deepundergroundpoetry.com
Closing Time at the Maternity Museum
There is a man from these parts, who claims to have been born twice. His Mother went into labour at home and his head began to emerge. The ambulance carrying her to Hospital ran over a road ramp and his head popped back in again.
(i)
Scent of
A distantly spilled
{womb} perfume,
Tastes copper on m(y)other tongue
Inhale language & burn yourself
On your own blue breath.
Each birth curates
A pentimento of primitive painting,
Peels back the hands of the clock
Like a moth’s wings unlaced &
Crushed in the leaves of a dark bible.
(ii)
The town swirls about the numb,
Calm and cubed ruins of its’ castle cliff.
The sea is somnolent tonight –
Dirty blue chrysalis of dreams and cold,
Ears strain to hear the otherworldly secrets
Of mermaids, drowned sailors, souls cursed,
But the drunk songs from karaoke abattoirs
Are the only sounds to fill the skies.
A tanker anchors in the distance:
Latitude 53.317 Longitude -3.483
Assured of its’ home for the night.
(iii)
Light years become heavy.
We just hold on over time,
Over time the broken cradle
Rebuilds / returns to forest,
Noosed roots sway as a
Child’s legs on a swing.
(iv)
Each Alzheimer visit bears
Hope of a resurrected memory,
Or God swear, even imagined –
Realisation it could be the last.
Mum once said “life is like a balloon.”
Her balloon, dark red as wine stain,
Follows the curve of slow satellites
Waiting rapid release of meteorite showers.
For a while eternal
The balloon will hang,
Before falling softly to
Mother sea and brother earth,
Bursting on some foreign shores.
(i)
Scent of
A distantly spilled
{womb} perfume,
Tastes copper on m(y)other tongue
Inhale language & burn yourself
On your own blue breath.
Each birth curates
A pentimento of primitive painting,
Peels back the hands of the clock
Like a moth’s wings unlaced &
Crushed in the leaves of a dark bible.
(ii)
The town swirls about the numb,
Calm and cubed ruins of its’ castle cliff.
The sea is somnolent tonight –
Dirty blue chrysalis of dreams and cold,
Ears strain to hear the otherworldly secrets
Of mermaids, drowned sailors, souls cursed,
But the drunk songs from karaoke abattoirs
Are the only sounds to fill the skies.
A tanker anchors in the distance:
Latitude 53.317 Longitude -3.483
Assured of its’ home for the night.
(iii)
Light years become heavy.
We just hold on over time,
Over time the broken cradle
Rebuilds / returns to forest,
Noosed roots sway as a
Child’s legs on a swing.
(iv)
Each Alzheimer visit bears
Hope of a resurrected memory,
Or God swear, even imagined –
Realisation it could be the last.
Mum once said “life is like a balloon.”
Her balloon, dark red as wine stain,
Follows the curve of slow satellites
Waiting rapid release of meteorite showers.
For a while eternal
The balloon will hang,
Before falling softly to
Mother sea and brother earth,
Bursting on some foreign shores.
Published 30th Sep 2021
Author's Note
ERULGCT #105. Uma xx For the Mother competition. Pic = Still from short film 'The Red Balloon.' ALL STAY SAFE
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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1st Oct 2021 8:23pm
Its a deep n complex traverse of ... this grand cyclicality ..this birth~ life ..& all that is an enlightening revelation realisation ..in all the so unbearable lightness of a being .. in its deathly pain chapters.. blooms as birth~ rebirth ..that feeling home in this endless journey.. & yes, death seems only a channeling connectivity towards birth. You touch the infinity of this cosmic mystery.. through mom through love ..that which us the Shakti holding us eternal.. i feel wordless to say of the holistic poetics you deep dive in the mystical essence & feel , the flow of language & form that strikes & stirs..
.. in each poetry, you mature as a loving deep soul & a poet unmatchable boo! Love this & prayers respects to all mom & love .. besto fr comp.. Love me xx
.. in each poetry, you mature as a loving deep soul & a poet unmatchable boo! Love this & prayers respects to all mom & love .. besto fr comp.. Love me xx
4th Oct 2021 5:35pm
Alright, as I went down my updates page I clicked a new tab on this and saved it for my last reading of the day. Your stanzas are so proportional gorgeous with their sense of awareness and subtle presence, each metaphor inviting us to glimpse the depth of your message, each phrase imbued with dimensions that unfold before the mind's eye and speak. It's the kind of art that is so deeply intimate and yet economic that the pairing leaves you with an ache. It's something you feel, rather than read. I went to allpoetry before I came to DU today and there are many rather talented writers over there. I guess when you have more people, the percentages of everything go up. In your first canto, that sense of the spiritual and visceral, of the mystical and cyclic is gorgeously done. In your second canto, the unfolding of this into the haunted milieu you paint, masterfully succinct intimacy of details, it something so admirable and it buoys my spirit to feel such depths in their bittersweet resonances. Your third canto carries that sense of the life paradox, the fragile and yet eternal, the images it creates are the true alchemy of metaphor. I haven't seen the film you mentioned, but knowing a bit of your family history, your final canto has such aching vulnerability about it, that sense of the truly personal, revealed in considerate proportion and yet the personal and the universal meet in such harmony, as we all know the slow decay and end of all things comes and comes again. This is such a touching piece.
