Tag: #poetry

The Six Daughters of Celine Cooper (part 2)

Posted on by weeks4send

(Warning- extremely unpleasant subject matter)

 

By this time, Celine had married Love and Angel’s dad,

A man who knew just what he liked, and liked to have it now.

Celine said it wasn’t too hard to keep him from getting mad;

She took delight in pleasing him, and knew exactly how.

 

Love was born, then Angel, in the space of just two years.

Their father loved his daughters; his stepdaughters, not so much.

The older three soon grew used to his temper and his leers.

They’d spend their days avoiding him and shrinking from his touch.

 

When Vanessa was fifteen, things soon came to a head.

It was the kind of trouble that just simply grows and grows.

Her stepfather decided to get her into his bed;

She told him to fuck off and die, and so he broke her nose.

 

Van left for her uncle’s house, and took young Sam along,

Social Services forbade Celine to try and get them back.

Celine still had her husband, but things started to go wrong,

He dragged his daughters home to Durham, barely bothering to pack.

 

Celine was left with Lucy, and proclaimed she didn’t care,

Her daughter was worth ten times more than any lousy men.

She took her daughter shopping, bought her makeup, did her hair…

But one day she met a new man, and Celine was off again.

 

Emmy was nineteen now, and lived countless miles away.

She studied History in a city that her mum had never seen.

She phoned her gran on Sundays, but she never came to stay.

Truth be told, she didn’t want to run into Celine.

 

She met a trainee surgeon who was handy with a knife,

She was surprised to fall in love, but happy when she did.

They got engaged at twenty-five, and planned a happy life,

With one condition- Emmy said she never wanted kids.

 

Soon enough, Celine got word of Emmy’s solemn vow

(Her mum passed on the news, but soon regretted that she had.)

She said she’d bring Em to her senses, and she meant to do it now,

She booked herself a ticket, and dashed down there like mad.

 

Emmy’s gran had phoned to warn Celine was on the way,

So she and her fiancé had a few hours to prepare.

They came up with a schedule to get them through the day,

But when Celine wanted to spend the night, Em did not think this fair.

 

This led to an argument.  Celine burst into tears.

She’d expected a warm welcome, and all she’d got was strife.

What’s more, she wanted grandchildren, and she’d begun to fear

That Emmy wouldn’t know the joy of children in her life.

 

Celine told Emerald that there was nothing that compared

To cuddling your babies from the day that they were born.

To laugh along with them and comfort them when they were scared.

They helped you see the value in every golden dawn.

 

She told her that true happiness could not be found in books.

Em would end up sad and lonely, and that was a cold hard fact.

Em and her fiancé both exchanged a funny look,

Then they told Celine to leave and never dream of coming back.

 

Love and Angel’s dad made every night start with a row.

Lucy dabbled in cocaine and acid, topped off with some wine.

Van still kept an eye on Sam, though they were women now,

And Celine soon found that she was pregnant for the seventh time.

 

She said he was the bright young son she’d wanted all along,

She named him Edd after her father, and he was her little man.

But Celine’s attention span had never really been that long,

And- wouldn’t you know it?- young Edd was raised mostly by his gran.

 

The End

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The Six Daughters of Celine Cooper (part one)

Posted on by weeks4send

(Being the backstory of an extremely dysfunctional family from a story I wrote.  In verse form!)


Emerald, the eldest, was raised mostly by her gran,

Vanessa and Samantha were just pleased with what they had,

Lucy was her mum’s best friend (at least, that was the plan…),

And Love and Angel went back up to Durham with their dad.

 

Emerald was born when Celine was still at school.

She was proud to be a mother, but she soon got bored.

Though she fussed over her daughter, named her for a precious jewel,

Celine soon met a new man, and she quickly cut the cord.

 

Vanessa and Samantha’s dad ran off when they were young.

(His brother later said he’d died, but that may not be true.)

Celine went to her granddad’s house, and that’s where they were flung.

He was old for raising children, but he did what he could do.

 

Lucy’s father was once Celine’s brother-in-law.

He walked out on Celine’s sister soon as Lucy came along.

He was later jailed for arson, shocking Celine to the core.

He thought she would stand by him, but he turned out to be wrong.

 

Emerald, known as Emmy, was now about sixteen.

She still lived at her gran’s house, and that had worked out fine.

It had been nearly a decade since she last spoke to Celine.

She had her friends, she got good grades, she had no time to pine.

 

Celine’s grandfather passed on when Sam was nearly six.

She’s remember him in future as a funny, gentle man.

She moved back in with her mother, who was running out of tricks

For getting rid of children such as Emmy, Sam and Van.

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Seven Times Three

Posted on by weeks4send

(In which I take a charming Victorian children’s poem and hopelessly angst it up.  The original is “Seven Times One” by Jean Ingelowe, and it can be found here: http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=skinner&book=verse1&story=seven )

There’s no dew left on the daisies and clover.

There’s nothing new under the sun.

I’ve said my “seven times” over and over:

Seven times three’s twenty-one.

I am old, so old, I must earn a living.

My time at uni is done.

But the job market‘s harsh and unforgiving,

And the Job Centre is no fun.

It looks like an office but it smells like a sewer,

You get dirty looks from the guard,

And as far as the staff know, there’s no sentence truer

Than, “You’d get a job if you tried hard.”

They say, “When you have a job interview set,

Greet the panel with a bright smiling face.”

I knew that already; now help me to get

Any interviews in the first place.

I know how to shower.  I know how to dress.

I know how to show gumption and pluck.

But none of that will stop all this job hunting stress;

The reason being, the economy’s fucked.

So, who wants to hire a twenty-one-year-old

With no experience and even less guile?

Gordon Gecko I ain’t.  I’m left out in the cold,

Right along with my fake plastic smile.

I know that you’ll say that the world doesn’t owe me,

So I‘ll have to make my own way.

But the world doesn’t trust me as far as it can throw me,

And I’m seven times three today.

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Order In The Court

Posted on by weeks4send

Order in the court; the judge is half-asleep.

We made him listen for a while, but now we’ve gone too deep.

He says he has his limits, and we can’t ask for the moon,

And if we raise our voices, he will have to clear the room.

He knows that we’re upset, and that we have a right to speak,

He knows to our eyes, our futures seem a little bleak.

He says that life is simple if you just do as you’re told,

But if you break the rules, then you’ll be left out in the cold.

Order in the court; the judge is off his meds.

I don’t think he’s listened to a single word we’ve said.

He says that those who wronged us must someday be made to pay,

But he wants to go to lunch soon, and we’re getting in his way.

He says that it might help to throw our enemies a bone.

If we didn’t act so strange, they’d leave us well alone.

So can we really blame them if they kick us in the face?

We’d have a happy life if we just knew our fucking place.

Order in the court; the judge has gone away.

He says he knows of better ways in which to spend his day.

He says he doesn’t have the time to listen to us whine.

He says that if we looked around, we’d see that things are fine.

He says we’re clearly bitter, that we’re weak and full of hate,

And if we don’t count our blessings, we might soon find it’s too late.

He says we’re unattractive when we’re spewing out our bile.

He’ll punch us in the mouth, and then he’ll order us to smile.

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