So here we go!- this is 1 of 41 and the start of the Second Collection.
I am overjoyed (honestly) to continue sharing my work with everyone here on Behind the Lines. The “difficult” second collection is a wide-ranging white knuckle ride through the centre of a cracked heart- that probably asks more questions than its answers, which is part of the fun!.
For the opener, like “1980” in BE.aGaIN, I wanted a work that set the stall out for the collection. The “41” came from what age I would be in March 2021 and contemplating that while writing this piece in January 2021. So the title gives the reader some context. I then decided that there would be 41 poems in this collection.
*Yes the ” ” is deliberate. Psalm 41 is also a reference point- to one of the original poets of the Old Testament-David.”O’ Lord, be gracious to me”. It is also known as the healing psalm -“consider the poor (weak)” and “sustain him on his sickbed”. This seems to be a justifiable use of scripture facing into that year that started with a grim winter of pandemic and a community of closed doors. I also liked the way the psalm was addressed to the ultimate “choir director”.*
The first two lines also set a scene- “I’ve only woken, Eyes not yet open”. Our poet is waking up after years of sleeping or being somnambulant through life.This is my own awakening through the search for higher consciousness during the worst of times and realising very quickly that I needed to “find my feet”.
The back drop for today’s piece is a traditional Irish drum – a bodhrán (baow Rawn) as there are many references to a drum in this work-“Trying to keep the beat” followed by the “March to come” (a double use, referring to my month of birth and perhaps my use of drum imagery inevitably led to musings on marching-something that is perennially uncomfortable for someone from the Republic of Ireland with a knowledge of history -maybe I am guilty here of subversively substituting a bodhrán and a psalm for the Lambeg and the sash.)
The drum puns continue with the use of- “worn out drum”-here I am referring to my own earthly body, going into my forties.
The last four lines are me thinking what milestones or events that I have to get through before I hit 41,-the “roses” of “February” whose “thorns” are what I am going to have to handle and the sheer bleakness of a locked down freezing first month of the year where it rains every day, if we are lucky. (At the time the big adventure was a masked and sanitised trip to a supermarket!).
“The lies they sold us”, I believe refers to my increasing rejection of “real” life and the realisation that by living in a consumer society, you are either selling- or being sold to.
And yes I am aware of the irony…
Unreconciled Doors was released in Kindle format today on Amazon for $€£ 0.99
If you like and if you can, having being delighted by this daily dose of dissonance, maybe Buy Me a Coffee please ,or even better, buy Unreconciled Doors, so you can read along with Behind the Lines!
Take care,
Algo.
Algo Poetry-Behind the Lines 