Tuesday Poem

There is nothing quite like a kitchen smelling of fresh bread and nothing quite like the alchemy of sourdough. These are my second lot of baguettes. Sharp-eyed visitors will notice the tea towel on which they rest features kiwis - I bought it in New Zealand when we visited there two years ago.

What poem would best go with a photo of crusty sourdough baguettes? Pablo Neruda's 'Ode to Bread', of course. It was his birthday and Bastille Day this week, so baguettes and 'Ode to Bread' feel like a good fit! I don't wish to break copyright, so read the Ode to Bread here.

When you've made yourself a piece of toast or cut into a fresh loaf, waltz over to the Tuesday poem blog and read this week's featured poem, 'Another Exile Paints a Spring Portrait of Kathleen Mansfield'. This poem, by Riemke Ensing, is brought to you this week by Kathleen Jones. I love the charming and telling details in this poem and the playful annotations in the poem's 'margins'. Just beautiful!

From the hub you can explore other Tuesday poems - and read a poem of mine - here -  which has been posted by Helen McKinlay. Serendipitously, my poem is a kind of ekphrastic poem, too.

Tuesday Poem - on a Thursday from Edinburgh

Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
(Child 201 Ballad, also known as 'The Twa Lassies'

   O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
   They were twa bonnie lasses;
They biggit a bower on yon burn-brae,
   And theekit it o'er wi' ashes.

They theekit it o'er wi' rushes green,
   They theekit it o'er wi' heather;
But the pest cam frae the burghs-toun,
   And slew them baith taegither.

They thought tae lie in Methven kirkyard,
   Amang their noble kin;
But they maun lie in Stronach haugh,
   To bieck forment the sin.

And Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
   They were twa bonnie lasses;
They biggit a bower on yon burn-brae,
   And theekit it o'er with rashes.

This version of the ballad was sourced from a little book edited by Charles Sinclair,  Scotland's Bloody Ballads, Goblinshead Press, 2011 - there are at least three of these small books produced (for the tourist trade) and they are examples of innovative souvenirs; transportable, interesting and so much better than keyrings and the like.  Hats off to Goblinshead Press!

I was watching the BBC4 programme, Handmade in Britain, last night about the history of English embroidery, which was extremely fine in the Middle Ages. The English had two stitches which enabled them to produce wonderful work; the split stitch which allowed for shading and very subtle, expressive details and underside couching, which used linen to anchor fine gold or silver thread, making it more flexible. What has this to do with Bessie Bell and Mary Gray? Well, the ballad tells of two friends who die from the plague. The plague also wiped out half the population of London, where most of the embroidery industry was based. This effectively ended the Opus Anglicanum - 'English Work' - which had produced such wonderful artworks.

They were plundered for the precious jewels and pearls, deliberately destroyed during the Reformation and deteriorated through time so few examples of Opus Anglicanum remain. But the ones that do are stunning. Apprenticeships took seven years and work was closely scrutinised by the Broderers Guild.

All rather a far cry from Bessie Bell and Mary Gray - but there's a link there!

A less tenuous link is the Tuesday Poem hub - find yourself in different poetic worlds and times beginning with a love poem, 'If We Could Speak Like Wolves' by Kim Moore, edited this week by Kathleen James.

Tuesday Poem - Sal's Boat

Just as he wears his home

written on his skin, a tsunami

of proud pain washing

over shoulders across chest

and belly I want traces of him

forever inked into me

so no matter what I give away

or what they take

I will not forget.

When he’s done a boat

floats on my wrist.

In a week it will no longer

be strange.

When I wake at night he sings me asleep

his burred voice a lullaby tide -

I float home, a small boat on word-waves

I can’t interpret.  Will we have time

enough to grow into each other

so that when I dream

us shipwrecked, he dreams the rescue?

Welcome back to my Tuesday Poem - this is the latest from my work-in-progress, a fantasy verse novel. Do check out the Tuesday Poem blog which, this week, features the work of another Tuesday Poem poet, Kathleen Jones.  From here you can explore a diversity of other Tuesday poems.

'Ring out, wild bells' by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.


Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

This poems forms part of 'In Memoriam', an elegy to Tennyson's sister's fiance. Since 1897, it's been recited every New Year's Eve by a Swedish actor as part of their  national New Year's Eve celebrations. Now, why can't we have something like that in Melbourne on New Year's Eve?

Slip across to the Tuesday Poem Blog for other Tuesday poems and a link to Dylan Thomas reading 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' - what a fabulous Christmas treat! Thanks to Kathleen Jones for posting it.

This is my last Tuesday poem post until mid-January - thank you all who have been reading the Tuesday poems. I hope everyone has a safe and joyful festive season.