Napoleon Rode a Grey Stallion Called Marengo

 

Napoleon Crossing the Alps on Marengo

Napoleon Rode a Grey Stallion Called Marengo*

 

Grey horses are magical and also not, think thoroughbreds

how many times have you put money on Silver Shadow and not collected?

Pegasus was grey - he could flap his wings and fly as well as gallop

spying a grey horse in a field brings good luck

(so does a breeching whale looking you in the eye)

many a possessed storybook child has taken flight on a mystery grey horse

appearing in an apparition beyond the rose garden’s picket fence

sixth senses aligning follow me mount me

effortlessly under the willow tree

ride me bareback to heaven clutching my flowing mane

the first pony I called my own was a grey mare named Wendy

I was eight, she was 14.2 hands high, almost a horse

 

 

Napoleon’s grey Arab stallion, Marengo, was 14.2

apparently, he rode like a butcher

slouched with his toes lower than his heels

slipping around on the saddle so much he wore holes in his breeches

He rode for pleasure as well as necessity

I’ve seen Napoleon’s bed in Versailles

he was really short for a guy who ate so much chicken

there’s no mention of war horse Marengo on the Imperial stable records

a mystery in itself and many oil paintings

but I guess if a grey horse finds you in Egypt, ride it

ride it like a butcher to battle and back 

to Joséphine and Chicken Marengo

only three percent of horses are grey

Jane Bloomfield

Collection 2023

*I honest to Josephine had no idea Ridly Scott was about to drop his Napoleon epic 23/11/23, when I wrote this Napoleon poem a few weeks ago. Great minds, eh!! Jane x

Megan Nicol Reed Reviews Gwyneth's Xmas Wishlist, Kim's Nipple Bra & The Royal Family

 

Megan Nicol Reed

Well-known columnist, Megan Nicol Reed hit the fiction bestseller list on the release of her debut novel, One of Those Mothers, in March this year. Described as ‘Domestic noir up there with the best of them … a page-turner in all the right was,’ by NY Times bestselling author Jacqueline Bublitz, the book went on to receive rave reviews. Readers will be pleased to know Megan, dubbed New Zealand’s Lianne Moriarty and ‘new queen of the twist’, is currently working on her next novel.

 

Ahead of our conversation at the Queenstown Writers Festival, 10am, Sunday 12^th November, Megan answers some Quickfire Questions and Reviews - Gwyneth Paltrow’s Xmas Wishlist 2023, The Royal Family, The Barbie Movie etc.

 

Quickfire Questions:

English Breakfast or green tea

Literary award winner or sassy women’s fiction – can I have both?

Mads Mikkelsen or Tom Hardy – neither or maybe both, argh…

Jennifer Coolidge or Susan Sarandon – Can’t choose! Love the two of them equally!

French Champagne or orange green-skin wine

Truffled popcorn or Cheezels

Venison steak or mushroom risotto

Shop in-store or shop online – but, tragically, adore both 

Sex Education or The Beckhams or Love Island Australia

Kale matcha mushroom powder smoothie or Krispy Kreme Donut

Wellness Detox Retreat or family beach bach holiday – although have often felt like I needed a retreat after a family holiday 

HRT or Wild Yam cream

Friends over for dinner or restaurant meet-up – but both have their attractions and their downfalls

Wall Pilates or walking the dog in the dog park – but both actually feature quite prominently in my life 

Range Rover or small hybrid

Pottery mug or fine china

Duvet or duvet with top-sheet

Perfectionist or dreamer

 

 

One-sentence (brilliantly hilarious) Review/comments:

 

The Royal family: My inner socialist loathes what they represent, while the pleb in me isn’t too bovvered. 

 

New mum, Gillian Anderson in Series Three, Sex Education: I’m yet to watch the third season but I do so love Gillian Anderson, in fact, I’ve always fancied I look a teensy bit like her!

 

Gwyneth’s Paltrow’s Xmas Wishlist 2023 (inc. 24 karat gold, 24K vibrator): It takes guts to be that tone-deaf. 

 

One tip for a happy marriage: You don’t need to share each other’s interests, but your values should be in synch, oh, and keep shagging. 

 

Kim Kardashian’s just released Skims Nipple Bra: I was reserving judgement but after Googling an image of it worn under a white t-shirt, I have to say that while I’ve channelled many different looks in my time, sex doll is not one of them. 

 

The worst thing about aging as a woman: Realising how many years you wasted hating on your perfectly lovely body.

 

Describe yourself as a real estate ad: Compact with a lot going on upstairs.

 

Helicopter parents: When it comes to my kids, I’m always looking for that sweet spot between over- and under-parenting, but in truth I can be guilty of being a smother mother.

 

Name suppression rules in New Zealand: At the risk of sounding like an advocate for the Sensible Sentencing Trust, I suspect name suppression is too freely granted in NZ.

 

Dogs: My love for our dog, now aged 10, is coloured by the trauma she caused me as the naughtiest puppy in the world.

 

GANNI Boots: I once bought a pair of very expensive Ganni gumboots online and after three crippling outings, I was forced to cut my losses and drop them off at the Recycle Boutique.

 

The Barbie Movie: My daughter had seen all the videos on TikTok, and pictured us holding hands and quietly sobbing during the real women montage, but much to her dismay I slept through it. 

 

Don't miss Megan in conversation with yours truly Sunday, 12 November, 10am, at Te Atamira, Remarkables Shopping Area. Jump here for tix to our bottomless brunch. Catch you there! Jane x

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

Go The F@*k To Sleep - my version

St Lukes Hospice Shop, 20 cents

Rust Never Sleeps

 

These days I go to bed to stay awake half the night but I don’t feel alone

I have the gravelly honey tones of ready steady sleep App guy with me

I’m not listening to his instructions - get yourself comfortable any position is fine

I like to lie on my back with my hands on my stomach croons Dave with whale

backing music. I get my breathing - in for four, hold for seven, out for eight

all out of kilter because I’m imagining Dave is right beside me whispering in my ear

as I massage my belly swollen with spaghetti bolognese and hokey pokey ice cream

doused in go the fuck to sleep CBD oil. He’s a dark knight in the darkness. Solid

buff shoulders, slight dad bod, upper crumpet British accent with a hint of lad.

Comforting. He’s my radio all night jock telling me the only girl in the bed

room that I can go to sleep at any time. Anytime. The whale parps, I’m feeling drowsy

holding your breath all the time really reduces your oxygen saturation levels causing

sleepiness and the hint of a headache. I roll onto my side and tuck my hands under

my silk lavender-scented pillow.

 

But my brain has detached itself from weariness, it won’t shut up if only it was

this active in daylight. Dave is still whispering to me but I start thinking about

Jayroam on swiftly softly back to sleep, I’m whittling a poem, a fantasy, I imagine

JayRay with a wide white beard down to his belly button sitting by a campfire in

tights and a gherkin-coloured jerkin belted over his round tummy, legs crossed

reading from a book as thick as Grimms Gruesome Fairy Tales 1st edition.

Jayroam my lil gnome smoking a bone pipe filled with nutmeg-flavoured tobacco

rolled on the strapping thigh of his homely wife who is a giantess named Gladdest.

I would share a pine-scented calico yurt with Jayroam any day in an ancient

redwood forest, I’d lie snug in my wool sleep-sack while JayRay read tales of beasts

and maidens with the bloody sexist scary bits left out. All the princes have to go

in search of professions instead of murdering dragons and pashing bored princesses

who they now can’t locate because they’re away with cool covens learning how to

be boss bitches.

 

After two PC tales, I’d be sucking my thumb while circling my left nostril with my

willow feeling like a babe back in the womb - my luxury waterbed - twenty-seven

degrees of amniotic fluid weightless warm, drift dreaming on mother love and

future REM sleeps.

 

I heart you sleep App guys.

Jane Bloomfield

Collection 2023

Pears, Poetry & Pond Swimming - a private diary

 

A while back, I made poached peers in red wine. I found the recipe on BBC food. I chose it because it was the simplest one, contained the fewest ingredients. And I liked the fact that you boiled the shit out of six naked pears in a whole bottle of red wine! I bought an organic merlot for this purpose because the label was pretty and it was on special for a cool fourteen 99. I also bought cinnamon sticks, which made me think of Michael Ondaatje’s highly-scented love poem “The Cinnamon Peeler’s Wife”. Michael O is a Sri Lankan born Canadian.

 

I really want to go to Sri Lanka one day. It would be a research eat-pray-love trip. I want to set a book in the tropics. Perhaps on a jungle high tea plantation then on the surf-edged pearl-sand south coast. I imagined the air to smell of cinnamon or cloves or wet black pepper – some sort of moist spice. And the trees would be enormous, cream barked with large, shiny leaves and burgeoning boughs heavy with monkeys, no doubt, boa constrictors too. What is the biological name of monkeys … primates … simians … cousins … something. I like this as a technique – dropping in biological connections into prose just for a swerve. Snakes Serpentes, Cow bovine, cat feline, horse equine. Make me look cleverer. It’s so easy to jump on the internet and look stuff up. Where was I? Oh yes, the poached pears. Those lil mofos took so much boiling. At least one hour, when the recipe stated 20-30 minutes. But I wanted them tender to the bite, no crunch in the middle. On and on my cauldron bubbled. When I finally decided enough was enough I took them out. I still had to turn up the heat for the next step - reducing the syrup into a sticky mess to pour over the awaiting plated pears. Well, that was not going to happen in a flash either. My Nana, who was a terrible cook, would have added cornflour. She did this once to scrambled eggs. My grandpa didn’t complain. The pears did look resplendent, in their burgundy glory at 9.45pm. Coronation worthy – regal purple orbs. Weirdly these pears started off red. They’re red-skinned pears. The Queen of Pears. You wouldn’t say King.

 

~~

 

The next day, after my Zoom poetry workshop, I tried to meditate but failed. #CowboyTheKitty was snuggled with me on the bed. I watched him like a newborn and I fell further in love. I decided while I lay there watching mindless yet enjoyable IG reels to go to Lake Hayes for a walk at three. I’d try and get all metaphorical in the late autumn sun walking along the lake track as it rises into scrub and this random, high-fenced deer farm. Only when I got there the sun was on the wrong side of the lake. Never ask me to read a map. I hummed and haa’d and decided I wanted an incline so I set off into the shade anyhoo. I was passed by old farts on e-bikes barely peddling. I told them telepathically that if they want to get their steps up, they should brisk walk. I saw nothing of note except a small dog turd full of corn kernels on a rock, actually it was three terrier-sized turds on a rock, which was schist.

 

Soon I turned round and walked back towards the sun, when I passed my favourite dipping spot of the summer I decided I’d do it. Dunk in the lake. 1st May on the morrow, but hey. I collected my towel and old dressing gown from the car and doubled back. A dude with a number two and an overly pomaded hipster beard was sitting at my picnic table talking loudly on the phone on speaker about an intense domestic dispute he was having with his partner. I moved further down. The surface of the lake rippled. Two black swans, vine necked red beaked, fished metres from shore. I slipped out of my walking clothes. I’d put my bikini pants on just in case. My black sports top would do. I walked in up to my waist then submerged to my neck. A year back I would have screamed or at least panted but I have conditioned myself to the sudden chill of freshwater alpine ponds. I swam a few strokes then tried to stand. I couldn’t touch the bottom. There is always the slight fear I might pass out and drown. I turned to shore. Breast-stroked. My ovaries were ahead of me in outer Mongolia. Other parts had already reached the capital - Ulan Bator (the coldest capital in the world FYI.) However, a certain warmth envelopes a chilled wet body returning to air. An atmospheric crush. Like warm custard on prickled kiwis. Don’t ever serve me quince.

 

I’d tried to do some homework on my walk earlier. Get more imaginative with imagery.

 

The stream - an oasis of moisture for thirsty eels

Seed head on weed - seed dispenser of a future spring

Autumn poplar tree - Tall lady with a packet blonde dye job

Tall tree - Lighthouse beacon for birds of prey

Dog shit - Even a man’s best friend poos. Or. No mammal digests corn. Or for god sake don’t step in it.

 

Alas, I’m still at kindergarten but you never know what you’ll see - if you open your eyes. 

Cleopatra Married Her Brother When He Was Ten

Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra in the 1963 Hollywood budget blowout 'Cleopatra'

Cleopatra Married Her Brother When He Was Ten

 

Central Otago was having the hottest summer in five hundred moons

Its women folk melted into pools of perspiration every afternoon around three

As they lay on their beds panting

dreaming of ceiling fans on high and

Shirtless Jason Mamoas in MC Hammer pants fanning them with

Long-handled ostrich feather fans

Smiling adoringly

while their spa baths of chilled asses’ milk drew

into lactic acid boosting age spot reducing perfection

Cleopatra kept a herd of 700 donkeys to maintain her daily fixation

Did you know

She was also barely five feet tall 

Did you know

The lovechild of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar was named

Caesarion – a son

Alas on rising an evening dip in a lake with ducks and swans was the only option

slimy with various manures the water if perfectly chilled did

nothing to plump fine lines and wrinkles

and rewind the ravages of time on local femme 

 

The heady heat that followed day into night would not leave

The drought ridden land until autumn

It was the endless summer that drove her to it

One hot lady took fate in her sweaty palms

put on a sundress and a wide smile of Charlotte Tilbury Electric Poppy Hot Lips and drove to Queenstown Central – please note there is no 

Queenstown in Queenstown Central - it’s in Frankton

There are a lot of bargain bin barn-sized stores with small electrics departments 

Investing in a supercharged 1000 dollar Dyson Air Cooler was a stretch too far

The hot hottie spent $69.99 on a Goldair Desk Circulator with Blue Tooth to

efficiently blow warm air at herself on high

Why Blue Tooth she asks the very attendant attendant

You can take it outside

Wait a hot picnic – that’s an idea

Lady and her Mac desktop al fresco trying to 

Write the novel she’s been trying to write

Well, resurrect for a long since hot forever

 

They’re at the counter now going through the motions

Credit card, Fly Buys, mobile number

Everyone knows the drill only now

There’s a new one

“Do you have a gold card?”

Poor lady swoons her lipstick matts she may as well be

in the desert astride her bad-tempered camel named Nobby at noon

A blush prickles from the tips of her toes to her scalp freezing her brain

I’m 58 says a limp voice

Mr Attendant attendant keeps going

He goes on and on acting the fool and the goat

he has no idea what the required age is for national super

The lady fidgets and looks around for one of those stands with

How was your experience today

she would have smashed that sad-face

Slapped it so hard with her new slides from La Tribe

Now the guy beside her is staring

Is the joke on her – was she missing something – a store loyalty

What is your gold card? she asks Mr A A

We offer a discount to our senior citizens he smiles with full teeth

Where are all the good one-liners when you need them

At the bottom of an alpine lake turning into a future proofing gut enhancing algae

I’m not that old someone says feebly you need to be 65 for a gold card I need seven years

She also needed her receipt

 

The next day the temperature drops to a cool 16 degrees

Allowing pause for a moment from Googling why ass not cow for bathing

And fun facts about Cleopatra and her baby daddy Mark Antony

They had a secret drinking club à deux – The Inimitable Livers

But the summer continued hot and she ran that fan on high

Sometimes she took to her bed of an afternoon sat it beside her and dreamed

But she never took it outside

Jane Bloomfield

from Collection 2023