{"id":201,"date":"2003-05-22T01:10:30","date_gmt":"2003-05-22T09:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscorrigan.com\/blogs\/?p=201"},"modified":"2003-05-22T01:10:30","modified_gmt":"2003-05-22T09:10:30","slug":"94727477","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/94727477\/","title":{"rendered":"94727477"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just discovered Les Murray<\/A>, who is no stranger to antipodean readers and many others no doubt, but is new to me:
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\nCotton Flannelette<\/b>\n\nShake the bed,<\/I> the blackened child whimpers,\nO shake the bed!<\/I> through bleak lips that\nnever will come unwry.  And wearily the iron-\nframed mattress, with nodding, crockery bulbs,\njinks on its way.\n\t\tHer brothers and sister take \nshifts with the terrible glued-together baby\nwhen their unsleeping absolute mother\nreels out to snatch an hour, back to stop\nthe rocking and wring pale blue soap-water\nover nude bladders and blood-webbed chars.\n \nEven their cranky evasive father\nis awed to stand watches rocking the bed.\nLids frogged shut, O please shake the bed<\/I>\nher contours whorl and braille tattoos\nfrom where, in her nightdress, she flared\nout of hearth-drowse to a marrow shriek\npedaling full tilt firesleeves in mid-air,\n\t\tare grainier with repair\nthan when the doctor, crying Dear God, woman!\nNo one can save that child.  Let her go!<\/I>\nspared her the treatments of the day.\n \nShake the bed.<\/I>  Like: count phone pole, rhyme,\nclassify realities, band the head, any\niteration that will bring, in the brain's forks,\nthe melting molecules of relief,\nand bring them back again.\n\t\tO rock the bed!<\/I>\nNibble water with bared teeth, make lymph\nlike arrowroot gruel, as your mother grips you\nfor weeks in the untrained perfect language,\ntill the doctor relents.  Salves and wraps you\nin dressings that will be the fire again,\nripping anguish of agony,\n\t\tand will confirm\nthe ploughland ridges in your woman's skin\nfor the sixty more years your family weaves you\non devotion's loom, rick-racking the bed\nas you yourself, six years old, instruct them.\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/pre>\n
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The first time I read this poem my eye caught in different places.  It started with the word “unwry” in the first stanza.  Having that word followed by “wearily” made me initially read “unwry” as “unwary.”  I had to double back, smiling at the word play.<\/p>\n
But then it continued…the mother “reels” out instead of “reaches”, “chars” instead of “chairs.”  I thought the whole thing strange and just the product of reading too rushed, so I slowly read the poem out loud and the same thing happened.  On the same words.<\/p>\n
It is as if there is signal noise built into this poem.  Deliberate places to trip and pause, a poet that asks you to sit still and concentrate even as he lulls you into the seemingly easy flow of the work.<\/p>\n
It’s beautiful and engaging and lovely all at once.<\/p>\n
Many Murray links (poems, reviews, audio):<\/p>\n