Drowning Sounds

anne other-one · [Thu May 01, 2008 3:35 pm]

Oh this is wonderful. You've straddled the gap between writing and and its somehow surreal worthlessness and its very worth in conveying the edge of life and death at birth .It's somehow about birth and the birth of a poem jeez great great poem hard and unfair to it to pick it apart and find the lines but these...
you sleep
I’ll just take my turn
trying to coax a teat
into a weary baby’s mouth
a tired feed –
60 mls of milk
trying not to scream
trying not to fling the fucking thing

wonderful
Thankyou a breathtaking poem.
_________________
E.E. Cummings
somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

ASmallNumberOfMonkeys · [Fri May 02, 2008 12:19 am]

Beautifully written, and measured as well as I can perceive for such an evocative subject. Cubist too with all those different perspectives. And the part about sighing the consent is flesh and blood, life and death, charged to an extreme. There may well be more but I can’t see past the immediately apparent in this quiet assault. That experience for anyone has to be one of the most shockingly life changing (along with death) even when everything goes all to plan. You express it extremely well here.

Mark

A man called Valance · [Sat May 03, 2008 11:07 am]

something the reviewer said...

lost for words
hopeless with poetry
out of his depth
with a slate to clear
lost head bowed
slow burning brain
writing a fake
apologetic sounds
Exit stage left

AMCV
_________________
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Andmymare · [Tue May 06, 2008 1:05 am] **Just some thoughts**

Gordon,
just some things that struck me,
that 'smir' is like 'smear' and 'blur', water-color ideas/sounds,
and that 'full mile out' is too far to turn back. 'Shroud lead cloud' is so packed an image, and the sound of this first verse pounds in a way, but softly beats. I remember it when I come to the end of the poem, like a fore-shadow.

When you switch voices to the mid-wife, there's that dreaded Latin. It makes me remember when I have dreaded Latin in diagnosis, and how language is handled to name, in this case, the unthinkable, un-understandable. You will forgive me for seeming to 'pick through' this, because it's only what I do in talking to you about the words; it isn't how I experience it when I read it. The phrases 'in any event' and 'to be viable' I hear them that damned clinical doctor-speak, and try to hear them from a parent's seat. Really, hearing something like that does blur one in a drench of possibility and inevitability at one time.

'the heart accomodates', yes, it tries. All of the hearts here. Putting 'for defects but' in its own line is clumsy, just like the real thing. That whole verse with its turbulence and colour and consultants page, and velocities, it swirls terribly (unfurls) and is full of that same inevitable tide rising, all charts and, somehow uncontrollable liquidity, to me anyway.

The father's part, I'm sorry but I smiled, strangely, because, it is so extreme, the care and forbearance in 'fling the fucking thing'. (I think you should put 'milligrams' because no one will say 'em ell ess' there). Yes, the measuring mark, the rage, the trying to help. Out. Help out, when you want to get the hell out.

In the following verses, there's a stop and start rhythm, and I read faster, wanting it to resolve;

'a stick with ink in it'

'do I consent to this'

drink and kick and sink,

Um, I guess I'm saying it is a difficult thing what burbled up for you during NaPo, and if you weren't so sensitive to sound and timing, it would have fallen short. 'The shore' is sure, (I have a private history with shores) and when you go summing philosophical, kabammo, 'I am unsure if this ignorance
is a necessary curse' I thought well Jaysus, knowledge is worse sometimes eh?

I'm glad you put this up here while I had time to look at it some more. Yeah, fucking iambd are a heart-beat.

Auf, away again sir, thanks for the poem.
Andmymare

DROWNING SOUNDS

something the poet said

a smir of words
unfurl their poetry
deep water and
a full mile out
shroud lead cloud
sudden coming rain
trawling in the wake
of drowning sounds

something the midwife said

too much fluid
polyhydramnios
a warning sign
but in any event
by this time
the foetus is likely

to be viable

something the doctor said

the turbulence of
blood velocities
conveyed by resonance
give colour to
a consultants page
the heart accommodates
for defects but
we need to operate

something the father said

you sleep
I’ll just take my turn
trying to coax a teat
into a weary baby’s mouth
a tired feed –
60 mls of milk
trying not to scream
trying not to fling the fucking thing

shaking as I crumble
afterwards

something the mother said

do I consent to this?

the hardest thing I ever did
was use a stick with ink in it
read and understand
the risk
do I consent to this?
that when you take this precious gift
you sometimes kill
do I consent to this?
the hardest thing I ever did

something the nurse said

a steady heat
a sensor blip
a puffed up face, pink
hair – white gold, eyes flickering
with the internal rhythms of healing

you can hold her hand
you can pick her up
just watch the bandage
dark red tinge, sensor pads
antibiotics, drain and morphine drip

a reflex clutch
a finger gripped
a response that stops
me from sinking

something the poet said

a celebration drink
eyes red-rimmed
as normality kicks in
and we realise
that nothing is the same
anymore.

We live such little lives
I am unsure if this ignorance
is a necessary curse

I have reached another shore
can see by fire-light
see my bridges burn

arthurian · [Wed May 07, 2008 10:22 am]

Thank you all - I am busy revising at the moment but will catch up post napo when my brain returns to planet earth.
G

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Drowning Sounds

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