‘A Mad, Unreasoning Octopus – what Proust felt about Asthma’

Tags

Alpine spa, asthma, Belladonna, death rattle, Guermantes, lime tea, Meseglise, pharmacology, Proust, revivescences, sanatorium, souffle coup, vagitus

Proust Image: Wikimedia

Yes, everything was inflammatory.

My father blamed my sensibility;

said my symptoms were imaginary.

My mother sighed at my debility,

but did not want to show complicity.

Works as hard as his affliction allows –

my teacher flagged my disability.

Meseglise might tempt with its rural airs;

lilac pollen permeate Illiers;

Guermantes might involve inhaling dust,

or powdered fumigation for its lust.

Caffeine and a mist of belladonna

might immunise from the attractive whores,

coquettes and those almond-eyed madonnas

one pursued, with breathless dedication.

Revivescences were what physicians

ordered: affective disorder cure!

Poisoning my mother’s joy

required expiation and purification.

I recalled aunt’s invalid infusion:

its scent of lime blossom, wafting to me,

unlocking sense of selfhood, combined with

distinctive whiff of pharmacology.

My anxiety about maternal

separation was supposed to have led

to an unconscious conflict of desires –

steamed from me at sanatoriums;

sucked from me at those pristine Alpine spas.

Writing as therapy?  Sublimation

through describing Albertine’s departure?

I found it a dreaded master, but a

faithful servant.  There’s no insulation from

a germ-laden world in cork-lined chambers.

I tried to avoid contamination.

Wheezing asthma is like being chained

to a mad, unreasoning octopus.

Its souffle coup punctuated my prose.

Each virgule was an expectoration.

I wrote eight hundred words in one sentence,

though I disliked the declamatory.

Nothing was going to constrict my flow –

each clause a vesicle to be expelled.

I’d emerge like a pale pupa at night,

morphing into my imaginal state

and the tabacs sold me Cigares de Joy,

my stramonium fix for each attack.

One hopes to have been an inspiration,

even for a thirty five second play,

based on the brief interval we call Life,

between vagitus and the death rattle.

St Cuthbert

Tags

anachoresis, lammermuir, Lindisfarne, marginalia, oratory, quennet, solitude, St Cuthbert

Image from Creative Commons- 12th century ms.

Lammermuir shepherd   Aidan’s translation   earthly resignation

plague visitation

lapsed pagans   Whitby Synod   spiritual reputation

Pictish voyage

eyewitness miracles   contemplative anachoresis   preferred solitude

Lindisfarne assignation

Easter marginalia

nocturnal devotions

inner demons

remote oratory

strict denial

divine worship

incorrupt corpse

contemplative shepherd   earthly solitude   Lindisfarne miracles

spiritual voyage

 

 

World Domination

Tags

antiviral, Chi Rho, global network, honey fungus, mushroom cloud, mycelium mass, petrichor, serial killers, shiro, Sylvia Plath, world domination

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

‘Honey fungus’ sounds

so sweet;  you could eat

us with spaghetti,

but we are bitter.

 

Oh, Sylvia Plath

had a point, you know.

Mushrooms already

inherit the Earth.

 

From a single spore,

we grow filaments.

Serial killers,

we’re parasitic.

 

Empires were falling

when we wove our mat.

We will persevere

till Apocalypse.

 

You had the Chi Rho –

its relevance gone?

We are the shiro:

our truth marches on.

 

What is the shiro?

Mycelium mass.

In a fairy ring,

we’re Nature’s badass.

 

Show humility,

you human beings!

Prostrate yourselves and

smell the petrichor.

 

Beneath the surface

lie all our pathways

and our excreta

neutralises waste.

 

Fruiting above ground,

we’re antiviral;

eat bacteria;

decontaminate.

 

Your vast mushroom clouds

by name insult us.

We can be saviours –

re-cycle murder.

 

Communication,

co-ordination,

a common purpose,

a global network.

 

No mission statement

is necessary

to sum up our goal:

world domination.

Great Coxwell, Oxfordshire

Tags

Cistercian, Cotswolds, Great Coxwell, Joseph, monastic wealth, National Trust, Oxfordshire, Pre-Raphaelites, tithe barn, Vale of the White Horse, William Morris

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart. Poem published in October 2017 on this site.

Great Coxwell’s Barn

Off Hollow Way stands this vast, vacant barn:

huge receptacle for Cistercian tithes,

garnered from tenant farmers – a dry store,

where the granger checked accounts; did not trust

his hired servants.  Here Cotswold riches

were protected from thieves and from decay.

Christ had warned disciples about decay

and storing up of surplus in a barn.

Christians were always meant to share riches

and not to extract profit from fat tithes.

The parable’s ‘fool’ was he whose whole trust

was in possessions.  He had wrath in store.

Henry VIII would plunder a marked store

and most abbeys were subject to decay.

Monastic wealth was held in deep distrust.

Though Morris praised this cathedral-like barn,

Pre-Raphaelites would not restore tithes;

they venerated aesthetic riches.

We coveted colonial riches

and viewed the whole world as potential store,

compelling other countries to pay tithes;

forgetting moth and rust would cause decay.

What were the treasures we stored in our barn?

We’ll reap what we sowed: we abused faith, trust.

Joseph, in whom Pharoah had put his trust,

managed underground silos of riches

and, when his brothers came – not to a barn-

but to the pits where corn was kept in store,

did they recall they’d left him to decay

in such a space?  (He who asked no tithes.)

This massive hulk, once packed with peasant tithes,

now supported by The National Trust,

mouldered with neglect; died of decay,

until ‘heritage’ was seen as riches.

What are the values we would like to store?

Should we maintain the past?  Convert the barn?

Some build barns with their family riches,

but tithes benefited community,

as long as mutual trust did not decay.

Teach Me To Number My Days

Tags

insight, Isolation, meditation, pandemic, questioning, self-analysis

Image: Abacus HB Wikipedia

Weirdly I wrote this in 2019, before the pandemic. It seems appropriate now…

TEACH

Life has many lessons: what have I learned?

Maybe I should not have stayed in teaching.

Who was doing the teaching anyway?

And can one really teach old dogs new tricks?

 

ME

Too much of my life has been about me.

You might be a much better focus now.

Yesterday’s me is different from today’s.

You are a different companion too.

 

TO NUMBER

 

I decided to try and work it out.

Crusoe should have had a calculator!

They say that age is only a number.

Twenty four thousand days I have wasted.

 

MY DAYS

 

I seek forgiveness for those I have spent

in self-serving; not in others’ service.

Often I did not stand up; be counted,

but I reach out to you through poetry.

 

TEACH ME TO NUMBER MY DAYS

 

Numbering can be about gratitude –

that we are here, albeit so briefly.

Rossetti enumerated her love.

Noah counted pairs solicitously.

 

 

We count the minutes on The Doomsday Clock:

to reach midnight, we only count to two.

Teach me to number all the days I’ve left,

thus I will eke out all my time with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miscarriage of Justice

Tags

abortion, Assumption, El Salvador, Las 17, Mata Ninos, miscarriage, stillbirth

In El Salvador there’s an assumption,

in many cases, that a miscarriage

is the consequence of an abortion.

Girls who have been raped can lose their freedom.

A premature, or unviable birth

can result in a forty year sentence.

 

How can a country of that name sentence

women when it reveres The Assumption

of a virgin?  Supernatural birth

protected Mary from a miscarriage

when she experienced threats to her freedom.

State infanticide – worse than abortion?

 

Las 17, accused of abortion,

were subjected to a lengthy sentence

in a land whose motto includes ‘Freedom’.

Children, trafficked, may face an assumption

which can lead to Justice’s miscarriage –

Mata ninos -? Rather, victims from their birth.

 

After civil war there should be re-birth,

with an enlightened view of abortion

and understanding that a miscarriage

is, for women, a kind of life sentence.

Why should any state make an assumption

that stillbirths express a woman’s freedom?

 

Accused of homicide; denied freedom

because of complications with a birth!

To disregard is to make assumption;

logical process suffers abortion.

The powerful deliver the sentence.

 

There’s no calculation in miscarriage.

It’s spontaneous; there is no freedom

expressed.  The women uttered no sentence:

I now intend to sabotage this birth.

Or, Drinking this will promote abortion.

Blanket blame’s an ignorant assumption.

 

Denying freedom and pronouncing sentence

on those who suffer miscarriage, stillbirth

is, in itself, a monstrous abortion

and an assumption of omniscience.

 

 

The Loneliest Man in the World (Sestina)

Tags

agribusinesses, Amazon, habitat loss, human diversity, illegal loggers, North Rondonia, pistoleros, sarampion, The Man of the Hole, yams

The harbingers of the highway, strange men –

pistoleros? – murdered his tribe.  Alone,

he raises maize and yams.  He is the last

to roam 4,000 hectares; to survive

sarampion, flu, smallpox and the loss

of relationships, family and friends.

 

The agribusinesses have been no friends

to Amazonian rainforests.  Men

decimate the land; their gain is loss.

This man has lived for twenty years alone.

With four, or five, some other tribes survive,

but human diversity will not last.

 

When the illegal loggers have, at last,

razed every tree to the forest floor, friends

of the indigenous will not survive.

Stripping rare plants that might have healed men

will leave us with dilemmas, all alone,

to face health crises; scientific loss.

 

In today’s world we experience loss –

loss of our souls; our languages.  The last

man to roam North Rondonia alone

at least felt what it was once to have friends.

He knew the co-operation of men

was vital for tribe members to survive.

 

Without his wisdom, how can we survive?

No man is an island.  All sense the loss.

Our planet is affected – even men

who murdered his kin.  The effects will last,

impacting their families and their friends.

Doubtless their guilt should not be borne alone.

 

Corporations do not erode alone.

Immunity itself will not survive.

Time’s arrow can pierce foes and even friends.

The Man of the Hole, who suffered great loss,

knows his breath will be surrendered at last,

but he holds that in common with all men.

 

Friends of our earth, how shall we survive loss

of habitats and species?  Fellow men,

look at this last man.  He’s not alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Elephant Apple

Tags

Dillenia indica, elephant apple, Elephas Maximus, Gardeners of Asia, Hamlet, Here I stand, pachyderms

Dillenia indica- the elephant apple tree.  Image Wikimedia

Hamlet said a king could pass through the guts

of a beggar.  Well, I was not prudish.

I was dependent on the pachyderms.

My genes went on elephantine journeys.

They were spread far and wide by these creatures.

They did their business – pat!- while I would pray.

Firstly, of course, they had to eat my fruit.

(Don’t ask me why Elephas Maximus

assisted me and was so efficient too.)

We had a symbiotic arrangement:

if you scratch my back, then I will scratch yours.

Only, I haven’t seen them for five years.

I am hoping that they will not forget.

Their cognitive map used to bring them back;

if it’s true they have all been poached, I’m stuffed.

They would recall when my seeds would ripen.

Humans don’t need them in the way I do,

but, as heavy horticulturalists,

these so-called Gardeners of Asia,

would lumber in a positive fashion:

not pulling down forests permanently,

but merely clearing a space for others.

Now we have Empty Forest Syndrome.

I have to drop my seeds around my base.

Sure, monkeys, rodents, bats and birds oblige,

but my sphere of influence is curtailed.

Here I stand: Dillenia indica,

last of my kind.  I can do no other.

Humankind’s nine billion seeds may not last,

for men don’t follow the ancestral paths;

they don’t see the elephant in the room,

but argue about constituent parts.

As in the fable, they are visionless.

I am the last Elephant Apple tree.

I can teach you about good and evil.

The Grasshopper Speaks

Tags

Alpilles, grasshopper, immortality, Impressionism, memento more, Olive trees, plein air painting, Provence, Van Gogh

Van Gogh’s Olive Trees with the Alpilles in the Background, MOMA. Wikimedia

One leap!  I achieved immortality.

Those flickering olives absorbed his eye.

I chose my sticky end mortality.

He was focussed on that Provencale sky.

The Dutch would use my forebears as a trope:

insect as memento mori (foreground)

but into his painting I interlope,

en plein air, in one bold cicadic bound.

Over-looked for more than a hundred years

by many an art critic, with eye glass,

in the same way as Vincent’s own ideas

were unacknowledged by that dealer class,

now we have received our recognition.

In his painting, I made my impression.

Venus Flower Basket

Tags

bioluminescence, Euplectella, Liberty lighting, oceanography, symbiosis, Venus Flower Basket

NOAA Photo Library

Image: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration Reservoir and Research 2015

Yes, there are three of us in this marriage:

the shrimp couple and me – Euplectella.

It’s a symbiotic relationship.

They live in, rent-free, and vacuum for me

(food and utilities are included)

and have access to my crystal palace –

a conceptual, aquatic Grand Designs –

styled innovative build; a Habitat

lampshade, rather than Liberty lighting.

Shrimps grow into their own imprisonment,

enmeshed and limited by their own greed.

As a species, they are basket cases,

but accept that life is a compromise

and, at best, brittle and precarious.

The kids always leave as soon as they can,

but end up in the same situation;

hard-wired to repeat parental choices.

As bioluminescent chandelier,

I light up their narrow lives and they look

out through trabecular net curtains at

a profound darkness, filled with predators,

who, like voyeurs, spy on their every move.

Some find beauty in us when we are dead:

museum cabinets’ dust collectors.

Like Venus, we are not so delicate:

we strengthen co-operation until

all the oceans run dry; seas turn to glass.

Trust us.  We are the transmitters of light.