Interview with poet and activist Loraine Mponela.
I was not born a sad poet — Get a copy:
UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHL4R1JL/
US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL4R1JL/
Socials: @LoraineMponela
Website: https://www.noaudienceloraine.co.uk
Interview with poet and activist Loraine Mponela.
I was not born a sad poet — Get a copy:
UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BHL4R1JL/
US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHL4R1JL/
Socials: @LoraineMponela
Website: https://www.noaudienceloraine.co.uk
He told me his name
and said it is like a
butterfly hovering over
fresh blooms in an open field.
The department chair
raised her eyebrows, smiled,
and said, “Can you tell us
the significance of your name
one more time?”
She said,
You don’t want
to get on the dirty side
of a hurricane
because that’s what
kills people.
And that became
a central metaphor
for our relationship.
Don’t get on my dirty side,
she’d say, or I’ll mess you up.
Or I’d say,
The dirty side is moving in,
so you better back off.
And we always talked like that,
the way people talk about the weather,
but we never did anything about it.
(“Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”–Mark Twain or possibly Charles Dudley Warner)
It was supposed to be ironic
to say bad things will happen.
You were thinking of things like
an unauthorised charge on the credit card
or a stock broker dating your daughter.
You felt so secure that you could laugh
at the anxiety and insecurity of your peers.
Hey, we all have problems, you’d chuckle,
But it all works out in the end.
You’d accumulated both assets and insurance,
and you planned carefully for an uncertain future.
You had lectured others on the importance of savings,
healthful living, and sound investments.
But the history of the world is nothing
if not a lengthy narrative of people
experiencing the unimaginable
unaided by immaculate preparation or
salvation from a merciful God.
Sinners suddenly remember God
holds them over the pit of Hell as
one might hold a spider over a fire.*
As they emerge from the ashes,
anxiety cripples them until,
slowly, they become steadily
more complacent, even arrogant,
until vengeance meets them again.
*Thanks to Jonathan Edwards.
Dreams save time.
You never really have to travel.
Just pass through a door
and you are in a new place and time.
Maybe even a different body.
You could be an old person in a hospital
one minute
and then an anxious child in school
the next.
The doors could always be an escape,
but for some of us,
the unlucky few,
they always seem to lead
to danger
and a violent wakening.
To us this is not so, not so if we prove it by writing a poem built to refute it—otherwise he wins!! ~William Carlos Williams
What if you wrote the poem
that proved everyone wrong,
but they refused to accept
the conclusion and continued
to walk with invariance
on metered and predictable feet?
What if they never learned to
breathe and step down
to a natural rhythm?
What would be the point
of walking under the
white disc of the sun
and counting
the steps to
death?
Colour lies in the mind,
not in objects in the world.
The philosophers said it’s true.
Even children wonder if others
see what they see when they ponder
all the universe lying in their view.
As we grow, we debate inverted spectra
and possible mass hallucinations
creating discord and hullabaloo.
We want to see phenomena just as
God sees reality,
and we
puzzle every ambiguous hue.
Finally, we content ourselves
To accept things as they appear,
but
keep imagining the missing shade of blue.*
*We can’t have ideas without impressions, said Hume,
before saying we could mentally create a new kind of blue.
When I was a teenager, I stopped putting ice
in my “iced” tea, and started drinking it right
out of the pitcher at room temperature. After an
initial phase of alarm on the part of my family, they
sort of just decided that if I was too lazy to put ice
in my tea, then I deserved to suffer all the
consequences that might entail, which,
I have to tell you, weren’t very serious
consequences in the end. I still enjoyed
strong and sweet freshly brewed tea,
but I didn’t have to worry about ice
trays or running out of room in the
freezer or any of that stuff. I was just
happy in my own kind of way.
A few years ago, I moved to England,
where nobody drinks iced tea,
so ice is no longer an issue, but
I still drink tea at room temperature,
which surprises the people who notice,
because most people don’t drink tea
that has “gone cold” around here.
I do, of course, and it isn’t really a
problem so long as I hold onto my
tea mug in case someone notices
it has gone cold and dumps it in the sink.
And, yes, in both countries I still get
judgmental comments about how I like
a little tea in my sugar, but I’m not bothered.
I don’t like answering a lot of questions.
Like when I go to Starbucks and order a
flat white, and the cashier asks what size
I want, and I say there is only one size of
flat white, pointing at the menu, but the
cashier says, no sir, you can have whatever
size you want, and I say, yes, but any other
size is not a flat white, is it? It’s just some
milk with coffee in it, and the barista is
confused as to why I’m so exercised about
a coffee order.
And so am I.
If I wanted this poem to be more intimate,
I would address the reader directly, and
invite the reader into my inner world.
I would use second-person pronouns and
share the deeper and darker aspects of
my personality. I would regale the reader
with stories of elation and spiritual fulfillment
along with brutally honest accounts of
self-doubt, anxiety, fear, and loathing.
I might make it a little shocking by offering
raw accounts of emotional terrorism,
suicidal ideation, perversion, and criminality.
I might make the reader uncomfortable,
embarrassed or outraged. But today I want to
keep my distance. I will only tell the reader
the weather is crisp and cool and fine enough
for a pleasant walk. The livestock are neighing,
and braying and crowing in a delightful
cacophony of good cheer. The holidays are
just around the corner, and it’s best
I keep my distance.