The 2012 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival runs for the 2nd-4th November, and this week, Ink Sweat & Tears is featuring poems on the theme ‘Poetry as a Lifeline’ which is the subject of the IS&T-supported Discussions and Short Takes this year. Find out more about the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival here
Geometry
Remember how, one night not long ago
you told our daughter what you’d read
about infinity? I couldn’t understand,
although you drew a diagram
to show that two parallel lines,
if left to run forever, will eventually meet.
Remember when she came home
crying the next day covered in shame.
In front of everyone her teacher
had dismissed her father’s proof.
But I believe you. If you and I had never met
that rainy night in Camden Town,
if that night had never been,
that’s where we’d be, each walking the line
towards infinity, searching for the place
where the impossible can happen
and two parallel lines collide.
Jacqueline Saphra‘s first collection, The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye), developed with the support of The Arts Council of England, was shortlisted for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2011. ‘Geometry’ appears in The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions.
Ring of Fire
She’s lost track of her many hiding places
winter coat pocket trunk of summer outfits
under the stairs behind the royal wedding plate
television or sofa cushions amidst tins
of tomatoes and chicken soup school pleats
and towels waiting to be washed and ironed.
She has tucked a poem into each bottle
like a cry for rescue washing up on shore
explaining why the house is mottled
in pink and green why she’s pilfered
pocket money why her man needs throttling
for all the promises he’s never delivered.
In hopes of quitting she tries weekly meetings
but each time leaves high off the fumes
the others have breathed. Back home she opens
another the rhymes coming fast and furious
how the black ducks strut out of the pen
like a gaggle of aunties on their way to a funeral
how foxes prey upon the guinea fowl
each night while the cock keeps his hens
in line fields are allowed to lie fallow
ponies unable to bear the children
are sold on like a paper boat caught in the flow
of the stream to the canal and beyond .
Giddy as a schoolgirl bouncing off walls
she has the sudden strength to muck out stables
and silage the grain to write a poem that will
sell so well she can put aside this terrible
habit and live a peaceful life no delay
to having dinner ready and waiting on the table.
Home from school the children find her
passed out on the floor encircled in an array
of bottles like a protective ring of fire.
Charles Lauder Jr’s poems have appeared internationally, including such journals as Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, The SHOp, California Quarterly, Texas Observer, Agenda, Poetry Nottingham International, Hearing Voices, and Under the Radar. His pamphlet, Bleeds, was published in 2012 (Crystal Clear Creators). ‘Ring of Fire’ has previously appeared in Stand