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"Error" (a poem)

MrsGamp

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 3, 2020
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1,280
Error

(nb here I'm remembering the unspeakable panic I felt when by daughter was brand new. I was terrified of her for the first three weeks. Don't worry, I fell in love with her very soon after this phase! )


Is she awake?
The Baby?

Don't call her that
Her father says
She has her pretty name
And well she's bolt awake ...
(I have never been awake
so long - three, four days
has anyone?)

I told the doctor
I was too tired
oh mothers do not sleep ...
he'd said this many times before
he's bored
"she cries all the time,"
he was already leaving, but
shouted over his shoulder

It's just a response. Irrelevant, but a response.

He showed up too late to do his thing - the midwives
were quite pleased
"Yes, you've managed ... "
(beat beat beat)
"Don't forget to double on your antidepressants
because you are high risk of PND

Oh fuck him, the midwives mutterd,
They treated me like royalty for about six hours
I loving bathed
I was given ice packs to put inside my maternity pads
I was given an enormous meal

The Night Began ...



at home, well-rested her father jokes,

he has his liittle theories

he thinks it's sort of sweet

what is this shit? he speaks for her

and will it last forever?

(then retreats back into his studio where he is "jamming" with his band. I am invisible to them.
I stand ghastly in the kitchen, bloodstained nighty, leaking breasts
Iooking like the robber's dog
one boy, called Shane looked at me with alarm and ventured a wobbly smile


I sat down to nurse in the kitchen
"Careful!" said Dad as I put her to my breast.
"You're letting her head wobble"
(you'll break her Therese because you have no Life Skills)

Just as well he was sleeping soundly around dawn yesterday or the day before
when I fell asleep on the couch while nursing her
an atavistic bolt and here we are again, bolt awake
The Baby, whatever her name may have been
was sliding off the edge of the sofa

I have no life skills, but I managed to catch her before her
soft silly but enornous head collidned with the floor ....

After that we always sit up when we breast feed.
We watch all the informericals

At 5am Good Morning Australia begins
And the presenter boldly announces:
"Good morning to all you insomniacs and breastfeeders..."
My eyes burned with tears of gratitude. With pride. Self-pity.
I was placed

Every night at seven, let's see...
she will sleep until ten...
don't tell Dad but I take extra codeine
to knock myself out
drowning in vigilance and andrenaline, I cannot sleep without it ...



Don't dare ask what have I done

Don't wonder what is human



Yes she’s bolt awake



The new one,

and she's pretty much God-Terrible

She c
annot know
Yet makes her wrongs
Well-known

Her Fall Her Loss
My stupidity
my Error

(ps it was much better before but I over-tinkered... anyway, what the fuck, I'll let it stand. I hope no-one thinks I'm a horrible bitch for writing a poem about my new baby ... but well, they are terrifying ....)



















she has been wronged
she is too old, too new
she is the Living God
 
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I like it. Nice work. Good use of repetition. Creates a real sense of the delirium of insomnia. Also the marathon of breast-feeding is really well portrayed. Some of it is a bit rough and could do with a bit of polish, but there are great lines/stanzas.

Some favorites:

They treated me like royalty for about six hours
I stand ghastly in the kitchen, bloodstained nighty, leaking breasts
Iooking like the robber's dog
one boy, called Shane looked at me with alarm and ventured a wobbly smile

I have no life skills, but I managed to catch her before her
soft silly but enornous head collidned with the floor ....
 
Thanks!
Your message has so WAAAAAAAAY cheered me up..
For tech reasons too dull to go into, I more or less have to re-grade about 40 5th grade test papers I've already graded ....again ... tonight.
Ever seen Glengarry Glenross? Al Pacino's character, the phoney real estate agent, has his contracts stolen and has to go back an re-close all his sales...?
It feels like that.
But thanks again so much, it has cheered me up that you liked some of it! Cos I thought it was mostly rubbish ...
Anyway, better start "re-closing"....
 
The father, the doctor, the midwives are like lighthouse beacons for all, but not for one; they care, but their capacity for understanding is limited.

The sense of solitude (and personal plight) is elucidated quite deftly.

I feel for you. <3
 
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