But Max you don't mention yours???
P
There used to rumours about policemens helmets-or was that in
Undermilkwood??
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 21 December 2010 23:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: memory snap: chamber pots
Chamber Pots
A picture in memory revives:
Mother's chamber pot, wide,
unornamented, plain
hospital-issue, maybe;
never to be fanciable
at some shop of collectiblesı.
Lacking the pedestalı
of old-fashioned homes,
it lurked under her side
of our parentsı double bed
long after we moved to a modern
house with indoor toilet.
But years of homes where
to get to relieve yourself
you needed to step out
the back door, brave
the weather and maybe the dark,
maybe fearsome spiders too
of the backyard privy,
wedded her faithfully
to the ease of the pottyı.
Sister and I in the next room
if awake in the dark,
would listen while mother
squatting by the bed
her nightie clutched in one hand
let down her minute-long flow.
Next morning, should he be
in a good mood, father, mindful
of her 'bad arm', gripping its handle
at strong arm's length, would
walk it briskly out the back door.
Step aside, let it pass,
it threatens to slop.
(Otherwise she herself, when he
had gone to work, saw to it furtively.)
Sister and I could recall
coping with potty when small,
easier for girls than for boys.
Father? never, surely
for him: on slippered feet
along the narrow concrete
past the clothes hoist
to the backyard lemon tree.
Aspiring to be a man,
there too I would adjourn.
*
The noble golden colour
of motherıs chamber's pee!
The tangy odour, warm,
varying slightly from time to time.
Mine bore always the old early
fear of bedwetting, the tears,
the anxious promises to mother.
What an example she set!
Later, Iıd meet somewhere
in the poet Yeats, his image
of the Irish queen, great-bladderedı,
whose golden urine made a proud
pool in the drifting snow.
Less nobly, our cousin Margot,
in hushed family lore,
carrying her motherıs fleshliness,
despite years of ballet
still lacking gracefulness,
squatted heavily one night
on their family pot, breaking it,
inflicting a nasty gash,
an urgent embarrassed dash
to Emergency for stitches.
Her scar, a livid image
in my boyish mindıs eye,
was never confirmed visually.
At student parties, in shared
house or squalid squat,
I liked to mix aromatic fruit
punch in a quondam chamber pot.
We smiled at our young lady
guests, inhaling, as we ladled.
Strange that for years motherıs
preferred breakfast began sourly
with sliced grapefruit bitterly
tangy, the colour of pale pee.
How could she? religiously,
giggling defensively:
it has to be good for meı.
Distant by over half a century,
grapefruitless, I down my muesli
and tilt my breakfast cup of tea
to her homely memory.
Max Richards
