Instructions for the Locating of a (Charming) Prince

I posted a version of this ages ago, but took it down because it seemed unfinished. This is the final (I hope) version.

Instructions for the Locating of a (Charming) Prince

Did no one tell you,
dear, about the prince?
It is a well-kept secret
I will share with you:
squander your fortune,
set out alone,
turn left at the swamp,
and faint.
He will turn up
like clockwork or the turning
of the sun -
predictable
as ants
at a picnic.

There are other ways:
prick your finger and waste
your life in waiting.
Sell your voice for the chance
to hear him speak.
Suck in your stomach
thrust out that chest
and smile.
Suffer for love
my dear, because
even if he's green
or seems
a beast,
there's nothing that
some kissing cannot cure.

Have faith
be true,
pay heed and you
are guaranteed
your very own
home-grown
organic
trademarked, sealed
stamped with an expiry date,
(pre-nuptual agreement
signed in advance)
fat-free
(for a limited time only)
happy
ever
after.

The Night of my Conception

I would like to stress that this poem is not my fault. The last thing I want to think about is the night that I was conceived. And if you don't want to think about it either, please feel free to skip over this poem. But it was an assignment, so I had to write it, and to be honest...I found it really interesting once I got past the squick factor. So:

The Night of My Conception

When I ask her, my mother says
she knew I was there. She says,
I don't really believe those kinds of things - I think
they sound new-aged
and flaky, but...
she pauses and
with quiet certainty, she says,
I knew.

There is a secret, though,
I cannot bring myself to say:
the truth about the night
of that conception
is that it wasn't mine.

The little girl
with chubby cheeks
and a rolling grin
who was born some
nine months
later,
well...
she
died.

It was an accident - she was too
breakable.
She thought the world
was safe, and kind,
but it was not.

So. She died.
I was born fully-formed
into thin air, to the sounds
of a slamming door
and my father's fading
footsteps.

I was conceived by the smell
of alcohol,
the cold hard touch of anger,
and the warm wet wealth of
my mother's
tears.

Pud-Muddle Poem

There's a little
muddle - puddle
in the middle
of the park
and it's huddled
in a hollow
and it's happy
as a lark.

It is catching
al the people
that it's splashing
by surprise,
cause that little
puddle-muddle
is a big one
in disguise.

If you're quick
and oh-so-careful
you can
hop
right
past,
but the old-pokes
and the slow-folks
they get
sssplash
sssplash
splashed!

The Art of Procrastination

The assignment for this was to look at a published piece of work and write a poem that followed its form exactly. The second one is mine, and the first is 'Comfort' by Robert Service, who loaned me the rhythm and rhyme. My poem was written (very obviously) at the absolute last minute, in a state of desperation.

Comfort
by Robert Service

Say! You've struck a heap of trouble -
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don't care a cent for life;
Hard luck has of hope bereft you,
Health is failing, wish you'd die -
Why you've still the sunshine left you
And the big, blue sky.

Sky so blue it makes you wonder
If it's heaven shining through;
Earth so smiling way out yonder,
Sun so bright it dazzles you;
Birds a-singing, flowers a-flinging
All their fragrance on the breeze;
Dancing shadows, green, still meadows -
Don't you mope, you've still got these.

These, and none can take them from you;
These, and none can weigh their worth.
What! you're tired and broke and beaten? -
Why, you're rich - you've got the earth!
Yes if you're a tramp in tatters,
While the blue sky bends above
You've got nearly all that matters -
You've got God, and God is love.

The Art of Procrastination
by me

Well it's midnight and the weather
is as nasty as can be;
dreary throughts are all around you -
they are all that you can see;
you're left without inspiration,
fingers frozen at your sides -
but your wrist is still a-ticking,
and you know you've got to try.

So with desperate desperation
and a steely stubborn will,
you find determination
and the pages start to fill.
Words a-flowing, verses a-growing,
tossing caution to the breeze,
you are typing up a whirlwind
till your thoughts begin to freeze.

Freeze, and still the rain is falling -
freeze and none can lend a hand.
What! You're on the verge of failing!
(this is more than you can stand)
Still at heart you are a poet,
and you'll find that rhythm yet -
it's so close you nearly know it:
once you do, you won't forget.

Civilization

........................

For a moment I am
home again
on the hillside;
hearing the marmot whistle
alarm
through the rock-pile ruckus,
feeling the shale
slip away
beneath my soles.
For a moment.
Then again
it is simply
the shriek of my neglected
kettle -
the kiss of cashmere
against my soul.

Prose Poem - Nobody Has Ever Died of a Panic Attack

...................

Nobody Has Ever Died of a Panic Attack

she says as she strips herself, sits naked on the edge of tub and trembles. It is soothing-cool and solid against her thighs, but she knows it is just atoms jostling together, and that there is no real reason (indefinable facts of quantum physics aside) that they should not simply choose to slide apart. Her nails slip across slick porcelain as she grips tighter.

Three Pieces of Advice to New Dishwashers at the Eldorado Hotel

.........................................................


It is easier if you can be friendly
to the face of the embittered French-Canadian
(with the gotee)
who owns you.
Do not tell him you are a poet:
once
he was a poet too.
Smile and say - Absolutely! Right away!
(Inside your head you can
sentence him to fifty years hard labour
in the stone mines.
It helps.)
At any rate, after a month he will stop
making you scrub the ceiling
and the grungy wall behind the deep-fryer.
He will,
I promie,
stop laughing when you burn yourself.

Sometimes it is easier if you can be angry.
Mopping the long linoleum floor
at midnight
when your hair is thick and wet with
steam and sweat and grease,
it is easier
if you can hate him.
Or someone.
Anyone, to be honest, to whom
you can direct the thought,
"I'll show that so-and-so
I will get out."

(It is easier still
if that is true.)

Missing In Action

A short-short story I wrote for my fiction class, ages ago.

Missing In Action

She cut her heart out in the morning beside the kitchen sink. It was the only sensible thing to do. Afterwards she lit a cigarette and smoked it standing up, and the grey ashes fell onto the grey linoleum floor without a sound. She flicked the butt into the crowded sink and it hissed.

Once upon a time the floor was white and the dishes got washed twice a day and she didn’t smoke because of the children.

Once upon a time, before Jim got shipped overseas and the phone calls stopped coming and MIA turned out to mean something. After that she stopped noticing colours, and the dishes didn’t matter so much, and the kids smoked pot and locked their doors to keep the smell inside.

Last night’s coffee catches like sand in her throat. All the sugar from the cracked tin on the counter doesn’t help, and the milk has gone sour, so she drinks it black and bitter and cold, and the caffeine makes her shiver.

Six steps from the kitchen to the living room. Today her feet drag and make it seven, and her trailing toe snags on the unravelled edge of carpet.

Three more steps to the bathroom cabinet with the little bottle full of nothing-matters.

She cut her heart out in the morning beside the kitchen sink because the dishes weren’t done and she didn’t care. She cut her heart out in the grey morning beside the dirty dishes because last night’s coffee choked her and there was no sugar left in the world.

She cut her heart out because it was broken anyway.

Afterwards she smoked a cigarette and went on with her life – what was left of it – and nobody noticed the difference.