The Split Personalities of a Poet's Voice (a.k.a. Associating the Self with Mourning Widows and Kitchen Appliances)

Hullo!

I won't lie to you, I feel rather proud of myself currently. Today I managed the near impossible: I wrote two pieces of text which it seems that I'm genuinely content with (for the time being at least). Once again thanks to an obscure writing activity given by a module on my course, I have written two poems wherein I specifically adopt a different persona.

Now, as the title of this entry suggests, the difference between both poems is quite big, bordering on farcical. The first poem is called "The Ripples in His Face" and is supposed to be from the perspective of a woman who has lost her partner in a tragic water-based accident. For some very strange reason I couldn't help but smirk at some points in writing and reading this poem; more often out of the sheer ridiculousness of me writing about 'a tragic water-based accident' without a degree of irony or black humour. Let's just say I'm not really accustom to such a serious topic as this. I'm not a sadist. Promise.

The second is a far more entertaining piece of verse entitled "Oven Glove". After reading Sylvia Plath's delightfully picturesque "Mirror", I decided that I wanted to write something to a similar effect only much more sillier. So I scanned around my flat for an inanimate object and the first thing my eyes rested on was an oven glove resting on top of the microwave (it's still there as I write this, looking down on me like a blue heat-resistant prison guard) and, no matter how much I tried to move away from it, it kept drawing my attention back. After overcoming the initial ridiculousness of adopting the persona of the humble oven glove, I started to see a perfect analogy for the slightly bitter self-sacrificing martyr/hero. I guess it's that particular factor that endears it to me. I love unexpected irony, no matter what form it takes.

Anyway, enough of my gabbing, here are the poems. Enjoy! Oh, and do try not to laugh...


THE RIPPLES IN HIS FACE

I catch his face in puddles –

grey and sunken,

especially round the eyes.

I stumble forward for him,

cast out my hand,

watch the ripples shatter the glance.

He hated rainy mornings

in September,

just as the chill was coming.

                                          

He loved the riverbank,

his early strolls

just as the town was waking.

The wind had caught him with

open pockets,

his gloves tumbling to the edge.

Kneeling down and reaching out,

he couldn’t stop.

The waves lapped him till silent.

I won’t cross the riverbank

in September;

the water’s getting too deep.

OVEN GLOVE
 I may not look like much:

bulky,

too oddly-shaped

to go out and face the cold air,

but that’s fine.

You need me

indoors

to do the opposite,

to keep the fire within its box,

to save your flesh.

At the end of the day

I get burnt

in little ways

so you don’t have to risk it,

so you don’t have to.

I don’t complain,

got no mouth,

only a thumb

and a place for cool fingers

to hide from the heat.


Both of these poems are only on their second draft, so I may well improve upon them sometime in the near or distant future. If I do, then I will most probably put them up on here. Any objections?

Thanks for reading,

Mr. Pondersome