Recently I put together a tiny\u00a0poetry collection to apply for a grant. It was\u00a0an interesting exercise, writing a set of poems that worked individually but also told a story together. I haven\u2019t really done\u00a0that before.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s six pieces in total. They each stand alone\u00a0but together they create a picture of\u00a0living with chronic illness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2018The politics of illness\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n A collection.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Sarah Wilson.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1. Shy<\/p>\n 2. Stretching Days<\/p>\n 3. The politics of Illness<\/p>\n 4. Sedentary<\/p>\n 5. Conversations with Wolves<\/p>\n 6. A Poet\u2019s Process<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shy<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.<\/p>\n A round chicken<\/p>\n Peers around the front door<\/p>\n Head \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 cocked<\/p>\n A single throaty enquiry<\/p>\n One\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 foot\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 raised<\/p>\n Assured the all clear<\/p>\n <\/p>\n she darts into the kitchen<\/p>\n to sit on the egg bowl.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2.<\/p>\n The \u00a0woman<\/p>\n Looks behind her and<\/p>\n slides slowly into the pool<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ripples spreading\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 from her rippling arms.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3.<\/p>\n My lover wears a lace<\/p>\n bow on her wrist, and<\/p>\n a dried feather<\/p>\n on a leather string<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She only meets my eyes<\/p>\n When she\u2019s naked.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4.<\/p>\n In the darkness,<\/p>\n with dry eyes open<\/p>\n I<\/p>\n begin to think of<\/p>\n <\/p>\n the funerals I didn\u2019t go to<\/p>\n and the children<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t claim.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stretching Days<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes I go for a walk<\/p>\n in the afternoons, when the rain is still dripping<\/p>\n from branches and letterboxes<\/p>\n and the clouds on the hills are fat and empty<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While I wander, I think of<\/p>\n friends I don\u2019t know anymore<\/p>\n walking on parallel streets<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Their chins up,<\/p>\n feet light,<\/p>\n unused umbrellas swinging<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maybe we\u2019re all<\/p>\n going in the same direction,<\/p>\n maybe they<\/p>\n are also watching trees<\/p>\n bent over\u00a0with the weight of water<\/p>\n and pocketing leaves<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If they turn the right corner<\/p>\n and so do I<\/p>\n We might spot each other<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I<\/p>\n will stand and wait<\/p>\n to see if they cross the street.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Politics of Illness<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe place for politics,\u201d says Dave, anchoring pint with one hand and drawing a stick figure in the condensation<\/p>\n \u201cis in a bar downtown on Friday, when you\u2019re all a bit pissed and still wearing your work clothes and you can get lippy about the gov\u2019ment, cos nobody\u2019s going to remember on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe place for politics,\u201d says Ruth, while wrangling a squirming toddler into a Bob The Builder tshirt<\/p>\n \u201cis not over the family dinner table, because grandpa likes to have a word too many and you\u2019re just too sensitive for it love, you know that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe place for politics,\u201d says Neil, scratching his beard with three fingers and squinting a red eye<\/p>\n \u201cis on the street, where everyone can hear it. They gotta be told someday. They gotta wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe place for politics?\u201d says Anne, sitting back on her heels, exposing knees covered with dirt and blocking the sun from her face with a cocked elbow.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know, dear. I think they\u2019ve got it pretty well covered up there in Wellington, don\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe place for politics?\u201d says Frankie, applying a line of decisive lipstick and watching me warily in the mirror.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s everywhere. It\u2019s inescapable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t get political with\u00a0me<\/em>\u201d says Dale, bouncing the baby against one thigh and scooping up\u00a0the last biscuit.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have time for that bollocks.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe place for politics\u201d I think, leaning over the toilet bowl with one hand on the wall and the other holding back my hair<\/p>\n \u201cis right here in our mouths.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sedentary<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is a type of sloth<\/p>\n who moves so rarely<\/p>\n people used to think<\/p>\n it was dead in the tree<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It eats once a month<\/p>\n it takes that long to digest<\/p>\n It really only lives on one thing<\/p>\n but lots of things live on it<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I guess it must think a lot of thoughts<\/p>\n that sloth, hanging upside down<\/p>\n inching along branches at 4 feet per minute<\/p>\n inching into sunlight<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes they live to be 60<\/p>\n sometimes they really do die in the tree, still holding on for dear life<\/p>\n imagine being 60, dying alone in a tree<\/p>\n and no one noticing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Conversations With Wolves<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Talking to you<\/p>\n is like forcing myself<\/p>\n through a very small hole in a barbed wire fence<\/p>\n <\/p>\n with the small brained certainty<\/p>\n that the field on the other side is sweeter<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Halfway through and no way back<\/p>\n A final tearing heave<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Only to see<\/p>\n Strings of fleece left hooked in the wind<\/p>\n and corresponding naked holes<\/p>\n in my belly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A Poet\u2019s Process<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Herbal tea. Blank page. Pensive window. (Windows are not pensive, stop it<\/em>).<\/p>\n Looking and looking and staring and dreaming and Oh! Tuis in the tree. Tuis in the Kowhai tree. My heart swelling with the song and if I could just find it, that \u2018prolonged hesitation between music and meaning,\u2019 the right words to paint the sound and that pretty pretty pretty picture, maybe I could \u2013<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s been done, a million times done, don\u2019t do it, don\u2019t do it, don\u2019t.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s just that they\u2019re so p-<\/em><\/p>\n Parochial? Yes.<\/p>\n The flora and fauna,<\/p>\n the heritage, the history, the ancestral inheritance of dirt? (It\u2019s not yours, of course)<\/p>\n The garden path the watercolour the cup of tea<\/p>\n Fuck the fucking landscape.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Just look at them, those two round comma birds, hopping and hanging upside down. They are \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fat?\u00a0Well, yes.<\/em>\u00a0Drunken?\u00a0Better<\/em>. Bristling arguing fat gentlemen, their melodic arguments punctuated by drunken vomiting chain-gurgling chokes?\u00a0Well, at least it\u2019s realistic.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And there! Kereru! Are they not just so–<\/em>?\u00a0No, they\u2019re not<\/em>.\u00a0Resis<\/em>t. But are they not also drunken and rolling, their eyes peering wildly from whiplash necks? \u00a0They might well be but you don\u2019t have to<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 They do not argue now but they lurch into uneven flight like a pair of corpulent inebriated squatters, and I am breathless to-<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Their white feathers are\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0handkerchiefs or napkins or gentlemen\u2019s neatly tied cravats. They could be a whore\u2019s heaving breasts. They could be the chest of a 17 year old solider before the scarlet bloom of bullets begins. They could be\u2026<\/p>\n Birds. Dead birds. Perhaps I will find the corpses discarded on the path, the ivory coffer left cavernous by neighbourhood cats. A degustation for ants.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Beyond the rolling hills clothed in creeping Nikau palms the city sleeps in suburban ignorance (oh, no, alliteration? must you? Imust<\/em>). The bush heaves in; the roots push up through the cracks. (What I mean of course is that my roots are showing through my cracks).<\/p>\n My cup of tea is cold and the dawn parade (I mean chorus. No, I mean parade. Do I mean chorus?) is long since over.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The battle in the garden continues. The roots through the path, the Tuis with drunken clasp to growing trees, Kereru with arrogant white palate, the cat who always watches, the ants\u2019 slow procession of flesh.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My heritage<\/p>\n my history<\/p>\n my<\/em><\/p>\n ancestral<\/p>\n inheritance of dirt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently I put together a tiny\u00a0poetry collection to apply for a grant. It was\u00a0an interesting exercise, writing a set of poems that worked individually but also told a story together. Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehanded.org\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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