[Susan McLean]

I checked out Hannah's First of the Last Chances yesterday. Though I found it to be uneven (what book of humor isn't? as Martial suggests), there were a few that had me laughing out loud. Here is one I liked.

Now and Then

'Now that I'm fifty-seven,'
My mother used to say,
'Why should I waste a minute?
Why should I waste a day

Doing the things I ought to
Simply because I should?
Now that I'm fifty-seven
I'm done with that for good.'

But now and then I catch her
Trapped in some thankless chore
Just as she might have been at
Fifty-three or fifty-four

And I would want to say to her
(And have to bite my tongue)
That if you mean to learn a skill
It's well worth starting young

And so, to make sure I'm in time
For fifty, I've begun
To do exactly as I please
Now that I'm thirty-one.

[A. E. Stallings]

Very nice updating of "When I was one and twenty"...

[Margaret Moore]

Well, Tim, I agree that Sophie H has been overpraised (hardly her fault), that her work is very uneven and that her style and content range are (as in the piece I've posted below) similar to Cope's. However, I'm not sure that the latter makes so much use of complex syntax. Moreover, Hannah's experience of childbirth has opened up new thematic territory. (Cope is - to the best of my knowledge - childless.) Shall hope to post an example at a later date.

This is one that has stuck in my memory since a first reading in Poetry Review, Autumn 1998.

IN WOKINGHAM ON BOXING DAY AT THE EDINBURGH WOOLLEN MILL

Two earnest customers compare
a ribbed and unribbed sleeve.
I wonder what I'm doing here
and think I ought to leave,
get in my car and drive away.
I stand beside the till
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

All of the other shops are closed.
Most people are in bed.
Somehow I know that I'm supposed
to find an A-Z.
Somehow I sense I must obey
an unfamiliar will
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill,

somewhere perhaps you've never been.
I doubt you're into wool.
Even if mohair's not your scene
the atmosphere is full
of your proximity. I sway
and feel a little ill
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Wollen Mill.

The sales assistants wish me luck
and say they hope I find
the place I want. I have been stuck
with what I left behind,
with what I've been too scared to say,
too scared to say until
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Wollen Mill

I tell myself the time is now;
willingly I confess
my love for you to some poor cow
in an angora dress
whose get-lost-loony eyes convey
her interest, which is nil,
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

I find your house. You're still in bed.
I leave my gift and flee,
pleased with myself, not having said
how you can contact me,
driven by fears I can't allay,
dreams I did not fulfil
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

Chains are the most distressing shops.
They crop up everywhere.
The point at which the likeness stops
squeezes my lungs of air.
When I see jumpers on display
I wish that I was still
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

NOTE Boxing Day= 26 December.

Margaret.

The last three lines of each stanza were indented in the original. SORRY!

[Margaret Moore]

For reasons I don't understand, I can't read my last post to this thread which featured Hannah's 'The Edinburgh Woollen Mill', but here's another anyway ...

Ante-Natal

My husband doesn't want to hold the plastic pelvis model.
He tells the other husbands that it's bound to be a doddle.
He thinks the role of classes is to teach, not mollycoddle.
He'll go so far, but not an inch beyond.

My husband is afraid of meeting women called Magenta,
Of sharing wholesome snacks `outside the Early Learning Centre,
Of any exercise that's an incontinence preventor.
He's friendly, but determined not to bond.

My husband listens to my fear, tells me to overcome it,
Changes the subject to the Davos Economic Summit,
Decides that if there's pain he'll ask a nurse to numb it.
He says he doesn't think it sounds that bad.

My husband mocks the books with their advice about nutrition,
He shocks the other couples in the coffee intermission
By saying Ziggy Marley seems in pretty good condition
Despite the smoking habits of his dad.

My husband doesn't care if I'm a leaner or a squatter,
Says pregnancy is no excuse for reading Harry Potter.
He isn't keen on Stephanie or Amos or Carlotta.
Leave it to him; he named our latest car.

On Father's Day my husband gets a card he's not expecting.
I say it's from the baby, with a little redirecting.
He doesn't blame my hormones or insist that I'm projecting.
He says he is the father of a star.

And - in somewhat subtler mode

On Westminster Bridge

I don't believe the building of a bridge
Should be an image that belongs to peace.
Raised eyebrow or the river's hardened ridge,
It wouldn't want hostilities to cease.
Aloof, on tiptoes, it deserts each side
For the high ground and, though it has to touch
Land that real lives have left undignified,
I don't believe it likes that very much.
It knows that every time we try to cross
To a new place, old grudges bind our feet.
It holds out little hope and feels no loss,
Indifferent more than neutral, when we meet
Halfway to transfer ownership of blame,
Then both of us go back the way we came.

Margaret.