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
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