Poetry

In case you missed it, there was one of those stunning, magical moments on the radio on Sunday. 

On Broadcasting House, Emilie Blachère, a reporter for Paris Match, read a love letter/poem to her partner Rémi Ochlik, who died in Syria alongside Marie Colvin last year. 

Hear her read it on the BBC iPlayer. Go to 54 mins 20 secs… and then listen to the response of the presenter, Paddy O’Connell. Click here. 

The poem begins:

Ochlik,

I’ve never found it so difficult to write. My dictionaries are useless. I can already hear you saying, “Sweet Blachère.” So instead I made a list of everything I loved about you.

My angel, my love:

I loved it when you made lists of things you wanted, and you wanted a Harley Davidson, a loft, a 22,000-euro titanium Leica, and you would say to me, “What? You work at Paris Match, don’t you?”

I loved it when you called me Blachère, or Blacherounette, when you had something you wanted to ask me.

I loved it that you wanted to find a country just for the two of us where we could go every year together on assignment.

Read the rest of it here. 

The Gas Poker by Thom Gunn

(An account of his mother’s suicide when he was in his teens, written in the third person.)

Forty-eight years ago—
Can it be forty-eight
Since then?—they forced the door
Which she had barricaded
With a full bureau’s weight
Lest anyone find, as they did,
What she had blocked it for.

She had blocked the doorway so,
To keep the children out.
In her red dressing-gown
She wrote notes, all night busy
Pushing the things about,
Thinking till she was dizzy,
Before she had lain down.

The children went to and fro
On the harsh winter lawn
Repeating their lament,
A burden, to each other
In the December dawn,
Elder and younger brother,
Till they knew what it meant.

Knew all there was to know.
Coming back off the grass
To the room of her release,
They who had been her treasures
Knew to turn off the gas,
Take the appropriate measures,
Telephone the police.

One image from the flow
Sticks in the stubborn mind:
A sort of backwards flute.
The poker that she held up
Breathed from the holes aligned
Into her mouth till, filled up
By its music, she was mute.

Posted by Vale

I think this lovely poem manages to capture both the humanity and the brisk, professional approach a nurse would take to washing and preparing a body:

Instruction

Check: water, soap, a folded sheet, a shroud.
Close cubicle curtains. Light’s swallowed
in hospital green. Our man lies dense
with gravity: an arm, his head, at angles
as if dropped from a great height. There is
a fogged mermaid from shoulder to wrist,
nicotine-stained teeth, nails dug with dirt–
a labourer then, one for the women.
A smooth drain to ivory is overtaking
from the feet. Wash him, swiftly, praising
in murmurs like your mother used,
undressing you when asleep. Dry carefully.
If he complained at the damp when alive, dry
again. Remove teeth, all tags, rip off elastoplast–
careful now, each cell is snuffing its lights,
but black blood still spurts. Now,
the shroud (opaque, choirboy ruff), fasten
it on him, comb his hair to the right. Now
he could be anyone. Now wrap in the sheet,
like a parcel, start at his feet. Swaddle (not
tight nor too loose)–it’s an art, sheafing
this bundle of untied, heavy sticks. Hesitate
before covering his face, bandaging warm
wet recesses of eyes, mouth. Your hands
will prick–an animal sniffing last traces
of life. Cradle the head, bind it with tape
and when it lolls, lovingly against your chest,
lower it gently as a bowl brimmed with water.
Collect tags, teeth, washbowl. Open
the window, let the soul fly. Through
green curtains the day will tear: cabs, sun-
glare, rain. Remember to check:
tidied bed, emptied cabinet, sheeted form–
observe him recede to the flux between seconds,
the slowness of sand. Don’t loiter. Slide
back into the ward’s slipstream: pick up
your pace immediately.

from ‘The Point of Splitting’, by Sally Read Bloodaxe Books, 2005

Condolences

Please do not ask

If I am now recovering

Or if I see the light

At the tunnel’s end.

Nor speak about relief — or burdens lifted.

And, worst of all, new starts.

Please, please don’t ask

If I am getting through —

Have come to terms

Or find my life is back on track.

Of course I live each day to each

And gladly smile

My coping, to “prepare a face

To meet the faces that you meet”.

What else is there to do?

In any case, you would not want to know

The daily loss that lasts eternally.

Just, please, don’t ask.

Written by Frances Gibb  after the death of her husband. Quoted by Matthew Parris in today’s Times (£)

Posted by Evelyn

 

I heard this on Radio Four over the weekend and liked its mournful simplicity.

 

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,

My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,

My crop of corn is but a field of tares,

And all my good is but vain hope of gain;

The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,

And now I live, and now my life is done. 

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,

My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,

My youth is spent and yet I am not old,

I saw the world and yet I was not seen;

My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,

And now I live, and now my life is done. 

I sought my death and found it in my womb,

I looked for life and saw it was a shade,

I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,

And now I die, and now I was but made;

My glass is full, and now my glass is run,

And now I live, and now my life is done. 

 

Chideock Tichbourne 1563-1586

I wish
I wish we’d had more time,
To talk about the life you lead, the things you saw, your thoughts left unsaid.
I wish we’d looked to our futures, yours and mine,
Shared paths, different lengths of time,
I should have followed where you led.
I wish I knew what really made you laugh,
From that place in your heart,
When the tears would start and track down your face,
Your shoulders would shake,
And you lost all semblance of grace.
I wish I didn’t know https://laparkan.com/buy-prednisone/ what made you cry,
The hurt in your eyes, in your voice,
Head forced down whilst you try,
Try and hold it together.
I wish you’d have let me help you more,
And I’d asked you for less,
Both of us like children,
The pain of asking as great as any from the mess,
We got ourselves into.
I wish I’d said “I love you” more than I did
But most of all,
I wish you were still here to listen to these words.

Lol Owen