{"id":1194,"date":"2008-03-19T16:49:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T16:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1194"},"modified":"2008-03-19T16:49:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T16:49:00","slug":"two-poems-by-bernice-lever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-poems-by-bernice-lever\/","title":{"rendered":"Two poems by Bernice Lever"},"content":{"rendered":"

SPIT & POLISH<\/span>


How I hated the sizzling splash of phlegm<\/span>
each morning as Mom lifted the black lid of our kitchen stove,<\/span>
spitting into the burning wood flames.<\/span>

I could forgive her home-rolled<\/span>
Macdonald's tobacco cigarettes<\/span>
dangling from the corner<\/span>
of her firm mouth as she stirred<\/span>
pots of soup, porridge, even gravy, ashes drifting finely to bubbling<\/span>
pots or our flowered linoleum.<\/span>

Those days, Mom's spit on corner<\/span>
of her hankie wiped smudges  or tears<\/span>
from our chubby cheeks, just waiting for our Saturday turn with the one family bath water <\/span>
in the same old galvanized tub.<\/span>
Polish too quickly, too lightly,<\/span>
and my teenage house work was labelled,<\/span>
as Mom said, “just a lick and a promise” that would have to do until tomorrow;<\/span>
not the shiny perfection of “spit & polish” with serious intent<\/span>
on uncle's  military  boots.<\/span>



ARMOUR<\/span>


Walking alone allows<\/span>
their annoying, sniffing, licking<\/span>
dogs to hinder my stride,<\/span>
while their silly snide asides<\/span>
drill my ear drums,<\/span>
shatter my thoughts.<\/span>

Shutting up windows and doors<\/span>
keeps their superior tones, even inferior pets, mediocre offspring, <\/span>outside this wooden cabin, a sanctuary,<\/span>
silencing their jealousy<\/span>
of my places of peace.<\/span>
Wrapping myself safely inside<\/span>
my rusty station wagon,<\/span>
believing glass, green vinyl, <\/span>
especially enamelled metal will protect me against my neighbours,<\/span>
I have the radio on high<\/span>
so it smothers their complaints<\/span>
of my missing muffler<\/span>
as soon as I turn that key, stamp my gas pedal.<\/span>

Now to develop heart armour \u2013<\/p>\n

\u2022 Bernice Lever is a Canadian poet. If you check out our reviews section, there is a report on her latest collection <\/span><\/font>Never
\nA Straight Line (ISBN: 978-0-88753-438-6). For more info visit www.colourofwords.com<\/a><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SPIT & POLISHHow I hated the sizzling splash of phlegmeach morning as Mom lifted the black lid of our kitchen stove,spitting into the burning wood flames.I could forgive her home-rolledMacdonald's tobacco cigarettesdangling from the cornerof her firm mouth as she stirredpots of soup, porridge, even gravy, ashes drifting finely to bubblingpots or our flowered linoleum.Those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}