More Poetry & Stories

Blades of Leek

I am the grand-daughter of cul-terreux, a word baked for paysans with ‘soiled asses’. BUT I was born with wings. To a father exiled from the family fields. feet pinned to a seed shop, heart fenced to a rented garden. To a mother. Weeded out of her own dreams, heart yoked to my father’s fences. The food we ate. Manured with the unspoken grief of my father, matured with the unspoken love of my mother her head pegged to recipe books, simmering praise and perfection fear clung to cooking pots. The food we ate. Tasted like a secret seasoned with pride – delicious, rich, delicate, rare – not words dished at a cul-terreux’s table. But when you are landless, your roots swell into stars, and you hang onto them like oyster pearls on a necklace. The dirt coating the fatty leeks and potatoes, the dirt that stuck under the nails of my mother – even washed off – was medicine against weakness. But my hands were cleaner – meant for pages not blades. I learned to cook at school, never in her kitchen, never servant, never serving. I sat at the table, ploughing for my freedom through my father’s fences. Bound to the bark of oak forests, and to the barking of his dogs, my dad pursued freedom tied to the animals he pursued and then shot. I burgeoned on pheasants and deer, grafted to the colours of death, to the wonder of my father skinning rabbits. Ev’ry Sunday morning I went to mass; he went to kill. I prayed. He provided. And in the deep furrows etched by generations of grit, I learned how to recognise how long fruits have soaked under the sun, to spot the difference between real and fake. Fake food. Fake words. Fake emotions. When you’re the grand-daughter of cul-terreux, fakes smell of cow dung. And even though we say that cow dung smells like roses I much prefer the warp of mud belting me to my ancestors whatever the weather, for my freedom bends to their scars and tears ...as for my wings... They’re the colour of dirt found between blades of leeks, rising * rising * rising.

My Brother

This is a poem, a shovel held to dig, the fractures of the past through the presence of absences. This is a poem to honour my brother; a brother lost, a brother rejected, a brother in hiding. I see how we bled from a shared scar two bleeding sides to the same coin. But silenced in grieving, our sealed lips summoned the end of our love. And the only picture of us on Christmas day under the gaze of our spaniel only shows two quiet siblings. Unwrapped toys do not speak of love. The dog is long buried. My brother is the boy who grew into a man begging for the love of his mum but my brother peed fear at night but my brother wanted her arms, and I can’t remember if I got them either and I never offered him mine. This mother that made me demoted him to problem child to patch peace in her heart. My brother is the boy who grew into a man begging for the love of his dad but my brother was spoiled by the hands of another man. And I can remember those hands but I can’t remember holding the hands of my brother. This father that made me fashioned him into shame to clean his hands. I see armies of men hanging on the deeds of their forefathers. I did not see the wounds of my father spreading cancer through my brother. I saw two men twisting words against me a son in collision with his maker to find his place, and I pulled my own rope against my enemies, blinded to his hanging. I was an army of women fighting for centuries of not having. I wanted a brother without flaws, to inspire my becoming, but he became my Watergate, a father-surrogate wired to undermine my mind and my body, to mine his unsung gold. And in the way I mis-appreciated his strengths, I depreciated him, turning the currency of blood to dust. I never meant to be a heroine at his expense but as I was rising his forest of mistakes was rewarded with more beatings, his forest of efforts was tossed under dead leaves, composting in betrayal, compounding in distance. The distance that stretches from innocence to guilt from hero to pilgrim from restlessness to belonging. My brother is painting his rest caressed by the lights of mountains far from our birth land. Like me. He left. I’ve hiked tall peaks and volcanoes but I am yet to climb the walls of the fortress that shields us that bars us from speaking. No one taught me how to be a good sister. No one taught me how to rescue my brother. I learned too late. I learned from empty beds, spooning the ghosts of all my ex-partners. I learned from scarred, scared men enslaved by their hopes and despairs. I learned from the men fleeing love, as if it were the plague. I learned from the men seeking love who do not know where love lies, sits, what it stands for, how it tastes, how it moves, how it smells. The scent of my brother’s loving lost its bearings as I was shedding my old skin. The scent of my brother’s loving lost its bearings as he was spilling his anger, trying to break the spell of love he couldn’t claim. XX, my stranger of brother, I don’t know how to love you from a distance that spans so many years. I really don’t. So, the best I could do on your birthday was to write this poem, to you, to us, to me, to all the men I see and don’t and to all the women, who dare to see with me. A poem that I know, will never grace your ears. This was a poem in honour of my brother, who remains in hiding; a brother who will not let me see him. Through the clots of his absences, I’ve shovelled words, drips of the what, the who, the why I see. And I wonder, how much of myself I do not see because I can’t see him.

Some of Us

Some of us are nourished. Some of us are deprived. Some of us live, un-eaten and un-licked, un-kissed and un-caressed, un-entered and un-blessed, un-desired – desiring. Some of us were chosen NOT by people we loved, but by people who chose to abuse us. Some of us dodge being chosen because despite longing to fill our bodies with adorement, dazzlement, vanquishment, upliftment, we find loving too dangerous to surrender to contentment. Some of us get attached to an other who is attached to an other less confrontational, less substantial, an eye catcher, a candied bait – less mileage, more promise. We long for someone to see us, to invite us for a quick drink when all we want are LONG dinners, but we never get invited, because some of us are too much, even for a cock – tail. No one to hold. No one to trust. No one to thrust. …

French Women

Did you not know French women are perfect? Come on… listen to me: I do the zezeze, the rerere, the oulala The: “Oh Cherie, take me on the table I am hote, hote, hote Kiss me, eat me, please squeeze my juicy apricots.” “Who can resist that?” Our bodies are baked to melt, wet and juicy… and our minds, hummm our minds… they are sassy, eager to bite! We are the priestesses of perfection, the queens of seduction, the godesses of temptation gifted to earth as salvation. Now I must confess: I have been groomed to be a marital empress. I feel so blessed to excel at steak and bananes flambées rabbit a la cocotte and cheese soufflés and of course, mousse au chocolat. NOT! the dreadful vegan version, a foul insult to the French raison d’être: a devilish mixture, CON-COC-TED under a grandiose delusion of greatness. Sacre Bleu! Sacrilege! I need God to rescue me. …

Waxing & Pop Music

Aouch!!! This is my first wax in over 20 years and it hurts! My Silk-Epil has given up and finding a repair man in Bali is like asking frogs to grow hair! So here I am, in a random beauty salon called ‘Honeymoon’, with monkey legs. I am crying… not because of the pain but because they ob-viously did not get the memo on playing insipid spiritual music to relax me. Instead, I am besieged by a flow of love songs curated by a cold-blooded Asian streaming platform that shows no cultural awakening to my feelings. NOTHING more lethal could be happening to a woman who woke up with the taste of heartache and loneliness in her mouth that same morning. It all started with Maroon 5, and ‘A girl like you’. It took exactly ONE sappy stupid song to wrench my heart. There is only one thing, I can think about: “Where is the man that will one day tell me that he longs for a girl like me?” …

Integrity

You flaunt your legs and your bosom, You photograph, you advertise, you document. You use filters, holding well concocted yoga pauses parading in swimwear, goddess and mini-sized dresses. You splash the scents of alluring perfumes on all your curves. You countour to reframe your visage. You glue false eye lashes to accentuate your gaze. You paint glitter on your fake plastic nails. And then you say: “I do not want to compromise on all my wants” on my indepen-dence”. Honey, give me the names of 10 women, who are at least the age of your mother, and live happy, alone - ever after. You can’t. …

All poems © Carole Favre. Please do not reproduce or perform without permission.