“Tis the season to be jolly…
falalalalalalalaaaaaaaaah”
Really? Granted, I’ve been slumming it in the lower regions of hell for quite some time now but, after reading around a bit, it seems I may be contagious 
Arcadia’s page is offering a possible solution here which made me smile for a moment.
And that’s about how long I can manage cheerfulness for. A moment. Since I can’t perk anyone up with my ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ impersonation, I’m offering the spaces below (i.e the comment section) for anyone who wants to let loose with their grievances, screw-ups, miseries and/or misanthropy. I can offer total sympathy. I get it. Seriously. Don’t want to dirty up your own page with whining and bitching and tears? Go ahead and spill your sewerage here. In all honesty, I’ve got nothing else to offer to make everyone else feel better.
Hope it helps 
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
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Stumble it!
I live now
with my head in my hands
clutching it to me
as though it would otherwise roll away.
I hold it
manically
as a child strangleholds
a kitten
giving it no choice
but to grab back.
I pound this head
with my fists
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
I am surprised at the pain of it.
I rub the temples
trying to raise the genie
I am certain is imprisoned within.
To no avail.
Moisture leaks from it
My fingers come away
warm and wet
I am startled to discover
my fingertips free of blood.
I live now
with my head in my hands
clasping it strongly
as though it were a life~raft
I am stunned to find myself still drowning
as though it were, instead, an anchor around my ankles.
I cling to it
with all of the innocent selfishness of a child
“MINE!!!!”
refusing to share her toys.
The truth is
I live now
with my head in my hands
for I have nowhere else
to lay it.
5:22pm Wednesday
20.February.2002
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
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Stumble it!
Science fiction 1930:
by the year 2000 all monotonous, repetitive labour
will be performed by robots
freeing humanity to follow paths
of higher, more subtle learning.
The writers were so wrong,
the prophets, so right
only there is no humanity left
to appreciate it.
The Industrial Revolution
children chained to machinery
from sun up
to sun down
and most of the hours left over.
Slave labour: so cruel
dehumanising.
We’re protected from that now, though
if one is fortunate enough not to be born
in India or Taiwan.
There are laws now
- age limits
- time limits.
Amazing how we choose to circumvent
the latter
we voluntarily chain ourselves
to the hamster’s wheel
we choose to submit ourselves
to the machine.
We work 80 hour weeks
buy the dvd
the x-box
the fastest broadband connection
the latest
and greatest model
of car
(all made to break
in six months
- back to the grind
to buy a new one).
We work 80 hour weeks
convinced
we like it.
Better still, from an employees point of view
the automatons these days
will continue to work
even when broken.
<[>There is no room
no time
no breath
here
for poetry.
Must be thirteen years or older
after four hours a fifteen minute break must be given
not less than ten hours between shifts.
How they fought for the eight hour day
and we celebrate the win annually
calling it Labour Day – ha!
and in the 128 hours freed up
for our own personal use
for the pursuit of pleasure
in our leisure
we finish off the monthly report
write up the minutes from the last meeting
(hours trickling by in the process)
calculate the household budget
over
and over again
trying to squeeze another dollar
out of the stone.
So bemused by corporate double-speak
so lost behind formulaic politeness
that we’ve forgotten how to talk
to our husbands and wives
friends and children
and, even if we could remember how
what would we tell them?
“That meeting with Laverton was a bitch, my love”
“Good things don’t come to those who wait, my son,
they come to those
who take.”
“I left my brief case at the office, dear, back soon”
“I have to work back late again”
“They scheduled the meeting for Sunday afternoon”
“My secretary’s waiting for me
beneath my desk………….my love”
“I’ve been Mr. Richards, Senior Executive for so long, my dear
that I’ve forgotten how to be
your husband”
“I am Mr. Richards and I can no longer recall
my first name”
“I cannot come
when you call”
“If I relax
I’ll fall apart
the walls will dissolve
and the world will fall
from my shoulders
thunder, smash, crash
onto our toes”
“I don’t know what to tell you, my daughter”
“I don’t know what I stand for
so there is nothing
nothing
for you to rebel against”
“If I conscientiously object
to the latest war/s
I simply change the TV channel”
“You will be the formless generation
nothing left to fight for
- here’s the vote, here’s equality
here’s every choice
imaginable
and there’s nothing left for you to fight against
- mediocrity is comfortable, don’t struggle so, my dear”
“Don’t be like me, my child
but I don’t know who you should be
instead
I would tell you
to be an individual
be yourself
but so soon you will discover
that there is no time
no room
no breath
for that.
Science fiction 1930:
by the year 2000
all monotonous, repetitive labour
will be performed by robots
You, my love,
are the robot.
4:46pm Saturday
16.August.2003
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
- I’m having one of those weeks (years? lives?)
- Disarray II
- Maybe Because…
- Present: Remember This
- Ghost
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Stumble it!
The writing comes less easily now.
I am finding it harder and harder to find
you in amongst these words.
Whether I wish it or not
it takes two people to write a love poem
~ writer and subject
and you’re not here to hold up your end
of the conversation
and talking to myself
I become nothing more than a lament.
You let go of your side of the sail
and there is nothing to catch this wind
and pull us onward
and I am standing here
holding onto a balloon string
like a three year old
after the balloon
has popped.
5:10pm Monday
28.April.2003
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
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Passion is the forgotten word you never touched on. Love, the habit you wear, sacrosanct and virginal and therefore unknown. Have you tried it, tested it, pushed its limits to fraying point? and recovered? Your acid fury, your caustic pain. Spill them across me the scapegoat you tarred and feathered and adorned with a bright gash of red. The letter, the shameful letter ‘A’. And shall I wear his guilt also? Shall I bear his responsibilities, pay in blood and tears and unending pain for his crime? Do this. Let him escape the claws of your rage. Keep your rending nails from his too precious flesh and sink them, savagely, into my heart. I’ll bleed for you. He won’t. And you will pay with the scars you wear, they will fester and eat you until your entire world is riddled with cicatrix. And he will remain untouched. This is what women do best… protect others from themselves. Bearing witness, I understand why praying mantises eat their mates just moments after loving them. It would be a relief to not have a male around to undo the sweet talk, to smash the illusion. We could grieve their deaths, keep them on their pedestal, believe in their infallibility and perfection without contradiction. Perhaps that is why I choose those who leave. No need to see the lies in their eyes the next morning. Your pain is bulimia to me. Your pain, the fingers I shoved down my throat. Your pain, the bile that rots my teeth and tears gaping ulcers in my stomach and I will carry it. I will bear your hatred and this will be the child I bear him while you carry the flesh of his love. A surrogate mother – the seed planted not my lovers, the egg not mine. The hatred yours, the betrayal his and I, foolish, foolish me, will carry this for you both. You wanted love – here it is – watch me bear it – the morning waking to nausea, the heaviness in belly and breast and the pain, the agonising rent of pain that will sunder me as it finally breaks free of fleshly confinement. I am human, nine months is as long as I could carry it, nine months on the cross, nine months to beg over and over and over again, ‘why hast thou forsaken me?’ The answer is birthed in blood and tears and your little bundle of hatred is brought to life. His the seed, yours the egg, mine the love which endures.
5:34am Monday
16.December.2002
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
- Barren II
- Stream I
- Hope Fell Apart: Blood and Tears
- match set to stagnant pool of petrol
- I Am Sorry For Your Passionless Nights
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