These feminist poems , written in the late seventies were privately published in California when some interest was shown in them in the many poetry reading groups in the Bay area. I was fascinated by the way Mayakovsky used line structure as a means of emphasis. Many of them are dark and pessimistic, hope showing only in my developing spiritual consciousness. As I turned more and more to this as the basis of my life, I wrote little more poetry.
 

Ladydreaming

Poems by

Carol Riddell

 

TO ANNE AND ALIX CUNNINGHAM.

Copyright (c)1982 Carol Riddell.
Please ask permission of the author for reproduction.
All rights reserved.
 
Privately published by the author.
El Cerrito, California, 1982

 

CONTENTS.

Stirring Cauldrons
Numbers
Respect
Paranoia
Florence Nightingale
To A Renegade Comrade
Does It Have To Be Like This All The Time
When You're Forty
Pregnancy
Propriety
Men's Auxiliary
Support
Your Daughter
With Joy There Is Labour
The Musician
Wish Us - With Them
I Often Wonder
Singleness
Weathering The Storm
To The Ladies of Llangollen
Antiquity
Christmas
Free Love
Jane Told Me
Self - Hate
Waiting for the Rain
Commune's End
Therapy Games
Growing Away
The Vietnamese Fishergirl
Autumn
Make-up
Duty Calls
A Sweet Revenge
Discovering Mayakovsky
Fish 'n' Chips
Feminist Consciousness
Fireworks
Lada - The Little Darling
Home and Abroad
Divine Regard
Study Group
Avebury Witches
The Dream Machine

 

STIRRING CAULDRONS
 
There is a male energy in our house tonight
sour as the tomcat's spray in the backyard
sludging over sensitivity...
Retreat
to the top attic
Plants weaving to me
gulping the scarce light
As I gulp meanings of the day.
 
To the top attic
where one can mull everything over...
That energy is all around us. Naked
it dangles, uninspired as dishcloths
in the damp cupboard under the sink.
 
There is alternate energy
carefully conserved in this coven
Gestalt cabalism
sharpening our souls for metamorphosis.
But you are the chief witch here for me
spinning new dreams through my brain
tingle down the spine, wordless;
We have the measure, only... to find out how
 
Witches...
spinning...
energy webs...
It has to be, it has to be
How do you change the world?
With programs and with Parties?
Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors
showing me endless reflections of the old.
No, Lenin and Trotsky, warlocks, stirring in the
overheating fire, casting ripples round the
Meanwhile, you flow effortlessly through the
electrifying the piano keys as I
disembody with the surge of it.
In heather moor lands I am wandering, open-
Drinking charges from the everything that is
Clear, charges to change
Yet...
we are light as a feather, you and I
flickering mist lights as the cauldron
stirs.
Not cemented
Not eternal
Not cakes of stodgy conventional possession;
Will o'the wisps in blue
a moment fused... then
sliding happily to finger tip
Like humanness should be.
 
I am riding bareback, like a champion
winging the waves like a dolphin
swallowing the sky.
For revolutions are made
from revelling in inanities under duvets
giggling life defying the monstrous conformity of
cuddles in Manchester and Merseyside
So that my body is like spring
opens up again
Pricking the dull ogres of Patriarchy
hewing at the tendons of its capitalist family tree
unstitching the seams of booted bureaucracies
Till the world could fall out of bitterness
take wing again.
Witches...
covens...
secret signs...
It will take more than pogroms
It will take more than conflagrations
It will take more than hetero-sexuality
to put such spells to sleep.

 

NUMBERS

 
Being yet another Saturday and the moon full at
Rising like 2001 over the inhabited ruins of
My romantic fantasies are naturally turned
to the Ladies of Llangollen
Whose relationship spanned sixteen years
and lasted an incredible fifty one.
 
I must hasten to add that such a model
is not at all what I seek.
The allusion is purely literary
But still, it would be nice for us both to dress in
and elope on moon-tinted horses from an
in 1778.
 
Instead, you are at your mother's
And I am mooning in March, 1977
199 years later.

 

RESPECT

 
Sulking miserably in my bed
Grey as the sky wandering outside my window
Bitter
Child whose world will not arrange itself as she
requires.
 
I cannot bear withdrawal
Every tremor of insecurity verified
But to stay still longer
your thoughts and feelings far away
Slices my brain with agony
Adjust, damp down, cool off, earthworks,
Rational spirit in the defence perimeter.
 
Respect, the bitterest word in my vocabulary
Symbol of distance; symbol of respectful
for other, non-reciprocated feelings.
Respect demands comparison
between human reality and image
— humanness falls short
This day or that, contempt will take its place.
 
You've picked out reggae from
my disco, honey, and ignored the soul
At this moment all I want to do
is rock with you closely
Close and close and loving
as if moments would never end.
 

PARANOIA

 
I seek in the shadows for you
bitterly
dredge up your memory
reeking hatred
Whether or not you were evil
I have created from you
a jack boot
 
Surveilled by government agencies
Espioned by thought watchers of the new
Champion me some herald of a new dawn.
 
Deep in your rejection the army intensifies its
Unloading cases of heavy equipment to insulate
— a complex operation.
 
Elimination squads with thick grey overalls, mist
trudge through the murk and vanish.
Taking up your case with others I bring the enemy
nonchalantly, transparently.
 
Writhe as I might, it is all lost and the shadows
thicker — veil, curtain, oblivion — or destruction
My jack booted companion enjoys that.
 

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Florence Nightingale was revered by a
for caring,
In an age when her sex was imprisoned in cant
Since then, caring grows problematic for us
as we have become aware of a subtler
 
A good woman may wake up one morning and find
drained by insatiable vampires
who softly stroke her hair.
 
Delicately specialised senses are plucked
by exponents of varying skills; and not only by
We must respond to abstract need; each groan
from an unknown's torture, borne down by the
Labour of living for another's market satisfaction
tears.
Its name is legion, and it bears us down as well.
 
 
The moral imperative hereticizes her
Who dares in impious abandon to declare,
"I have a life".
Impale her upon guilt
Run her through instantly with unsisterliness
The very words are foreign
to the governances by which we are
enjoined to live.
Their speaker is alone
pilloried by the uninvolved concerned.
So caring's dead, and life will die?
Have we joined our brothers
Connoisseurs of the glorious practical
Sublimely ignorant of roots and sources
in hyper-stimulated crania
fluttering with apparent purpose in a mindless
 
How can we escape a jail
Whose bars are formed by that
Which is the strongest affirmation
That human hope can live?
 
To find the answer, I took the ultimate risk —
opening up empty spaces back of thought and
Floundering there, just sitting in a quiet place
I got a zap from Kanzeon
that literally blew mind.
 
If you grasp, she goes away
Abuse her and she jails you
but let her flow, she will transform the world
not any theory formed for rational minds alone.
 
At present I have no other means of
the significance of Florence? s existence
but I surmise that you will understand.
 
 

TO A RENEGADE COMRADE

Snared by capitalism's scented lure
Fallen by the wayside of creature comfort
Lost to the rhetoric of the great Lenotskyan
We, the remaining faithful, lament you.
Ballooning in the wind, we, windbags all
Re-call you once again to destiny
As the heroes, the generals of the righteous army
Now biding time washing dishes on the plains.
 
Remember, not to be with us, and with us, and
with us
Is to be, with them
And all of them, objectively, objectify the fallen
Errant wanderers can be redeemed, delinquent
Thrust out the bosom of the leaders' of the
Of the people's
Revolutionary theoretical struggle
Will cease to qualify for places in the peck, peck
Order of the grouplet, groupuscule
To which you have been unfaithful.
Fecund though she be, you've left her
Will not ride upon her back, no, aspire not to the
Saddle wherein rides
The latest ranting sage.
 
 

DOES IT HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS ALL THE

TIME WHEN YOU'RE FORTY?

Have you ever been so lonely
that the moon, full and round and golden
looks straight through you as she passes by
- being a wraith is like that.
 
Have you ever longed for somebody so much for
that saws' teeth grate when you even think of
- cuddling up to a warm person is more like an
the very idea shrivels you to nothing.
 
Have you ever come home again and again and
to a cold empty place with no one to say hello to
so even your plants take pity and hold you out a
and you're thankful that you're getting something
 
Does it have to be like this all the time when
 
Gay and prickly and frightened that you'll spoil
but there isn't anything to spoil anyway, though
are all loving and leaving, getting something in
while I am a shadow in the dust.
 
Can you really get a square meal out of
when there isn't any food in the larder
and not even a chink of caring from anyone
that has a little loving on top.
 
Does it have to be like this all the time
racing round the track lapping up the little pools
that drift down from the damp clouds on a wet
leaving you thirstier than before.
 
Does the day break again, or do the mists of time
cover this dutiful liver in a shroud
so every pleasure has an illegible address in the
emotional hermitry doesn't please most of the
 
Are there more of us - storm signals that the sea
a few frail vessels registered as missing
envying the liners hurrying past, lights gleaming
adequately stabilized with companionship.
 
It's almost enough to put marriage back in fashion
but I'm told it's a fate worse than death
so I'd better stick with my solitude and my
pining for the lost one who was never there
 
Sometimes I think that the end of the world is
or this bleakness stretches on into infinity
which is preferable for you? I haven't made up
but a little joy in giving and receiving lost in
 
Does it have to be like this all the time when
 

PREGNANCY

Returning from a stroll
amid the nymphs
I cannot but remark
your face is radiant
or is it round? I can't decide as yet.
It seems that joints get wider at the hips
is that the cause, of course it is.
 
Thus, once again, our lives respond in their own
to patterns of biology and custom
As is my pleasure at this endlessly demanding
new life form you will produce —
another atom wandering aimlessly
for a second amidst the stars
like you and i, and learning
all the pain, and happiness, and pain
that living brings.
 
 

PROPRIETY

Just think, if you and I behave
We'll certainly not screw —
A maid can't love a maid.
But even if we could
And if upon the altar's steps we stood
To turn into a couple tried and true
A barren desert still would stretch ahead —
We'd watch the television late night film and nod
Next day do what they wanted us to do.

MEN'S AUXILIARY
Dig us
— Black jacket crew
— Alternative.
 
Presence, we got
Yeah.
Of course, your women's stall
Is set before a public bench.
You won't object if we sit there
Be next to one of our old mates
A swinging chick — right on —
Digs what it's about, man.
 
Good to know that women's liberation's taking
hold
Well, on our way
We'll see you, ......
The scene's in Williamson Square today.

SUPPORT

In my eyes
You also saw a universe
and lost your way.
 
Yet the signposts are the same
If I am once again to guide you to your home
my own becomes a mystery.
 
I would ask all; it's true —
To float on the mirror of your knowingness
seeking eternity in the shame of sleep
 
There are many tales untold
Footsteps retraced to loss' gate
Grip to yourself your own hand tight for help in

YOUR DAUGHTER

This morning I had one of my best headaches
But she was howling, mishandled in the kitchen.
 
Headacheless, ran down
knowing she'd be pleased to see me.
It's not everyone I'd give up a headache like that

WITH JOY THERE IS LABOUR
(for Jinny)
Incandescence, fragile fire flower
with joy there is labour.
Netting a soul, such a tentative gossamer,
Once more I am on the hills, heather sun,
seeing you rather in the light water drop,
The dam
torrent
fury-foaming at your injustices.
reflection, blank, to hypocrisy
shimmer, trickle, twinkling to love.
Everywhere you see
the water shining
This granite, the fern leaf,
Yours the silver movement, learning opacity at
 
Descend a little and the sound breaks, sea smooth
rough of velvet;
In visions, send me the visions
of the joy of souls. In the coloured joy
you may miss the bodies piled up, they can
Give me your hand round this corner
There is weathered stone here, no fissures to
Alchemist, play with your wand to seek the heart.
 
And roaring the rage of your anger, never man's,
sorceress' blade, witches lightning, Harpies'
hounds of Diana hunting with needle fangs to
Needles to pierce deep, anaesthetic, shaking,
as the water dies, again again, no light in this
only the long dark descent
Yet the drop has reformed, the net, filaments of
has caught the soul
so it stands, shivering, at its body's edge once
 
Weave it in, secure it
entangling till it can flow strong and brown
with iron from the earth, dissolve in the green
catch the sky's own blue in its eyes as it melts
cutting the path through.
And on the hillside, as I see down,
down into the valley mist, for a moment we both
Breathless at the beauty.
 

THE MUSICIAN

Part of me sings
— the other weeps —
tears you have offered me,
levers in the rusty monolith
of my desire.
 
Part of me weeps
— the other sings —
sounds you have proffered
of a suffering voyage
towards self-knowledge.
 
Part of me sings and weeps
as I fly back to a strange last night
under the stars, waiting for a plane
— your irritation and its love.
As I fly over, and over
breasting the Rockies
to hover tremulous
above your inattention.
 
It is the stage of desperate disbelief
where the eyes are hung wide open
mouth unhinged.
to think that I am adrift with memories
once again.

WITH US — WITH THEM

(To a German friend who came to Liverpool for an abortion, while some members of the Baader-Meinhof group were murdered in Stammheim prison and a hijacked plane was stormed at Entebbe airport.)

As the neat grey vultures
claw and gouge
dig out the eyes
and blood the cells and skies with nightmare
For law and grisly order —
Stammheim —
There you lie
With us
— with Them —
In my town
— Theirs.
 
Here tonight
over the damp moon
and down some city blocks
Here — and there
we care for you
and let you rest.
Prostrate
twixt hysterectomy
fallopian incision
Like a warm mothball in the woolies
And no cleaning to do.
 
You will drive away from me
— always you do
Into the hard dark
that may spread;
 
That wants to shroud my pavements
with trampled faces
reeking bodies,
Slicing souls to bloody ribbons
if it could get at them.
For: frightened travellers from Majorca?
Or law and grisly order
Profit
death's wing
and the bleak king's rule.
Kill them or stun them
who cares
they can be later killed
And if the frightened die
the Government's a better press from Bild
 
You're in our bed
— Their bed —
And I love you
Knowing that you have conceded
priestess that you are
To a furious black fire
that scales blanched alps of prejudice
scorning apparent subtleties.
You are not so different
In our bed
— Their bed —
I welcome you home
Happy that it' s our awful hospital you lie in
Needing a space to turn and face the dark
gothic shadows touched and feared
Watching Teutonic mothers inculcate authority
shrouded by tower blocks outside Munich
Blind and blind and blind
three times and more
away from any hope.
 
You're wounded, complexly
In our
— Their bed.
Assist for strength
In case the vampires
werewolves
mad snarling dogs
Stand open like a frozen hell
Upon our town
derelict, pain torn
warm and loving city where we live.
 
Let that vision not be!
In this way spreading, points expanding,
Saying, while you lie
we feel you.
If you feel alone
This place
happy to accept
a sister.

 

I OFTEN WONDER

I often wonder
how you can put up with me.
 
At other times I wonder
how I can put up with you.
 
Still, it's nice to really feel one understands
what "Being made for each other" means.
 

SINGLENESS

Only a small person
Small anxieties.
In the midst of an overwhelming world
trying to creep into a corner,
While the couples
rank upon serried rank to sky Level
all mouthing, "This is it.
so you won't disturb them
— You can't know if you're right
or wise
Yet, if their sobs of waste were heard
That same sky might bleed down upon us.

WEATHERING THE STORM

Driven off course by the storm, I sometimes
Who is at the helm of the ship of state
My life hovers around you, moth like
and then subsides —
These secret poems the only record
floating this purposeless world.
Fellow humans, I would like to see
a better organized vessel; something a little
more fit for most of us to live in.
Not such a mud of knowledge
Not such a mire of violence
and smouldering resentment.

TO THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN

'Twas in a sylvan glade the cottage stood
Its doors a has relief of carven wood
Past where the lovers lived we wandered nigh
Plas Newydd makes a female flight of fantasy.
 
We followed down the river's tree capped banks
To where the lovers on a rustic bridge did stand
Then to the font whose timeworn poesy
Inspired this old world eulogy in verse from me.
 
Romantic dreams all kinds of loves induce
Yes, those of single sex can reproduce
Sarah and Eleanor the lesbians emulate
It's from the couple habit that bad poems are

ANTIQUITY
My tearful eyes
have wandered through the womb lands
of misery once more.
Always seeking the fabled age
of love.
 
Now that I have found a new illusion
These myths and chimera of childhood seem
more poignant.
 

CHRISTMAS

When your head's thick as paving stones
And your throat wheezes like a garden gate
Then it's Christmas.
 
When over-eating turns your breath into
Arid you drink so much wine, you're sour from
Then it's Christmas.
 
When the shoppers snarl and swing in eddies like
And you've forgotten your lunch again to get all
Then it's Christmas.
 
When you introduce me to your mother
And relatives emerge on the horizon like
Then it's Christmas.
 
Then I'm off on a journey to the Land where
Where lips are golden and horses snowflake
Where a million men shed tears at their enormity
And a million women explode out of their box-like
depressions in all the colours of the
          rainbow
dancing till the day breaks out and longer.
 
Oh, open your eyes to the dust on the side of the
the cobwebs down the light flex
Cuddle up on the warm brown carpet and snuggle
Let's forget it's Christmas and Mother wears
red and chapped from too much washing up
The world won't give a shit if we take a night off
And go to sleep on pink cumulus in the four o'
 
So if you miss me in the next half hour's
if my answers are a little vague
If my memory seems to belong to a drooping old
You'll know where I am, forgetting, forgetting,

FREE LOVE

Vodkaed
Eviscerated
Head reeling
Oh, retch...
Helpless!
 
Hey, we made it
Sort of
I mean, a little
But spinning round
Oh, retch...
Hair fulla sick.
 
God! (I mean Goddess!)
It's you
There; here
Couldn't not be in that bed,
I mean, a little
Musta fallen asleep.
 
Five
You're off
Dawn
Prostrated
Bye, sister
O.K., O.K.
all right
It's all right
You're all right
With me, anytime
— or not
I mean, no hassles
No, never
(Well, about all that anyway.)
 
'Cause
Head reeling
I made a discovery
You can...
Without...
And it's better
'Cause your soul
feels good
— Free.
 
 
(Continued in Part 2)
Link to Part 2
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