Poetry (42)

Hello Escritori,

My weekend has been full of doing alterations to tailoring to get me suited and booted for my new job and doing little bits of shopping and laundry. This Sunday’s poem was written on Charlotte Brontë’s birthday, 21st April. The good lady is 200.

It’s perhaps not respectful enough to her memory, nor well put, but I did it very quickly so her ghost will forgive me I’m sure. Much natural sympathy arises from our similarities: we’re the same height, so our perspective in that respect is identical.

For Charlotte and Jane

‘Appen I shall write

Summat fur t’occasion

Of the birthday

Of our most formidable

Miss Charlotte Brontë.

 

Jane,

Your creation:

Was a child of fury

And fervent, righteous fire.

Righting wrongs of class

Sex, age, love,

Station and desire.

Despite an unflinchingly

Punishing education.

 

If t’were not rightly conned

Before that time,

It seems apt that

Miss Brontë should create

And define

The very word,

‘Soulmate’

Since she called forth the state

Of spirit with spirit:

 

‘Just as if we had passed through the grave…’

 

Two hundred years have passed

Since she was born

And after that

Was resident of Howarth House.

 

And she the last, to promenade

That large dining table

Round and round,

In an ecstasy

Of linguistic pungency.

Staining the air,

Dispelling ghost-filled vacancy

And letting words

Now timeless,

(Both politically and personally)

Resound in memory.

 

I salute you, most rare of

Literary genii,

And picture your last days

(After gaining

Literary immortality)

Lamenting dear ones

Lost to ye:

Bramwell, Anne and Emily.

 

(© Copyright Pola Negri 21/04/2016.)