DEVELOPMENTS
Love came late, so planning for the baby, meticulously
wanted,
prepared through miscarriage, hope fizzing fireworks-bright
until that moment of perfection in soft-lit room. Nurses
gasping
at precision-little fingers and toes. Filmset-lighting and
crowds,
legs in stirrups for Ventouse-suction (stretched out head).
Brand new baby seat/baby books/breast is best; waving, like
the Queen.
Mother and Toddler group, one Thomas Tank, homes with glass
tables;
Nursery, pre-School; Bedlam adventure ball-pool. Children
fun-filled,
happy, ignoring, interacting, cruising, climbing, falling,
clingy, vocal.
Mums chatting, mums socialising; mums giggling, mums
sharing;
mums relaxing with coffee, cake. Longing for wine and sleep
time.
Running, screeching, crashing, tumbling, giggling, ignoring,
snatching.
Beatific smile, blond hair, blue eyes, Icarus-bold and
bollocking
Normalcy of peer-pleasing and thanking, sitting, passing
(parcel or pen,
Play-doh or paintbrushes). Ready for Nursery; socially
trained, reading,
chatting, quietly waiting instruction. Except for messy
square pegs
in round holes (called seats, tables, classrooms, teachers,
silence).
No God-squad, priests. The parade of Educational
Psychologists…
One day, a full Children’s Hospital to play with; lengthy corridors,
medications that failed, nurses exhausted, Mum comatose,
time-slot
missed. Awaiting tests; last-minute rescheduling of
electrodes worn
inside a swimming cap. Rising, like the Zombie-dead, as
doctor tested.
‘Night-night, David!’
Persuaded to ignore grown-up packed room.
Diagnosis. Prognosis. Further tests. Hope; education;
intelligence.
Settled down to normalcy, learning, reading, mathematical
genius,
Top score spellings, awards. Social Services kicked in,
support, carers.
Family-time precision-planned to avoid entrances/departures;
trashing
beyond a typical family’s wildest nightmares. Until that
day, that year,
away from home (in Special School, residential), teenage
hormones raged.
Self-harm, suicide-attempts, sleep-deprivation,
inappropriate-online places.
Heavy-duty (highly-trained professionals in safeguarding and
self-preservation),
before BTEC beckoned. A clutch of GCSE’s beyond wildest late
dreams.
College, learning to drive, Student of the Term, Student of
the Year,
Triple A distinction (Computer Games Design). University
beckoned.
Five weeks’ independence: pre-Drinks, Nightclubs, new
trainers, SU Card.
After midnight, Mum and Dad wide-eyed deep-breathing.
Downstairs. Burglar?
Two police officers. Named, in full. Location. Son. Why
scream and shout?
Autistic adult. One year later – the Inquest – no-one to
blame. Misunderstood…
PUT ON YOUR DANCING SHOES, HONEY
My sister was born for the Swinging Sixties,
while I remember Sugar,
Sugar, fascinated by the jingle
on TV. But in those heady days, when Yarmouth, maybe,
was ‘Great’; Dad broke down on the Acle Strait, towed
onto the campsite opposite a Funfair. What a holiday!
My sister’s hand-me-downs, in the fabric of my being:
reading Jane Eyre
(definitely more self than sibling);
playing Bachelor Boy
and Dancing Shoes until fandom
(for me) was Cliff Richard and Country & Western…
Not a great start for a poet. She moved on to Rolling Stones
and David Bowie. So when I say she was far too old
(grown-up)
to hand-me-down her boyfriends (the Judo man who was gay,
the one that ran faster than my Dad, the one into cranes),
skies
and seas and flowers breathed me creative (men could wait).
When I say my sister wore miniskirts and killer heels,
holidayed in Blackpool, and wouldn’t be seen dead with
poetry;
you understand, don’t you? I moved on to Bob Dylan and
Leonard
Cohen; James Blunt, Ed Sheeran, the Beatles. Later, much too
late.
My sister delivered a strapping baby boy, that year we
dallied
in the delights of Great Yarmouth (Dad rushing frantic to
buy
a piston for his rumbling Combo). 1965, the year I returned
to school, declaring myself an Auntie. Never considered
hand-me-down boyfriends; my sister told Dad, ‘That’s him.’
Round the last corner; ran faster than my Dad. Last I heard…
Except, I could name most of her future boyfriends; nephews
too. No hand-me-down place though; to lay flowers.
Oh, yes, I remember the Swinging Sixties: my sister was just
sweet sixteen. I’ve loved Yarmouth since the RAC towed us
back
to the campsite; the family in the next tent with five
Alsatians.
Spent up on the Funfair on day one. Two weeks let loose
at the seaside; while Dad trawled for spare parts.
So pleased, my choice in man was no hand-me-down.
Oh, Honey, Honey…
PAGE, PAGE AGAINST THE LYING SCREENS OF NIGHT (Villanelle)
Do rot so gently when it seems quiet right,
bold rage would turn or bravely choose sweet
May;
page, page amongst the lying screens of
night.
Trough miser mates then bend flow larks to
sight,
recoursing birds that raucous sparklings say
do rot so gently when it seems quiet right.
Moody, then, last grave dug, dying shows
sprite
where trail greedy claws prance within dream
play,
page, page amongst the lying screens of
night.
Mild women taught and rang flash eyes brash
bright,
land earned as slate, that greased roofs dry
as clay,
do rot so gently when it seems quiet right.
Brave sent, here breath-grown tree withers
kind light,
mind lies raze mud spiked meteors ray by
ray,
page, page amongst the lying screens of
night.
Sand too, why mawther hares, gone as mad
spite,
worst mess, we vow this poor terse weary
spray:
do rot so gently when it seems quiet right,
page, page amongst the lying screens of
night.
WHO COOKS, WHO PLAYS, WHO CAPSIZES?
If studying Classical Greek taught correct
English,
how can one use gender-neutral pronouns
precisely?
If school cookery taught a mixed grill to
sizzle,
how can a pescatarian diet fail to simmer or
please?
If singing along to Johnny Cash and
Victorian hymns,
how is a mother’s love insufficient or dead?
If home knitting produced toddler motif
jumpers,
how can giving birth silence the
clatter-clack of needles?
If capsize by first sailing instruction
produced near-drowning,
how did a long reach or ready about produce
a husband?
If GCSE’s prove educational and future
success,
how is University Graduation counted in
stars?
If the earth is perfectly beautiful,
nourishing and rich,
how can time run out to redeem the broken?
DEATH OF A LITTLE GIRL BY STAGES
Understanding Mam, like the French Revolution:
incomprehensible and bloody.
Simply, she’s of her time; her location; her era.
Born the eldest of seven: a girl, mouthy,
to a blind man (basket-weaving);
and a woman struggling with three children,
gave up the fourth for family adoption,
then had another three.
At school, big sis told teacher: ‘That’s me Mam.’
Blotted her copy book, that…
On the first night of married life,
she flung the ‘You-know-what's under the bed,
called her Dad every name under Apollo
(family planning was off the agenda)
and so, my sister was a honeymoon babe.
Sworn blindly by Dad (Care Home/aged 90).
At the Decree Nisi (Absolute?)
the Court kept him in a side room,
as the guilty
party made a fast getaway.
Dad swore – he would have bought the man a pint.
Understanding my Mam?
Like Adoration of the Magi (a little girl’s
perspective).
The child died; I grew up.
Wendy Webb
loves nature, wildlife, symmetry and form and the creative spark. Published in
Reach, Sarasvati, Quantum Leap, Crystal, Dreich, Seventh Quarry, The Journal, The
Frogmore Papers, Drawn to the Light; online in Littoral, Lothlorien, Autumn
Voices, Wildfire Words, Atlantean, Poetry Kit; broadcast Poetry Place.
Forthcoming: Amateur Gardening (14/10/23), Leicester Literary Journal. Book:
Love’s Floreloquence; Landscapes (with David Norris-Kay) from Amazon; free
downloads of other poetry from Obooko.
Love's
Floreloquence: Amazon.co.uk: Webb, Wendy Ann, Meek, CT, Meek: 9798850867003:
Books
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