Poem via link: Osteoporosis
May 31, 2022
It’s been too long since I posted here, which is not (only) due to laziness, but because I have been incredibly busy. I am coming up to my first year anniversary as Poetry Editor at The Canberra Times, have been doing multiple book reviews, and just gave a reading. I was very pleased to have a poem published in an American journal called Please See Me, in a special issue on Women’s Health.
I am reaching the age where they start to monitor my body for all sorts of complaints and illnesses, and this inspired the poem. I also read the poem at the page linked to above.
Tuesday poem: My lover Jim
November 5, 2012
My lover Jim
is ramrod straight, and flexible as steel.
Once he’s on top, it’s hard to make him shift.
He makes me sigh, and grunt and feel
pain, though sometimes I can just lift
him before he renders me 2D.
I have swooned and swallowed blood.
Nausea breaks like a fainting sea,
and I have to stop before it floods.
My legs at such weird wide angles
kicking the heavy sky; or squats:
my hair sweated into ratty tangles,
and arms tied in barbarous knots.
Knees squeak like fearful rodents
in the famous verse by Burns, Robbie
as I scythe myself into components.
He’s more an addiction than just a hobby.
Jim’s real charms show up in rear view
when I’m alone with a looking glass —
four times a week between one, and two,
makes miracles of muscle unsurpassed.
P.S. Cottier
My legions of loyal readers will have noticed that I just took slightly more than a week off. There were many reasons for this; a little disappointment here; a mini-existential crisis there. But my attending the gym four times a week had something to do with it too.
Now that poem above is something of an exaggeration. I have never fainted at the gym, although I have come close. There is nothing miraculous about the changes I am seeing. Some are so slow that they are only noticeable over months rather than weeks.
My legs and back are much stronger than my arms and chest. I may never be able to bench-press very much. But I am already doing much better than when I started, about four months ago. And it is a long time since I felt this fit, and that is a good thing.
With my bike and Jim, I will be a powerful beast by Christmas. I am so hoping that the beast will be a koala.
(And incidentally, a man who acted like the anthropomorphised Jim in the poem would be given short shrift by one little convert to exercise. Shrift shorter than a short string. Look! My very own tongue twister!)
Now, my dear weaklings, click this feather, if you can manage that, and head over to New Zealand for more poetry:
And, if you’re interested, fellow Tuesday Poet Tim Jones posted a review of the recently published Triptych Poets, of which I make up one-third. You could also head to his blog to read that.
PS Cottier 