"Cry!" by Diana Reed

After
Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best women of my generation ordering wedding flowers, arranging menus, buying hats, spending money enough for a dozen second honeymoons

Mothers who wept into lace-trimmed squares, paper tissues, husband's handkerchiefs, for the babes we have lost

Babes who kept us awake and moaning for pity's sake to just shut up and stop crying until we left them in the prison of their cots and fled to the end of the garden where we howled into the wind

Babes who tipped chocolate pudding over head and shoulders and bib and floor.

Babes who refused to open their lips until a spoon danced the dance of the birds flying home into the big mouth cave

Babes whose needs drove us out to meet mad degenerate female friends at NCT coffee mornings, mother and toddler groups, at the churches and the halls filled with the plastic toys and deafening noise of

Babes who fought and played, snatched and grabbed, bit and screamed until we said no and no and no and no and had no other words in our mouths

Babes who babbled sounds to our faces as we babbled back at the sweetykins darling-child, the mamama and the dadadad of it.

Babes whose soft arms were round our necks, soft bodies in our arms, who nestled their heads against our shoulders sleeping the long journeys from deadly holiday hotels, over-long long-weekends, visits to grandma or granny, grandpa or granddad.

Until the church bells ring for our babes gone into the world of study and work and coming home only to visit - and to bring their washing,

Gone and never seen again except as sweet strangers who have stretched and filled the minds and bodies of our

Babes. Who we cry for at their weddings.

Robin and Roc

Twitch-tail, short flight.

Shrub
Bench
Fence
Beak full of grub.
Nest.
Stuff a gaping mouth.

I'd rather be a Roc,
And fly over the sea. Great white wings
Overshadowing the sails below.

When Elephant and Rhinoceros
Were out of season I'd scour the decks
For stray sailors, tender cabin boys.

No cat or snake could bring me down,
I'd have no fear for my fierce brood,
Strong dominators of their future sky.

Unhampered by weak cries, guiltless, I'd ride the thermals, soar to the sun, And burn with joy, alone.

But
I'm not a Roc.
We're Robins.
With more important things to do.

Learning from History

"He that is down need fear no fall" - John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress.

I am intransigent as the landscape that holds me,
Your 'Area of Natural Beauty', which was
Cropped and dug, skinned and boned, left for
Empty moorland long before your time.

You think I am beautiful? All you see
Is my small waist, round young face,
Down-turned eyes, and steady, careful hands
Bent to the need of a long dead industry.

I do not look out from the picture in your book.
How could I look back at the gentleman, the camera?
It would be clear, from my look, I was not looking
As an equal. Looking down, I will not be put down.

Take this from me: you will not always be the one
To hold the book or look through the camera's eye.
Others will shape their image of you as they will.
Only the meek, who will not look up, are free.

Extension

Open rafters, high windows to catch the skies.
Our extension. My Celtic harp, his rowing machine:
Away from the family, unquestioned, unseen,
This is the room where we extend our lives.
And there's our double bed, which will never recover
The spring it used to have. No more will we.
But we meet in its soft concavity,
And this is the room where we extend our love.

One day we'll hire a big removal van.
Take out the furniture and memories.
After more than twenty years, we'll sell the place
To younger strangers. I'll be a little sad.
We all grow roots. That's how it is. And this
Is the room that I'll most come to miss.

Against Authoritarianism

Whistles should have holes
To let the intensity of their
Scream be muted, mutated,
Mutatis mutandis,

Into the soft clay ocarina,
Into the silver flute,
Into the magic of modifying
Time into tune.

Never just one hole.

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