"midwife" poems
This is the easy time, there is nothing doing.
I have whirled the midwife's extractor,
I have my honey,
Six jars of it,
Six cat's eyes in the wine cellar,
Wintering in a dark without window
At the heart of the house
Next to the last tenant's rancid jam
and the bottles of empty glitters ----
Sir So-and-so's gin.
This is the room I have never been in
This is the room I could never breathe in.
The black bunched in there like a bat,
No light
But the torch and its faint
Chinese yellow on appalling objects ----
Black asininity. Decay.
Possession.
It is they who own me.
Neither cruel nor indifferent,
Only ignorant.
This is the time of hanging on for the bees--the bees
So slow I hardly know them,
Filing like soldiers
To the syrup tin
To make up for the honey I've taken.
Tate and Lyle keeps them going,
The refined snow.
It is Tate and Lyle they live on, instead of flowers.
They take it. The cold sets in.
Now they ball in a mass,
Black
Mind against all that white.
The smile of the snow is white.
It spreads itself out, a mile-long body of Meissen,
Into which, on warm days,
They can only carry their dead.
The bees are all women,
Maids and the long royal lady.
They have got rid of the men,
The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors.
Winter is for women ----
The woman, still at her knitting,
At the cradle of Spanis walnut,
Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.
Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?
The bees are flying. They taste the spring.
40.8k
I can imagine
myself as a midwife or a medicine woman—
waking early
wandering
the wooddesertmountain
with bad-ass boots & a patchy coat, pockets filled with rosemary and crystals
driving an old truck that smells of rolled cigarettes and gasoline
drinking hot tea out of a mason jar.
i see all of this & I wonder where this image will land me.
Portland in the fall?
Nevada in the Winter?
Colorado? Montana?
But I need the trees.
My power is in the mountains.
Or maybe it is in the moon—and her face isn’t bound to the side of the mountain
i need the howl of coyotes, the smell of pine, the sound of running water over rocks, cold air, wind.
i crave this to the center of my
bones.
i want to dance with fire women, sing air songs, pray to the earth, bathe in the water, and
speak with the
spirit mother & the red father that binds all of these together in a chaotic harmony i will never understand.
i need to paint my body with the stain of poke berry and
run, foot against stone, against decaying leaves.
there is a savage within me
that needs to run free
that needs to bark at the moon and breathe clean air.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 5:03 PM UTC
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
8.2k
I saw my world again through your eyes
As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
Through your eyes it was foreign.
Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
Anything wild, on legs, in your eyes
Emerged at a point of exclamation
As if it had appeared to dinner guests
In the middle of the table. Common mallards
Were artefacts of some unearthliness,
Their wooings were a hypnagogic film
Unreeled by the river. Impossible
To comprehend the comfort of their feet
In the freezing water. You were a camera
Recording reflections you could not fathom.
I made my world perform its utmost for you.
You took it all in with an incredulous joy
Like a mother handed her new baby
By the midwife. Your frenzy made me giddy.
It woke up my dumb, ecstatic boyhood
Of fifteen years before. My masterpiece
Came that black night on the Grantchester road.
I ****** the throaty thin woe of a rabbit
Out of my wetted knuckle, by a copse
Where a tawny owl was enquiring.
Suddenly it swooped up, splaying its pinions
Into my face, taking me for a post.
7.9k
as month July
crossed Avenue T. Vladimirescu
on a bicycle
in Sinaia
Denebola
in a red
cloak cross-legged sitting
over Revolution
was teaching History
to the cherries
Leyla, a midwife from Damietta
refers to the Kepler Laws :
with Fullmoon uncompromising
I do not recognize the midday crossing
of the Sun
its True Heading
the height of the stars
today 07.11.1980
right from within female Danube's womb
I bare
the smile and the eyes
of cupid .
George Vlachos
Translation : Christos Rodoullas Tsiailis
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 12:33 AM UTC
A hymn to paired planethood: Venus hits Pluto
as death, in cold orbit, collides with biology
smashing to fragments: demonic astrology
(more a black hole than a love-star, it’s true though).
Cynical cure for Eve’s womanly grievance
Concupiscent consequence: lust’s bitter fruit –
ah the thought… changing Sin into mere inconvenience.
Margaret sang her seductive refrain
about weeding the garden and progress and light.
Her sisters should view her with scornful disdain
but instead have adopted her murderous rite.
With sang-froid she promoted her racist eugenics
(as if she had never herself been a fetus),
condemning her heirs to postmodern polemics
while nurturing ardent desires to defeat us.
Suppressing the lives that she flushed down the drain
she would liberate Death – and resistance was vain.
As a midwife to modern life (though on the “anti” side)
Old Matron Margie racked up quite a legacy
singing the praises of sanctioned infanticide
calling the shots for the coming sick century.
Planning, quite calmly, to “cleanse” certain races
her zeal was empowered by murderous graces.
She labored to bring us such pearls of subduction:
“dilation and curettage”, “women’s autonomy”
“viable fetus”, “procedure”, a “suction”
Hippocrates retches to hear the taxonomy;
words that turn Life into mere reproduction.
She enters the realms of the ****** and the motherless
roundly condemned by her feminine otherness.
Man’s first protection: the God-given womb
which no infant should have to regard as their tomb.
Dismembered dark cherubs, assembling, greet her
as demons (in scrubs) holding baby-parts meet her.
Long may she burn with the medical cynics
this mother of Moloch, this founder of clinics.
Convenience is king when abortion’s the Queen
and the profits swell big with each nubile teen…
yet the fruit of such carnage remains to be seen.
I send her this song as a funeral wreath
and a card inked in blood. You may read what is there:
“To the Matrix Supreme of our culture of death
from the souls of the infants you slew on the earth.
May your torment increase with the children you bear.”
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:09 PM UTC
MATCHing rings
A MATCH made in heaven
KNOCKED up
KNOCKing on the front door
WHO?
JOHNNY LAW
that’s WHO
JOHNNY the LAW abiding citizen
ATTACHing his left eye to a telescope
ATTACHed to the image of your RIGHT ******
RIGHT through your open window
NEAR to your husband’s damp face
NEARing the ground below
Nov 28, 2011
Nov 28, 2011 at 9:01 PM UTC
There are moments when I forget myself
Almost completely.
When soul becomes shadow I midwife the space between
Keeping distance.
Haruki Murakami thinks that the line between knowing the truth and walking in a dream
Is so very thin,
A literal silver lining, leaving marks on the body
Splitting open the skin.
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC
To each a body temple,
crated temple earth!
Two homes therefor each..
One head lay with one heart...
And offer one another the bed
of forgiveness each day,
magnificently,
Bold
Ebb beat,
Beat breathe,
Flow beat
Beat
r
e
a
t
h
e
:
Birthing as we see
Indeed, we be
Understand
Within
Bless
Love be
love See
Out
ward's
Utter
Ing's
Rx's
Truly
Free
'That
is all'
Lord's
o
r
d
e
s
s
'
s
Mar 18, 2014
Mar 18, 2014 at 9:40 AM UTC
Immutable proportions, unfaithfully seduced
By this grey witch,
new age daughter of the light;
mother earth midwife:
Co-conspirator of the New World order.
Green occult mysteries
reveal a gold and forgotten bridge
from science to religion.
Learning, Peace, Love, Appreciation:
"The truth shall set you free."
We are one Self.
~
Discover a golden bridge within!
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 7:23 PM UTC
It's such a beautiful relationship
like birds cleaning crocodile teeth
feeding on what didn't make it to the stomach
these words rely on me
A vessel
and hopefully they don't
act like hermit *****
because without them
I would just be a ***
who drinks and smokes too much
But as long as I have the ability
to manipulate the world around me
in the chaotic rush
of my infinite mental expanses
and nooks and crannies
I can give them life
like a midwife
I bring them into the world
and name them poems
or stories
so that they might live forever
burned in the retinas of strangers
or etched on the wood of my desk
I hope we will always
need each other
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 10:55 AM UTC
i am afraid we have begun to dissociate,
unable to dissolve, I dissipate
we lavish emotion, laugh laudably
and cry with our larynx ripped out of our throats
i just need a little attention
'cause it's midday
and the midwife has a migraine,
with spoiled milk and clogged drains,
laundry a mile-long with tenuous children
tense with grimace and gray
we believe uncertainty for the hopeless and expectations for the great
the subtle hum
followed by slithering smirks
followed by snarls and sneers and weird sober
social experiments,
followed by small town dramas
and big time hypocrites.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
A speech in a play once described
A Queen of Dreams.
Mab.
The faerie's midwife.
I fear that she may be real.
Plaguing me with dreams that haunt my reality.
Déjà Vu Being nearly
The only feeling I live with.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 2:05 PM UTC
The baby is born to the death walls
that line the cellar. The cellar is dark
and musty like the inside of a mouth
that has seen every forest in the world
that needs to be seen. There is animal
screaming and cheeks wailing and blood
smashed. There is the floor: cold as bath
water or lungs or teeth or healing. She
wanted a midwife. The midwife looks
ashes of change, her hands shake
like a pale fire. Her hands shouldn’t
be shaking, I want to say please, leave
the shaking hands to us, we are only
a professional family, but you are really
a professional, your brain is snowed with
palms that knead proper parturition. But
my mouth is tight with breath and ash.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC
Immutable proportions, unfaithfully seduced
By this grey witch,
new age daughter of the light;
mother earth midwife:
Co-conspirator of the New World order.
Green occult mysteries
reveal a gold and forgotten bridge
from science to religion.
Learning, Peace, Love, Appreciation:
"The truth shall set you free."
We are one Self.
~
Discover a golden bridge within!
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 7:22 PM UTC
my worth cannot be measured in poundsinchesorounces
& all that i am is neither reflected, nor summed up by a number sewn into
a pair of jeans--
hi, my name is Ashley, real swell person. future midwife, Scorpio, size 14.
Days in dressing rooms under poor lighting
when those size 14s feel a little too tight make my day into a battle
& if my being makes men cringe
then I will stuff my face in rebellion
if my body is under social seige, i welcome it with a smile
Because battalions of words cannot compare to the cannon
fire of insecurity
and trigger pulling i've had in my head for 14 years
we fat girls are really good at these sort of days because
we're good at insulting ourselves first.
Dec 17, 2012
Dec 17, 2012 at 1:46 AM UTC
Dark skies now roll overhead
The sunlight disappears as the day ends
My thoughts now go back six years
To a night in maternity awaiting your birth
The fear when the midwife said it was going wrong
The joy when later I held you in my arms
You and Emily Rose will never read my prose
That's ok because those who do
Know your daddy loves you
And that's enough
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 1:24 PM UTC
A Galway and Suffock ram.
Both employed on our farm
to ****
When the midwife is due
Larry and Barry are left to themselves
and 2 in to Alpha doesn’t go.
Over the years, I noticed,
every business blow
reduced blood
from torrent to trickle.
When Larry developed meningitis
he was taken into care,
Barry had a look
that struck me dumb.
I can never be able to tell Barry
I was there
when life left his body.
A mountain crumbling into nothing.
Sep 4, 2010
Sep 4, 2010 at 2:34 PM UTC
choosing the hands that catch you-
as you slip out the womb-world
is way beyond the control of all babies.
The best one could hope for is warm rather than cold.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 8:40 PM UTC
Ach so! thou much-praised and lauded Milwaukee,
Thou delightful Wisconsin Stadt of boundless pulchritude,
Verily hath History endowed thy blessed name
With the noisomely beery breath of immortality!
And thank the benign Almighty in highest Heav’n
That thy delectable streets and arboreal squares
Doth remain heretofore untouched by unseemly civic strife,
Despite thy renown as veritable midwife to Sewer Socialism!
Yet, tear-inducing recollections have I of this dwelling-place
And herewith followeth heart-rending remembrances
Of what transpired when I inveigled a plump young Mädchen there
For a brief sojourn of untrammelled concupiscence.
Alas, alack, after gorging her impetuous appetites
On a gargantuan repast of mitteleuropäische delicacies,
Methinks her poor heart gave up survival’s uneven battle
And, warbling a soft piffero-reminiscent sigh, she expired.
‘Twas too tragic thus to depart this happy welkin in mid-prandials,
Emitting a final flatus, sweet adieu, from her rearmost aperture,
Leaving me, her poor forlorn swain, bereft and solitary,
Faced with mine host’s request for instant monetary rendition.
From that naughty place of my bereavement fled I,
Clutching to my ***** the contents of her silken purse,
Determined to partake in untrammelled ***** licence elsewhere,
Ere the chanticleer’s dawn croak wake the inebriated citizens.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC
I was born out of a tunnel
the midwife found it a fight
I turned around and crept back up
wisty for the night
"who said I was to be moved?"
went through my baby head
"I am not yours to command
so I'll stay in here instead!"
Years have passed I'm out at last
in a time of stress and din
still like a child I fear the world
and yearn to climb back in.
Jan 21, 2011
Jan 21, 2011 at 4:28 AM UTC
So many lies from her to me
please don't tell him I'm pregnant
I was ***** she told the clinic
and me
the baby seems big for three months.....
but clinics get money for this
and charities give grants
they don't ask too many questions
6 hrs crying and screaming
till they chopped it up and ****** it through
a young doctor panicking
haven't destroyed one this big before have you you ****
took a long hooked thing to really mess the wee thing up
I saw it's dead eyes in the pan
her dead eyes
half-open and in a silent scream
where is the ******* dad? The nurse whispered..
somewhere ****** I said, I'm just her pal.
Dad didn't want a small thing in his life
my hands bled from her nails
and this felt right
my heart bled despair for her and the mess in the pan
took her home in a taxi suspicious eyes on us, huddled smelling of sweat and blood, no clean-up
she wanted to stay as soiled as she felt
Year later in another room
couldn't *** she wouldn't let me leave her
got a urinary infection holding on
longer this time
thirteen hours of pain and fright
no-one seemed to care again
on a trolly in the cold where is the magic
where is the ******* dad? A nurse whispered..
somewhere ****** I am just her pal.
twisting my hands
she bit my face wanting a kiss as she pushed so hard
the midwife dropped him halfway up her belly
I dragged him to her face
let go the doctor shouted
told him to shut up or **** off
got yellow baby **** and blood in my mouth
wanted doctor blood too
tasted sweet somehow tasted of alive
took 83 sedatives that night her sister found me in ICU
hard to die swap me for the wee dead one
I'm ****** she would have been special saw her face
She would have been 14 yrs old today
Jan 17, 2011
Jan 17, 2011 at 2:39 PM UTC
Do not worry about our planet,
Our one mother and only home.
She's seen far worse than ourselves.
So do not worry about our planet.
Nature the midwife will right the earth,
Restore her vigor, and enforce new rigor
From our wasting, reckless hand.
When all human corpus have joined the land
For some, our final story is a sorry matter.
But do not worry about our planet.
For nature will once again amend the latter.
Sep 3, 2010
Sep 3, 2010 at 5:43 PM UTC
The seed had been planted long ago. The words had been prophesied to give life.
I'm making deliveries, although I'm not a midwife.
These words are a key to unlock the invisible bars for those who have lost their voice......due to a bad choice.
He observed her movements, like a lion that stalks its prey.
She found him to be quite handsome when he spoke to her that day.
She had been praying the her loneliness would soon come to an end. The third wheel activities needed to come to an end.
He wasn't a big time star....just a regular dude. His mother instilled manners ....so he made it a point not to be rude......
He was well aware of the female's who thought that men only wanted to see them ****
Although, he had to admit there was some truth to this myth. There was something about this woman ......that had him in awe.
She was a Michelangelo type woman.....rare and precious. He didn't have any crafty lines....so he didn't know how to catch this.
Opportunity that he knew would only come once. He had read about the Proverbs 31 woman and wondered if she could be.
The addition to eventually make three.
How did he jump so far along in his thoughts?
Just married a woman and had a family......
All this from watching a beautiful woman walk down the street.
Hopefully....one day he will muster up the courage eventually to speak.
The seed has been planted.....
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 9:26 PM UTC
For two weeks, waiting. Pacing.
Twitching with every ring,
the call home.
You are turning,
finding your way out.
The hospital.
Waiting. Groans of pain. Impatience.
More striding across the room, nails bitten.
You arrive.
The midwife holds your unwrapped body, you are awake,
turning this way and that to see the world.
Our eyes meet.
You are in Mum’s arms. Head turns.
You stare into my soul, flick the switch.
I am born.
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 11:20 AM UTC