Hi Colin,
Sorry to confuse! I was hoping the piece could be taken as what Verity was
saying, a sort of monologue. So the "you" in the first line is the person
who's writing it down - and the "me"  is Verity - who's talking all the way
through. I guess in a collection of poems, or a sequence, I would be
considering having the whole poem in italics to show it was a different
speaker to the person's voice used in other poems.
And I guess I'll have to rephrase how I describe the mango's stone! (The
next one that comes into the house will get well hidden until it's really,
really, ripe and then I'll just have to eat it - in the interests of poetic
research!)
Bob






>From: hui dewar <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: What Verity Says In The Cold Light Of Day
>Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 16:02:33 +0100
>
>Bob,
>
>  I have too much trouble working out who the "me" is. Is it the smoke
>figure
>or verity or a non-smoking protagonist. Some, though less difficulty in
>working out the "you" of the first line. Then where does the mango come in?
>The connection between smoking, embarrassing words and mangoes feels too
>loose. Then the mango itself is a mango from Mars. A hard white stone? I
>remember them as firm but soft, pale-yellow with many fibres of the orange
>fruit still attached. Why lucky if planted? They never germinate. We
>planted
>them as kids and this led to months of frustration as nothing ever
>appeared.
>Ditto for lychees. (though you'll get a nice pot plant from avacado or
>orange). I am very familiar with the doh sound from the Simpsons. I'm
>getting to the age when all my favourite programmes are cartoons, or maybe
>I'm like the protagonist. "It was like that when I got here" and "Cover
>me".
>
>BW
>
>Colin
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 4:49 PM
>Subject: What Verity Says In The Cold Light Of Day
>
>
>For your C&C:
>(If the formatting works the indented lines are to be read as beginning
>just
>below the end of the preceding lines and, once again, the word between *'s
>is supposed to in italics)
>
>
>What Verity Says In The Cold Light Of Day
>
>If you write about this don't mention me
>or what I said on the bus when we saw those women
>who made their roll-ups then lit them - NO
>SMOKING is a challenge to some - and there's no smoke
>without me.
>             And don't reveal, please don't say,
>I was talking about me, the truth, as we watched
>the ways I'm on the breath, how I drift in the air
>mingling with laughter, their last pints, and truth -
>*doh,* I've said that embarrassing word again, a word
>that pays no heed to scientists, or barristers,
>or bishops when their limousine doors close -
>is more like a ripe mango.
>                            No joke, it's true. I'm squidgy,
>the most ungentle of fruits, a real handful,
>you get under my skin and I'm wet, I dribble,
>and you suck not caring what others may see
>until the hard white stone is all you hold,
>and if I'm lucky that may get planted in the earth
>by some wet-fingered solemn-faced child
>who'll soon forget.
>                     No, don't let on I've said all this,
>say instead that just as beer ferments to its taste
>and tobacco leaves smoulder, and mangoes over-ripen,
>and I'm as anonymous as any whispering angel or demon,
>I asked to borrow your clothes, so I can return
>to where I belong unnoticed. I daren't leave here naked.
>
>
>
>
>Bob Cooper
>
>PS It may be worth saying that the "Doh" sound is something I saw on a
>Tee-Shirt in a speech bubble above Homer Simpson who had wide eyes and an
>open mouth as he was  clasping his forehead. So, as far as I'm concerned
>(and a dictionary or two, I guess) it's now a word!
>
>
>
>
>
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