“We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.” — William Butler Yeats
I’ve had lots of quarrels with myself these past few weeks, none of them poetic, but enough so that I forgot April was poetry month…
So here is a little poem (NOT about my husband, but a boyfriend from 20 years ago) as I focus on finishing a novel and tending family like the precious feral-garden they comprise.
Yours in devotion to everything whole in our lives and continuing to create poetry out of quarrels with ourselves,
PB
Broken
Month of broken vacuum
cleaners, 2 & that’s enough,
metal swinging from undersides
like socket-free limbs, cracked,
wretched housing, stinking, smoking
engines tormenting pets–Salvation
Army? he suggests, Mr. Fixit, Friend
to the Machine, Peter Quince making
a miracle of his men, juggling raw
materials, training mechanicals, del-
ving in–nothing he can do–except
tell me (all tools aside, rolling down
sleeves of his work-shirt, done):
You’re so smart, this is why I can’t understand why you…
2 broken. 2.
PB Rippey Writes 
I really love the poem – you express the frustration of 2 broken vacuum cleaners so well (in the UK we call them hoovers which has always made me laugh as it’s such a silly word). And the way you control the rhythm is so great. It carries me along and pauses me where it’s right.
I didn’t know April was poetry month, maybe that’s why I’ve been reading so much poetry the last four weeks. Maybe I somehow innately knew. I read the rhyme of the ancient mariner and also quite a lot of Elizabeth Bishop and some other more modern poets too.
It’s strange. I always feel a little bit different depending on if I want to read prose or poetry. If I want to read prose, the feeling is like words coming and speaking to me. But for poetry, it’s like the words are singing. There’s something so musical about it. Thank you for posting this!
Thank you, such a lovely reply, Naomi–very appreciated! I love Elizabeth Bishop, too, always and forever. I also love Amy Gerstler, Louise Mathias (she’s on Instagram–desert woman) and Nicky Beer is absolutely stunning, IMO. I agree, poetry is musical, not always due to poetic techniques; an amazing and powerful artform. What prose are you currently reading? I just finished ‘Orbital’. Rocked my world (no pun intended).