365 days of missing you - in tiny pinpricks and deep gasps, ways big and small, hard and soft, fast forward and slow motion.
The passing prickle of your bark-laugh, or something like it, from across a room. The press of your presence, the invisible weight of your hand in mine, things you would have said - so loud in my ear, I jump.
Wisps of space you should have taken, or thunderous chasms – all the gaps you would have filled (probably with ugly lumps of plastic and bracing flair) now black holes, leaching out the technicolour you loved.
And sometimes life is stilted, like those first films, jerky and grainy, white scratches and black grit - silent below the white-noise whirr of the projector.
I wonder what you would say about their fate, these machines that were your life’s work, as we try to rehome them? But I can hear it. Your half-joke pine-whine, mock offence – arms crossed and eyebrows raised.
The first film we watched, I was sick. The blue carpet scratched my knees and I worried about my jungle nightie. And then I was scooped on your lap, clean and warm and thrilled to be up late, your moustache tickling my head, rough fingers stroking my palm - tobacco and oil and rusted tin - the roar of battle in my ears as the prince fought the dragon, the dark in my lungs.
When the sword turns black, I am afraid – but I am also safe. Because before I knew sentences, or myself, I knew you were there – and I knew it every day after
but these last ones.
I am afraid again.
Will there be 365 ways to miss you, next year? Will they hurt when I need them to? Will the sound fade and pictures blur to grey as life grinds on scene by scene and drags me with it - celluloid frames improperly stored?
The thorns recede and the princess wakes up, inexorably over and over, colour flooding her cheeks - a thousand times or more through the years, despite your protests.
At the end, the tape flaps wildly, spinning free like me, now, Reeling.
Am I real?
Is the first thought
that fights its way
through unfurling consciousness
and I press for five more minutes
to consider the question -
and gather my pieces
until I am rendered solid enough
to be -
or at least pretend -
humanity.
And as I struggle together
into an approximation
of the right sort of shape -
torso/arms/legs/head -
the dreams scrabble for purchase
on the smoothed, soothed shell
falling away in slow motion -
before they can tell me
what they were trying to say.
And I know deep inside
I have lost something
key
to humanity,
a secret - missing in action
or inaction.
And the day feels
an uncomfortable play -
where I don’t know the lines
and they are broken
all wrong.
So I fake it,
frozen under blue lights
awkwardly twirling
on taught strings
until I can exit stage left -
back into gruelling darkness
spent
from the attempt,
at humanity.
And when that is judged now
by how many fire hydrants
I can see -
in a grid -
and not by my capacity
to love/think/create -
withered away under the cage -
I know I have failed myself
playing someone else’s tune
loudly over my own,
and that I am the slice
in the square that may count -
but may not - and I can’t
plot
my humanity
like this.
Gosh. Well. We’ve lived through a lot of history in recent years, haven’t we?
Like so many others, I was shocked and saddened by the death of the Queen. I will say though, that I have also been a bit amused by some of the the responses from corporations and the authorities…
We may have tipped over an edge where some things have happened more out of cynicism and lemming-ism than out of respect – and some of those things have been a bit mad!
Apart from queuing, there is nothing more British than enjoying the absurd, and I think her Maj might have been a bit tickled, too.
So if you’ve been bemused by the reaction of your favourite pizzeria/fashion brand/bank, or your local barber/garage/council/, this re-write of WH Auden’s famous poem is for you.
xxx
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Prevent all normal commerce, and surgeries postpone;
Silence all the check-out beeps, cancel holidays
Shut the food banks down, and halt the carriageways
Shroud charity-shop mannequins - because ‘out of respect’
Line dark cars on the forecourt, shut schools in circumspect
Cease the sale of condoms, end sports of any sort
Play sombre songs in taxis, and conferences abort
Build shrines of rotting sarnies, tons of flowers and soft toys
Let TV broadcast nothing else, make this the only noise
Clad public figures all in black, and grief-wash social sites
Interview the Z-list for their Queen and King soundbites
MPs! Pause all petitions, end discussion and protest
Affirm she was your North, South, East, and especially your West;
Distract people from their real woes, stifle mild dissent
Confuse with spectacle and ceremony, and national sentiment
Let brands of fashion and fast-food flaunt their heartfelt grief
Project her face on buildings, and change all web motifs
Pour away corporate plans, let them do nothing that they would
Have them prove loyalty, humanity, and signal that they’re good
Now vilify indifference, understatement, quiet lament -
For a Grandma passing, and for history suddenly spent;
Never wonder if all the tributes are a bit un-warrented
Remember, lest we all forget, it’s ‘what she would have wanted.’
In the year of 2020,
there came a secondary plague,
A word that entered lexicon
and made us all afraid -
It was on the lips of politicians,
commentators and news readers
Influencers, Auntie Sue -
and other minor global leaders.
You know it, Oh of course you do!
It’s in your mind cemented
A word you hardly said before -
the word UNPRECEDENTED!
When a bat-shyt crazy virus,
swept round the world in weeks
It was UNPRECEDENTED,
said entomologic geeks.
When millions died and life collapsed
and we all stayed at home,
When loo roll was our currency
as we apocolypsed alone
When vaccines rolled out super-fast
and we were all injected
When we clapped an NHS
we now suddenly respected -
“We’ve never seen this, blow me down”
is the way it was presented
The conclusion (and the get-out-clause)
“This is UNPRECEDENTED!”
As time went on the word became
a new part of our lives
As things ‘UNPRECEDENTED’
snowballed before our eyes…
When floods and fires were at their worst
since records had begun
When women’s rights unravelled
as they’d only just been won
When rules were made about our wombs
and rich men went to space,
When violence and extreme right views
were gathering apace
When the climate threw a wobbly,
that we could not ignore
When war broke out and holocaust
came closer than before
When a coup was perpetrated -
by an actual President -
They looked around for ages,
but could find NO PRECEDENT!
When an artful haystack Twonk was caught
red-handed in his lies
When his resignation triggered
a new Lord of the Flies,
When trains did strike, and petrol price
was now an arm and leg -
When drugs and lettuce were now scarce
in our new-made Brexit bed
When cost of living soared up high,
to a point of heat or eat
(A dilemma the poor were told
they should budget well to beat)
You guessed it - there it is again -
though you might start to resent it -
The whole thing is reported as
EVENTS UNPRECEDENTED!
With so much going wrong right now,
from here to Timbuktu
It might seem like vocabulary
is not the fight to choose…
But it’s time to take a stand somewhere,
and look for real solutions
Escape the tyranny of language
in a lingui-revolution!
So let us unite and rail against
this icksome, irksome word -
So under-sensed and over-used
it’s really quite absurd.
Like Inigo Montoya in revenge
we must be heard and seen:
We do not think that word you use
means what you think it means…
Leaders! MPs! Journalists!
And warriors of keyboard!
It’s time to drop the epithet
of which we’re bored and re-bored -
The bloody thing is meaningless
and driving us demented
Give it a rest we’re not impressed
Don’t say ___________ !
Stop hiding safe behind it,
like it’s some sort of defence
We demand that you begin to set
a brand new PRECEDENCE -
One where you take real action,
and responsibility -
And meet our global challenges
with some basic empathy.
The world is changing fast, it’s true -
at a speed that’s unrelenting -
But we can’t respond in ways that work
if we’re still UNPRECEDENTING.
What would I do, if that were you,
learning about death, in a classroom?
If I had to hope and pray and wait and see if our wonted goodbye, at the gate, was our
last.
What would I do, if that were you
emptied like the shells scattered under tiny chairs -
passed -
alone and scared, wanting me, wondering why I’m not there to take away your pain.
What would I do, if that were you,
running from men, with evil intent?
If I had to keep you quiet, pleading, needing, lying that it's a game, that I can keep you -
safe.
What would I do, if that were you,
listening in the dark for footsteps, waiting for violence,
your face -
staring back in final bloody silence, holding my gaze in betrayal.
What would I do, if that were you -
trapped in a tower, devoured by fire?
If my choices were to pick your death - to choke on smoke or drop - and hope you land,
whole.
What would I do, if that were you,
and I had to let go of your hand?
Your soul -
leaving mine with a lurch, searching wildly for your anchor.
What would I do, if that were you,
with drips and drains stuck in your veins?
If I had to watch your body dim you, eat you alive, while I had to survive?
Continue.
What would I do, if that were you,
and I could never,
bring you,
back? Your lack a black hole in my heart consuming everything that ever was.
What would I do, if that were you,
in the coach, on the ride, caught by the tide?
If I lost you to your life, on a trip, and you slip from my grasp and you’re -
gone.
What would I do, if that were you,
if it were me getting the call, screaming
they're wrong?
Not you. Because I would have felt you leave me, heard your farewell.
What would I do, if that were you,
in a place ripped by war, gore, and more your eyes shouldn't see?
If I had to pick between a bomb,
or boat.
What would I do, if that were you,
at the mercy of waves and greed and cold and fate -
afloat
face down and drifting out of reach, to an indifferent beach where I will never find you.
What would I do, if that were me,
living between breaths, at the top of my lungs
scared to breath deep, to sleep, to wake, to make a mistake, to choose, to lose you -
living in the freezing seizing no-man’s-land of ‘what if’
a looping gif I can't escape, that shapes my days and nights -
and yours.
The open jaws of doom loom over me and block your light -
and in the dark I walk a tight-rope of sinew from my heart,
stretching round my neck like a noose.
Terror runs loose, ruling supreme - its soundtrack,
a scream in waiting.
What would I do, if that were me,
and I could not see
an end,
to every, gritty, grating end ringing true, behind my eyes?
What would I do?
I am grilling fish fingers,
as the world burns,
from a screen
I can to choose to turn off -
but don’t -
because it carries on behind my eyes
until not seeing
burns too.
I am folding washing,
as bombs fall,
far away too close,
and putting it in drawers,
gently shut,
with rage and fear banked
in my fingers,
itching my teeth.
I am hoovering,
enjoying the blank roar,
the sucking thunder
that elsewhere I know,
is the sound of grief -
making sure
to reach into all the corners.
I am working,
as apocalypse creeps,
and I email -
What’s the deadline on this, please?
Typing,
through the slow unreality
of too golden treacle.
I am playing with my children,
as others die,
drinking invisible tea with white knuckles -
careful not to spill,
carrying on, pretending
and pretending -
and pretending,
in layers.
I am boiling pasta,
and explaining war,
in fusilli words
which taste wrong -
spirals of privileged lies,
promising safety
I don’t believe -
but at least I can get away with.
I am stacking the dishwasher
holding mundanity
like precious china,
suddenly unfamiliar -
abruptly beautiful,
alien
and talisman,
slipping from my hands
as I try to keep it safe.
I am going through motions,
that keep the world turning,
in impotent, banal cycles -
in case stopping anything
stops everything -
wearing normal
in desperate momentum,
an old tattered jumper
with new holes.
I am chopping onions,
embracing the pain
of inadequate tears -
shed
for humble human detail,
imbalanced human cost -
for the ordinary continuing,
and ordinary lost.
The government may have for all intents and purposes declared the pandemic over, but the anxiety it’s left behind is still very high, at least for me.
I feel like I have been scared, and fighting fires inside and out for a really, really long time now. And it’s not just about Covid-19 – it’s about the world, and the day-to-day, and everything in between. It’s all still rolling along and the big fears and the little fears are getting all mixed up and pounding round and round on a loop.
They remind me of a train – the rhythm my anxiety finds for itself.
I know very well that I am prone to catastrophising. But stopping the thoughts when they start is so much harder than it looks… One thing that helps me when I’m like this are the very wise words of a very wise woman, that have now become this poem.
If this is you, I hope you can get off at the next stop, too.
WHAT IF EVERYTHING’S FINE
What if I’m dying?
What if they are?
What if I left the front door ajar?
What if I’m trying -
but continue to fail?
What if I never can open that mail?
What if the planet
withers away?
What if that wasn’t the right thing to say?
What if it’s taken?
What if I lose?
What if it’s my fault because I chose to choose?
What if it’s true?
What if it’s false?
What if I go in and find there’s no pulse?
What if it’s bad?
What if there’s danger?
At the hands of a friend, or foe or a stranger?
What if it floods?
What if it burns?
What if it’s random and falls on my turn?
What if I’m useless?
What if someone finds out?
What if there’s conflict and somebody shouts -
What if they don’t
believe what I say?
What if my truth unravels and frays?
What if I’m wrong?
What if I’m right?
What if I can’t run, or put up a fight?
What if what’s new
isn’t what’s safe -
What if I can’t keep things in their place?
What if the worst
happens today?
What if I’m not there to stand in its way?
What if I’m cursed
to watch the disaster?
What if there IS no joy ever after?
What if I crumble -
if I’m not enough?
What if I can’t do the going gets tough?
What if I tumble
over my edge?
What if I’m stuck there, never to fledge -
what if I never
learn how to fly?
What if I can’t see any blue in the sky?
What if it’s real -
what if it’s not?
What if ‘What if’ is all that I’ve got?
What if I let,
the anxiety slip?
Will the world catch me up and cause me to trip?
What if I’m too scared
not to bargain with fate,
so that if I wind tight the awful will wait?
What if I dare
to think it’s okay?
And that triggers the dark to take more away?
What if I hit?
What if I miss?
What if that last kiss was THE last kiss?
What if there’s pain
and I’m not there with them -
what if they go and their void is my prison?
What if -
What if -
What if.
But what if ‘What if’
is turned on its head?
More a beacon of hope than an omen of dread?
What if… possibility
is gently unfurled?
What if there’s beauty to be sought in the world?
What if the universe
doesn't come to an end?
What if I don’t break, what if I bend?
What if there isn’t
a deal to strike?
What if that isn’t the way I live life?
What if I let go -
and stop holding so tight?
What if control DOESN’T make things alright?
What if life smiles?
What if I win?
What if there isn’t blame to be pinned?
What if they’re okay -
what if they thrive?
What if they grow to live good happy lives?
What if it’s mild?
Or even benign?
What if the worst doesn’t happen this time?
What if there’s success?
What if there’s kind?
What if there isn’t a trap I must mind?
What if I’m blessed?
What if there’s peace?
What if I’m not going to fall to my knees?
What if I skirt
the black cloud of doom -
what will I find if I just make the room?
What if I cross
the other side of this line -
what if ‘What if’ is ‘What if everything’s fine’?
What if that’s what
I learn to pass on,
And that’s the ‘What if’ that becomes my heart song?
What if it’s painless?
What if it’s fun?
What if the rolling ‘what ifs’ are… just done?
What if this train
slows down on the tracks?
What if I learn to sit back and relax?
What if ‘What if’
comes to a stop?
What if I take this chance to get off -
this time -
What.
If.
Everything’s -
Fine.
There is a magical stage of literacy, unique to the 21st Century, that takes place in the mysterious place just before the full formation of the written word, where small children can form coherent sentences and complex ideas, and – most importantly – can use the voice record function on a technological device.
The Smallest Small is at this stage right now, possibly not for a great deal longer, as her education is thankfully soon to be safely back in the hands of the professionals.
I still dread the weekends when my kids go away, and I still miss them terribly. But every now and again I receive one of these recorded-to-text philosophical missives that make it seem almost – ALMOST – worth it.
Followers of this page will note that I dabble in the odd bit of poetry. I am not afraid to say that I am completely outclassed by the post-modern, stream-of-consciousness musings of the Small Small – pictured here in a slowly deflating paddling pool, presumably contemplating it as a metaphor for life, and composing her next masterpiece of deep thought and emotion.
So here, for your edification, is her only very slightly edited contribution to the literary world (I’ve added line breaks, punctuation and title, and removed the complaints her sister is a meanie).
It covers the pain of love; the meaning of existence; the nature of obsession; death and reincarnation; identity; the human condition – and for some reason my behaviour. (In my defence I am actually very nice to people most of the time – honest).
Please imagine her dressed all in black on a small stage, possibly in a turtleneck, doing a full-on spoken word performance. It makes it even better.
The Estranged Greeting
(mostly) by the Small Small (and possibly Siri)
Age 5
Yay Mummmy,
I love you so much for different days.
Do you like it when I’m away?
Do you remember, that day,
when I got killed?
And it was so frightened -
I didn’t want to leave you,
always.
I get mixed up,
because it’s all -
I just like everything.
It’s just really fun being like this,
so I am.
I love you so much -
you’ve been a great Mummy,
I hope I have more of you next time.
I just love you too much - I can’t stop thinking about you
so I decided to do it.
And I’m to go to you tomorrow -
but is it safer to you to move?
I’m just doing a normal hello hello.
That’s what I need.
Hello, it’s my turn to say hello to you!
I hope you have a good time.
You still got the virus?
Hope you’re being really nice to people.
I wish you so much - love you so much -
I just never want anybody.
It’s not me making you, and me loving you -
it’s not because you’re NOT
it’s just because I love you.
And that’s how people -
people people people -
people are just people
I just like being me -
and you might like being you -
and it all just depends if you are you.
I just love you so much Mummy
I wanna kiss I love you,
I love you, that’s what I do.
Wanna hear this,
but don’t wanna hear anything.
I love you Mummy,
and I can just see you and your little face -
I want to see you forever.
You are the best.
Part of the reason I wanted to share this is to remind myself that I’m loved, because I forget it really easily.
I haven’t got a continuous monologue with love – I can’t rest in it. It’s like a conversation I have to start over every time, like everything that went before it didn’t happen or didn’t count.
I’m always back at square one, striving to earn more of it, worrying it will disappear if I don’t, pouring so much out I feel empty of it – like I love everyone I love more than they love me – no matter what I do or how hard I try to win more of it.
I’m afraid that people will stop loving me, replace me, prefer someone else, realise I’m a bit rubbish – because all of those are things that have really happened and I’m afraid they will happen again.
I’m still learning that love isn’t always conditional, or transactional, or reliant on my earning it – on my effort or my sacrifice. That it can just be. And stay. But at low moments, it’s hard…
And this week there have been a lot of low moments with the smalls, who have basically yelled at me, whined at me, moaned, hit each other, and generally not appreciated a single thing I’ve done for them – including shaving foam craft activities, burning myself hot glueing Barbie furniture, inventive homeschooling with the Darlek spelling voice (don’t ask), garden playdates, making a cheese sauce from scratch 6 times because the bloody roux wouldn’t work and it’s all the Big Small wanted to eat, a sleepover in the lounge because it was so hot, and filling that blinking paddling pool up with buckets of warm water so they could play in it for a sum total of five bloody minutes.
So if you’ve forgotten that you’re loved, if you’re feeling underappreciated, overwhelmed, emptied out and tired out this Sunday morning – this beautiful voice recorded text message poem is for you, too.
It is a reminder to all mums, that THIS is how your kids really feel about you.
I don’t know if you wanna hear this today, or need to, but they want to see you and your little face forever. They love you for your different days, or in spite of them. It’s not because you’re NOT, it’s just because they love you. Because you are the best. Yay Mummies.
I think one of the reasons things feel so disorientating right now is that all the big things and the small things have become muddled up. Our priorities have changed, our perspective. And I want to remember how that felt, on the other side. So I tried to write it down, and it turned into a poem.
When big and small switched
When the world stayed still, holding its breath or trying to catch it,
big and small got all - mixed up, switched,
until we couldn’t tell which one was which,
any more.
Something so small you couldn't see it - a dot on a dot on a pin -
stopped the big, wide world turning round.
But it turned out the world, after all,
was so small
we breathed down each other’s necks -
and we coughed.
But as small as it was, as soft as it started, it was still too big
and too hard for us to see and care
what happened, over there,
to those others that were so far away they LOOKED small -
so we watched them fall and felt safe and stayed free.
And then the Others were us,
were we.
And our own worlds got small, shrunk to a few rooms,
a shop once a week, a walk.
And we could talk - but not face to face
and it turns out the case
was it was never cheap at all - as we recalled our big sprawling lives
now halved, and marvelled at connections and interactions
and how much touch meant,
when we were starved of it.
When it went.
And we saw the numbers, small news at first
burst free of that vague page and get big, fast,
and tragedy was vast and small together overlaid
as tears became a cascading ocean and thousands become one,
the biggest number there is, in the end.
Our mum. Our brother. Our grandad.
Our friend.
And worries were now big and small scrambled
a picasso view through fly's eyes - so new we were dizzy,
as all the angles on our life changed,
ranging from small to big and back -
Will I get sick? Will she? Do the kids need a snack?
Can I pay the bills this month? What’s for tea?
Is it just me that’s not coping well?
Will it ever be normal
again?
And no one could tell us if or how or when,
as we scrolled big scary news on small screens
and we leaned on the people whose jobs were now big - or always had been -
who drove and delivered, and fed us and held our hands, as we died.
And we came to understand that big heroes didn’t wear capes
but they wear did masks. And they TRIED.
And that was the biggest and smallest superpower -
the first in the world,
and the last.
So we tried too, and as we drew together
big differences seemed smaller,
and small kindnesses meant big things -
because our hearts weren’t clipped, it was only our wings
that couldn’t stretch.
And the wretched big things that had seemed so important, weren’t,
and we learnt that small things mattered, more than we knew -
were the glue that stopped us falling apart.
Like pubs, and parks, and hugs when we meet
and friends, and plans, and days out, and nights,
live bands and crowds and shops and treats
and pasta, and loo roll, feeling safe - in control
of our own lives.
When big and small switched, the world stalled
until our eyes adjusted and we made a call
on which was which, now.
On how small things were big, looming tall
and how the big things seemed silly
and small.
When big and small switched
When the world stayed still, holding its breath or trying to catch it,
big and small got all - mixed up, switched,
until we couldn’t tell which one was which,
any more.
Something so small you couldn't see it - a dot on a dot on a pin -
stopped the big, wide world turning round.
But it turned out the world, after all,
was so small
we breathed down each other’s necks -
and we coughed.
But as small as it was, as soft as it started, it was still too big
and too hard for us to see and care
what happened, over there,
to those others that were so far away they LOOKED small -
so we watched them fall and felt safe and stayed free.
And then the Others were us,
were we.
And our own worlds got small, shrunk to a few rooms,
a shop once a week, a walk.
And we could talk - but not face to face
and it turns out the case
was it was never cheap at all - as we recalled our big sprawling lives
now halved, and marvelled at connections and interactions
and how much touch meant,
when we were starved of it.
When it went.
And we saw the numbers, small news at first
burst free of that vague page and get big, fast,
and tragedy was vast and small together overlaid
as tears became a cascading ocean and thousands become one,
the biggest number there is, in the end.
Our mum. Our brother. Our grandad.
Our friend.
And worries were now big and small scrambled
a picasso view through fly's eyes - so new we were dizzy,
as all the angles on our life changed,
ranging from small to big and back -
Will I get sick? Will she? Do the kids need a snack?
Can I pay the bills this month? What’s for tea?
Is it just me that’s not coping well?
Will it ever be normal
again?
And no one could tell us if or how or when,
as we scrolled big scary news on small screens
and we leaned on the people whose jobs were now big - or always had been -
who drove and delivered, and fed us and held our hands, as we died.
And we came to understand that big heroes didn’t wear capes
but they wear did masks. And they TRIED.
And that was the biggest and smallest superpower -
the first in the world,
and the last.
So we tried too, and as we drew together
big differences seemed smaller,
and small kindnesses meant big things -
because our hearts weren’t clipped, it was only our wings
that couldn’t stretch.
And the wretched big things that had seemed so important, weren’t,
and we learnt that small things mattered, more than we knew -
were the glue that stopped us falling apart.
Like pubs, and parks, and hugs when we meet
and friends, and plans, and days out, and nights,
live bands and crowds and shops and treats
and pasta, and loo roll, feeling safe - in control
of our own lives.
When big and small switched, the world stalled
until our eyes adjusted and we made a call
on which was which, now.
On how small things were big, looming tall
and how the big things seemed silly
and small.
The world has twisted and we’re seeing it distorted from a new angle, where nothing has quite the same meaning any more – even words. So it’s been hard to use them.
I’m lost for words… and lost in them.
Everything I write is all peaks and troughs and seems irrelevant, either narrow and selfish or wide and wild. The weights are all wrong and off kilter. There’s this whole new language – from ‘coronavirus’ to ‘social distancing’.
And then old words I thought I knew mean different things now. Teacher. Doctor. Unprecedented. News. Connect. Lonely. We all understand them differently than we did just six weeks ago. We thought we knew what ‘isolation’ and ‘quarantine’ meant – but now we can FEEL them. Now we really know them. And we wish we didn’t.
We say to children, don’t we, when they are in heightened emotion – we say: ‘Use your words’. And I want to – but words have changed for me. They look and feel different, in my head and heart and mouth, on paper, because EVERYTHING looks different. Which is where this poem came from, I suppose.
I AM writing, because that’s how I make sense of things. And this is all so non-sensical. Sense, but less – but also sense-full because all my senses are all on full alert at the same time… And that’s exactly it. New raw eyes on old words, which are suddenly full of new gaps and meanings. Where sign, signifier and signified have been exploded. (Either that, or the poem came from trying to teach phonics and do **shudder** ‘Fred Talk’ with a five year old who seems to have a vested interest in illiteracy).
Pan-dem-ic
I would like to fry you
in a pan
make you fam-iliar
break you
up
beaten
like a pan-cake
a head-ache
a cough
flip you
off
scoff at you –
scoff you
whole
starting with the holes
you made
every –
where.
Dem is fighting words
fright-end words
because you are en-dem-ic
end-emic
you end,
every –
thing
one
we knew
a dem-i-god
of death and indoors
causer
of the big pause
–
tick
ick
I
C
you
and you make me sick,
pan-dem-ic.
I suppose if there is good to come out of all of this it is in the fact we are all collectively seeing things so differently – up to and including words. We all have new eyes.
And that disorientation, that space – the lift of the stomach before we plummet – might be uncomfortable, but it also makes this ROOM to grow, and innovate, and ultimately to change.
Once we have ‘survive’ under our belts, it’s up to us to choose what we do with the new perspective we’ve been given.
It’s up to us to break down and break up what we thought we knew, decide what’s important, and rebuild ourselves, rewrite our values, our families, our communities, our society.
And choose new words and ways to frame it all. New signifiers for what’s really significant.
I hope you’re all ok. God, I hope I’m okay. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, isn’t it?
Mumonthenetheredge 