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Wednesday 27 May 2015

Irony

Sonnet: On re-visiting 10 Gordon Terrace

So that’s the wretched house that once contained
A bedded child, awaiting, expectant,
To capture murmurs of a love disdained,
My father’s sin, my mother's discontent.

I feared their talk might stumble into deeds,
A curse, perhaps a rupture, leaving me,
A child still influenced by infant needs,
Given to tears and sensed redundancy.

Talk became deeds and then mere silent space,
A couple cut in halves, all comfort flown,
For me a taint of undeserved disgrace,
The withered hopes of youth ungrown.

Older, among the bones of memory,
I ironise adult complacency

6 comments:

  1. Wonderful poem, beautifully crafted out of heart-wrenching, gut-churning experience.

    Just wondering if the last line could be better worded?

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  2. Natalie: Thanks for the encomium. The last line justifies the title.

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  3. Natalie: As you can see I was dissatisfied and re-wrote it. Gave it a new title too. If you think it's duff I'll cut your comment

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  4. Oh! I liked the 'scrappit' house so much and the immediacy of all the first version. This is more refined, more formal, more 'proper poetry'. I suppose it's an improvement, but the first one spoke more directly. Just my subjective opinion and I'm not qualified to judge poetry. Don't cut me!

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  5. This seems straight out of "Mr. Turner". An easy connect since I watched it last night. Great movie - I was eager to recommend it - searched TD and found you'd reviewed it.

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  6. All: I'm presently in southern France, using my steam-powered netbook (Windows XP for goodness sake!), slow as Gerald Ford's decisions and hence a drag on my expressiveness.

    Natalie: I understand what you say but the faults were glaring and got in the way of what I wanted to say. Under such conditions I knew they'd only get worse and quite soon I wouldn't be able to bear reading it. Your reactions - both of them - are legitimate but imagine if you'd done a painting where the perspective was wrong and you'd missed it first time round. Imagine how it would niggle.

    MikeM: I liked Mr T. Thought it contained the most authentic bonking scene ever committed to a movie. More authenticity: the chat between the Royal Academy's great and good among themselves. Real people.

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