Warrior Princess

The Warrior Princess

You shouldn’t have done that, I say,

flushed the wee down the toilet.

Sorry, she says. I didn’t know.

It is one in the morning.

I can’t sleep, I say.

No wonder, she replies.

There’s too much light in the room.

But I’m claustrophobic, I say.

But it’s keeping you awake, she says,

drawing the curtains.

Sometimes you have to ride through your fear.

Get to the other side.

What’s your name? I ask.

Zena. I’m your nurse for tonight.

It’s a lovely name, I say. Xena, the warrior princess.

She smiles.

She’s Greek. I’m Filipino. Besides my name

starts with a Z.

Goodnight, John. Remember what I said.

I will. I’ll try.

I sleep for four bountiful hours.

I wake up at 4.38, bounce out of bed,

write three poems, including this one.

To me, she is still Xena, warrior princess.

• pic courtesy of pinterest

Stragglers

Don’t be in a hurry, the buds tell me.

Open when you’re ready.

What does it matter if others blossom

before you?

Remember the gulls

how they fly in loose formation over the sea

at sunset,

how there’d always be some bringing up the rear,

the stragglers.

It’s not a race as our Prime Minister said.

They get there in their own sweet time.

Like my teachers said of me, you may be slow, John,

but you get there in the end,

It’s okay to be a straggler.

I Had Already Written That

I’m on my back doing yoga when I notice how dusty the floor is

and I think about writing a poem to sweep it up before

the cleaner gets here but I’ve already written that ; perhaps then

a poem, a funny one, about ants doing yoga when I realize

I’ve written about that too; Tanya’s poem about

‘sorrow and joy being ‘two strokes of life’s art’ set me thinking

about Joy and Sorrow both having wings, which I’d already covered

in ‘The Green Gazebo’ which my followers have sat in too many times..

Physios, podiatrists, personal trainers. Tick. Tick. Tick.

That’s the trouble with being prolific: you’re left with nowhere to go.

Twenty cat poems, a handful of haiku on gnats, dragonflies and dogs,

one about mirrors I’ll never better. A quiver of poems about Cupid’s arrows,

the mayhem and mischief they cause. Enough parables to fill a book.

Whatever Life throws at me and doesn’t kill me, I can write about.

There must be something new coming down the pike.

You Can’t All Be In It

 
You can’t all be in it, I say.

It’s not like a clown’s car. See how many you can cram in.

It’s a poem.

But they don’t listen.

A simple poem about a change in weather and everybody wants a part:

the tawny frogmouth clacking in the crotch of the peppercorn tree,

the palm fronds all a fluster, the shed door banging like castanets,

the Scrabble tiles flying off the board, all peeved,

the sky itself wearing its overcoat, grey and squally —

it’s rather proud of that;

no, no, no I say,

as I drive off, everyone hanging on for dear life
 

You Looking at Me ?

Those rocks deflect you

from the red-backs

in your mind that crawled off your brush

onto the canvas that morning:

those Ned Kelly heads

staring at me

from the foot of the quarry:

you looking at me, I say.

You looking at me?

I’m the only one here.

Then I come and get you

and those stolid blocks of stone

with eye slits

wallop your imagination.

the ones you’re committing

to canvas so people can stare at them from the walls

of a gallery.

Abducted

Give in.

That’s all you can do.

It’s like being bundled

in the boot

of a car,

taken by an alien

spacecraft.

You’re abducted, baby.

Whisked away

in the arms

of creativity.

Go with it.

Don’t freak out.

Forget appointments,

routines,

even food.

Work, paint, sing.

Whatever’s yr thing.

You’re abducted.

pic courtesy of The New Yorker

Wish I Could Come Up with Something

I wish I could come up with something,

I really do.

I mean how long can it take for inspiration to strike?

Do I have to stand outside in an electrical storm under the tallest Norfolk pine to be struck?

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I know slouching around doesn’t help or reading Beth’s poem on Cheetos and working up an appetite for snack foods won’t do it either.

Maybe if I played with my Rubik’s Cube like Maro does might do it — loosen up a few brain cells.

I’m desperate.

Perhaps if I go outside and wail beneath the full moon like uncle did before they took him away.

God, there must be something.

They still do ECT, don’t they?

That’s what happened to uncle. He saw God, angels, the whole shebang then settled down among the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

But he found something. He wasn’t wracked anymore. He found quiescence. If you got that, you don’t need anything else.

Shit, did I just write all that?

What I Would Really Like to Do Now

“But what I would really like to do now is write children’s book.”

“Like ‘Pollyanna’?” I suggested. “Or ‘Possum Magic?”

“A bit more edgy,” she said, “Like ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, like the poems of Shel Silverstein.”

“I see.”

“What drove you to this.”

“The kids books in doctor’s waiting rooms. I want to throw them in the fish tank. I reckon I could write better than that. I’ve started one already.”

“You have? What’s it about”.

“A lizard. A Gilbert’s Dragon. I’ve called it ‘Gilbert Goes to Hollywood’.I’ve already written the first paragraph. Would you like to hear it?”

“Sure.”

” ‘Gilbert had always wanted to go to Hollywood. Ever since he sat on Julian’s lap and watched ‘Godzilla’ on TV. He wanted to be a star. An animal star. The Tom Cruise of lizards.’ “

• have you ever wanted to write a children’s book?
• Have you started one? how does it begin?
• what’s your favourite children’s book? favourite children’s author?

Seized

You went after that photo like it was prey, she said. You were a fox, a panther, ferocious, determined.

You make it sound heroic.

It was also stupid, she snapped. There was no place to stop. You could have been hit by a car, that blue sedan in the photo, for instance, that beeped you to get off the road,

There was no other way, I said.

You could have let it go.

Never, When you are seized, you have no choice. You go after it like Amy Winehouse goes after the chorus of ‘Valerie’ or Eric Clapton the elation chords of ‘Layla’. There is total surrender to the feeling.The pursuit is everything.

The photo isn’t even that good, she said.

I got what I wanted. The sign. I would have climbed a precipice to get it

Sometimes I don’t understand you, she said.

Come on, I said, grabbing her hand, as we hopped back in the car and continued our journey, that sign disappearing in the rear-view

Life as a Pencil

I have always wanted to work in a pencil factory

like Henry David Thoreau.

I could draw inspiration from my work each day,

pencil in appointments with imaginary friends

during coffee breaks or smokos.

Do they still have smokos by the way?

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ but what about

the pencil?  & which one?

2B or not 2B? Hamlet famously dithered just after

he had asked Ophelia [ in an earlier draft of the play ]

to come and look at his etchings and she had refused.

I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box but I still

want to make my mark upon the world.

 

 

* can you think of other lines for this poem?

* have you ever written an object poem? The opening lines are so important; would you like  to share a few lines — or the whole poem — with us here?

 

• pic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons