A Tuesday poem - and a writing exercise

Covenant

On my dark tongue, on my honeycomb bones
my brittle hair and these eyes the clouds pass by
un-named. On your nervous stutter, on your runner's legs
your scarred arm and the contraband you can't
declare. On the poem I put on replay,
my lost bankbooks, my first husband's advice.
On your cellared wine, your forms
in triplicate, your ex-girlfriend's intervention order.

A word like salt or troth
a word that can't add up
lawyers fees
access weekends
child support payments.
Like blood on the tongue.

On my dark honeycomb
my brittle and the clouds that pass by.
On your nervous running
your scars and undeclared contraband.
On our thirst, on our hunger.

Catherine Bateson, Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press, 2009.

I have to stop posting my own poems - do forgive me, gentle reader. I haven't been in touch with any poets, am snowed under with the beginning of the teaching year and I've been trying to write every day and learn French. Not to mention the felting.

To cheer everyone up - here's a fun writing exercise, especially for Valentine's Day:
Write a Valentine's message to yourself. Make it real. Love yourself and pour that love into a poem or prose poem or song lyric.

Oh, and before you do that, skip over to the Tuesday Poem blog and read some more Tuesday poems.

Tuesday Poem - a little late! 'Winning the Day'

It's how you walk back into the day -
your hands tender as new corn
or filled with dust.

I have swallowed the world
and I am full of it.
Come, our fingers are orchards
sheep graze on our mingled breath
whales sound in our arteries
and each morning
the fat eye of love
winks back.

From:  Marriage for Beginners, Catherine Bateson, John Leonard Press, Melbourne 2009.

For My Daughter in Her Fifteenth Year (posted for International Women's Day)

Rewrite the old stories - why should the mermaid
swap her flash sequinned tail
for boring legs? Build her a swimming pool,
resort style, and all her daughters
(chlorine blue polish on their webbed toes)
can swim laps until their hair turns green
as glass but the boys still buy them sushi
and sit so close dizzy with daring.

Red Riding Hood? Think it over -
let's pity the wolf, colour-blind to the danger,
trapped by her pattycakes and pretty please
cursing old granny wits sharp as scissors
awake in her bed.

Cinderella dropped that shoe - oops
- like a text message
on his mobile - Call Me!
Sleeping Beauty peeked -
and so should you.

In even the best gingerbread houses
a clean kitchen is only ever
a clean kitchen.
Finish the chapter instead.
A dress - black slink or tiers of froth -
is never only a dress but
a brief benediction, a candle you light
against hard times. Oh daughter
love yourself fiercely -
the changing pigments in your eyes
the knobbled spine holding you straight
all the small bones, the lace
of capillaries under your skin each cell
patiently replacing itself
as I do.

As I do.

from: Catherine Bateson, Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press, 2009.

Book Launch

Marriage for Beginners, my third collection of poetry, will be launched by Aileen Kelly at La Mama Theatre, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton at 3.00pm on Sunday, 22nd November. Please attend! You can rsvp: SMS 0466211617 or email: cbateson@ssc.net.au.

I'd love to see you there!