Friday 25 May 2012

Dulcie



                                                       DULCIE 

       
          During my early days at Blackdown I had many problems with bed wetting and wetting my knickers.  Miss Lane, who was the housemistress, kept a weather eye out for me. Miss Lane was an albino.  She had snow white hair, beautifully waved, and clear blue eyes, with just a hint of red rims.  She had a natural love and understanding of children.  Often she would come up to me and lead me away, take me upstairs, remove my knickers, wash me and dry me, and put a clean pair of knickers on me.  All this was done without any fuss and bother.  There was no judgment, only kindness, and gradually these symptoms of my anxiety disappeared.

           I first encountered Dulcie when we were both in the sick room together with a mild case of chickenpox.   She was three years older than me and much bigger than I was.  I felt intimidated by her.  One day she suddenly jumped on top of me in bed, pulled down her pyjamas, and said:  “Lick my pussy."   I struggled and screamed, but there was nothing I could do.  Miss Lane, who slept next door, was not there.  Reluctantly, I did what she asked.



            After that she left me alone, and the incident was forgotten.  We found a common interest in comics, and soon we were immersed in Beano and Tiger Tim.  By the time we came out of the sick room we were firm friends:  she had just as suddenly taken a liking to me.

             From then on we became inseparable.  We did everything together:  we played together, we were naughty together:  she was the one who always led me on.  We both loved animals, particularly cats.  Dulcie was not bright and though older than me, we were in the same class.   She had a sweet nature.  She liked poetry and wrote little verses.  She had common sense, too, which I did not, and she remained a loyal friend throughout my life.

            Dulcie and her sister Maureen came from New Zealand.  Their father had owned  a tobacco plantation in Malaysia and their mother had been a native Malaysian woman.   Their father, on his return to New Zealand, had married a white woman  and had sent his two daughters to England to become educated and civilised.  Mrs Hastings told my mother that they had both been like little savages when they first came to England.

            Both Dulcie and her sister had round, freckled faces.  Maureen had black hair and brown eyes, but Dulcie’s hair was auburn and she had green eyes with flecks of gold in them.  Maureen was eighteen months older than Dulcie, so already a teenager.

Monday 21 May 2012

More Poetry

This is a fill in till I write the next piece of my life.

                           
                              I?  What am I?

                                                A net of nerves, joints, sinews,

                                                Bound in a framework of bone and skin,

                                                A mouth to swallow meat and swill down slops –

                                                An eye to see and not perceive
                                               
                                                An ear to hear and to forget –

                                                In short a body – an object movable and

                                                Visible in space – breathing and expelling air,

                                                Endowed with senses and sensibilities –

                                                Ah – there’s the rub.  For you seem to have learnt

                                                The secret of living -  but I

                                                Slip up against the sores of the world.

                                                Yet there’s something within me, elusive

                                                And feather light – unseen – unfelt – unknowable

                                                Tender as a green shoot and shrinking

                                                As a snail without a shell – ready to die

                                                At will and always being born again –

                                                An insubstantial – inconsequential – timid, moody
                       
                                                thing,

                                                That I would willingly be rid of

                                                And yet might tell me what I am.


          I wrote this poem at some point when I was at University.


                                                             THE WAITRESS

                                   

                                    Her life was bounded by little things,
                                    By slops and coffee pots and breakfast trays.
                                    Her life was regulated, like the clock that rings
                                    The hours to mark the passing days.

                                    Her days passed by in meaningless content
                                    And little things of life made up her joys.
                                    On food to swell her body her eager eyes were bent
                                    And clothes to mask her body were her toys.

                                    She bore her body like a queen in June,
                                    Full bosomed, supple, graceful as a cat,
                                    And like a cat she loved to lie abed at noon,
                                    Crooning in sleep, dreaming of this and that.

                                    Within the stately powdered head her mind
                                                Was small and mean,
                                    She looked upon the stars and did not see.
                                    Beyond her small circumference she could not lean
                                    Or grope for truth, but sat and sipped her tea.

                                    Her life was bounded by little things,
                                    Her days were passed in old familiar ways,
                                    Her eyes were closed to the unknown which brings
                                    Life, death and rapture to our transient days.

          
          During the holidays whilst I was at University I used to work as a waitress at a hotel in
Stratford-on-Avon.  We used to call her Kent, and I'm sure she was a nice woman.  This is the 
poem of a very young person.