Stanley Pelter

A Second Great Event

bedroom birth
dither of first breath
inside a pink lust"

"Painted soft red, here I am. At Last. Box open, lined with flossy lace. What have them girls done? Watertight instructions: nothing dear. buy cheap. no hail no mary no U turn from my wish. Plastic covered cardboard lining. No more. Told those little minxes my most trustworthy had discovered, 'out of sight, only lining around body is furnaced. Expensive box recycled in Winter Sale' ".

"Mum, you don't really believe that!"

"Yes I do"

"You can't"

"Yes, yes I do. So do it. Do it for me." But they don't. They can't live with her image of cheap. In remembrance, each applauds their disobedience as they dolly up in blowsy black lace, footing it downtown to jiggley-up black-covered bottoms.

space spark filled
between fading pink petals
that first puff of wind

Silently, call out to them not to cry. Give two reasons: 1. Make-up will flounder. 2. Need a clean-eyed open-mind on such a multi-dimensional event. Blind as dimwit bats. They have to flatten it out. Could go beyond all manner of easy bits. Usually I admire their imaginations, able to simultaneously encompass several dimensions while failing to understand that a crosshatch teapot brew of dew sympathy turns into today's imaginative recipe for what is aSecondGreatEvent. Whitened body will learn to cry here learn to lie there learn to die with a sad sigh alone.

ghost of pale red hue
cherub pink cheeks tomorrow
at she turns to ash

in her memory poems play second fiddle to images. here she is, photocopying aged men looking down on her. two miss out: 1. her dead husband who left years ago. in an empathetically semi-detached way, his face shaped into a cavernous sneer, she nursed his endgame. 2. he, who she loved through thick, through thin, just will not perish. "My FirstGreatEvent was not dumbed down. have no intention of dumbing down my SecondGreatEvent," she whispers through ice-box coldness.

was born
and now am dead
two great events

"Makes me laugh. None of these grey heads know each other. I know them all. Split with them all (except for him). At first, each elevates me to cloud 9, blow me out, make sweetness. In paradise each is powder-puff perfection. But it never lasts (except for him). My thought-out-through approach is distasterville (except for him). Not that I understand what went on there. Relaxed. Accept into it. Know why he is not here. In a way that fulfils me. Watch Viagra performers flop over a too expensive box of tricks. Here they go again, Apes swinging from an idealised tree into gene cannibals hunting down emotional retards. Don't give a Hail. Don't give a Mary. Nor even a toss. Please leave me. Leave me to wallow in this, my first, my very own alienation. Plug ears. Plug nostrils. Close eyes. Don't want to smell or see incoming blast of darks. Don't want to drip or hear drumbeat of screws joining me to wood, fire, ash, to that immense farewell.

come then go
grip ice cold air through tall flames
of consummation