Wear Your Heart on Your Arm

photo of painting by Saskia Leek

I have a summer dress I never wore so started wearing it inside out and received a lot of compliments. Great dress! Nice dress!

 

Its silk chiffon lining a deeper pink than its 100% silk paler melon outer. A Karen Walker I bought in an end of end of last summer season archive sale for one-50 instead of seven-50.

 

I really was getting a bargain even if it is a size too big. Our model Carla’s five nine, she’s wearing a size eight. Despite the extra size it still snatches my biceps when driving.

 

The design is one of those ill-fitting drooped shoulders oversized lost waist voluminous skirt dresses. A dress with attitude and long ties prone to dragging theatrically in the mud. 

 

Multi-coloured covered button detail and industrial KW arrow zipper. A pink sack in the best silkworm-made materials - it looked killer on Carla in model’s own black biker boots.

 

Chains and sass. All The Single Ladies. Yet more English bather’s modesty curtain on five foot four in sandshoes me – a lined but badly hung curtain. 

 

But here I am wearing my dignity on my sleeve. My heart on my arm. My insides could be out the fabric is the colour of raw flesh - those meat packets I study at the supermarket.

 

Then end up at the self-checkout with a heavy load and nothing for dinner because it all starts to look imitation colour dyed forever raw and un-cookable in plastic petri dishes.

 

Kiwi poet, Jordan Hamel wrote a poem about eating an elephant. A poem about giving a lecture about how to eat the metaphorical elephant in the room with bacon references.

 

My country cat left a partially eaten rabbit on the balcony outside my bedroom. He does this frequently. Often only heads are missing. A torn ear discarded. Brains must taste sweet. 

 

This reminded me of all the lambs’ brains my mum made my sister and I eat in order to make us grow up brainy - when she wasn’t cooking up sheep offal to fuel us with iron.

 

Popeye could keep his canned spinach we had fried liver. Once country cat left a Victorian medical experiment in rabbit – the skin and fur completely removed from one side.

 

A precision dissection exposing muscle and sinew, rib bones, intestine, vital organs, and small non beating heart. De-gloved rabbit in aspic with spleen.

 

A woman coming up the escalator at Auckland airport told her friend - Yeah, but you can always smile and say hello. Wear your heart on your arm.

 

You never save money in a sale. That’s the truth of it.

Jane Bloomfield 

Collection 2023/24

What's That Bread Called Again? asked Mum

 

Thelwell's Shetland Pony

Alzheimer's is pretty rife in my family. It's more of a beotch if you know you have it. Those snips of time which just dissolve into the void - lost forever. 'I know I've already asked, but what is that bread called again?' When that pill is available - I'm coming for it!

Jane X

Bite Me, Dracula - a poem

Bite Me

Did the vampire eat his wife for dinner?

Clearly not said an elegant elderly man reading my pussy

t-shirt in the second-hand bookshop of Saint Columba one Tuesday

‘White Fuzzy Cat’ limited edition 1/150 by The Vampire’s Wife

it’s Nick Cave’s wife Susie’s fashion label my tongue twisted

this tall man with a Harry Styles wave in white would know

who I was talking about

people in musty bookstores have higher IQs

score well in general knowledge quizzes

win daily at Wordle ardle oodle

or enjoy the hunt for cheap Presbyterian reads.

 

I found some cheap reads

my Lily Max children’s novels published 8 years ago

Book #2 as new, 2 bucks

Book #1 well thumbed, 4 bucks

Book #3 no where to be seen

I wrote these I told fuzzy bum the cat who’s actually black

I should have looked to see if a child had pencilled their

name on the endpapers - offered to sign them

taken an author with book selfie - put it on Insta

then I spied Prince Caspian galloping a black horse in a black forest

C S Lewis, 2 bucks, mine, browned pages, print so small a shrew

would don its headlamp.

 

Why did they use Times New Roman 6.5  in the early days of publishing?

Was everyone well sighted back then from fatty mutton chops and

quarter acres of boiled carrots in parsley sauce

the shop smelled of parsley sauce, the carpet thin sage.

We get a lot of famous people in here said the volunteer with

Barbara Cartland hair and a big voice

that women wrote these books she exclaimed after me

Fuzzy Cat mewed

Susie might have smiled

white Harry clutched Bram Stoker

and a lone ego floated briefly above the carpark.

The Princess and (That Pesky) Pea

 

A Princess on 20 Mattresses with Insomnia

The Princess and (That Pesky) Pea

by Jane Bloomfield

Chia Seed Guy

 

chia seed pud in jar x 2

Try as I Might I Cannot Think of an Appropriate Title for This 

Did you hear about the guy who had to have a wad of chia seeds surgically removed from his oesophagus? He’d washed down a dry tablespoonful – half the recommended daily dose - with a glass of water. Looking after your health is a mind field, who knows what’s the correct plant-based milk to warm with your nightie night time celebrity chef-endorsed mushroom powder before you stalk Gwyneth on Goop. Who knew Turkey Tails aid gut health and regulate your prebiotic bowel microbiomes until next week. What even is Kefir. Bat’s milk? If you’ve ever made chia seed pudding you’ll know those thirsty little black eyes absorb up to 27 times their weight in water. Chia-seed-guy was only concerned for his daily omega 3’s but on the way to his stomach those seeds, from the Salvia Hispanica (flowering mint) plant native to Mexico and Guatemala started to swell and swell into a gelatinous obstruction surgeons could only remove, not by cutting him open and fishing out a plug worthy of a selfie and a formaldehyde filled jam jar on the mantelpiece but by pushing it through into his stomach with a paediatric probe. He’d be glad he was anaesthetised for that sort of pain and embarrassment now with its own medial term – Esophageal Impaction with Chia Seeds. A good reminder to all health junkies – the proof is often in the pudding.

When a Peach Was Just a Peach #poem

peachy

 

 

The Long and Short of it - a poem about shorts

#SilkByEloise sexy-long-short, avail Jan 2024

The Long and Short of It - a poem about shorts

 Summer arrived calling for shorts

in the peony patch I caught sight of a sight

all droopy muslin cheesecloth to the knee

thighs in need of a detox wrap or a timely longer short

I trotted to Rebel Sports - it was Black Friday - I felt black

a too cheery woman in high viz greeted me at the door

welcome have a nice day you’re welcome sort of nothing

what country was I in? I soon found myself in synthetic women’s

apparel country, a mum with daughter fresh blossomed discussed

sports bras, if they’re bouncing they’re stretching I offered not

and chanced upon some relaxed-fit basketball knee-drop shorts

talk about activewear as a mutton chop, a shoulder roast

Waikato green with lemon strips, excellent pocket form though

secateur deep, a market gardener’s handy short for sure

 

at the counter, a red-faced man strode in, before he got the door-drill

he yelled across the shop floor  – do you sell fridges?

he may as well have asked for a turkey-sized air fryer

have you tried Briscoes offered door lady

sold out

The Warehouse, counter lady

sold out, head hung, eyes close to weeping blood

a car park backlit plaster cast Madonna

what kind of fridge was this man after

walk-in, display, beer, camping, titanium, E-bike capable

cold sculpting fat freezing             polka dot?

Abruptly he about turned before melting a chocolate Santa

blocking the doorway, Black Friday had turned black comedy

Noel Leeming mumbled Berlie Sports underwire

 

back home I ripped the tags off my long new shorts

now also available in black

 

 

Jane Bloomfield

Collection 2023/24