A215 - Weekly Writing Challenge 1.

Welcome! Before you read on, I would like to make it clear that I am no poet and what you are about to read is the first 'poem' I've written in about fifteen years. Like many, I have found it easier not to share my work before as no comments are better than bad comments. However, with the start of this Open University course in Creative Writing, I've decided to just go for it. From now on I will no longer use pen shortages as an excuse for not getting anything written down!

For this first challenge, we were asked to write a poem of 40 lines or less, using 'brutality' as our theme. My initial thoughts concerning the word were of war, prejudice and corruption but I decided, as I often do, to stick to something more personal. In a week or so, my twin boys will be starting nursery and I am a little nervous for them, to say the least. My feelings about this event range from positive excitement to the hysterically irrational, which I think you will pick up on when you read the poem.

So here is my blog, which was finally started after two hours and a bottle of red wine (I like wine - it gives me confidence). I may revise it one day but for now, the only editing it has undergone was to squeeze it into 40 lines, so it is still quite 'free' in style. Thank you for reading!

SEEN AND NOT HEARD

I watch my boy walk away with a smile on my face,

I crinkle up my eyes up until it looks real,

The lump in my throat threatens to choke me where I stand,

I want to run to him and carry him away,

Plug him in his little car seat,

Take him home or to Sainsbury’s or the park.

But they say if you worry, he’ll worry, and anyway,

School has changed since you were there.

Laura Preston has grown up, and out, now,

I know because I’ve seen her in M&S, stuck-up cow.

I wonder if she still digs her nails into other children’s hands,

Laughing as their faces crumple into sobs. I never cried.

She would hold your wrist in position, then the nails would sink in

The soft young skin on top of your hand,

She’d twist them further, pinching flesh,

Strangely intimate.

He looks so small, surrounded by vast, grey concrete,

Soon they are herded into lines - quiet please, single-file.

A life of being sorted, paired, listed, registered,

Separated, grouped and colour-coded, not knowing what to expect.

I think of Auschwitz. I want to cry.

I am overreacting, of course, I know that.

My boy is looking at me! I give the performance of a lifetime-

I bare my teeth and push up my cheeks until the crow’s feet

Scuttle over my eyes.

He is convinced because I am Mummy, and a grown up.

Mr. Hall was a grown up too.

I made not a sound but my mouth gaped in horror,

I made not a sound but yet I was seen.

The teacher gazed as my blood

Beaded across my purple skin,

Baggy-eyed Preston losing her grip,

Angering as her famous nails

Sought out fresh, clear patches of skin.

Still he did nothing.

Pull yourself together! Those days are gone,

No one will hurt my boy- he’s adorable!

The line of nervous children shuffle after their teacher,

He’s kind and they will see that, he’s clever and polite…and he’s gone.

Perhaps I’ll just wait here for a while.