I am 50, with tight hamstrings on the mat at the soccer club squeezing my pelvic floor practising, breathing in and out The outward breath is a rush like the end of sex or perhaps the beginning, who knows, but it is a collective womb-like sigh I’m older than most of the other women, their tight bright bums and their talk of babies, or troubles with the teachers My troublesome two are adults and I’m fascinated, eavesdropping to know just how obsessed these tight bright bums are with mothering I hear of sex as a tradeable commodity a reward, a bribe, a something to feed in dribs and drabs like a treat to eat, if you promise to be a good boy I realise I had it all wrong perhaps the fact I thought sex was recreational essential, mutual and uncomplicated something two people enjoyed I’m relieved I’m not a tight bright bum in fluro who trades sex for income or sex for a South Pacific bure that I can earn my own holidays thanks I hunker down on the mat, continue breathing, glad my pelvic floor is responding, pleased it’s not been wasted as a bargaining chip.
Month: November 2020
Colonel Bogey (a poem)
StandardMy first novel ‘About turns’ started life as a draft called Colonel Bogey. When it came time for publishing this book, Random House (2005) asked around their office if any of their staff knew what Colonel Bogey was… it seemed this old marching tune was unknown. I’m very grateful, as the new title which I decided on, is the best and a lovely play on words. But anyway, I’ve written a poem instead, called ‘Colonel Bogey’… a marching poem. I kind of like that my writing goes not highbrow but with the less literary to review our Kiwi lives.
Through the creaking turnstile
Like sheep for the dipping, guts
aflutter, hats askew, excitedly
busbies, chinstraps, multi-coloured
feathers, barely eaten breakfasts
onto the long-forgotten mudflat
home to the rugby, the cricket
and sometimes marching girls
claimed the paddock, named
after the battle of Trafalgar, for
after all, this was Nelson in the
sixties and all things Colonial
Legs dressed in Coppertone, DHA
on dead skin cells, the smell of
every tournament, the orange of it
Kilted men with bags and chanters
juggling drones, cradling tartan
bags for music lovingly underarm
the skirl, the dying whine, the
underlying groan of it, a singular
drum, the thrum and thrill of it
Oh, how we loved the pipers
Their hairy be-skirted masculine legs
The seduction of their sporrans
But the kneel-down salute or pivot
wheels needed a brass band drumkit
precision in each beat to match our feet
The Pipers stirred our hearts, lifted
our spirits, but a Piper out of breath
could spell death to the display march
it began with the fall-in, serious stuff
with callipers measuring every inch
along the matching backs of boot heels
Marker, the Leader would call, and
as if summoned by God, she would
march precisely, the perfect steps
Landing squarely on that white disc
for to miss the disc was to upend
our chances of making the medals
By the end of the day, leg tan stained
the seats of the grandstand, hats sat
askew, spectators started to dwindle
All we wanted was the music to fill the
park, our hearts returned to the pipers
to the kilted drum major, his mace of silver
The maze march, our triumph, banners
aloft, tubas and drones, multiple drums
and who knows, perhaps Colonel Bogey
The girls who went to private schools
and learned to do a pirouette at bar
would secretly look and envy us from afar
….
But only now they dare to admit this.
a curious half hour 