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Like a Lawnmower Cutting Heads off Daisies
By Emu Camel Drum
ISBN: 978-1-84747-033-1
Published: 2007
Pages: 276
Key Themes: poetry, psychosis, female experience, motherhood, hope
Description
My mother raised her children on Scandinavian and German literature. I had a happy childhood and was thought imaginative. When I learnt English, I wrote poetry to help me. I already spoke two languages and English was my play language. I didn’t take school seriously as it was all in English. These are poems I have written over 19 years of not getting a career and being broke. They are 87% chronological. I tried to have an interesting life so that they wouldn’t all sound the same. Writing poems gave me the courage to meet with peculiar situations and solve them in ways inspired by music, individuals or cultures no one knew about. I thought it would be amusing if the protagonists of my poems had no regard for monetary gain whatsoever. Emu Camel Drum
About the Author
I grew up in Italy raised by German migrants. My father’s airline company transferred us to England when I was 10. From age 12-19 I took planes to Italy, Germany, Japan, the USA and Sri Lanka, staying with friends. When my father died I saw it my mission to prove madness is circumstantial and not clinical.
I had a few years to prove it before I would give up. I burnt holes in my CV and taught myself to speak in a way as to lay no recourse on established thought and be intelligible only to the hopeful. Certain gaps were caused by lack of exposure to optimism. I lived on state benefits and raised children. These were removed from my care as I was unable to explain what I was doing with them. I hope they will be returned to me soon.
Book Extract
Homeless Thoughts
I’ve got homeless thoughts roaming around in my head
They’ve got no where to hide
So they stick out a mile
When they’re passing through
Please, I beg you to find them a home
They’re decent folk, sound.
If you chance upon them, don’t be troubled
It merely means your fortune will be doubled
If theirs a little depleted.
They’ve wandered around so long
They’ve caused a lesion
But I don’t think so
They’ve turned upside down my memory banks
Filtered out all my joys
And turned them into think tanks
Now I have to wait as they play havoc with my day
Until the last liar turns away.
Thread
I’m out on my tot
With no sayings
Left my house without
Even a “F**k off”
Now I’m on the street
I can’t fend
It’s not really the end
But I’m unravelling.
I cannot be sewn with.
So I have to walk carefully
If I go stealthy I won’t nick
I love you, passer-through-my-life
I blow you a kiss
But don’t mess around
With my time
Just ‘cos you have some spare
Or I’ll ravel myself round your throat.
Arrgh
Parents, or maybe teachers
Teach us to set our teeth on our minds
Laziness, or they didn’t know any better
We don’t know
Because they set my teeth on my mind
And so I’ve been busy with that…
When I’ve nearly eaten my mind inside out,
I burp, mercifully
Leaving one cell
To make its way out of my jaw
Like Geppetto
My world gets eaten, like, bodysnatched
Thus, yes, just maybe, my Geppetto cell
Can smuggle a simple tuna out
To be my witness
Or, hopefully,
(It’s a creaking ageing world I writhe under from)
After all, we cannot have something that has brought
forth so many goodnesses,
to be left to such efficiency as its own self-destruction.
It is my duty to sniff truth
And if I see a fallacy, to shout
Nay, I do not go and repair wrongs
Nay, I holler and move on from here
And you’ll be surprised, if given the task
How well a nose can follow oxygen
O ye, the valves close,
And I see darkness.
But is not here I stay,
For, in the next moment,
They open again!
On, on, on.
On, on, on.
My supposed darkness
Is only the moment
When I press outwards
To affect the world
I need not stay long
If I know
That it is only for a moment
If this moment likes to gather time
Then years it be
But I will stay, and push towards
The air.
If there is a persistent shackle
Then that is my stalk
Which will bear the fruit.
So here I am, for years the word “Lesbian”
Has been keeping me coiling, recoiling
Giving in and giving out.
Biology’s shout:
That’s how stuff grows.
(A caterpillar, or larva, can tell
I am not taking the piss!)
Our purpose is
To straighten out
So fight fight fight
Push
Push
Push
Don’t
Let
Yourself
Be
Eaten
Out.
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