“It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.”
―
Letting Go
Tag: Ageing
Down But Not Out
Hi Everyone,
I’ve been away for some time but I’m back, or at least for now. Apologies for my absence from Blogging World and the world in general. So far I’ve spent five weeks trapped in a small hospital room in Inverness following a fractured femur. Tragically my treatment has not gone according to plan. After the initial operations to repair the original fracture I have acquired another THREE broken bones in my legs due to careless handling and bad advice from Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists. And the worst news is that the fresh broken bones are not fixable. Any surgery could make things worst not better. No one seems to know what the prognosis is.
I’m trying to stay positive but it’s hard. I don’t know how much mobility or independence I will ever regain. It’s also hard not to be consumed with anger for the so-called experts in this hospital who have damaged me and are now trying to sweep their negligence under the carpet. I have not even had a proper apology or any acknowledgement that anything has gone wrong.
Anyway, when my mind is not fried by morphine, pain and exhaustion I will try to post here on The Purple Hermit and I hope my followers and supporters will understand.
Recycling
The dog named Black Balls watched
from a safe distance as Ivan shoveled
manure at Tundra Corner. Stripped
to the waist, sweat beading his grand
moustache, lush despite his eighty years.
When he found the gold ring he stopped
dead, yelled ‘охуеть!’ and then ‘соси хуй!’
The hens fled to the moonshine shed.
The vintage wedding ring, twenty two carat
and inscribed forever, lingered like winter
sunsets in the empty Heinz soup tin
where Ivan kept his razor and comb.
One morning as he waxed his Stalinesque
twirls before the tarnished mirror
he finally decided on the rich widow
with the plump rump from Paradise Farm.
Note:- I am unsure of the accuracy of the Russian swear words so if anyone can advise their help would be appreciated!
Another Country
I ponder reflections of reflections,
memories opaque as an ice fern lost
in a misty wasteland.
I wait to unfurl a dawn slate.
Note:- the end words of each line are anagrams, ‘reflections=ice fern lost’ and ‘wasteland =dawn slate’.
Turning Circle
Like honey balm on skin,
the sun strips naked, intersecting
her space with signs.
Autograph Book
Where are U
Gerard Duvall?
2 cute 2 B
4 gotten.
Leather coat,
groovy French name,
eyes cool as mud,
auburn mane.
In teenage shade
U left your cabbage
heart 4 me,
white as paper.
27
frozen kisses,
star-crossed
in my book.
I counted
empty pages
awaiting
butterflies.
Note:- Before the age of Facebook and digital ‘likes’ adolescents used autograph books with pastel colored pages to collect signatures and messages from their friends. These often included humorous rhymes.
The Day Room
She doesn’t look up,
swaddled in pink toweling.
Dinner in the Day Room, haddock on a tray,
the old queen who lost her soldiers slumps an empty table.
Above her head the TV plays silent memories,
survival of the fittest in exotic locations.
A lioness stalks prey while another dies.
She doesn’t look up when I speak.
Lips rotate, chewing, tasting the sins of the world
cut up in pieces. Her hand trembles as she adds salt.
My absent presence, invisible bones on the edge of her plate.
She starts on the sponge pudding with custard.
She doesn’t look up when I leave.
She doesn’t look up when I leave.
She starts on the sponge pudding with custard,
my absent presence, invisible bones on the edge of her plate.
Cut up in pieces, her hand trembles as she adds salt.
Lips rotate, chewing, tasting the sins of the world.
She doesn’t look up when I speak.
A lioness stalks prey while another dies,
survival of the fittest in exotic locations.
Above her head the TV plays silent memories.
The old queen who lost her soldiers slumps an empty table,
dinner in the Day Room, haddock on a tray.
Swaddled in pink toweling,
she doesn’t look up.
The Day Room is an example of a specular poem – the second stanza mirrors the first. Please see a-poem-for-remembrance-day for another example.
