Sunday, May 25, 2008

A Worried Mother

Without pause, my son
Watches vampire DVDs

In a lightless room/with the curtains drawn.


25 May 2008


We spent the night at Lynny's, so we cld go to a Eurovision party nearby. Besides a new litter of Siamese kittens, and an aquarium of (captive-bred) sea-horses, they also own the complete "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on DVD. Since William has already been exposed to it at friends' houses, I rather weakly caved in, and let him watch it while I was still in bed... I was struck by his pale face glowing in the darkened room... Still not sure which is the better ending.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Not a poem for a change...

...but I just thought you'd like to know that the year's first batch of elderflower cordial is now in bottles, awaiting labelling! (See "Elderflower Cordial: The Making Thereof", 23 April 2008.)


18 May 2008

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Fear

The octopus makes itself
Comfortable in
My chest.
He stretches two tentacles
Down, to wind round
My bowels.
He wraps four around
My heart,
To crush its squirming attempts to escape.
He sends the last two up
My oesophagus,
So they can curl out of
My mouth,
And coil around
My throat.
He has to allow me a thin stream of air though,
As he realises a little too late
That he can't throttle
Himself.

2 May 2008


I seem to be writing some pretty gruesome stuff at the moment! This was inspired by my feelings of panic the previous week, (not entirely dissipated...). I originally had a totally negative ending, but realised, when thinking the metaphor through, that there was a technical problem with him strangling his own tentacles; and anyway, the situation isn't totally hopeless, so this is a truer reflection of how I feel. I am not sure if you can use the word "throttle" in this context (where is an octopus' "throat" anyway, and can you strangle anything that doesn't actually breathe air?) Maybe it's just a rubbish image... I am also concerned about the line breaks: shld I be emphasising the body parts so much, by splitting the line before them each time? And shld I repeat "round/around" so much? As you can tell, I'm not very secure about this one!