The Animals Have It

 

Anteater stack

In the same week I discovered my old horse Star was blind in his right eye a dolphin swam up a river and a sperm whale swallowed a boy on a kayak then spat him out again – his father filmed the whole thing talking to his son all the while telling him to stay calm - stay calm slipping around on a whale’s tongue a la Geppetto who actually ended up in a whale’s stomach and waited it out until his son Pinocchio came to his rescue – a monkey turned off the electricity in Sri Lanka sending the country back to the dark ages - a fox followed my middle daughter home on Wakehurst Rd, Clapham - a moose said hello to my son in a carpark outside a bar in Jackson – the male anteater carries its family on its back, baby on top of mum on top of dad - how many ants do anteaters need a day for that level of exertion I wondered as I did my daily hand-flick beside Star’s good eye hoping it keeps seeing – he’s a real whinny-er now - there’s nowt so noisy as a blind horse who wants to see – anteaters eat thirty thousand ants a day – that’s a daily consumption of one hundred and eighty thousand ant legs – good to know they’re getting their protein – octopuses have three hearts.

 

all over the planet

animals promise

emotional rescue

Author note:

The above is Jane Bloomfield's first attempt at Haibun. Popularised by Basho in 17th Century Japan - a Haibun is a poem using a combination of prose and haiku. Hopefully, I've sort of nailed it. A fun if tricky writing exercise. Give it a whirl, poets! Inspo - Rattle Mag Spring Issue #87's Haibun feature with the most excellent curation of Haibun, and an interview regarding writing the poetry form between Timothy Green and Lew Watts.

Did They Serve Iceberg Lettuce on The Titanic?

It always pays to eat your wedge

Iceberg lettuce doesn’t look like an iceberg nor does it taste like one, it tastes of sandwiches curing in a leather satchel in the cloak bay outside Room One. 

 

Warm lettuce membrane pocked with butter and Marmite, a pale but pungent filigree between thin crusted white bread.

 

Wasn’t it a treat when mum changed it up and you found Marmited crinkle cut chippy crunch in place of damp raw leaf.

 

Often thought to be lacking in nutrients due to its bland demeanour - lettuce info dot org tells me the veg contains Vitamin K and folate.

 

And a superior sensory profile thanks to 96% water content it’s our obsessive diet culture’s perfect D for the carb-less lettuce cup. 

 

Burger oft desired when shredding, to house your thick saturated fat meat patty and melted cheese it’s all about how many grams of protein nowadays meal.

 

Behold this mighty lettuce really comes into its own not sliced fine in a soft shell fish taco or minced and refrigerator-aged in a foot-long meatball Subway sub.

 

But when eighth’d and served dressed in Thousand Island dressing dripped with bacon crisps and croutons - I give you the iceberg wedge.

 

Only the greatest mullet salad of all times eaten with a knife and fork alongside a chargrilled porterhouse steak in any fine diner east of Eden.

 

James Cameron towed an iceberg from New Found Land to the movie set of the Titanic in New Mexico only it got stuck in the Panama Canal and melted, said SL4968Q on Reddit.

 

How to tow an iceberg has five hundred million and seventy-seven hits on Google, with the helpful hints - if you tow, go slow. 

 

An iceberg is a large floating mass of ice detached from a glacier, 90% of it lies underwater I don’t know about you but I’m scratching my head.

 

So many bee sting summer suppers served torn in salads slick with gran’s Condensed milk mayonnaise fresh from the garden row granddad named slug bait.

 

It always pays to eat your wedge. Derris dusted or not.

 

In answer to the question - iceberg lettuce was not served on the Titanic in 1912 - this unsinkable member of the Daisy family only hit the veg markets in 1920.

 

Jane Bloomfield 

Collection 2023-24-25

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

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.

Did Agatha Christie Drink Gin?

 

Joan Collins not Agatha Christie

 

On Tuesday morning with Earl Grey tea in bed I log on to Facebook 

grand dames I know are exploring exotic lands, one is floating down

the Nile on a river barge with men dressed in kaftans lifting striped

red sails and serving tea and cardamon cakes. The vessel looks

like the one used in the Agatha Christie film - Death on the Nile

I spy Hercule Poirot, famous Belgian detective on board.

The second is on a sun lounger at a villa beside a pool beside

The Tyrrhenian Sea on the tiny island of Cagliari, Sardinia, waving

at the camera wearing a Joan Collins wide straw hat.

I’m in Middle Shotover watching a hawk breakfast on rabbit kill in

the front paddock and the sun dry chilled green grasses through

my dusty windows where a lost bumble bee knocks asking to come

in and I start to wonder - which one of us is living the dream because

Agatha Christie was a teetotaller.

Jane Bloomfield

Collection 2023

A Friday of Poems

 

Mad author running in permafrost with dog, June 23

Club Mile High Confusion

Aisle sitters yes you

Why would you choose to stare at the back of a seat when you can stare at the world from

32,000 feet

And sit in the sun

Wear your shadze if you want

As you gaze down at the clouds like goddam Jesus himself

or god himself

Or god's mum

Queen God

Moon cloud mattresses

Kapok dreams heaven sent to

mountain ridges, kidney-shaped lakes

braided rivers cubic zirconia bright

the sea oh the sea

green carpet crops

a house with a child waving

You're an explorer of the 2020s

A human drone

While you smell the Nescafe permeating the cabin

cookie or kumara crisps

Club mile high

Windowseat Tours R Us

Robbie Williams Was in a Band Called Take That

I once had a novel edited

and was told I used that too much

And that that is not needed

That it's most often superfluous

Now every time I go to at a that

I fight myself

then I leave it out

But I know for a fact

that sometimes

just like a Brit boy band

That word that

is needed

so I slap it back in

Take That

That

Running Into Sixty

The GP called Dr Caramello like the biscuit said

When you start running you should only run one minute

then walk one minute

Otherwise you’ll get shin splints

Otherwise you might not be able to walk the next day

If

Like me you start running

Mental as anything

You’re feeling good

It’s Day #1

You manage ten minute stretches no sweat

Actually you are sweating but you’re enjoying

The sweat

You ran down to the river

So you run up

As best you can

But you puff like a pot smoker

And you have to stop frequently

To catch breath yours

You don’t stretch after your 5 km run

You’re too busy Tweeting about it!

“Thought I’d start running again. Day #1 done! All joints intact!”

You do get the chills and drink coffee instead of water

The next day you ache all over

By the afternoon you feel like you’re coming down with something

The flu, the covid, the cold so common

You’re hot in your new modal top from

Glassons made sustainably from beech leaves

You think you’ll go to bed early

But you have G & T read a chapter of Penelope Lively

You love Penelope Lively and want to be her

You cook the dinner

You look at the new running shoes you bought 

high post Day #1 run

And decide to give yourself another day’s respite

In case, you know, shin splints

Then you’ll run again

Into sixty

 

 

Jane Bloomfield

from 'Collection 2023'

We Need To Talk About Harry

 

I was the only nearly 59-year-old woman wearing a silver sequinned tube dress and pearls at the Harry Styles concert at Mt Smart stadium last Tuesday. Almost all of the other 40,000+ fans attending wore pink. I have never seen so much pink. The bleachers glowed pink. The sickly drinks on sale were pink. I doubt fans wore this much pink to Pink. Harry bless him wore aubergine coloured trousers, a sequinned whale tale on a white t-shirt, and a huge smile. I was hoping for a sequinned body suit THB. Although his trousers perfectly matched the aubergine reference which came up on repeat in his fruit n veg encore (check it out on Tik Tok*) 

pink

Hello, I’m Harry, said Harry. The crowd screamed. No one threw bras or thongs this was a sober teenage rage of the best kind. Be yourselves tonight, said Harry, be anyone you want to be. The crowd swayed (some possibly cried.) Young fans had been waiting 500 hours outside the stadium to get beneath Harry’s stage gaze. They (me included) hung on his every word. The cheeky pretty pop god from Cheshire is funny. He does good banter. Witty off-the-cuff stuff. The crowd performed a newbie kids' author’s verbology. They swooned. Fizzed. Giggled. Cried. Sang. Cheered. Whistled. Screamed. Woooed. Danced. They danced with their hands above their heads, with their cell phone lights on. Cheap feather boas from Spotlight and LookSmart dropped a rainbow of feathers. Where had all those feathers come from? Why did they drop so easily. Thousands of necks were rubbed by their pricky points. I wore baby pink, Daughter-one white, Daughter-two yellow along with a Harry’s House t-shirt worn as a dress. There was a lot of flesh on show. But also not. There were dads dressed to match their pre-teen daughters! OMG. Cute. Never has there been such a good time at an underage rage.

 

Best Dressed

Harry has been accused of gay-baiting with his feminine attire. I’m not really up with his love life except for Olivia Wilde but to me his clothes are just an exploration of freedom and fuck you. The pearls, the painted nails, the high heels, the fluffy jumpers, the mesh vests and chiffon tie neck blouses. He’s the Bowie of the 2020’s and we need him. All the pigeon holing that’s done nowadays is such an offensive yawn. Funny that his last name is Styles because the guy rocks loads of the stuff. His stage show from Rear Floor (not even the arse arse end of the stadium) was a bit Sweetwaters tbf. Main stage video back drop, two side panels wide enough for one hooman at a time. I had no idea he had a t-boned stage that he danced along eyeing up those crying teens doing the thumbs up and heart-hand signs to make sure they weren’t about to perish. But me and my gals had room to move our booties and throw our hands in the air on the spongy plastic floor covering the pitch underneath. I clocked up 21,000 steps that night. The nek day I felt as though I’d been out clubbing, downing tequila shots. I hadn’t. All it took was one pink drink and the infectious happiness of crowd. The One Directioners who’d grown up with Harry, those that fell in love and remained loyal from his first Watermelon lapping album. Guy’s won Grammys. Guy’s going places. Yet he still thanked us, the crowd, over and over. Thank you Auckland and surrounding areas, he repeated. I’ve been cumming to Noo Zeeeeland for 11 years now. He did the Census. He sang, Tutira Mai Nga Iwi. He had fruit thrown at him. A banana. An Apple. His vocalist and percussionist ironically is a kiwi named Niall. She did a headstand which turned into a walk over and looked insanely painful. Harry’s hot. His band’s hot. For what the show lacked in fireworks and a drone light show, it made it up for it with eye candy, a still night and the full moon coming out on cue.

 

The next day at a hip café in Grey Lynn the manager asked me where I’d been, pointing at the mauve wrist tag I still hadn’t removed. Harry Styles, I said. Oh, I was at Pavement that night, shows how different we are. She then went on to state how her kids did like him but they grew out of him and he should stay off the big screen and what was that last movie he did the one with Florence Pugh? Don’t Worry Darling, Daughter-two said, me and my friends loved it. I said, I loved the concert. I wanted to say, Hon you need to swap those black Docs for your pink ones, swap the denim cut-offs and grey T for a sequinned mini, pop along to a LOVEONTOUR concert, and dance like nobody's watching. Harry Styles snobs seem torn – like people who keep reading turgid literary tomes on the train when they really want to read a rip-roaring women’s fiction. Let your hair down, I say. Or put it up, and run up a pink one-piece, wrap fairy lights around your Stetson and get on down.

 

Over-excited author with gorgeous daughters

More than one middle-aged woman has already weighed in on the Harry Styles cool. Alison Mau, SST with her piece titled, “Why I’m Bananas for Harry’s style”, said it all. I discovered several lady friends had been there celebrating life on Tuesday with their chillin (not that ours need chaperoning anymore.) Pip. Claire. Sally.

Later a friend in Millers Flat asked if Harry waved at me. I replied, Ha no … but honestly it was the happiest gathering of 40,000+ singing and dancing people that I’ve ever been at. I didn’t get taken to pop concerts by my mum when I was a tween. I would’ve happily swooned to The Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Leo Sayer ... Alison M said the crowd ranged from 7 to 70. Hurry back Harry! 

 

Until nek time, girlfriends. 

 

I’m Harry.

* https://www.tiktok.com/@briacameron/video/7207779831314910465?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7190920291958277633

Tropical Islands Await - To Travel or Not To Travel?

The dazed author poolside at Pondok Santi, Gili T, day 1

Heading off solo to Bali trailing a pandemic and post an earlier failed family trip to the tropical isles, did seem slightly nutz in several middle of the night awake periods. After having been on our way to the airport in a green taxi when positive PCR tests times four landed I was already scarred with the failed traveller brush. But some of the redic Indonesian pre-departure tests and insurance requirements had been eased so I thought I’d give it a bash. My gf in her Kuta Lombok villa kept WhatsApping with pictures of frangipani edged back yard pools, tanned ankles and colourful dugouts in sweeping turquoise ocean bays. She was having surf lessons, reflexology massages, drinking coconut water fresh out of its chilled nut. Living the life. While I was licking my homebody wounds and enjoying a bout of three weeks post-Covid flu!

I bit the bullet and re-booked, and when I wasn’t worrying about all the things that might go wrong, my flight out of Queenstown being cancelled for instance, and do I have to fill in an Australian traveller declaration if I'm transit-ing? Or is my Peduli Lindungi App loaded correctly? I thought about important, fun, pre going on holiday things – when is the best time to fake tan? Can I wax before I fake tan? Will Yumi-lashes last in tepid sea water? Where are my rubber Berkies? And isn’t it about damn time I bust out my OTT, heavily be-jewelled, silk, leopard-safari-patterned Camilla kaftan (bought from an online recycle store by middle daughter for the pool party launch of my third Lily Max book – Sun! Surf! Action! Back in the summer of 2017.)

My doesn’t time fly. 

I was flying out of Queenstown on a Thursday so naturally, I started packing on Sunday. While I chose a selection of swimwear hurriedly bought at Quicksilver prior to the original trip I had the occasional moment … What if my bag gets left in Melbourne (where I was to swap planes) I should probs put one swim set, one cotton dress, one pair of undies, a toothbrush etc in my carry on. Just in case. Seb-on-Safari had tweeted that Quant-Ass had lost his baggage and done little to rectify the matter. I was flying Qantas into Bali at 10.30pm, making my way to my hotel, overnighting, being up at 7am to be delivered to Pendang Bai for the Fast Boat to Gili T, an hour and half over the oft turbulent Lombok Strait, then three days later, I’d be over another stretch of water on Lombok, with an 1 hour and 45 minutes’ drive from the ferry to my gf’s villa in Kuta. There would be no way in hell my bag would ever catch me up. The short transit times in Melbourne before my connecting flights to Denpasar were already alarming. One hour only, and in a different terminal wtf. I live in the mountains, it's July. We have weather. I started to feel like the 18 year old I once was heading off on my OE to London town. My mum and stepdad drove up from Waipukurau to see me off. All my friends came to the airport to see me off. Even the ones who my unconfident self did not know where my friends. We drank gin with piped tonic in a circle in the airport bar until it was time for me to get on the plane. I cried all the way to Singapore, thinking what the actual af am I doing leaving the land of milk and honey. Who even am I? The elderly couple next to me wolfed down their dinners with complimentary New Zealand whines but they did not offer me a hanky. Nor pat my hand. I was alone and lonely before I’d even arrived and felt the true meaning of those L-words. 

Meanwhile, I signed up for SmartTraveller Aus and frequently checked the travel alerts for Bali. I already knew proof of negative PCR tests on arrival had been lifted, as had full Covid insurance covering hospitalisation and evacuation. A completed online customs declaration for Bali was now required (this turned out to be a time saver whee!) I was expecting to be temperature checked on arrival. I prayed I wouldn’t have a poorly timed middle-aged hot flush and be sent to a quarantine hotel. Then SmartTraveller told me quarantining had been lifted and self-isolation only was required if positive. Good news! However, women travelling alone were cautioned to be extra cautious, and especially to not take taxis. Alone. So I was a little alarmed when my arrival hotel informed me they had no spare drivers to pick me up at 11pm. The night before my departure I had enough required paperwork/printed documents to wallpaper a large water closet. I had a few hundy USD to cover my cash-only Visa purchase on arrival. I had my passport with years before expiry date, tickets, travel insurance, hotel address, ferry transfer, ferry ticket. Five long, floaty (but quite old) evening dresses. Pretty leather sandals bought last time I was in Bali four years ago, once worn. My one-only bottle of liquor. My … You name it I had it. Everything but the expectation of a person holding a placard with my name on it at Denpasar airport ...

By the following day, my personal pickup was sorted, thanks to my gf. I cannot tell you what a relief it was to find her driver Komang, amongst the masses of male drivers in the sweaty arrival hall. JANE written in faint blue biro on a piece of A4 paper. Hours of no leg room (and I’m 5ft 3), being marooned in a dead end corner of Melbourne airport for half an hour, our only contact to our required terminal a phone-on-the-wall, my Indo Covid App producing a red hazard triangle when scanned, the hour long Visa queue etc all floofed off my memory bank when I was on my way to the Artotel Sanur with a friendly face. 

To anyone thinking of venturing out in the big wide world but too afraid …? If you can, I advise you to get amongst it. The real world does await and once the hoops have been jumped the refresh will do you the world of good.* This was my Eat, Pray without the love journey and once I landed on Gili Trewangan, slightly dazed from the sedative effects of 2 x Sea Legs, I squealed to the second friendly driver holding a placard with my name on it. ‘I’m here!’ And from then on, I was as relaxed as a tortoise and made sure I enjoyed every hot minute of it.

My warm welcome had only just begun ...

'Welcome Drink' Pondok Santi Estate, Gili T

*Just check and double check all travel requirements and complete them before you arrive at the airport. Also, screenshot all the barcodes of all the Apps you fill in, there is never any airport WIFI.

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