Much of moment going on in the past week, both at Essex home and here in the village (Gala Week: the denouement!), but that will have to come later as today we're Poetry Jamming with Kat. Her prompt:
As it’s summertime and the flowers are in bloom, all around us, I want you to write about flowers, BUT as it’s me who’s directing this “jam”, I want you to write something dark.
Use your imagination and write about flowers that are used for ill-will, or a funeral, or that conjure up sad memories, or are ragged and dirty and war-torn.
I don’t want anything pretty … or flowery, if you get my meaning.
OK, mine's loose, but tighter, darker pieces can be found here: http://poetryjaam.blogspot.com/2011/07/im-in-bit-of-jam.html
A Book of Common Prayer
In her hand, a small ivory book.
One broad ribbon, laced with freesias,
hangs from it: a bookmark
flourishing under holy orders.
The Order for Morning Prayer.
The Order for Evening Prayer.
A prayer for our most gracious Sovereign Lord,
King George; replenish him.
In my hand it is inscribed
To Mother
Thanking her for all she’s done,
on the occasion of their wedding
Richard and Paddy
April 9th 1950.
I do not know if the Mother
is her own, that’s alcoholic Nan,
or Grandma Palmer
who dropped down dead
at the kitchen sink one night,
a sudden, catastrophic, haemorrhage.
We buried both before I was ten; I part-remember them.
Nan gave me money if the horses were good;
Grandma, chocolate, if we were good.
Inscribed opposite, the following:
To JoAnne
On her wedding day
23rd May 1992.
That would be my first wedding,
which I can remember in some fine detail.
What followed I have let become
London Clay in summer, blown away
to lie in a distant, infertile land.
Pressed between the pages for
The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony,
a sprig of myrtle: dull, brown, friable.
It sheds two leaves as I lift it.
Eyre and Spottiswoode (His Majesty’s Printers)
solid edge gilded, ruby 32mo.
How many women have held this book
and to what daughter
would I wish to leave it?
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