I went to the doctors the other day. He said, 'Hi, Alexandra! I haven't seen you in a while,' to which I replied, 'No, Doctor - I've been ill'. And there is truth in that mind-bending medicinary moment. I'm not yet at an age - and perhaps I have been extremely fortunate - where an ache, a sneeze, a repugnant rash, requires expert intervention. I simply heal. Eat well, exercise well, sleep well, neither drink nor smoke, take a couple of ibuprofen, apply a little Canestan, and at my time of life, most things spontaneously clear up (but please, if after seven days they have not then definitely do seek medical attention! I don't want you dying on me, now, do I?)
The point of this? Well, this week - as you may have guessed by my increased literary output - I have been ill (why every time I type ill the computer insists on I'll, ill never know). I wrote a story, composed a few poems, spent several hours fondly gazing at stuff I shouldn't really have gazed at (I will go blind one day, I definitely will). And, I decided to give away a book of my poetry.
I don't write poetry much, prefer instead the relative weight and depth of a short story. However, it's surprising how much weight and depth you can fit into 186 words (or fewer, if you are extremely clever). Every word has to be at its very best. There are no passengers in a poem. One meaning is simply not enough! There has to be layers, surface metaphors, shallow metaphors, buried metaphors. And a punchline. Yes, a bloody punchline. Like a joke. It's no good rambling on about roses, or wandering around a bunch of daffodils, if there isn't a hidden thorn or a concealed stinging insect amongst its beautificent petals.
I like a joke. The one at the top of this post is, I believe, of the late, great, and very much-missed, Tommy Cooper. The poem below is mine. It's taken from an illustrated collection of similar verse entitled, 'Once concealed, now revealed' which is free on Amazon until tomorrow night. Yes! Free! What are you waiting for? What have you to lose, but the most valuable commodity of all, time itself! That's why I didn't go into marketing.
This fiendishly-clever and intriguingly-illustrated little book can be downloaded here:
I'm going to be blunt now. While shagging or being shagged, have you ever closed your eyes and imagined you were with someone else? In a frantic effort to stay lubricated or to keep it up, have you thought about an occasion when you were shagging someone else? Quickly flicked through all the salacious memories, searching for the most dirty, the most inspiring, the most apposite, till sudden necessary chemicals are injected into the bloodstream and you are once again wholly turned on? Feel your heart quicken, the blood pulse, the juice flow! Oh, yes, remember when Gordon slipped it up my arse for the first time, just as I was dying for him to do it... fuck, it hurt, but god it was good! Or that time Mary simply whipped it out in the lift between floors and took my whole load before we got to women's lingerie? Well, those two just worked for me. Blood pounded. Juices flowed.
I stitched together a few similar examples in 'Frankenstein's lover' and paced the bloody floor waiting for that promised storm to strike. Ah! Distant rumbles. Heavy drops spattering the smeary glass. Here it comes! Egor! Get me my rubber gloves!
Artwork for the poem, Frankenstein's Lover © Alexandra Amalova
Frankenstein's lover
Break the sod and shovel through the wormy loam
Crack the casket lid and take my lover home
Cut away the flesh and sinew, hack the bone
Slap the slab and pierce the jigsaw till it's sewn
Search the hallowed ground, a stone, a memory
Then dig for death, a corpse of one once dear to me
Fill the barrow, wheel away by raven night
Hobble down the cobbled road towards the light
Vaulted dank laboratory, black with bloody
Stains and pale remains of loved ones I shall study
Piece by bitter piece. Regret I hose away
Then labour long to resurrect a bygone day
Jane's green orbs once danced upon my firm young skin
Silvia's tongue and flashing teeth I stitch within
Amanda's sweet lips - fit to raise the dead; Anne's hair
Completes the pillowed head; I leave it sleeping there
Such alabaster breasts were May's; whose suckled teats
Were these? And here, so taut, the belly of my teacher
Reaching for me, Judith's skilful teasing hands
Dear Lorna's lissome legs await my harsh demands
Wait! This bungled bag of bones entails the beat
Of organs... Becky's brain and Martha's heart replete
With lights and larynx; Stella's stomach for affairs,
Eschewing spleen and brewing bile oft biding there
A spark! A flash! Beneath the sheet the monster wakes
'Alive! God, It's alive!' I cry. The body shakes
And rises, bares its perfect torso. Scars are healed!
In heaven's name! I made an angel, now revealed
In all her naked glory; now she bids me lie
And taste her perfect flesh. Such wonders I espy!
My loves, compounded into one immortal creature
Each donating but a single perfect feature
Break the silence, chase the shade across the wastes
Crack my eyes and see the icy truth and taste
Her lips squeezed dry by tired familiarity
Thank God, tonight my lovers lived inside of me
*
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