Dublin Adventures
18 Friday Aug 2017
Posted in Poetry
Category Archives: Poetry
The Bash 2017
18 Friday Aug 2017
Posted in Poetry
We’ve arrived for the 2017 Bash in Dublin. Despite a frighteningly turbulent flight, we made it on one piece – phew!
The Northern Star Hotel is sumptuous and easily the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in!!
A Love Poem
06 Sunday Aug 2017
Posted in Poetry
You said you loved me from the start,
and in your hands you’d hold my heart.
So I will write a hundred lines,
and I will write a hundred times;
I must not be too literal.
I must not be too literal.
I must not be too literal…
So when you say you love my hair –
adore the sparkle in my eye,
I have no reason to believe you lie.
So just for you,
what I will do,
I shall make a gift to you.
My lustrous hair I will cut,
and Subha like my eye will pluck,
and in a box with my beating heart,
tied with a ribbon and a bow,
to you, these symbols, I bestow.
© A Love Poem 08.03.2014
by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
(photocredit – photo Pin)
I Am Doing This For You
15 Saturday Jul 2017
Posted in Childhood Memories, Death, Poetry
Tags
Alex Carr-Malcolm poet, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poetry, cancer, Chesterfield, death, Hasland, poetry, St Paul's Church Hasland, Worldly Winds poetry, writing
I remember you…
Your tiny frame full of fearlessness,
teaching the universe,
the ways of the warrior.
We met in the church choir;
I was eight and you were six.
I am white and you were black,
already born to fight life’s prejudice.
Even then I was frightened;
cancer had claimed so many,
but they were old,
and you were six.
Do you remember the wedding?
Suited and booted, in cassock and gown,
you lifted your wig,
and the horror it caused.
I was only eight,
but I prayed for days and nights,
that God would give me your cancer,
and let you live…
He never did.
I heard your story, at the end,
it hurt for you to be held,
your mummy and daddy wept
whilst you comforted them.
You asked them not to cry,
and you said you’d be alright.
You never came back to choir.
Not long after, you died.
It was at this very time,
I stopped believing in God,
he never answered my prayer,
your prayer, or theirs.
I still remember you…
your tiny frame full of fearlessness,
and how we giggled as girls,
when you doffed your wig to the world.
© I am doing this for you 16.06.2014
by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
Photo Credit: Dave Bevishttp://www.drbevis.demon.co.uk/CILAAA01.htm
Karen
12 Wednesday Jul 2017
Tags
Alex Carr-Malcolm poet, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poetry, childhood, poetry, Worldly Winds poetry, writing
She wore it and bore it,
like an ill-fitting coat,
a name duly bestowed,
from his mistress’s throat.
Obsessed by the curse,
not her familial name,
an unfortunate victim,
of his clandestine game.
Dad told her a story,
again and again,
she should have been Phillip,
not a girl, shy, and plain.
This was cold comfort,
to be given this news,
as he’d also died young,
singing the sugar blues.
The Carpenter’s coat –
she wore that one too,
a mismatched fit,
she shrank from view.
She pondered a name,
ambiguous, and strong,
a spiritual death,
yearning to belong.
As she grew older and wiser,
and tired of this fate,
tipping the scales,
the deed sealed her fate.
The mistress was smug,
as her mother boohooed,
to use her new name,
they still staunchly refused.
Karen’s long gone now,
victim, weak, and lame,
too scared of life,
wearing that coat of blame.
It still cuts to the quick,
to be labelled as Karen,
a hollow reminder,
a moniker barren.
My choice name is Alex,
my phoenix rebirth,
from mouse to lion,
a feeling of worth.
I am sorry mother,
we were all taken in,
by the maleficent blarney
and their original sin.
© Karen 01.06.2015
by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
I’m Sorry
20 Tuesday Jun 2017
Posted in Poetry
Just a bit of silliness!
I’m sorry I used your toothbrush,
really I truly am.
I don’t know what came over me,
please don’t tell me Mam!
I really wasn’t thinking straight,
it was merely my mistake,
I saw it sat upon the sink,
it was the obvious choice to take.
A spur of the moment action,
to right some rancid breath,
a brush, a swill, to clear the air,
to prevent halitosis death.
I thought I was doing the right thing,
just to help out, you see?
To make his teeth go pearly white,
with breath all minty and clean.
I know it was quite wrong of me,
and it really wasn’t right,
but now at least the doggies teeth,
are clean and really white!
Smiling Dog (Photo credit: A. Davey)
© I’m Sorry 2012
By Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
St Helena’s Reply
30 Sunday Apr 2017
Posted in Humour, NaPoWriMo17, Poetry
Tags
Alex Carr-Malcolm poet, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poetry, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm St Helena's Reply, NaPoWriMo17, poetry, St Helena School Chesterfield, St Helena's Reply, Worldly Winds poetry
Today has been the last day of NaPoWriMo – I have thoroughly enjoyed participating and enjoyed your responses and feedback.
As Promised – here is St Helena’s reply to yesterdays poem – enjoy!!
St Helena’s Reply
Oh my dear, my poor sweet gal,
I did warn you of the dangers.
In my own archaic way,
I showed you men were stranger.
I made the rules, you were no fools!
I had to be quite cunning;
with your lip gloss and your skinny ties,
you were glamorous and stunning.
You wore the schoolgirl uniform,
of crimplene and nylon,
thick wool tights, and capes with stripes
polyester shirt with tie on.
No coloured hair, no coloured socks,
and shoes fit for the army,
A-Line skirts and gingham frocks,
the blazers drove you barmy.
The gym kit was my own idea,
with gore-tex tops – no glamour.
Navy knickers from knee to ear,
nothing stylish to enamour.
The school rule drill of measuring skirts,
two inch below the knee line,
needle and thread, we’ll have no flirts,
but still you rolled the waistline.
I heard you sing my Pioneer hymn,
and make up your own version,
Pie and Peas, Oh Pie and Peas,
was not an apt subversion.
But did you heed all that I said?
No – you were capricious, smart, and rowdy,
I did my best, you passed the test,
and I couldn’t be more prouder!
St Helena’s Reply by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
18.02.17
St Helena
29 Saturday Apr 2017
Posted in NaPoWriMo17, Poetry
Tags
Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poet, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poetry, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm St Helena, poetry, School days, St Helena, St Helena Chesterfield, St Helena Girls school, Worldly Winds poetry
A plea to St Helena – tomorrow you will see her reply!
St Helena
Feast Day – August 18th
Born – 248, Drepanum, Bithynia, Asia Minor
Died – 328, Constantinople, Roman
Shrine location – St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome Italy
Patron of – Archaeologists converts, difficult marriages, divorced people, empresses, Helena, the capital of Montana
St Helena
Sisters stepped into a world
of red brick education,
grammar girls all Brodie primed,
watched over by St Helena.
You guarded us along the path
of teenage angst and dangers,
we sang your hymns of Pioneers,
of heroines and strangers.
Abiding by your arcane rules,
your holy cross you carried,
yet did you think of us as fools,
when one by one we married?
Did you laugh at our ideals
of romance and forever?
or were you ‘my dear’ forever near,
was it you who left the feathers?
One by one we fell apart,
as men they slowly went,
one by one each broken heart,
we had to learn to mend.
St Helena you did not say,
that life would be this tough,
I never thought I’d see the day,
when I’d scream enough’s enough!
Oh if I could turn back Father Time
and do it all again,
I would not moan, or whinge, or whine,
I’d love a million men!
St Helena by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
18.02.17
Absentia
28 Friday Apr 2017
Posted in Childhood Memories, NaPoWriMo17, Poetry
Tags
Absentia, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm Absentia, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poet, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poetry, education, NaPoWriMo17, poetry, sexism, Worldly Winds poetry
It took two bus rides to get to Matlock.
Panda eyed from stress and tears,
sofa surfing for days on end,
dirty, tacky, no baths,
just a lick and a spit at a strange sink.
Sat in a faceless office,
corporate men in their three piece suits,
reeking of gout, and blue with smoke,
lascivious, avuncular, pat on the hand.
You are sitting on a goldmine, one smirks.
Find yourself a rich sugar daddy.
Janis Joplin sings Summertime in my head,
as the fluorescent tubes buzz in harmony.
Parents in absentia,
humiliation and fear sting,
all this to get an education,
no give and take – no grant.
Decades on – I got my education,
With two kids in tow,
all off my own back, not needing
honey traps or gold spider’s webs,
I look back – I want to say –
I pity your wives and daughters!
Did you make them turn tricks,
to pay their way?
Or did you prey on school girls
to make your day?
Absentia by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
2016
Baggage
27 Thursday Apr 2017
Posted in NaPoWriMo17, Poetry
Tags
Alex Carr-Malcolm poet, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm Baggage, Alexandra Carr-Malcolm poetry, Baggage, poetry, Worldly Winds poetry
The day you died
I packed up my stuff
my music, my childhood
I grew up, quick and cold.
Everything gone,
joy, fun, my heart,
some thirty years on
I unlock the chambers
and start to unpack,
it is bittersweet.
Now I can go on,
I find peace,
reconciliation.
The present
becomes the past,
and I step aside,
and I step back,
and continue to unpack
my memories of you.
Baggage by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm
23.12.16
