Roald Dahl was my favourite author as a child but his books have some pretty terrible messages about women.
_____________
Women are dangerous:
The owner of your orphanage is awful 

Your headmistress will lock you in the chokey.

And any woman might just be a witch.

The woman in the sweet shop? Mean and filthy.

Your grandmother’s a wicked witch who plagues you; 

Your aunts, abusive. And your mother’s dead. 

You’re better off with giants in the desert.

You’ll gain the power to frighten your headmistress 

The witches, you can kill in self defence.

Your grandmother deserves to be reduced

To non existence, aunts squashed flat. But mother

Is never coming back. You’re on your own.

OK. I’m on holiday and it is starting to show. I messed up my arbitrary themes by days of the week and did a poem about a stranger for “family friday”, instead of doing it today for “stranger saturday”. So here, technically speaking, is yesterday’s poem, about a member of my autistic family: my pseudo nephew Cai, who always tries to share his special interest in computers with me, despite my appalling level of ignorance.

❤️🌹Happy Autism Acceptance Month!🌹❤️

——

There’s so much to explain. Your eyes get wide

And sparkle as you earnestly begin

To share with me the world that pulls you in,

Although I’m looking from the other side

Of some abyss. I cannot understand

The language that you speak, the words you use.

Your explanations leave me more confused:

A baffled tourist from a distant land.

But though I’ll never fully comprehend

Your operating systems, crack your code,

You’ll let me play it on “beginner mode”

Share with me what you can. And in the end,

You’re far more understanding, patient, kind

To me than those with unautistic minds.

 

 

As it’s April I took a look at the NaPoWriMo website to get me going. The prompt was to write a Lune (or, as in this case, a bunch of lunes) which is a haiku inspired form I hadn’t actually heard of. But the name seemed at least homophonicly appropriate for the bird loving subject of this poem.

———

She reels off their names:

“Grackle. Finch.

Junco. Mockingbird. 

Listen! That’s a

Chickadee

Right there, hear it?

I put carcasses out,

For corvids.

They pick the bones clean

I mean, clean! Look here:

My nectar:

For the hummingbirds

You get them back home?

Hummingbirds?”

I shake my head. Her

Eyes widen with shock.

“You never 

Saw one? A damn shame.”

It is#thankyouthursday and it is also Transgender Day Of Visibility. So today’s poem has to be for Kate Bornstein, who teaches me so much. Including the concept of shenpa.
Suddenly 

In the middle of the argument 

The fishhook slides into

The flesh of your lip.

You freeze,

Your eyes are glazed,

And all you want to do is pull away

But pain and fear and anger make you stay.

Then gently, gently, gently,

They

Reach over to you

Holding the bloody hook between their fingers,

Show you how to lean into the pain:

Unhook yourself,

Start listening again.

Seedy was anything but. The nickname referred to his surname, not his character. He was my only ever boyfriend and I hope he’s doing well.

———–

My extruder operator:

Sweet and kind and soft and shy

I came out not that much later

You would be my only guy.

I was dreamy and cackhanded

You were deft, and loved the facts

In each other’s arms we landed

Proving opposites attract.

You liked beer and weed and playing

Tomb Raider, Descent and Doom

Rarely going out, just staying

In your mother’s living room.

Still, you came with me to Europe.

Right out of your comfort zone:

Foreign food and art and music

(But, in Holland, you got stoned)

German left you quite defeated

Though I picked up with ease

“Ein Bier bitte!” Much repeated 

Came out “Eine bitter please!”

My extruder operator

Shy and soft and kind and sweet.

Eighteen month collaborator

Nicest guy you’d hope to meet.

inspired by an episode of This American Life. This is a poem based on words from Piers Anthony. Whom I loved as teen.

One thing that you who had happy childhoods

Should understand about those of us who didn’t:
We’re not that way out of perversity.
We learned to cope in ways you never had to.
And when you sneer at stories we escape in,
And mock the maps of our enchanted kingdoms.
Call them gaudy, frivolous, cliché…
We know you never found this world too real,
Mundania too painful not to run from.
You never needed dreams you could not dream.
Don’t pity us: we know how much you miss.
 

Last two Mondays’ poems were me and my wife. From here on in they will be #mysterymonday: poems that I think would be better anonymous. This is for all the teens, freaks and outlaws out there. But one in particular.

———

This is not your best life

And it is not forever.

You are worth more than this

And you deserve much better.

One day you’ll look back 

And remember this time

You’ll feel anger and sadness

About what now seems fine.

But each day, you grow stronger,

More shining and strange.

And the world will be waiting

When you shake off these chains.

About 14 years ago I worked in a nursing home. I loved the residents. It was like having 30 grandparents.  I even dream about them sometimes. This is Annie, who was also known as Queenie, and was utterly indomitable until her dying day.

——-

I’ve still got the best legs in Kersal

I won’t wear no flowery frock

In my red mini skirt

I will giggle and flirt

Though the fellas here can’t take the shock.

That Sophie who sits on the sofa

And thinks that she’s better than me

With her nose in the air,

Well I don’t like to swear

But she’s something beginning with B. 

And Mabel who eats at my table

Used to be a headmistress, you know.

She’s pretty good craic

But she gets on my back

Cause my grammar is only so-so.

Old Max is a pain in the backside.

He thinks he’s the gaffer round here.

Gives the nurses such stick!

– Well he always was thick

And a little too fond of his beer.

I like Graham who works in the games room,

Calling bingo and teaching us crafts.

He’s the type that you’d find

On a Christmas tree, mind,

Yes, a fairy. You see, I’m not daft!

But I’ve still got the best legs in Kersal:

You can’t say I look ninety three.

Keep your shampoo and set:

I’m too young for that yet!

Who’s the belle of the home? Yes it’s me!

Unlucky 13! A bit of doggerel about our meal last night.

Do the dishes have milk in? You don’t really know.

So back to the kitchen to ask you will go.

Our dining companions, meanwhile, are amazed

To be told that there can be milk in mayonnaise. 

It turns out there is, but not in the tempura. 

(We check it all twice just to be a bit surer) 

You tell us the sauces will come on the side.

The food, when it comes, makes us think that you’ve lied.

But it CANNOT be mayo, mixed up with the fish,

When you promised an allergy friendlier dish.

Our allergy sufferer, feeling embarrassed 

Asks your colleague, not wanting to make you feel harassed.

He looks at our table, and tells us that yes,

Nearly all of the dishes have milk, he’ll confess.

Because you, my dear waitress, have been a bit silly

Didn’t think mayo counted if mixed up with chili.

And this misconception we’ve quite often faced:

That an “allergy” just means “They don’t like the taste.”

Dear waitress, in this case, disaster averted, 

But I must say you made me feel quite disconcerted:

You could poison a person with your attitude,

Some people get sick, even die from some food.

And most people will trust what their server has said

You will never get tipped if your customer’s dead.