Tuesday poem: Second in a long series of nasty little poems
April 18, 2016
A ‘brilliant young man’ from Sydney
Unfortunately ruptured a kidney —
For his black jeans won’t zip
Round the tenure of hip,
Which perplexed our ‘young’ man from Sydney.
I am the last person in the world to suggest that people should dress in an ‘age-appropriate’ way, which for women seems to mean a sudden desire for demure suits and mousy blonde bobs past the age of forty. Neither am I inclined to judge people by their size.
But when you see a fellow who is sailing into late middle age rigged out in a grungy something that would challenge a very fit twenty-two year old, well it’s not good, my dear. It’s not good approaching, and it’s infinitely worse from behind. Mental vanity can sometimes be expressed in inability to see the body, let alone to mark its changes. Play and pastiche in clothes are one thing, but black skinny jeans are quite another.
Next week I promise a return to my normal politically astute observations of the world. Either that or more dodgy style tips from one who tends to favour Rorscharch blotches in neon colours.
This series is proving great fun and shows no sign of ever ending. This poem was actually the fourth one I have written, but as the first one was also about a woman, I wanted a man to feature as well! And the third is so toxic (and identifiable) that I may keep that for my own amusement.
You can see which other poets are posting on Tuesday by checking out the sidebar here.
Tuesday poem: A timely monster
March 9, 2015
A timely monster
And if I could drink youth in
through my eyes — a vampire
of glance, lapping it from
perfect blush of skin —
would it be possible not to
drink and rise, leaving years
like a phone lost in cushions?
And yet, and yet…
before my eyes suck, remember
the self-consciousness,
the rash redness of life
before it wrapped itself in time?
To take, and lose a burden,
is to lift another,
cutting into hands or mind,
like an overloaded bag.
So let them pass, and let me yearn
and learn to stop, just here.
I’ll sit, and plait kind memory
through this smoked nostalgia of hair.
P.S. Cottier
Very traditional matter there, about the passing of time, given a sprinkle of Polidori. I like ‘my eyes suck’. Certainly not over-poetic! Monday was a public holiday in Canberra, so I did a little revision of this poem, and decided to post it.
More and more I find myself unable to wait the months that some journals take to say yes or no to a piece. I pity the editors, but I value my own work more! This blog now has many readers (hello to you all, from France to India to the Americas to Binalong) so why not self-publish?
Of course, I am foregoing the huge piles of pelf that poetry usually attracts, and there are some journals and anthologies that I really want to be part of, but I do like the immediacy of this medium. Particularly when I can find such cool pictures for free at Old Book Illustrations!
Other poets enjoy that too, whether they are posting their own poems, or those of others. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets. They are definitely worth the clicks.
Tuesday poem: The Coming of Age
March 25, 2014
The Coming of Age
Knock knock at the door:
Quiet and insistent.
Not Dickinson’s courtly Death,
taking me for a ride.
No, this is another visitor,
who doesn’t wait for me to answer.
But she leaves three calling cards:
sensible shoes, false teeth,
and a Zimmer frame,
subtle as the Harbour Bridge.
Still young enough, I chase Age
down the curvy street.
I throw the flat shoes at her.
I bite her with the plastic teeth
(puppeted in my hand, please note).
And the Zimmer frame?
It holds up my climbing rose.
How long, though, before
I cling, and shuffle, oh so slow,
with carefully engineered stride?
P.S. Cottier
I’ve been writing a few poems about age recently. This one was first published in The Mozzie, Queensland.
Age doesn’t worry me that much, really. So long as it affects me in no way whatsoever…
The Tuesday Poets have discovered the secret of eternal yoof. Press this feather and so will you. (Note: no promises will be fulfilled. But there will be poems.)
Tuesday Poem: My stalker (via link)
March 3, 2014
Here is a link to a poem by me called ‘My Stalker’, just published on journal Verity La:
http://verityla.com/my-stalker-ps-cottier/
I know this means that you have to click the link, dear reader, but it will take you to a beautifully designed and seductive on-line journal.
Here I am contemplating the passing of time…
Or, if you prefer, click this link, and see what poets in New Zealand have been doing:
Dangerous ground
October 28, 2011
It’s so hard to write about love without being sucked into the great swamp of cliché. (That swamp is just near the level playing field and the field of dreams, incidentally.) Here’s a poem that attempts to avoid the swamp.
I’ve totally given up trying to make my poems copied onto here revert to single spacing; they just like to be double spaced. And who am I to argue with the muse of the computer?
Love
Dangerous ground, they say; thick sands
tending towards the gluggy, or cloying
like dessert wine, just too too sweet.
Roll it round your tongue and spit!
say the many, divorced from lingering,
an evicted dog’s cold fleas, itching.
But that is not it, that is not it at all.
I realise that now, tottering past forty,
smorgasbord stashed in past’s
crumbed pantry of regret.
Hungover with experiment,
trapezed into performance,
the gourmet becomes gourmand
or abstemes self into shape.
But the shape of love is not six-packed muscle,
nor even delicate lines of balletic grace.
Love is a vegetarian at the butcher’s,
gapes of bed-socks beneath ageing dreams
and the practised caress;
an ideolect of touch and lapping
curled like a cat in memory’s ample gut.
Stretching, it rubs against the legs of so far and thus good.
Then it stalks out into future’s thin twilight, hunting for self,
in the deep dear shadows of the you and the now.
P.S. Cottier
PS Cottier 