I can write an exegesis on a STOP sign, so don't listen to me
ramble!
should be printed on t-shirts
L
On 10 April 2014 00:55, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It's the child's instinctive reading of the separation that I think is the
> crux of the poem. And it makes this reader ponder more on how we perceive
> things through a 'corrupted' base as we move through life than any specific
> bed scene. Now, to see a mature couple move into single beds again wouldn't
> give me the same impression - I would think the honeymoon is over, she
> snores, he has cramps, they sleep different hours, so more convenient in
> singles. And so, universalize the particular.
>
> Mind you, I can write an exegesis on a STOP sign, so don't listen to me
> ramble!
>
> Andrew
>
> On 10 April 2014 01:34, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I like that ida of the ballad of the bed, Ken; Max.
> >
> > But it moves to the usual tragic conclusion, exile, fittingly...
> >
> > Doug
> > On Apr 9, 2014, at 5:19 AM, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > On 4/9/2014 3:11 AM, Bill Wootton wrote:
> > >> A moving tale, Max, in many senses. The introduction of 'his' in
> stanza
> > 3 seems odd after 'they' in stanza 2 and 'my parents' in stanza 1. Or
> > perhaps you seek a distancing sort of generic feel for your father. Bess
> > deserves capitalising as Aunt does she not?
> > >>
> > >>> On 9 Apr 2014, at 11:04 am, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> The Double Bed
> > >>>
> > >>> was plain oak, suiting
> > >>> the average couple
> > >>> my parents were.
> > >>>
> > >>> When they married it went
> > >>> with them to a remote
> > >>> Taranaki bush school house,
> > >>>
> > >>> followed them to Auckland
> > >>> to a small suburban house,
> > >>> a short drive from his work.
> > >>>
> > >>> Here it dawned on them
> > >>> that childlessness
> > >>> seemed to be their fate.
> > >>>
> > >>> They adopted a girl child,
> > >>> loved her as their own.
> > >>> Soon after, I was conceived,
> > >>>
> > >>> delivered, installed: the boy.
> > >>> Sister and I shared a room -
> > >>> she sang; soon I sang along.
> > >>>
> > >>> There were more moves,
> > >>> south-east, south-west,
> > >>> south. The bed came too.
> > >>>
> > >>> Reinstalled in that Auckland
> > >>> suburb, the loyal furniture
> > >>> served on, the oak table,
> > >>>
> > >>> the piano (Canadian) also oak.
> > >>> As before, the double bed
> > >>> dominated the small bedroom.
> > >>>
> > >>> In auntie Bess's house once
> > >>> we played with cards marked
> > >>> for fortune-telling.
> > >>>
> > >>> Mum, what is Marriage Bed?
> > >>> Her answer threw no light.
> > >>> Something kept from kids.
> > >>>
> > >>> We came home from school
> > >>> one day to find a change:
> > >>> the double bed had gone,
> > >>>
> > >>> replaced by two single beds,
> > >>> not even side by side.
> > >>> 'We'll both sleep better.'
> > >>>
> > >>> It sounded unconvincing.
> > >>> Dad came home late, later,
> > >>> went to bed quiet, quieter.
> > >>>
> > > Oh my. What a well-done but depressing start to the day. All of us, if
> > we have any grain of honesty in us, use our people and adapt them to our
> > purposes. Making the bed the central figure in the poem--almost a
> > ballad--makes it carry the weight for everything that went not wrong but
> in
> > an inevitable slide.
> > >
> > > Ken
> > >
> >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> > http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
> >
> > Latest books:
> > Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> > Recording Dates
> > (Rubicon Press)
> >
> > How white the gulls
> > in grey weather
> > Soon April
> > the little
> > yellows
> >
> > Lorine Niedecker
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Andrew
> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> 'Undercover of Lightness'
> http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
> 'Shikibu Shuffle'
>
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html
>
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