My Mum saw her sobbing backstage
after the elocution competitions —
second to my first. We were eight.
Grew up in the same suburb,
came to each other’s birthday parties,
attended High School together.
Thirty years later, surprise:
reunion onstage in another city,
reciting our own works.
Awhile inhabited the same
publications, venues, academies.
Supported each other, allies.
Went different ways again:
fiction her love, poetry mine —
rivalry, like childhood, past.
Cross-posted from my poetry blog The Passionate Crone, where it appears as: 30 Poems in 30 Days, 2010: 12 (Prompt: A poem about a rivalry)
[Poem #88]
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent, lapsing and resuming) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Her Name Was ...
She was on MySpace
friend of friends.
We wanted to be
real friends not just listed;
but....
The poem she wrote at 10
thrilled me —
its rhythms,
its message,
its everything: perfect.
I praised, she dismissed.
The adult work
I couldn’t like.
All intellectual
wordplay, I thought,
clever for the sake.
Others admired, enthused;
the fault, no doubt, was mine.
Suddenly she’s gone.
Don’t even
remember her last name.
(Sad.)
[Poem #87]
friend of friends.
We wanted to be
real friends not just listed;
but....
The poem she wrote at 10
thrilled me —
its rhythms,
its message,
its everything: perfect.
I praised, she dismissed.
The adult work
I couldn’t like.
All intellectual
wordplay, I thought,
clever for the sake.
Others admired, enthused;
the fault, no doubt, was mine.
Suddenly she’s gone.
Don’t even
remember her last name.
(Sad.)
[Poem #87]
Saturday, 6 March 2010
The Man in Malang
(Central Java)
He steppedfrom a shop doorway,
stood.
Our eyes held.
Then I was past
in the taxi.
A fair woman,
considered beautiful
there.
And he
lean, dark,
piratical.
Not Indonesian.
Too tall, curly-haired ...
a mystery.
That was all
until, back home,
headline:
These men missing,
believed dead.
He, centre photo.
Portuguese engineers,
East Timor take-over
(1979).
Already escaped
that day?
Or
visiting
and went
back ... ?
[Poem #86]
Sharing this, years later, with Poets and Storytellers United for Friday Writings #149: The Joy of Walking Away. (Not exactly on prompt, which fortunately is not compulsory, but at least it involves leaving.)
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