ancient lava tubes which snake beneath the surface of Mars. Which initially sounds like some kind of permanent funfair lifestyle in a jazzy Martian flume. But what kind of existence would it be really? Dark, airless, hostile – and probably hundreds of other depressing adjectives.
Could we not perhaps try cleaning up our act, limiting our population growth, and staying on lovely, LOVELY Earth? Would that be SO mad??
Living on Mars in a Lava Tube
Living on Mars in a lava tube?
What fun, my dears, what fun!
We’ll surf on the flows, and then maybe – who knows –
we will gather when day is done
to remember the sea and the sun.
Living on Mars in a lava tube –
no actual lava, you say?
Just vacuum and dust in the cold of the crust
and the dark? Still, a great place to stay
as we cower from cancer all day.
Living on Mars in a lava tube –
it’s so smashing to know that we could!
If we poison our sky—never mind! We’ll just fly
to this welcoming new neighbourhood.
Hooray! It’s a plan then. Sounds good.
First published by Light Magazine in its Poems of the Week feature. www.lightpoetrymagazine.com
If you enjoyed this, why not follow my Facebook page? www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry. I post plenty of poetry-related stuff… but not too often.
I Just Don’t Like Walt Whitman Much
I just don’t like Walt Whitman much.
I’ve said it now. Such heresy!
I mean, his stuff’s not bad as such,
but wordy Walt is not for me.
He penned some killer lines but still,
I don’t enjoy Walt Whitman much.
Just say, it Walt, then stop! Don’t fill
three pages up with double Dutch!
Americans! Condemn me! Clutch
your hearts and seize my boorish pen.
She doesn’t like Walt Whitman much?
What kind of poet IS she then?”
My cousins, you may seethe and tut,
but face it. He goes on a touch.
Perhaps I’m way too British but…
I just don’t like Walt Whitman much.
If you enjoy poetry, why not follow me on Facebook?www.facebook.com/itallrhymes
My Gran, Rosalie Riggs (later Rosalie Wither) worked as a nurse on hospital train from 1940 – 1942. The hospital trains transported injured soldiers who had come home from the front to hospitals all over rural Britain. The carriages were converted to hold two layers of beds on each side, with the nurses working in between. Journeys were often long with track bombings, diversions and long waits in sidings to allow armaments trains through.
In 1942, Gran was discharged from the Red Cross on health grounds. In photos from that time, we can see she had lost a considerable amount of weight. Three weeks later she signed up for the Women’s Royal Air Force. She served at a base in North Wales for most of the rest of the war.
She married in 1943. My Grandad’s father had connections with the mill trade and worked for the Ministry of Supply, and managed to source some velvet fabric for her dress. – a real rarity in wartime.
Gran on the train in 1940
Miss Riggs
She was a white-toothed woman
bound to the run of the rails and the times
yet sharp as her hospital corners.
She was a force of defiance
with a cross to smite the viscous dark
that skirted the oily sidings.
Was starch fit for resisting
the muddied blood of khaki men
made shocking pink by shrapnel?
And did her apron’s brightness
bleach darkness from their hungry cheeks
and tiredness from her sockets?
She was a white-toothed woman.
In April, nineteen forty three,
she married in snowy velvet.
By the way, I couldn’t tell you how white my Gran’s teeth actually were. “White-toothed” is not a direct reference to the state of her dentistry. I can tell you however that she was formidable.
A hilariously staged photo of the nurses jollying through an air raid. Gran is on the left. I rather think I can see her contempt for this whole photographic shenanigans in her eyes!
The interior of a typical hospital train
By the way, if you enjoy poetry, why not follow me at www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry?
I don’t really mind that the government are advising us to lose weight, although combining it with incentives to eat out seems not ENTIRELY joined up! Nonetheless, it’s a TERRIFIC opportunity to take the piss, and who am I to refuse.
Get Fit with Boris
Drop your chips and sausage patties,
get in shape for Covid, fatties!
Come on Maureen! Come on Doris!
Let’s get fit with beefy Boris!
OK, let’s start. To get us warm,
we’ll streeetch the truth. Feels good! Now form
a partnership with someone near –
aaand leave. NICE WORK! Next, let’s all veer
towards the right – and right again –
aaand right. Come on now! Feel the pain!
Now sink real low to please the press,
reach out and… take donations! Yes!
You’re doing great! Last thing – let’s weave –
AVOID those questions! Nice work, Steve,
and good job, Raj! Now, who’s with me?
It’s two for one at KFC.
Follow me on Facebook for rhymes and poetry gubbins! Who could resist?! www.facebook.com/parmenterpoetry
Image: Pixabay