Parting Company

How quietly we come to the end — do we? —

of a karmic connection through many lives.

This time, we loved each other: with the body briefly, 

with mind and heart and soul in the years since.

But now he wants to build monuments, fight battles …

would do me honour as long as I supported.

He carries the blood of Cherokee warriors 

and Slavic shamans. He resonates with Norse deities 

and Viking axes. I follow a different path. 

 

The heritage, genetic or magical (mine Celtic / Hindu,

while I’m drawn to Egyptian and Graeco-Roman gods) 

probably doesn’t matter. It’s where we choose to go

this time around which shapes us; what we choose to do.

Even when we performed the Rite, he was after power;

I did it for lust. But I loved him too, not for the wild man, 

the joker, the adventurer, but for a core of tenderness

I saw within, and for his truth-telling. I don’t know why

he came to love me too, but he did. Perhaps for the same.

‘That’s your teacher,’ his angels told him, the moment 

when he first saw me. ‘Don’t let him get the upper hand,’ 

mine said two weeks earlier, predicting our meeting 

when we were still strangers, unaware of each other.

I didn’t forget the advice. Perhaps he did. Now

he thinks I have nothing more to teach him. He wants 

to instruct me. ‘You’ll be looking for me,’ he says, ‘When

they come at you in that final battle.’ ‘Dear one,’ I reply,

‘do you not know, Love is the greatest weapon?’

We are texting from different continents. ‘My circle,’ 

he says, ‘collapses if you walk away.’ I tell him I cannot stay,

will not, to be seen as a party to violence, and add:

‘Like a cat, I usually go my own way.’ He says: ‘Goodbye.’

Sharing this one, on 29 November 2024, with Friday Writings #155 at Poets and Storytellers United. 

Crone Conversations

We elder daughters of Divine Mother,

meet in circle today for earth healing

and to explore the concept of ether

(spirit). This soon leads us to revealing

stories – which others may be concealing –

of life existing beyond the physical:

our own journeys into the mystical,

and messages, even visitations,

from loved ones who have now left this little

span of a life, this sphere of sensation.

‘So why do we need this meat sack?’ one asks. 

‘I love bodies,’ I say, ‘even this one,

now ageing.’ ‘It’s not for serious tasks 

you came in,’ she decides, ‘but to have fun.’ 

‘Yes!’ I say, ‘and this earth, under this sun,

I am so in love with … this planet, now

so troubled.’ We sober, wondering how

its many afflictions may find surcease.

Before leaving, we renew the deep vow

to be, in our lives, messengers of peace.

Written for Friday Writings #98 at Poets and Storytellers United. We were invited to write about one or more of the four classic elements: earth, air, fire and water, or perhaps the fifth: spirit, aka ether. This poem deals with that last one. (The form is a dizain, doubled.)

Remembering Letitia

 

Understanding comes:

why I woke up the other day

with such a sore throat, as if

I had spent hours sobbing;

why I couldn’t get myself

to the memorial service

for a lovely lady I knew;

why I‘ve been in retreat 

and even escape since then,

attempting to silence thought …

and why I’ve been thinking, 

nevertheless, of she who left us

already five years ago (can it be?)

on the same day as this latest 

event which I didn’t attend. I did 

attend hers, and spoke of her there,

and wrote many poems, then 

and thereafter. ‘She is an angel now,’  

we say, of those who have gone. 

For her, that was always true.

October

 

Octogenarian now, yet I still carry within me

Child, teenager, and all those younger women

That make up the layers and the fusion of myself.

On this day in early October, it seems well-timed –

Being at a place where the year slows before

Ending, yet also where the season renews – to

Recall all that I have been, I have become, I am.

Written for Magaly's prompt, October, for Friday Writings #97 at Poets and Storytellers United.

On Not Attending the Funeral Today

The funeral – sorry, memorial service –

for one of my sister Goddesses

is happening now and I’m not there.

Truthfully, catching a virus was convenient. 

I’m about funeralled out. Not that I didn’t 

care for her. Not that I’m not sad. Just that 

suddenly this one feels too much. Too many.

And my circle dancing days, my old body

tells me, are done. I’ve lent my velvet cloak 

and my sacred silk scarf to another Goddess 

who had moved away, but happens to be back

here at just this time. I know that she 

was closer than I was to our dead friend, so

that seems right. I always think of her wearing

her own cloak – bright pink – joyously. 

Perhaps, today, it’s  better she wears 

my magenta one in grief. The Universe is good

at synchronising these tiny, fateful details.

For the rest, guests were requested

to wear either appropriate black, or else

the vivid colours – deep blues and greens,

bright purples – which the late artist loved.

I don my customary black pants, and add 

a vivid blue top. No, I’m not attending 

this funeral today, yet all my thoughts are there.

Death of a Poet and Humanitarian

  

R.I.P.

It takes me an hour after waking

to remember last night’s news. 

In that time I hugged the cat,

had breakfast, read a new chapter

of the current novel, reviewed

my shopping list in my head,

worked out what day of the week this is …

and suddenly, somehow, memory

rises like a sudden spectre – 

oh no, Allan’s dead. 

Last night I cried, sent messages 

to a few people who would want 

(and not want) to know, lit a candle, 

spoke a prayer, removed

his photo from my healing grid …

‘Death is the greatest healer,’

my Reiki Master always said.  

There is nowhere else to go

with this. Perhaps I’ll re-read

his poems – again – or perhaps

not just yet. There's a day to encounter;

ordinary, practical things to be done.

I'd looked forward to showing him 

the two books, so soon to be released,

in which he features. At least 

he knew they were happening. 

‘He wanted to go

swiftly when it was time,’

his friend told me, ‘and he did.’

30/9/23

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2023

When I wrote my memoir* about running poetry workshops in Pentridge Prison back in the eighties, I didn’t identify particular prisoners I mentioned, but used labels such as ‘Tallest’ and ‘Youngest’ in order to protect their privacy. (Not that I had anything bad to say about them. My experience of them and with them was one of friendship and respect.)

One man I called ‘Mr Outstanding,’ because the visiting poets agreed that his powerful work was the most outstanding of all the amazing poetry being written there. He was finally freed many years ago, and since then has quietly done much good in the world, e.g. working to help the homeless and the disadvantaged.

One of the visiting poets who formed a friendship with this man, and kept in close touch with him all these years since, emailed me a few days ago to tell me he had just died, in hospital after a fall. He was 68 years old.

So I can tell you now (what readers of my memoir who were involved in those prison visits will easily guess) that he was Allan Eric Martin, whose book, Spitting Out Sixpenny, was published in 1984. He also had poems in various literary magazines, notably Overland. 

A serious poet with a true vocation, he was happy to give me permission to republish his particular poems in a new edition of Blood from Stone, the prison anthology first published in 1982 under my then imprint, Abalone Press. In his private life he was indeed a very private person, but he was happy to be known through his honest and revealing poetry.

We who liked and admired him are sad now.

I had been so looking forward to sending him the new edition of Blood from Stone, as well as my memoir and spin-off chapbook which are to be released simultaneously. I try to console myself with the thought that it would have been painful for him to revisit those difficult times. (A last-minute delay in the printing of the memoir is the only reason he didn't already have the books. The progress of this whole project has seemed blessed by the Universe; perhaps I may trust that this apparent glitch just at this time has been for the best too.)

Despite his earlier problems and mistakes, for most of Allan's life he was a man of great integrity.

* Breaking Into Pentridge Prison: Memories of Darkness and Light, to be launched in November 2023, along with the prison poetry anthology Blood from Stone (2nd ed.) and the chapbook Letters to a Dead Man.