Cries For Help – Like Mother, Like Son

Mother & Child . . . Linocut – WHB

The winning entry in the Daily Telegraph’s 1997 Mini-Saga Competition.
The task set being to compose a story of 50 words exactly – no more!  no less!

A scanned photocopy of the winning entry – as posted in the Daily Telegraph on May 3rd 1997

Ars Poetica – A Licence to Versify

Pen & Wash – ‘Herrick’ … WHB   (1956)

Archibald MacLeish  ends his poem ‘Ars Poetica’ with the words

“A poem should not mean
But be”

Licence to Versify

My poem exists
Not because
But in spite of me
A virgin birth
Wrenched from an empty womb
An absent father
Mother-smothered

A moment’s thought
spilt words
simultaneously apt
yet contradictory 
In black
On shaded parchment
Devoid of sense
Yet full of purpose
Intent on birth
But clutched by death

Flying free yet
tightly bound
A stillbirth
Suspiciously silent
A jewel in jet
Contradicting sense
By being senseless

Licensed to thrill
For good or ill

 

 

 

 

Songs My Mother Sang

Song Book: Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The songs were of chill and anguish,
Sad songs with wistful themes,
Telling of loss and longing,
Songs of uncertain dreams.

Wistful, anxious, plaintive,
Sung in the dark days of war,
As though no end to suffering
Would reach us evermore.

She sang of the wandering gypsies,
The old lady sweet and kind,
Of old Barbara Frietchie’s flag,
And the boys who were left behind.

But though her words were sombre
I knew as she held me tight,
Her clutch was so warm and tender
The darkness would turn to light.

 

 

 

 

Kurt Vonnegut – ‘Two Little Good Girls’

[  # 86 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

Known primarily as a novelist, Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) was an American writer. He published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, best-selling novel ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’, published in(1969.

I do like this short poem of his which I came across only recently.  Apparently it was never given a title by Vonnegut and was discovered in a letter of 1961 sent by him to a friend.  It has a delightfully simple and artless warmth which engenders such good feeling and optimism.

 

Two little good girls
Watchful and wise —
Clever little hands
And big kind eyes —
Look for signs that the world is good,
Comport themselves as good folk should.
They wonder at a father
Who is sad and funny strong,
And they wonder at a mother
Like a childhood song.
And what, and what
Do the two think of?
Of the sun
And the moon
And the earth
And love.

 

 

 

A Son to his Mother – A Sonnet

As the clouds have wept on your grave
Since you left this world behind,
So do my tears flow
When your memory brings to mind
The love you had for me, 
Which in my lust for life
I never did return, 
But with my careless knife
Cut out the debt I owed.
Left you to love alone, 
To suffer silently,
My gratitude unknown
Forever to my shame,
I am the child to blame.

Look At Him

The Blush … WHB – 2000 (With acknowledgement to Mervyn Peake’s ‘Titus’ Alone’) 

Look at him
He’s blushing
My mother said
To those starchy
Grown up guests
All seated
At the formal
Wedding breakfast table

Perhaps
Mistakenly Imagining
The unwanted attention
Would be cure
For my burgeoning habit

While I
So far unnoticed
Curled up
Claiming invisibility
Reddened even more
Shrank into my chair
Felt the burning heat of my face
Burn down through me
To a deep hole
In the ground beneath

Thus are our
Futures set on course
Another denigration
To be overcome
Another mental scar
To afflict my dreams
Another blandishment
foregone
Another battle to
Accompany me into manhood

Quote … e.e.cummings

On PARENTS

‘My Parents’, David Hockney, 1977, Oil on Canvas, Tate Gallery, London

Leaving Larkin Alone

‘This Be My Verse’

 

We all do it
We pass on pain
From one generation
To the next
It is essential to
our rite of passage
backwards
to our parents
and forward
to our offspring

Leaving Larkin alone
Although I can see
Where he’s coming from
My mam and dad
Still
Loom large in my life
Even so long
After leaving it

They must have been lonely
Lovers of their son
Country child
Only child
Lonely child
Left so soon
Longing for London’s
Lively life
And a renewal
Of lost love

With some bitterness
No bile
No bombast
I recognise my
Ambitions
And accept
They damaged
Not destroyed
Their devotion

Through it all
Dedication to me
And to mine
Remained
How could I
Have acted differently
They set me up for this
Their ambitions for me
Self-harming
Through being
Selfless
Succeeding
To their own detriment

Now
I find myself
Bemoaning
With an intensity
Which hurts
More every day
My callous
Refutation of their need
For my love

If only
I’d not been
The only one
The only child
If I’d not deserted
That early home
With seeming
Eagerness
That cradle of my mind
Those roots of my soul
Now so full of meaning
So pertinent
To the man I have become

But when the conflict
Presented itself to me
I was by then
Committed
Other responsibilities
Crowded in
And parents
As happens to them
Take the rear seat

 And yet
I know
I had to go
To avoid
That tethering by love
Which smothers
More dutiful sons
It avoided
My hopes
Being stifled
Petrified
And pressed into
The backwaters
Of a life

Perhaps it must be so
For don’t we all do it

Think of those others
Leaving behind their roots
For pastures new
Able to look only onwards
Whilst leaving
The hurt
Of separation
From those who loved them
But would do nothing
But encourage their ambitions

Bennett
Showed how to escape
Walter and Lilian
Whilst continuing
To cull their histories

Hughes
With his animal instincts
Needing to roam free
Left William and Edith
For an itinerant life

Hockney
Soon found California
More suitable
To his calling
Leaving
Kenneth and Laura
To theirs

I claim
None of their skills
Their powers
To change the world
But my history
Reflects theirs
Grammarians
Tykes of a sort
And of an age
Seeking
Advancement
Searching for soul
For life
In pastures new
Neglectful of commitment
To our own past
Conscious only
Of our independent futures

It was ever thus
All took Larkin
At his word
Got out –
As early as they could
And
How odd
That two of them
Even followed Larkin’s advice
Eschewing
Parenthood
The essence of
Larkin’s dismissal
Of his own birthright
His reckoning
With Sidney and Eva
For giving him birth

But
Leaving Larkin alone
Again
Our legacies may prove
Our sense in cutting
The ties that bind
Perhaps the world is
Consequently
A better place.

Our parents
May not think the same
But what are parents
Other than
The future’s hope

Pub. Faber & Faber … 2009

Philip Larkin’s poem, ‘This Be The Verse’ was written around April 1971, first published in the August 1971 issue of ‘New Humanist’, and appeared in the 1974 collection ‘High Windows’ (Pub. Faber & Faber, 1974).  A copy of the poem can be read on the Poetry Foundation website at:  ‘This Be The Verse’

Unconsidered Trifles. #7. Mini-Saga

Mother & Son – lino cut – WHB 1958

The winning entry in the Daily Telegraph’s 1997 Mini-Saga Competition.
The task set being to compose a story of 50 words exactly – no more!  no less!

 

A scanned photocopy of the winning entry – as posted in the Daily Telegraph on May 3rd 1997

 

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A Mother’s Legacy

My mother was schooled in recitation;
Cherished the melody of words.
Relished  the drama
Of story creation,
The lilt of the poems she heard.

 She loved the lustre of legend
The power of myths oft retold.
The songs of the bard,
The power of the poet.
Her love for them never grew cold. 

*  *  *

This came from her childhood,
Her school-days, her past.
So many verses
Committed to heart.
That remained with her to the last. 

She hardly knew their birthright,
But she felt their richness sing.
Then in her prime
They became her rock,
A surety to which she could cling. 

They served to bolster her resolve   
When dad had gone to war.
They lifted spirits,
Held her firm,
Reminded her what life was for. 

They held her strength through air raids,
When time was cruel and hurting.
She sang them
As she cooked and cried,
Her face from me averting.                             

Then she pressed me to her pinny
and released her flowing tears.
The words still came,
Still pure and sweet
To counteract my fears.

*  *  *

Her favourite poem  was ‘Barbara Frietchie’,
She lived it as she spoke.
Both with her eyes,
And with her voice,
The drama she evoked.

 She visibly was racked with angst
As Barbara raised her banner.

“‘Shoot if you must this old grey head
But spare your country ‘s flag’ she said.”

 And then, ashamed, the answer came,
And Stonewall’s words were voiced with dread.    

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head,
Dies like a dog!   March on” he said.

  *  *  *

So moved and cowed by this powerful scene,
Re-played with stress by voice and nuance,
I, to this day,
Remember still
The fictive force of my response. 

That poem now means much to me
As now I seek to write;
To render the phrase
To fit the mood,
To get the word just right. 

My mother’s cares are dead and gone
And all was meant to be.
I cannot bring
The past to life
But the past brings life to me.

I’m grateful for her ardour
In  leaving me this blessing.
With poems and verse,
Story and rhyme,
Her love for me expressing. 

I laud her for her joy in words,
Lifeblood of my advancing years.
And, just  as the poet
Ends his tale … 

‘Honour to her and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on my own bier!’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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NOTES AND REFERENCES

The poem referred to is:  ‘Barbara Frietchie’  by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, first published in 1863.

The last rhyming couplet has been slightly adapted (by me) from the original version of Whittier’s poem!

The full correct text can be found on the Poetry Foundation website at:   ‘Barbara Frietchie’

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J.G.Whittier

 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 – 1892)  was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the Fireside Poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.   (See his Wikipedia entry)..

 

 

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Barbara Frietchie

 

Barbara Fritchie (née Hauer) (December 3, 1766 – December 18, 1862), also known as Barbara Frietchie, and sometimes spelled Frietschie,^[1] was a Unionist during the Civil War. She was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and married John Casper Fritchie, a glove maker, on May 6, 1806. She became famous as the heroine of the 1863 poem Barbara Frietchie by John Greenleaf Whittier, in which she pleads with an occupying Confederate general to “Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag.” (Wikipedia).

 

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Stonewall Jackson

 

 

Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate General during the American Civil War,  and the best-known Confederate commander after General Robert E.Lee. (Wikipedia).

 

 

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