Recently in Poetry Category

'Larger than lifesize we become, great in the eyes of someone.' - A Fine Frenzy, Lifesize

That's a photo of S. looking at the snowball he's making. How happy is he? It was sunny this morning and it's been snowing on and off all day with the sun shining through in between. This morning the kids played and made a snowman while I watched them for a while. Later I talked to my neighbour on the balcony in the sunlight and their dad went to play with them downstairs.

March is an odd month. It's a month that doesn't really know what to do with itself. Neither here nor there. A bit adolescent I suppose. I heard someone say once that in Holland from the spring onwards it's all a buildup to Queen's Day and then just a disappointment. I disagree.

My favourite month is September, when the days have started to draw in a little and the light is golden and faded. In September I feel like every sunny day is a splendidly unexpected gift, but between March and August I'm full of expectations and I don't enjoy them as much as I should. Less expectation, more enjoyment, maybe?

The poetry of Colin Morton sneaked up on me on a snowy afternoon. After I read the first poem, I breathed a sigh and settled in to read the rest.

My favourite because of the way it made me feel is forty-five years from now. I also liked today we both phoned in sick. Isn't that the most romantic thing you ever read?

This one made me sad.

Over Coffee

You say another year of marriage is
another cup of coffee in the morning
~ some kind of addiction
safer to continue than to quit.
Each one requiring a little more
sugar, stops the pain
in the head anyway.

Your bitter smile through steam
is the grimace of boredom
on the fourteenth floor ~ really
the thirteenth ~ boredom
the safest expression you know, each day
a strategy of postponement.

Rising and descending in the elevator

eyes forward clouded with sleeplessness,
you keep escaping your dreams
and finding them in wait around corners.
You could just turn your back, you say,
walk out on the badly played scene,
but life is no technicolor movie
with credits and no debits at the end.

Evenings at home are only more memos
you say, in a language of indirection
you are afraid
you have come to understand, and speak,
swallowing your words with that dull
insensitive frown you make
with each gulp of sweetened coffee.

--------- Colin Morton

Read more about Colin Morton here, and buy his books online from Abebooks.

Now I won't settle for less - Muse, Bliss.

Oh, if I had money, the books I would buy.

I just rediscovered the poetry of Mark Strand. I'm sharing a poem with you here that already appears elsewhere. Go read The Story of Our Lives. Are you reading the book of your life?
The New York Times reviews David Lehman's Best American Erotic Poetry.

'I touch the place where I'd find your face' - Snow Patrol, Set Fire to the Third Bar

It's spring outdoors. The trees are that peculiar pinky green they go just before they burst into brash lime green. Such a contrast to the late summer deep thirsty green that looks like it needs a drink, a double, straight up.

I observed these things while standing outside the acupuncturist's office at 7 am. I also observed that it was light and that it would be light when I came home. Then I thought about Robert Frost and how his poems capture nature which reminded me of this poem.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
 
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-------Robert Frost

'cause it takes something more this time than sweet sweet lies' - David Gray, This Year's Love

About how it felt beneath my hands, its purple shape; oblong, oval, ovoid, aubergine.

All those descriptive aubergine words; they make you say 'oh'. And 'Oh'. And 'OH'.

This is not that poem.

'They call me the wild rose...' - Nick Cave & PJ Harvey, Where the Wild Roses Grow

Yesterday, before lunch I went to see Millais at the van Gogh museum.

The poetry trail was a stroke of genius! You can listen and watch on the website, or you can download to your ipod and walk around the museum and actually look at the paintings and listen. The John Donne poem, The Autumnal, combined with the painting it inspired, Lingering Autumn, all golden brushstrokes made me gasp. This excerpt from the poem is famous, but no less beautiful for it's fame:

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace

         As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,

         This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.

If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame;

         Affection here takes reverence's name.

As usual, I liked the pieces that are not the main focus of the exhibition, like the sketches, more. There is a whole section of the exhibition devoted to the sketches and commercial illustrations of Millais. Once the poetry trail was finished I listened to Leonard Cohen and the music blended seamlessly with the pictures. His Take This Longing and The Eve of St Agnes together. 'Oh take this longing from my tongue'.

A century apart and yet emotionally so close.

'I'll be there as soon as I can, but I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before' - Muse, Unintended

Margaret Atwood writes poetry. Why did I not know this before? Actually, I did know because I know this poem, but my goldfish attention span and incredibly poor memory let me down. What caused this memory loss? Prozac? Or was I a crack addict somewhere in my previous life?

Anyway, this is one of my new favourites:

Is/Not

Love is not a profession
genteel or otherwise

sex is not dentistry
the slick filling of aches and cavities

you are not my doctor
you are not my cure,

nobody has that
power, you are merely a fellow/traveller

Give up this medical concern,
buttoned, attentive,

permit yourself anger
and permit me mine

which needs neither
your approval nor your surprise

which does not need to be made legal
which is not against a disease

but against you,
which does not need to be understood

or washed or cauterized,
which needs instead

to be said and said.
Permit me the present tense.

--- Margaret Atwood, Is/Not

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Other, less ethereal activities than reading poetry yesterday included job interviews and playing dress-up..

I am moderately excited about one of the interviews, maybe even going so far as to say 'hopetimistic'! It's working as a PA for a director, one on one in a great environment. Pretty much everything I want in a job, except the hours, but everyone has to work, right?

The playing dress-up? The Biba boutique inside the V&D dept store has the best saleslady I think I've ever met. She's Bosnian and probably a little bit older than me. I first visited the store in December sometime and we got talking and had an immediate connection. She thought I was Eastern European at first. I don't look Dutch, just different really. Plus when I speak there's my accented Dutch. So we talked a whole lot about how we came to Holland etc, about how it feels to be a foreigner. There was a sale on then so I just stood in the change room and she brought armfuls of clothes for me to try on.

Yesterday I went in for a new coat, and tried pretty much the entire spring collection. Favourites were a white PVC-ish tight-waisted jacket with a tied waist, and layered underneath a sort of frilly orange printed blouse and a gorgeous gold-beige beaded blouse that falls from just under the breasts. Slinky! Alas, I need an income in line with my Biba addiction.

It was fun to try everything on, see what works, what doesn't. In comparison the Benetton top and shirts I tried were just... blah. I guess I really do like Biba.

I have to admit to really liking the saleslady though. Do you have a store that you go to just because you like the staff? Every single thing I do in terms of shopping is based on whether or not I like the staff in the shop. My car, flowers, bakery, butchery, clothing, hairdresser, gym, even the supermarket I go to is chosen because I like the staff.

In Amsterdam I popped into Cora Kemperman and Noon on the Leidsestraat. I found a new label in Noon that I really like, called Tiger, except I can't find it on the Internet? Anyone know it?

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Oh, I was happy, neutral, slightly sad (4%) and angry, according to Glad or Sad. Thanks for voting for my picture. Just wondering where the angry came from? I mean, I am, but jesus - it shows that much?

This week I am actually happy. Not too obsessive, not freaked out, not gnashing my teeth about my future. Even a little bit contented. Yes, really! That means I haven't written anything because when I'm not in a deep pit of despair I don't write.

In 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' Lionel Shriver said something about how we dig ourselves into a hole a teaspoon at a time. So maybe I've been digging myself out a teaspoon at a time.

And then I read that maybe all that Prozac really did nothing for me after all?

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Christine Kane is writing this week about the Law of Attraction and I finally get it. I get it I get it I get it.

Let's take an example. I am a good person to know because there is always a parking space free for me, (ok, so that's just one reason it's good to know me). But there is always a parking spot for me. Always.

So I'm all 'yeah, the universe loves me because it gives me a parking space right in front of where I need to be, every single time.' Then I congratulate myself on attracting good things (like parking spaces) but I sort of forgot that I'm also attracting bad shit (like when I broke the bumper on my car).

No more part time belief in the law of attraction for me.

I am the centre of my own universe.

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Going to Zandvoort later with S and her kids and will break the no-kids-pics-on-the-blog rule tomorrow. Just this once.
 

'Do you remember the way that you touched me before?' - Natalie Merchant, My Skin (she's my crush this week)

For those who don't know (and until a few days ago I too did not know), there is this funky little function on youtube.

You can make playlists of videos you like. Then youtube just plays them one after another.

Under the video you're watching you'll see next to the favourite button, a button that says 'add to playlists'. Make a new playlist and then add randomly until you have a list to suit your mood.

Then listen and be happy.

Who needs itunes? Oh, if you want to liberate your itunes purchases, you have to get Doubletwist.

There's also a cool little widget, Twist Me for facebook.

And now it's time for a poem, because it's Sunday, I'm in a strange mood and it's been too, too long.

Today's choice is inspired by number 73 on Francine's list.

Text

I tend the mobile now
like an injured bird.

We text, text, text
Our significant words.

I re-read your first,
your second, your third,

look for your small xx,
feeling absurd.

The codes we send
arrive with a broken chord.

I try to picture your hands,
their image is blurred.

Nothing my thumbs press
will ever be heard.

-- Carol Ann Duffy, from Rapture

'In the middle of the night, you don't know what I'm thinking' - Garbage, Sleep

1. In a curious twist of fate I have realised that I cannot write and listen to music at the same time.
   
   How bloody awful is that?
   
   I get caught up in the music and then find myself typing in rhythm and all that comes out is the emotions of the song I'm listening to. All very well and good when it's Mika, but if I ever want to write anything other than blues, the music has to stop.
   
   So now I am in complete silence, relatively, while I write and the keyboard clicking is irritating me.
   
   
2. I didn't pay the Barclaycard on time so there will be a fine. Woe.
   
   
3. I need to start making lists. I am forgetting everything I need to do. Like pay the Barclaycard. It's amazing that I turn up at school on time. How did I get to be so scatter-brained?
   
   
4. Meeting new people is fun. Waiting for them to google you is not. Verschrikkelijk!
   
   
5. I'm a cheap drunk. One glass of wine and I'm all rosy.
   
   
6. Because frivolity is always becoming, I am in love with YSL's new perfume, Elle.
   
   
7. Reading poetry out loud is interesting. Try this one from Matthew Caley. Taken from The Poem.
   
   Cul-De-Sac

Apparently, I proceeded in an easterly direction, with no lack
of temerity. Saw the wild bayberry-blossom
of the sink-estate.
A stranger uprooted and said. 'Not that way, mate, it's a cul-de-sac'.

He placed great stress on the 'de'. There was now no turning back.
By then, we were headlong into each other
you, humbled below me, turned the other way, your shoulder-blades
                                      moving like skimmed slates over tawny water.

To sleep with anyone is risk,
—the virus of love, the virus of obligation— the fear of being opened to any
                                      turn
of events. Strange then that after, you formally donned a sleep-mask
as if not wanting to witness a burglar break suddenly into your home.

There are those who believe that, as it and us share swirling molecules,
                                      we can walk through solid matter.

D-d-d don't wait for me by the spider-web scintillations
of the broken kiosk. I won't be back.

And then read Spike Milligan.

Mirror Mirror

A young spring-tender girl
combed her joyous hair
'You are very ugly' said the mirror.
But,
on her lips hung
a smile of dove-secret loveliness,
for only that morning had not
the blind boy said,
'You are beautiful'?

See how they make you feel? Feel how they make you feel. I think I still like Spike Milligan more, just for the brevity of words, but Matthew Caley has something, don't you think?

Funny that, I love writing that captures emotion in the barest minimum of words, and yet when I write myself I run off at the mouth an awful lot. Paradox.

'Why dream a dream that's tainted with trouble and less than it seems, why bother bothering, just for a poem or another sad song to sing' - Emilie Autumn, The Art of Suicide

I have nothing to say
I'm running away
take your place in the queue
someday, one day, I'll get to you

Emilie Autumn's poems and music here. Cover of Billie Holliday's Crazy, He Calls Me, here. Faces Like Mine here.

'I loved them 'til they loved me.' - Carla Bruni, after Dorothy Parker, Ballade at Thirty Five

Serendipitous, again.

On Wednesday I heard Carla Bruni for the first time, singing in French, her first album. Not in person, obviously.

I was captivated by her voice. Not a clue what she was singing, no French spoken here, but it sounded beautiful.

I bought No Promises when I got home. Love love love it. Poems read in that breathy voice to music. Dorothy Parker's Ballade at 35. Ok, I'm 34, but give me a year. 

Today, relaxing, I opened my Esta and there, in the back was an article written tongue in cheek about how if your man walked past Carla Bruni, sat with a coffee at a cafe, poetry book in hand, he'd be quoting Auden and thinking 'Carla Carla Carla' for the rest of his life. The shorts and the sneakers, and the hair and the poems, oh the poems.

Auden's The Secret is Out.  Christina Rosetti's Promises Like Pie Crust:

Promise me no promises,
So will I not promise you:
Keep we both our liberties,
Never false and never true:
Let us hold the die uncast,
Free to come as free to go:
For I cannot know your past,
And of mine what can you know?

The Observer and Cool Hunting had something to say about this album too, and it's all good.

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Glad or sad. Emotion analysis of photos as part of a University of Amsterdam study. I submitted a photo, please go vote on mine so I can get the analysis. I want to see if I'm really happy! Just in case I need reminding in the future.

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New shoes really make you go faster. 5 km in 35 minutes today. This was serendipitous too. Last week three different people told me my shoes needed replacing. Then Wednesday I ran with them and hurt my shins. Yesterday I bought some new shoes, and these are them. And only 49 euros.

Last week I was running 4 km in 31 minutes. It's all the shoes, I tell you.

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Son #1 told me today 'Mama, you put on weight.'

Hah. How to tell the boy that mama has pre-menstrual bloat and combined with PMS saying things like that might not be the best way to win favours?

Then he compounded the pain by saying 'Ja echt, mama, you look fatter around the middle'. Careful boy!

He turns 8 soon. We're going disco bowling, yeah babay! Mama gets to bowl too. For Amstelveen.

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Job interview on Monday. 2 days a week in Schiphol-Rijk. I could do that, right? 2 days a week and not go crazy?

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If you don't read Neil Gaiman's blog, you should. But, if you don't, you wouldn't know that there is a free download of Harlequin Valentine on Last.fm.

So now you do.

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Books bought yesterday:

India Knight's The Dirty Bits for Girls. I hesitate (and blush) to share that I read most of the books that have excerpts in this book. Notable though, in the Dirty Bits reading was Lace, which my mom caught me reading lying down by the side of her bed. Ooh la la. I was 11 and already naughty.

The New Granta Book of the American Short Story. I have a weakness for short stories. They're so cut and dried. A beginning, a middle and an end. Swift and succinct, short as a love affair, there is no time for disillusionment. My shelves are full of them.

Books I want:

Four Letter Word, New Love Letters and Francine Oomen's Gek van Liefde. Ben je gek van de liefde? Or is it all a matter of choice? Crazy not crazy crazy not crazy... Love is a conscious choice. Chemistry, ah, that's different.

A bit like this:

sitting across from him in the cafe
I thought for a minute that I could see
that brief moment of truth
of how it could be
the ins and outs, the shine
then just as quickly it went again.

Book club I joined:

One in Amsterdam, on Wednesday nights. Book being read right now, Andrea Levy's Small Island.

Book club I started, linked with the Dutch Word of the Day:

First book. Boudewijn Buch's de kleine, blonde dood. Grab a copy and come join us on facebook. We start in March.

Go read the Dutch Word of the Day too. Those guys do a fantastic job of making Dutch accessible.

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I just realised I could have spun this blog post out into a whole week, but today I have so much to say. Funny how that happens sometimes.