Gerard Sekoto, Police Man on a White Horse in the Fields (1959)
Some days you’re there, but maybe not. Part way there and part way elsewhere. How does one choose which parts to bring along on any given day?
Somc days you see things that may or may not be what you see.
Some days the only thing that matters is that the horse you are riding has all four feet and seems to know where it is headed.
dVerse Poetics prompt: Exploring the Art of Gerard Sekoto.
For today’s Poetics prompt, Melissa challenges us to “choose one of the paintings featured in [today’s dVerse] post and base your poem on it. Write whatever comes to mind as you explore the colors and images of the painting. Please let us know in your post which painting you’ve chosen and credit the artist.”
I chose the painting featured above, “Policeman on a White Horse in the Fields” by Gerard Sekoto (1959). Thank you, Melissa, for the prompt.
no mother needed – apparently; simply born within the patriarchal legacy, aromatic right from the start and already robed in the royal purple of kings
no mother needed as he rises full of promise, strong of his own accord, self-sufficient, one-of-a-kind, anointed with the frankincense and myrrh of his father’s own funeral pyre.
no mother needed, but the father is revered, his honor and reputation preserved and feted for eternity, ancestral ashes hidden away lest the paternal lineage become tainted by the scrutiny of daylight
no mother needed to nourish him, to prepare him for flight, to remind him of inborn vulnerabilities, no reference for humility and compromise, no haven for non-transactional love
"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!" ah, but the phoenix wears no such pedestrian footwear
and in the end, in his nest alone, consumed by the flames of his own making, his only solace is that a son will emerge to give his life meaning
Day Twenty prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem that uses an animal that shows up in myths and legends as a metaphor for some aspect of a contemporary person’s life. Include one spoken phrase.
Day Nineteen prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: pick a flower or two (or a whole bouquet, if you like) from this online edition of Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers. Now, write your own poem in which you muse on your selections’ names and meanings.
The two plants I chose were not listed in the Greenaway’s book. Apparently I speak a different flower language. Otherwise, on prompt.
They wrote it all down. The good (not much of that), the bad (though with surprisingly little judgment), and the ugly (so, so much of that).
They recalled the local boys who went from zero to hero just by donning a uniform, the surreal images of those same boys heading off to war by the trainload,
the newfound responsibilities of keeping up the homefront, the thrill of stepping out of constrictive roles: flexing freedoms, flexing muscles, revealing capabilities; still a wife, a sister, a nursemaid, a supportive prop, but now also a train conductor, a delivery driver, a farmer.
They spoke of the loneliness, the longing, the yearning, the carnal lust (“the wild cave-woman spoke”); outgrowing the “good girl,” the “good wife” roles, the soldiers, briefly passing by on their way to something horrible or coming back from something horrible, more than willing to fulfill the women's desires, allay their fears, divest them of their virginity.
They described the ubiquitous mud of the battlefields, how it turned uniforms brown (“the new style of clothing… the chic of mud”), how it disabled firearms, swallowed up artillery, drowned soldiers.
They told of the homecomings, the soldiers no longer soldiers, the bodies no longer breathing, the heroes who would rather not have been,
the mothers who weren’t mothers when their men went to war, the sainted helpmates who became whores in the eyes of unforgiveness, of hypocritical judgment, the fatherless children left to be raised by mothers who could no longer hold the jobs the men now reclaimed.
They sat opposite the empty chairs, where their partners in life once sat. They regretted scoffing at the the local boys in crisp new uniforms who became soldiers, who became heroes, who became disillusioned, haunted shells of men.
They suffered loss, but did not suffer bullet wounds, they sacrificed all but received no medals. They rose to the challenges but were shoehorned back into their stifled caricatures of weakness and dependency once deemed no longer needed in the workforce.
God bless the soldiers who fought for freedom and justice. God bless the women who fought for stability and sanity. God bless the female poets who lived it all and wrote it down so that we – a century later – might understand.
Day Sixteen prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet. Not quite on prompt today. In looking for a poem to use (as I have no favorite), I found myself falling down a rabbit hole of female poets writing about WWI. Stark, moving poems depicting all facets of the war from a woman’s perspective.
A Sampling of Poems written by women about World War One:
You slither across sun-parched deserts, wend through mossy forests, slip between crevasses of glass and concrete
We skip together to the corner store for a soda and candy bar; we writhe as one, cornered in a dank, underground parking garage.
You come at us, push through us, leave us behind, then swing back around like a Mobius strip to do it all again.
You take our hand on a warm, country afternoon and we stroll in comfortable silence down sweet, forgotten lanes. You cradle us in your fluid arms, whisper memories and dreams, conjure hope and regret, satisfaction and despair.
We have too much of you, or not enough. We bless you and curse you, and all the while, your ineffable presence is steadfast, defining our very lives.
If you have taught me anything, it’s this: you should not be taken for granted; if I fight you, I will lose; if I embrace you, I will find peace.
Time waits for no one. Time marches on. Time is on my side…
So many misconceptions we have about you. It's no wonder we continue to waste you.
Day Fourteen prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem that bridges (whether smoothly or not) the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances.
Day Thirteen prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.
He enters through the laundry room, passes off his domed metal lunch pail, heavy with the stainless steel thermos that clips into the top of the box.
Boots off. Faded denim overalls and wrinkled red handkerchief dropped onto the dirty clothes pile. Now in his “suntans”: a khaki shirt and loose-fitting trousers reminiscent of his wartime uniform.
At the deep utility sink, water so hot it turns his skin red. With lava soap and a bristle brush he attacks the black tarry substance stuck to his hands and arms. Soap lathers up past his elbows.
Face washed, hat-flattened hair tamed with a black plastic pocket comb; only then does he enter the kitchen and greet his wife with a kiss. Supper is cooked and waiting for him.
Day Twelve prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: write a poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 