Tuesday Poem: Let us kneel and pray for the Belsen twin

Let us kneel and pray for the Belsen twin
From age five we trained her inner critic
We good as killed her saying good was slim

She could not stand to see her mirror-skin
You are obese and ugly answered back
Let us kneel and pray for the Belsen twin

Being fat we said’s a deadly sin
Slender body image is the ticket
We good as killed her saying good was slim

Fashion, ads, and media all weighed in
Next the Food Police helped to make her sick
Let us kneel and pray for the Belsen twin

Our culture says size zero is not thin
A minus BMI is just the trick
We good as killed her saying good was slim

Triumph over fat was a pyrrhic win
It was being thin which she could not lick
Let us kneel and pray for the Belsen twin
We good as killed her saying good was slim



I saw a clip on TV the other night which said that Vogue magazine was not going to use models who were too thin, although what this actually meant was a little vague. This new rule was optional for the other magazines published in the same stable as Vogue. This sorry little story reminded me of this villanelle I wrote a few years ago.  

Visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week. 

A different hat

Have just changed my blog title  to 'Some place else', having figured out that blog titles are meant to be not quite as loud as my previous ('Keith Westwater's writing' – still there as a byline and indicator of content).

The new one is more suggestive of major themes in my poetry, which takes you to...???

What do you think?

Tuesday Poem: Dear Ruamoko

I want you to know how much I admire you.

You have to be a male God, right?

All that tectonic testosterone. Looks like

you’ve done some great bad things

but I’m sure you were provoked and besides,

I ain’t lily-white myself. Check out my photo –

how cool are those fangs and the hair style

with the writhing snakes. You might have heard of

our sisters gang, the Gorgons. We did some

neat bad shit before Medusa got her head cut off.

Anyway, maybe when you get out

we could hang and do some stuff –

I’m ace at turning men into stone

which you could use in your rock and roll thing.

Yours immortally

Stheno


Here is another of the Ruamoko (Earthquake God) poems I am writing. Keep an eye out for future Ruamoko poems on this blog and visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week.  

Tuesday Poem: I want to write a poem like Billy Collins does

I’d start with an incident

or observation about ants

angels, a wet dog, hats

or note an object in my life

in the kitchen, on my desk

its relativities to writer’s block

woods, or kings.

I’d quiz its antecedents

linking odd things

with poetic velcro

fixing the words

on leaves just so

juxtaposed to score a grin

or make you think –

I would never

have thought about

the man in the moon

marginal notes

or undressing

Emily Dickinson

like that.

I'm a great fan of Billy Collins poetry and find it very accessible, funny, and a great motivation source (particularly when I, or someone I know, have writer's block').

Visit Tuesday Poem  to view the special Birthday Poem,  a poem in progress (Tuesday Poem is two year's old this month).

Tuesday Poem: Misinterpretations of two sessions at Writers and Readers Week, 2008

Bill introduced Paul. He said Paul is possibly the planet’s pre-eminent poet

Princeton poetry professor, a prodigy, prolific.  Paul didn’t demur.

I don’t think Paul is a morning person.  He brought about four of his

published works on stage with him.  He hadn’t used post-its to mark

the poems he was going to read.  Bill said Paul said poets try to re-write

the work of past poets when writing new poetry.  Or something like that.

(Harold once said something similar in a different way – didn’t he?)

Paul thought a nine-thirty in the morning reading was a bit different.

He waffled a bit while trying to find the poems he was going to read.

I don’t think Bill is a morning person either.  He didn’t ask questions

when Paul left him gaps to do so.  So Paul waffled a bit more.  It was

a little disconcerting.  Perhaps there had been a welcome party the night

before.  Paul was disconcerted by the jackhammers behind the stage.

Paul’s poems were good.  Bill thought we should hear some songs written

by Paul and played by the guitar band he’s in.  I’m not sure who was singing.

Some people got up and left then.  Paul finished with a witty comment

about poetry.  I suspect he’s used it at other readings.  Everybody clapped.

Bill said to stay seated while Paul and he exited.  More got up and left then.

Christian said he is a ‘sound’ poet.  He read several poems very loudly.

Some people put their fingers in their ears.  A few got up and left.

Most of the poems he read didn’t have intelligible words in them. Christian won

a very big award and lots of money for writing some long prose poems.

All the words in each poem have only the same one vowel in them.  Christian said

he doesn’t write conventional poetry because he doesn’t want to inflict his ego

on anyone.  ‘Chapter i’ was the single-vowel prose poem he chose to read to us.

He said it was his favourite chapter.  Christian is conducting a GE project

in which he will alter the genetic structure of a microbe by implanting a

mirror cipher on its genome.  The cipher will write a poem.  When the microbe

regenerates, new poems will get written on the genomes of the offspring.

He thinks this will be a nearly foolproof way of communicating the high points of

human culture to ET beings who find our planet.  Christian doesn’t seem to be into

GE ethics, unintended biosphere-experiment consequences, or planetary safety.

I mean, what if all the poems the mutant microbes write are really, really bad?

I went to my first 2012 Wellington Festival Writers and Readers Week event today. It was really good then I remembered the 2008 Festival and a poem I had written after attending a couple of the readings.  Visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week. 

 

Tuesday Poem: Grounds for a Protection Order

I don’t unpack
my bags anymore
Ruamoko. I know
how volatile you are.
All day, all night
you devise
your next violation
your next vicious act.
Each night I lie awake
waiting your hammer
feeling your vice
tighten my heart
tracing the scars
you've carved on my life.

This is another in a sequence of Ruamoko (Earthquake God) poems I am writing. Keep an eye out for future Ruamoko poems on this blog and visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week.

Dance lessons

I didn’t join the blue-dressed, barefoot girl

as she pranced alone upon her toes

at the after-wedding dance last Saturday

her male and female partners coming, going.

Neither did I sidle up beside the five men coalesced

each dancing self-obsessed with Saint Vitus

nor crib some space among the solo swayers

nor nudge aside the twos and threesomes.

But this odd menagerie of motion

led me to a dance floor long ago

where matrons with a record player

showed spotty boys and girls with sweaty palms

where to place their feet and hands

should a waltz be struck up by the band.

Funny how memories are triggered – anyone else experience the dance lessons of a previous age? I seem to remember they were pretty excruciating all round.

Visit Tuesday Poem for more poems.