Poetry and Piaf (by sarah)

I am going to be reading my poem Piaf tonight as part of the Poetry and Piaf event at Cafe Rouge Cheltenham as part of the Poetry Festival - event starts at 7 pm and tickets are £10. The singer is fantastic and even if you think you don't know the songs you will as alot of them where hits during the second world war and so appear in lots of films etc... The singer Eve Loiseau is brilliant and tells the story of Piaf's tragic life - it's well worth watching even if I wasn't going to be there 😉

There are also some other cracking events - I'm hoping to catch [A. F. Harrold]\9http://www.afharrold.com/wordpress/?page_id=32) and Peter Wyton at 6 pm (also at Cafe Rouge!) - tickets for that are £5 each.

And of course there is the opening night party at Slak (also in Cheltenham!) run by Calmer* which is £6. I really want to go to this but need to check my energy levels etc... and also see how Mary is with drinking out of a bottle whilst mummy is socialising!

Poetry and Piaf (by sarah)

Coming up in Cheltenham on the 31st March-1st of April is The Cheltenham Poetry Festival and I am going to be doing a few things at it 🙂

First off I am reading my Piaf poem at the Poetry and Piaf events which is very exciting as I love listening to the singer perform Piaf's songs and telling us about her life and the tragedy of it.

Tickets are £10 incase any of you want to come along 🙂

The next thing I will hopefully be doing though is not yet confirmed is Murder in the Chapel which is an interactive sluething event and looks like lots of fun 🙂

Lastly I may have a slot reading/performing my poetry in the Beechwood shopping center but again that has not been confirmed yet - if I do then there will be some sci/tech poetry 🙂

Poetry Me – a question of confidence (by sarah)

Last night I went out to Poetry Cafe which is a lovely poetry night in Chletenham organised by the Cheltenham Poetry Festival people - it often features a main poet and a mini show case of new poets (I've done a mini show case before which was fun). Yesterday was no exception with two fantastic headliner poets 🙂

I knew I had to go to this event in order to get back into the swing of things but it was hard - first off there is the anemia making me so tired and stuff still then there is the whole crutches thing and then of course children to be looked after and a time balancing with Mary's feeding as she is still completely breast fed and the event was being held in a pub. Then there was the panic whilst getting ready that cloths were either too big or too small and everything nice just made me look fat.

But I put on the black dress mum got me - it is maternity ware but I don't think you can really tell - it mainly hid the giant bandage/corset thing I have to ware to be able to walk and some black net stockings covered the compression stocking. I felt trussed up and rediculous and knew there was little I could do about it. I also knew I had to read to read at this event or I would loose the ability to get up on stage.

However I need some sort of confidence trick to be able to read especially as it was all going to be a bit awkard due to crutches and the venue room being upstairs etc... So I looked through my accessories and dug out the purple hat Al bought me at Wychwood last year and a purple flower hair band - I decided to go with the purple flower.

I ended up reading twice and I may now be doing two more events at the Poetry Festival - I am already doing the Poetry and Piaf event (reading my Piaf poem unsuprisingly).

The festival is the 31st of March - 3 April.

I am really looking forward to it plus April like it is going to be lots of writing fun for me anyway but more on that later 🙂

Glass Bones (by sarah)

This is the other poem - tomorrow I have my pre-opp - Friday I get my baby and then the pain will matter less.

Glass Bones

A glass pelvis
Loose at the seams
My own pain apocolypse
Drenched in crises
Drowning in agonies
Each step a razor blade
Cutting into the fabric of me
Misalined, broken, bent
A pelvic shard
Shatters in muffled screams
Crying in the night
Fragile
Walking burns
Dwindling the memory
Sensation a shade
Of grey nothing
Dampening thought
Punctured, pierced
By electric blue
Fizzing of the tail bone
A primate with glass bones
Can no longer climb trees
Nor hold onto the top branches
To which they once clung
The fruits of life
Are within those branches
Instead
Sitting Pain
Standing PaiN
Sleeping PAiN
Sensation PAIN
Separeted Pelvis
Pubis synthesises
Gurdle stretched and broke
Aches and daggers
Dragging down
ME
Whinning of the glass rim
I do not drink of this misery
Just listen
Pelvis sing
Glass siren lurring
Monsters of the Id
All nasty qualities
Are distorded within

The Fear (by sarah)

Coming up to this little ones birth my mind has turned itself inside out with the memories of what happened before with Jean - it keep from overly panicking I have written a couple of poems which make me cry but I think are over all helpful at least to me.

The Fear

Before you were born
The Fear began
Blood marked anxiety
Over your future
Later it grabbed me
By the Lungs
As they injected me
To develop your
So if I died
You could be plucked
Not ready but surviable
Death was a shadow over us
Labour dawned
With complications
A room bristled
With activity
I could say nothing
Just scream
Silently - SAVE MY BABY
Intervention, blood, pain
You were there
And I could speak
Whispering softly
Too Daddy
'Go with the Baby'
His worried eyes boring
Into me

The Fear did not go
They placed you on me
And I sang a grace
'Thankyou'
Thankyou for my
Cone headed, alien-primate
My bueatiful monkey
Ancient and New
In the crib with you
The Fear tingled
As it still does
I check you each night
Even now
As often as I could then
Holding my breath
Checking yours

And as you grow
The Fear
Punctuates my thoughts
The less lickely to choke
The more you run off
Into the world
Of dangers
Fear constricts my mind
But I can not restrain you
Killing out of kindness
Out of Fear
Is still killing
Including the mind death
Stiffling the life
I watch you run
Explore

This is what love
Has wrought me?
This Fear
Fear of loosing you
And yet I would not undo
Would not exchange
The Fear
I would suffer more
For you
My little one
You grow
Grow strong and free
Maybe my fear
Is your blanket
Of protection
Innoculation against
The bad places?
I hope so
What else are
Parents for?