The House with Only an Attic and a Basement Page 2
BIRD 2: She abandoned her children –
BIRD 3: Her family is Turkish, maybe they’re Greek –
BIRD 4: She never fit in here –
BIRD 1: The husband is Danish, the husband left –
BIRD 2: Her husband won’t leave her –
BIRD 3: Some country that practises honour killings –
BIRD 4: She was sectioned –
BIRD 1: He has a lover, the husband left –
BIRD 2: Her husband won’t leave her –
BIRD 3: Her parents don’t know –
BIRD 4: Sectioned for strapping a bomb on her back –
BIRD 1: The husband left –
BIRD 2: Her husband won’t leave her –
BIRD 1: He has a lover –
BIRD 2: She lives with her partner –
BIRD 4: She was a threat –
BIRD 1: He has a flat – ‘separate lives’
BIRD 3: Where is his flat?
BIRD 1: In Notting Hill –
BIRD 3: In Notting Hill?
BIRD 2: No Maida Vale –
BIRD 3: The family home?
BIRD 4: She’s a threat to herself and the children
pause
BIRD 1:
Do not cry, woman
You’re not the first or last bird
To be forsaken.
BIRD 2:
Be ashamed, woman
What foolish and selfish bird
Could leave her own young?
BIRD 3:
We, your ancestors,
Abhor your newfangled ways;
Destruction awaits.
BIRD 4:
Does anyone know
Which narrative is correct?
They are all different.
The Adulteress
was her joke name for herself though
unfashionable & (except in the literal
sense) incorrect. She had to stop
attending dinner parties as someone
would inevitably say something
like, ‘I didn’t know which husband to
expect tonight!’ or ‘Your husband’ this/
‘Your husband’ that with her partner
sitting right there. She did not view herself
as a joke & yet this joke word ‘adulteress’
was in her head so she said to her daughter
who was learning to sew, ‘Can you make
a big red A & sew it on my black dress?’
Her daughter said, ‘Which black dress?’
& the woman said, ‘Every black dress.’
Poem in which I Reside in a Female Prison with Two Male Guards and No Allies
My sentence was to end in May, but the law changed, and although no one can satisfactorily explain how this amendment applies to me, I am admittedly deaf to cultural nuance, insisting (as though anyone cares) that I’d have been released if I were jailed in my home country where my crime is de rigueur and where, too, my guards would almost certainly not be men, one of whom fucks me which is fine because I am that needy, whereas the other wants no sex but gives presents I can’t use like ponchos saying Beati Possidentes. When new prisoners join they cursorily look my way then ignore me as though my ageing reminds them of what they’ll be after 10 years of dichotomous treatment. They don’t ask my advice which is just as well because I know nothing and suffer from a brain fog that is either anxiety or else I am being poisoned: maybe by the gifts from the second prison guard or maybe by the semen from the first, or maybe – as is the predominant explanation – I am administering it myself.
Scarlet Letter Couplets
Hester Prynne passed through her ordeal,
watched with moral zeal.
What imagination is irreverent enough to surmise
the weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes?
Hester Prynne had this dreadful agony in feeling.
With a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling,
she took the baby on her arm with a burning blush.
‘Hush now, gossips. Hush, Hester. Hush, child – hush.’
Ghastly scenery around her, a home and comfort nowhere,
even thus early had the child saved her from Satan’s snare.
He had won a distinguished name
such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame:
‘Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me –
live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee!’
‘Thou wilt go!’ said Hester calmly, as he met her
with only that one ornament – the scarlet letter.
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It’s Not Her Story to Tell
The famous novelist and not-so-famous poet, long time colleagues in the same English department, never had a real conversation until they both landed a residential course in Rome, during which the famous novelist, who had just finalised a bitter divorce, felt fragile enough to talk about her life, and the poet, who was feeling chatty himself, told his autobiography over grappa and ice. The next year the famous novelist published a book in which the main character was a not-so-famous poet who had the same life experiences as the not-so-famous poet in Rome. Outraged, the not-so-famous poet texted an even-less-famous poet who had never been to Rome but who had once complimented the famous novelist on her leather jacket at the departmental Christmas party. ‘Can you believe she wrote my story?’ he typed. ‘It’s not her story to tell.’ The even-less-famous poet replied, ‘Isn’t that awful!’
The H Man
His superpower was being the subject of ever-taller tales
about his prowess at hurling, a sport with prehistoric Gaelic
origins where players use hurleys (sticks) on a sliotar (ball),
aiming it over the crossbar of the goalpost for 1 point,
or under the crossbar of the goalpost & into the net for 3.
Considered to be ‘the fastest player ever’ in a sport known
to be ‘the world’s fastest field sport’, the H Man once broke
the nose of an opponent with his force plus his velocity
(though some say he broke his ribs or legs). He did not
‘go professional’ because hurling remains an amateur sport,
but he did become a poet because that profession does exist.
Catherine and Her Wheel (II)
After a few years of marriage, it became clear to her husband that Catherine was less a saint than a victim. As in, everyone had wronged her. Meanwhile the spikey wheel became a hazardous object of rivalry among their young children. Catherine’s husband basically became Jesus in order to cope.
He joked, ‘I’m changing my name to Jesus!’
The children asked, ‘What’s “Jesus”?’
‘I’m Jesus,’ he said. ‘That’s what Jesus is.’
Dear Fellow Parents
Whilst our sons prepare assiduously for the contest,
I thought I might send a note concerning how we,
their parents, can usefully support & aid them.
In short, expect the unexpected in terms of weather.
Nottingham is rightly notorious for howling gales
& extreme temperatures: hypothermia & sunburn
are possible, frequently in the same weekend.
Send your son with layers & more layers.
You, too, will need layers because clothes
which are wet tend to stay wet. The tent
contains tables, chairs
, a barbecue, kettle,
hungry & thirsty boys, coaches, parents
& the occasional sibling or two. SPACE
IS LIMITED. If your son has a life-threatening
allergy, please flag this, though we have not had
a ‘no nuts’ policy hitherto. If you are not sure
what to bring, think what your son might like to eat
& multiply the quantity by, say, eight.
Could we have specific offers of the following?
Tea bags, Horlicks, hummus, two gas canisters
(Stoker family, may I prevail upon you?);
a super-sized cooler (Bernz-Joneses?);
duck wraps (please could you commit to several
dozen in recognition of the unique place
these wraps hold in our hearts); flapjacks
(popular with certain coaches); lemon drizzle cake
(popular with me!); bottled water & industrial
quantities of rubbish bags. A couple of pointers,
if I may, to families who may not have attended before:
for three hours before the event, your son
won’t be able to eat protein, but must stay fuelled
with light carbs. After the competition,
the feeding frenzy commences:
parents will be pressed into grilling & serving
more food than one would consider possible.
Feeding & cleaning take place continuously.
But the rewards are peerless, a spectacle –
without fear of exaggeration, the most important
contest for us as a whole. Let’s see
if we can have another memorable weekend.
I am likely to be wearing something pink.
Report Card: Classics
AUTUMN
When she is in the spotlight, she produces
the goods satisfactorily enough.
She is not a committed Hellenist
it has to be said
which is a shame but not shameful.
*
SPRING
The focus and drift of my comments have not changed
in the brief interval since they were written.
If I stand over her with a weapon
of mass destruction she does what she has to –
but I would rather not.
THE HOUSE OF ATREUS
* * *
I am Signing None of the Emails with an ‘X’
Electra
I am signing none of the emails with an ‘x’ because
whatever affection he feels for me is not being
transferred. Affection is not a currency. I can’t
make him feel affection just as he is failing to make
me feel affection. I am anxious about my appointment
with the GP though I feel better than I did last year
and the year before. I arrived Saturday. The flight
was fine except for snafus at JFK: immigration queues,
misplaced bags, then Orestes didn’t turn up
so I hailed a taxi. We got lost because I don’t know the way
from the Northern State Parkway. Dad scolded the driver
for lacking a GPS then gave him $100, which sums up
my dad: first the meanness and then the reward.
I’m Obsessed with my Health which I Guess
Clytemnestra
I’m obsessed with my health, which I guess is a capitalist
construct. I put a codicil in my will in case my son
is orphaned. I bought a bed with my husband’s Am Ex after
my Visa was declined from overuse. The salesman misheard
the ‘X’ in my postcode as ‘S,’ so I said ‘X like exit’
& Aegisthus shook his head because ‘exit’ doesn’t really
begin with ‘X’. I transferred money to my husband’s account.
I Bought Flowers on the Clifton Road Because
Iphigenia
I bought flowers on the Clifton Road
because I think I might be dead?
The severe light and wind are exactly
as they were when I was a little
girl and I wrote DANGER on an oak,
believing our branches to be
perilous & public. Once my
grandfather tried to explain the blood-
lines between me & Helen of Troy
but I don’t speak good Greek so he may
have said something else. He was the only
man who ever loved me & offered
to be buried with me but I said no
I said I would be married with the wind.
Because I Want to be Around Negativity
Orestes
Because I want to be
around negativity
as little as possible,
I avoid my sister,
though I wish she were more
hospitable. I’ve made a
scrupulous dossier of
her insanity &
I bcc my parents
on all our correspondence.
Quoting Melanie Klein,
she claims she’s the family
scapegoat, when we all know she
inherited bad genes.
I’m not married to our
father, as she unattract-
ively taunts, but I do
respect his business
acumen, especially
the hotels. No one
sacrificed anyone:
my unfamilial sister
gave herself willingly to
whatever she worshipped.
At Family Dinner We Talked Politics
Agamemnon
At family dinner we talked politics.
Electra, now 9, supports the Liberal
Democrats because her friend said they’re best.
Orestes, aged 12, was visited by
constituency MPs at school and
was most impressed with the Conservatives.
When I said what I felt were the downsides
of the Conservatives, Electra cried:
she seems to have some guilt about money,
a trait she shares with my Clytemnestra.
Then We Had the Best Meal of Our Stay
Clytemnestra
Then we had the best meal of our stay,
a place you could pass without noticing,
a small establishment with a single woman
serving a whole room of diners & I wept
as we ate, I have felt so fretful for so
many years, not believing I’m loved.
He countered with his own frustration:
our constitutional differences.
I tried again: I want us to be
a family or I’ll go back to my
original one. When we left, the
proprietress kissed us on both cheeks.
[I’m constricted on this Eurostar,
two bags at my feet & suffering from wine.]
She’s a Pain in the Arse but She’s Nice to Look at [Variations]
Aegisthus
she’s a pain
in the arse
but she’s nice
to look at
she’s a pain
in the arse
but she’s (still)
nice looking
at 40
she’s a pain
but she’s loyal
and nice
she gets pains
I’m patient
I’m nice
she says
I’m an arse
I want sex
with the daughter
of my ex
We Had a Big Row Yesterday
Iphigenia
We had a big row yesterday:
I was agitated because
he keeps mentioning the self-harm
in such a selfish way, as though
to slice up my veins was violent
to him. When I asked him to drop
it, he claimed I want to ‘control’
him. As I left, I shouted, Why
can’t we just be together? He
said, So I can live in this hell
all the time? and I said On the
contrary [yes I used those words]
don’t you see I’m only like this
when you leave me, which is always.
The P Man
His superpower was launching the careers of mainly
female potters, first by detecting talent in pensioners
he instructed in adult education programmes; later
by inviting younger potters to classes at his home,
a known arena of drinking and swiving. Apropos
of swiving, he appreciated what he termed ‘big women’:
one was a recovering alcoholic palace librarian
whose youth, he said, ‘flattered him’; another ran off
and married a different man only days after her last
physical encounter with the P Man, leaving the latter
to view himself, simultaneously, as exploited and alone.
Information from the Headmaster
As you know, there was an incident on the river last week.
One of our Fifth Form crews, the J14 Octuple, got caught
on some moorings below Chiswick Pier. When the boat sank,
one boy went into the water but Mr S was able to pull
him into the launch. A second boy found refuge on the cruiser.
Mr S did a headcount, then dropped the rescued boy at the pier.
Rowing on the river is of course a potentially hazardous activity.
However, Mr S and the Boat House Staff are experienced
oarsmen with deep knowledge of the Thames and its ways.