stdClass Object
(
[ID] => 21446
[post_author] => 6
[post_date] => 2021-03-22 15:51:42
[post_date_gmt] => 2021-03-22 15:51:42
[post_content] => Everything you told me came untrue,
as if your eye at the witching hour,
when you told us bedtime stories,
was faulty on its target.
Perhaps your seer’s hands, smooth
and oiled from washing up, slipped
in their tracing of force-lines
on your crystal ball.
Maybe your too-hasty breath
flustered the tea leaves,
distorted picture portents
dredged on china.
Your prophecy that I might die
young, slipped into disuse
after you’d aired it eighteen times,
once each birthday, for bad luck.
The blade of your sibyl’s claim
that I wasn’t meant for marriage,
that lovers would recoil,
blunted (though I grasped it still).
And the old domestic curse,
that I would never write,
that words would fail to join:
the black source like treacle, stuck,
trickles freer with each poem that comes,
Mother.
[post_title] => Everything you told me came untrue,
[post_excerpt] =>
[post_status] => publish
[comment_status] => closed
[ping_status] => closed
[post_password] =>
[post_name] => everything-you-told-me-came-untrue
[to_ping] =>
[pinged] =>
[post_modified] => 2021-03-25 21:05:43
[post_modified_gmt] => 2021-03-25 21:05:43
[post_content_filtered] =>
[post_parent] => 0
[guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=21446
[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => poems
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 0
[filter] => raw
[meta_data] => stdClass Object
(
[wpcf-published-in] => The Poetry Review
[wpcf-date-published] => The Poetry Review, spring issue, 2021.
[wpcf-summary-description] => This poem was published in The Poetry Review, spring issue, 2021.
[wpcf-rights-information] =>
[wpcf-poem-award] =>
[wpcf_pr_belongs] =>
)
[poet_data] => stdClass Object
(
[ID] => 6954
[forename] =>
[surname] =>
[title] => Geraldine Clarkson
[slug] => geraldine-clarkson
[content] => Geraldine Clarkson’s first full poetry collection, Monica’s Overcoat of Flesh, was published by Nine Arches Press in 2020. Verve Poetry Press will publish a pamphlet, Crucifox, in May 2021. Her numerous awards and prizes include: The Poetry Society's Anne Born Prize 2015; the Poetry London Competition 2015; the Magma Editors’ Prize; and the 2015 Ver Prize. She was a Writers’ Centre Norwich Escalator winner in 2011.
)
)
stdClass Object
(
[ID] => 6954
[forename] =>
[surname] =>
[title] => Geraldine Clarkson
[slug] => geraldine-clarkson
[content] => Geraldine Clarkson’s first full poetry collection, Monica’s Overcoat of Flesh, was published by Nine Arches Press in 2020. Verve Poetry Press will publish a pamphlet, Crucifox, in May 2021. Her numerous awards and prizes include: The Poetry Society's Anne Born Prize 2015; the Poetry London Competition 2015; the Magma Editors’ Prize; and the 2015 Ver Prize. She was a Writers’ Centre Norwich Escalator winner in 2011.
)
Everything you told me came untrue,
as if your eye at the witching hour,
when you told us bedtime stories,
was faulty on its target.
Perhaps your seer’s hands, smooth
and oiled from washing up, slipped
in their tracing of force-lines
on your crystal ball.
Maybe your too-hasty breath
flustered the tea leaves,
distorted picture portents
dredged on china.
Your prophecy that I might die
young, slipped into disuse
after you’d aired it eighteen times,
once each birthday, for bad luck.
The blade of your sibyl’s claim
that I wasn’t meant for marriage,
that lovers would recoil,
blunted (though I grasped it still).
And the old domestic curse,
that I would never write,
that words would fail to join:
the black source like treacle, stuck,
trickles freer with each poem that comes,
Mother.
Members' Area