mourning denied

Another death of the generation that included my parents prompted thoughts which eventually led to this poem.  It is not about a specific person, but is rather an emotional amalgam of responses to people I have known who have died.

     When I was training to be a teacher a remark that got a cheap laugh was a comment by one lecturer that we would discover that a major advantages of being a member of the profession was the quality of the conversation in the staff room!

     Any teachers reading that might laugh and think, "Well, you obviously haven't been in my staff room!"  But they should pause for a moment and think.  Even with the relaxation of the all-graduate rule for teachers, the majority of your colleagues will have degrees or other professional qualifications.  They are likely to be articulate and to have a reasonable breadth of general knowledge.  They will have detailed subject-specific expertise and will be articulate.  They are, in many ways, an elite!

     I know that many of you will say that knowledge, articulacy and professionalism are not restricted to teachers - and I have vivid memories of people I worked with in vacation jobs during my time in University who were astonishingly accomplished: I particularly recall one administrative desk worker in a now defunct steel works in Cardiff who had the most amazingly wide ranging breadth of general knowledge that I have ever come across; a garage mechanic who had a flawless memory; an almost retired manual worker whose economy of action was almost poetic, and a whole array of people whose kindness, understanding and helpfulness was not only revelatory but also humbling.

     But teaching colleagues are a stimulating, interesting and vital lot!  And you share a common culture of education, a common concern and understanding.  And that is something you only value when you no longer have access to it.

     I am, and I have found many occasions to remind readers that, I am retired.  I have had the good fortune to be able to continue and complete an Open University degree that I started in the 1970s, so I was part of an continuing educational community; I have started a municipal course in Spanish and I am starting another degree in which the first module is Spanish as well.  I have friends in Spain who teach; I am a member of a Poetry Workshop - you can see where this is going.  I am still privileged to have a circle of acquaintances who have a high level of education and are knowledgeable about the world and their place in it.

     There is something very comforting to feel yourself part of a sort of international high culture: the sort of western-white-male dominated idea of civilisation that institutions like the Open University exist to challenge.  But the knowledge of 'famous' poetry and 'classic' books and 'renowned' art and 'great' music makes you a member of what is probably a shrinking circle of educated people who still have a sort of common language based on shared cultural attitudes and knowledge.

     All of the above and a concern that age is something that becomes more pressing when the generation that we thought was old is dying and we are now the ones taking their place informs the impetus of the following poem.  The comforting adults of our youth are dead, or no longer in a position to offer the stability and security that they once represented.  

     But we, the new old generation have a responsibility to keep alive the traits that we observed and which formed our attitudes as we were growing up.  

     And there is something pleasingly selfish and 'right' about keeping memory of what used to be alive, so that in a real sense, we can be the ones to make sure that we can do our bit for the "ragged generation" to make sure that we live a life of "mourning denied" in celebration of what they give and gave.

                  mourning denied

            waiting for death

to tidy up

a ragged generation,

fraying towards indignity

            the modern way can fuel

a heart beat’s tick,

but can’t reveal the look of

arch élan I know once lived

behind those eyes;

or let a giggle bubble up

to spice a culture

cherished, shared

            temptation is to use

a form of past

to shape the verbs –

but while a glimmer

of the life I knew

exists

            I’ll use my memory to curve

a knowing smile

along chapped lips

In this poem I have gently experimented with punctuation and indentation: you will notice that I have kept some punctuation with each stanza but generally omitted it at the beginning and each of each.

I am haunted by a comment that I think I heard first on Radio 4 that, "we now die of what we used to die with" - this poem is a response to that thought too.

Any comments welcome.

This poem has been written as a response to the theme of the last meeting of the Barcelona Poetry Workshop - which was "Crime".

     The central idea of the poem was using a dream that I have had more than once, but not on anything like a regular basis, where I think I've killed someone!  What interested me was not the absurdity of the dream (I hasten to assure all readers that I have never committed murder!) but the lingering and unsettling belief when I woke of there being something real about the whole experience.

     Guilt is a feeling which is always near the surface because in a comfortable modern Western life there is much that you should feel guilty about.  

     The keyboard that I am using to type these words, although designed in the United States of America was "assembled" in China.  By who?  How old were they?  What were they paid?  How many hours did they work?  What rights did the workers have?  Although I formulate the questions and have some information about the conditions that the workers have to endure and am pretty sure that not all of their rights are respected - I still use the machine and, let's face it most of the time I do not give it a second's thought.

     There is no need, of course, to stop at technology.  What food we eat, how we get it and what price is paid for it, is also something which gives you pause for thought.  If Fair-trade chocolate bars and tea bags exist, what does that say about those items which are not marked with the logo?

     I live by the side of the Mediterranean and all you have to do is continue south from where I live, cross the Straits of Gibraltar and continue around the coast of that sea to realise that the fatal differences in the way that countries govern themselves and the catastrophic relationships that they have with other countries that are neighbours produce situations that reflect shame on the way that we live and let die today.

     So, possible guilt is everywhere you look!  It is hardly surprising that a sleeping mind's unconscious thoughts look to find a clear example to focus on.

     I remember as a child watching a series of crime B movies in B&W on our first television and I was constantly horrified at how easy and 'accidental' murder was: a bad tempered push, a trip, a head against a mantlepiece, a death.  The story of the film was in how the perpetrators reacted.  Usually they panicked and the situation became more and more complex with the eventual ending making the guilty pay.  In my youth you did not get away with crime in the films, morality would be upheld: the stolen gold dust would trickle out from a tear in the sack and blow away in the storm; the car would jolt over a rock, the suitcase would spring open and the money scatter behind the oblivious driver; the thieving gigolo narrator was dead all the time!  Justice would prevail.  Must prevail.

     Now, such moral certainties are no more in modern films: murderers get any with it; thieves keep the cash.  What does guilt mean today?

     I don't think my little poem gets into much of the ethical relativism that we are surrounded by today, but I do emphasise the uncomfortable feeling you sometimes get when the concerns of the dream world make their way into a living reality!

Again

I sometimes dream I’ve killed someone.

A man I think it is.  I hope it is –

because, even in sleep,

I cannot bring myself to

contemplate alternatives.

But there, perhaps, I just deceive myself.

I recognize the countryside,

the hedge where I (inexpertly,

I’m glad to say) roll through

the corpse.

The dream then ends.

I don’t wake up.

Scenes change to brighter things.

But when, I think, I truly wake,

I’m haunted by the clinging dread

of sticky, slight, realities.

Worlds merge and drip and

trickle into daylight cracks

that gape like graves.

The tightening circle

of a stubborn thought

denies the pardon’s space.

No one comes,

is ever there,

to brush the spot away.

Once again, let me emphasise that I will be happy to respond to any comments.

There is nothing like citing a painting to limit readership, especially an Abstract Expressionist.                
     Though, there again, Rothko is so generally liked it might also be seen as trying to curry favour to choose such a popular painter as the subject matter for a poem.  It used to be the poster of the lady tennis player scratching her bum that found its way onto student walls, now, with the deracinated generation of value-for-money students it is more likely to be one of the easy pastel Rothkos that are the art addition of choice in the non-political, gender-non-specific world that university students are living in.  What do I know!  When was the last time that I even spoke to a real life, digs-living student!
     Anyway, the Rothkos that I am writing about are not the pretty-pretty-poster-friendly ones, they are the monstrous (in virtually all senses of the word) paintings that Rothko was commissioned to paint for an up-market business dining room.  And when someone expressed some scepticism about his approach, Rothko explained that he hoped that the paintings would give the diners indigestion.  Good for him!
     The donation of these paintings by Rothko's widow allowed the Rothko Room in the Tate to exist - and I have had a difficult relationship with it ever since.
     Rothko's work can be seductively easy to like; some of his work can be so colourfully satisfying that you are drawn into the painting before you have had time to work out an approach!  The work in the Rothko Room is not so inviting.  And yet.  And yet, each time I go to the Tate I head for the Rothko Room and sit and look.
     I still, after all these years, do not know if I actually 'like' them; somehow that doesn't seem to be the right word to use.  I am obviously drawn to them and they seem to demand my attention.  And I must get something out of the experience or I would not repeat it so often!
     If you want to check out the Rothko Room you can go to http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/rothko/rothko-room-guide and see for yourself.
     I realise that this poem is more about the room than about the paintings, and I do not want you to assume that my description of "splodge and squiggle,/dark on dark" is a dismissive and derisive rejection of what you can see.  The seeming easy of the pictorial expression is something which I find deeply paradoxical when I consider my conflicted approach to the art.
     Anyway the Barcelona Poetry Workshop Group was the stimulus for this draft and I now realise that I have been away from that powerful source of inspiration for far too long!

The Rothko Room, Tate Modern

I look at gaps

and think about the spaces stretched

between the art and that blank wall

that reaches out at angles,

high and low, containing me.

And some communion in this

gloom-curated space,

cathedral-quiet and

supressing sound, seems

not unapt.

It forces me to look,

though not always to see,

that this relationship with

splodge and squiggle,

dark on dark,

is neither more nor less

than what I choose to bring with me.

These are the Elgin Marbles of the Tate:

work wrenched away from purpose

(and the upset stomachs of the very rich)

for the perusal of the people where

I place myself. 

            I gravitate towards

this room each time I come

and sit and wonder

why or what I’m looking at

each time I shift my gaze

from plane to plane

in such a wide and

claustrophobic space.

As I always (and will continue) to say,  I welcome any response and will respond to any comments.

In the same way that, many years ago during a period of some financial embarrassment, the casual comment by my bank manager that, "Well, you do have your flat as collateral" concentrated my mind wonderfully, so, the more recent observation by my doctor that unless I lost ten kilos it was possible that I would have to be treated for diabetes 2, also prompted a fairly radical change in my life-style!

     After some months of denial and a blood test, I was pronounced 'clear' and the (Spanish) doctor called my test results '¡Brutal !' - which is a good thing in Spanish in this circumstance!  I then reminded said doctor that we had shaken on a bet/deal which meant that if I lost the required weight, he would give up smoking.

     The weight was lost and I demanded that he keep his side of the bargain.  

     You can imagine with what sense of betrayal I observed the doctor this morning, sitting with his family in the leisure centre that we both use, with a packet of cigarettes in front of him!

     I thought of calling the poem I wrote about this event, 'Power?' because it does say something about our relative authority!  However, I have decided to keep with the old-fashioned 'honour' aspect of shaking hands on an agreement instead!

     To add insult to injury, although we were sitting on adjacent tables, he had the gall to light up in spite of my hard stares!

     This poem is my 'revenge'!

Broken promise

A bet’s a bet.

We shook.  I did my part.

And now it’s up to him

to show equal gentility.

Because

. . . a bet’s a bet.

I stared at the offending pack.

He started like a guilty thing,

and hid the evidence

beneath his phone.

And with a look as

near to sheepish as you’ll find

a doctor give,

he claimed he had

‘some months of grace’

before he did his bit.

No, sorry, I insist,

a bet’s a bet.

The kilos I was told to lose

have gone.

So he must quit the fags.

It’s not just a British thing –

a bet’s an honour debt,

and must be paid.

But,

there again,

one-upmanship against

your medical support’s

a risky thing.

Though it’s still true:

a bet’s a bet.

In a way the doctor got his 'revenge' in first, by saying at the same time that he was delighted with my results, that I had to lose yet more weight by the next blood test in October!