I'm specially grateful to read your responses, Andrew.
Others too, thanks.
Next Wednesday I have in mind to post two connected pieces.
Long after both parents were dead, my sister and I wondered whether
Dad had dallied and been found out.
Nothing much to go on.
God, they were discreet, that old generation of NZers…
Max in Melbourne
On 10/04/2014, at 9:55 AM, Andrew Burke 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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