a wronged lady's response

Sonnet LXI: Since There's No Help

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have giv'n him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

Michael Drayton (1563 - 1631)


Since there’s no help

(after Michael Drayton)

‘Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part’?
Tosser, don’t think you can fuck with me.
You want to show your groupies I've no heart;
--that’s if it’s even your poem; it’s not in free
verse; you’re dead ignorant about metre. Vows!
You can't be true for one day; time and again
you’ve emailed her, only pretending to browse
for bondage stuff -- I found your password, cuntain,
in your diary. So you can save your breath--
I have them all. You’re right, we’re done. Your lies
and alibis bore me to fucking death…
O, piss off! You can’t even look me in the eyes.
I’ll forward everyone all your filth to Ava;
You can’t just pour me away, like cheap, flat Cava!

DMT

a fight on two fronts

A friend of mine, Anne Morgellyn, is fighting a battle on two fronts, against cancer and against incompetent NHS services. A distinguished writer and academic, she is a single parent with a highly talented daughter, Cara, a student at Christ's Hospital. Reading Anne's blog is a humbling experience, so strong is her fighting spirit and refusal to take her illness and poor NHS response to it lying down; see http://www.topicofcancer.blogspot.com

I have my own memories of NHS incompetence --in my case my late wife's GP (now retired) at the same surgery in Truro. Anne praises highly the clinicians who have treated her; her complaint is against slothful, untrained receptionists, poor communication and dirty, depressing waiting rooms. If anyone has had similar bad experiences, do get in touch with her via her blog.

I was saying...

I was saying I'm forever changing my sonnet 'Through the fens'. This is my latest version...

Through the Fens

Hot summer, a slow train through Cambridgeshire.
After one halt, a country woman sat
in my double-seat. Merged almost into her,
I saw, etched by her tautened dress on fat,
motherly fen-wife thighs, corset suspenders,
a resurrection, their chunky contours plain,
immense and unashamed. The lesser splendour,
Ely cathedral, slid past the dusty pane.

She drowsed, we swayed; the flatlands drifted by;
I ached to touch, as pilgrims drew the power
of healing relics -- faint with desire
to let a sideways lurch propel my hand
to rest --‘I’m sorry!’ -- a moment on her thigh;
and she’d be moved by it, and understand.


Feel free to tell me which you prefer. Assuming you like either!

hideous bug

Came back from the warmth of Madeira to be struck by a hideous bug, probably caught on the plane, which left me shivering for the rest of the day, despite copious blankets, fur hat, etc.. Only just recovering, four weeks later. Of course Angela took the charming photo.

through the fens

the 'lesser splendour'

A sleepy, stopping train through Cambridgeshire.
After one halt, a country woman sat
in my double-seat. Merged almost into her,
I saw, etched by her tautened dress on fat,
motherly fen-wife thighs, corset suspenders,
a resurrection, their chunky contours plain,
immense and unashamed. The lesser splendour,
Ely cathedral, slid past the dusty pane.

She drowsed; we swayed. I felt faint with desire
for that archaic vision: not from lust,
but as awed souls stroked relics for their power
of healing magic. If I should just
allow a sideways lurch to lay my hand
as if by chance there, she will understand.

-----------------------
An experience I had while travelling to Norfolk for a festival, sometime in the 1980's. Corsets were, of course, by then almost as archaic as farthingales. I guess the woman was about fifty, so by no means an old granny who'd never given up on her corset-wearing.

By the way --no, I didn't. Wanted to, by God. Was she aware of my fascination? I've no idea.
I chose the sonnet form to concentrate it. Difficult to write; have been changing it constantly. Tried to get in St.Etheldreda, the founding abbess at Ely. When her body was disinterred her hand was found to be uncorrupted, so was worshipped as a relic. Decided she was irrelevant.

low, dishonest decade

Our last PM with principles and a sense of honour

Auden called the 1930s a 'low dishonest decade'. It could equally apply to 2000-2010. I find it astonishing that countries in the West have even discussed the use of torture, let alone enacted it and/or condoned it. Torture used to be a characteristic of barbarous regimes, like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union --one of their distinguishing features. Now we've joined the barbarians.

Then, Iraq... the 'sexing up' of reasons to invade, and the criminal indifference to what might happen after. Troops ordered not to interfere as louts and criminals looted the great Baghdad Museum!

The out-of-control greed of the bankers, wrecking our economy, and the politicians like Blair and Brown who encouraged them...

A Home Secretary, holder of one of the four great offices of state, claiming more than £20,000 per year in 'expenses' for her 'main home' --a room in her sister's house! Because it's 'within the rules'!!

The Big Brother scrutiny of us all... The abolition of rights enshrined in Magna Carta...

The 'Human Rights' gravy-train for lawyers, by which deadly enemies of Britain are kept here, paid for by British taxpayers.

The bland ignoring of white working-class people and what they believe and want.


The dumbing-down of culture, the insidious erosion of standards in education, the vulgarity of most TV programs.


It's all frightful and frightening.


I've been watching a couple of programs about Margaret Thatcher. She was our last honorable, and great, prime minister, brought down by pygmies. She had strong principles of liberty and patriotism, and was above all decent.

Images

1907

Lenin, in London for a Congress,
every morning dressed quickly
in his Kensington Square lodgings
pulled on his flat cap and hurried out
with one thought
in his icecold brain, one sight
in his piercing Tartar eyes:
the stall outside
King’s Cross Station selling
his favourite fish-and-chips.



1949

On the Kolyma River,
reported the Soviet journal Nature,
a ‘working party’
discovered a frozen stream
in the permafrost, containing
a perfectly preserved prehistoric
salamander. They hacked out the
30,000 year old fish from the ice
and devoured it straightaway
‘with relish’.