The Dentist?

         I am really scared, scared of me, why?

                  I`ve not done this before

       Which one is it, it looks like rain today

I hate the numbness, numbness in my heart again

  What a really cold fish fish tanks make me smile

  WHICH ONE IS WHICH WHICH ONE IS WHICH

© Liz Redfern Sept 2012

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It's how you ask the question

Where are you from?

New Zealand

Where they have koala bears?

No, that`s Australia

Where they filmed Lord of the Rings?

Yes

Where the All Blacks come from?

Yes

OR

Where are you from?

New Zealand

Oh that`s interesting, which part?

Christchurch

Is that where they had the earthquakes recently? That must have been awful. Were you personally affected?

Yes, I lost my house and my husband.

Well actually, he died 3 days later, with a heart attack brought on by the stress of it all.

I was determined to come over to England for my niece’s wedding. You see we had planned to come together, and I knew he would want me to, even though I had never travelled this far on my own before.

We planned to do it together you see.

© Liz Redfern 9/12

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The Letter (with apologies to the Bard)

With dread anticipation,

I seize upon the letter.

Am I soon

to shuffle off my mortal coil?

I think of graves and worms and epitaphs

and how to tell the family.

But no!

It states:

‘All clear!

You lie within the acceptable range.

You’re normal.

Ordinary.

You will not need to drain

our slim resources further.

You’re nothing special at all.’

© Gill Dunstan

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The Letter

Two pregnant letters clattered onto Julian’s doormat. 

The first contained a heavy sheet of creamy bond; in restrained paragraphs a solicitor expressed condolences on the demise of an unvisited aunt and congratulations on being her sole beneficiary.

The second - flimsy brown - held a print-out of his test results...

© Tim Scott

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Missing

           The bottle blinked out from the crevice where the tide had dumped it. As I gingerly eased the paper out

           it pulped into a mish-mash of dying half-words:

                                                       ...OS...   ...MUDA...   ...ber 194...

                                                       ...uck...   torp..o...   ...feboa...   ...inki...

           I hovered, frowning. High up in the rocks, children's laughter rang out like church bells.

© Sheila Rogers

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Sonnet (extract): Al Dente

          Alas! Thou art gone, my loyal, incisive friend,

          wrenched from thy bed like a boulder from the earth;

          thy mordant strength that succoured me from birth:

          I mourn thy loss, thy violent, bloody end.

          No fairy crown atones for thy decease.

          Thy life's work done, now may thou rest in peace.

                                                            

© Sheila Rogers

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Felled by Lassitude

It was a dream.

No vaulting ambition,

just a late flowering

of homely joys, small treats,

warm comfortings.

Hope sung, gleaming

like an iridescent orb

fine spun as gossamer

caught on the wind.

Yet crushing fear crept in

and fractured every shard.

So felled by lassitude

of chances lost

I lie, regretting.

© Gill Dunstan

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Medical Care, circa 1955

I tried to make Dad understand

That glasses thick and shaking hand

Did not inspire much confidence

In Dentist Dave, and I was tense.

But Dad, whose teeth were mostly false,

And in the war had seen much worse,

Exhorted me to, ‘Just be brave.’

He was a friend of Dentist Dave.

Twenty-two injections later

Mum was angry with my pater.

She called the Doc, he ordered bed

And morphine for my aching head

And bleeding mouth.  Then for a week

I saw strange visions, couldn’t sleep,

Missed everything.  What can I say?

I dread the dentist to this day!

© Gill Dunstan

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THE LETTER

...I hope you are well began his boarding school letter; lack of imagination prevented better. A pompous reference to …yours of the 31st ultimo was satisfactory in its day, but would now be treated with dismay. His love letters were dire, yet recent emails most definitely inspire.

© Kenneth Campbell

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The whole thing is awful

            but by far the meanest

            is a visit to the dental hygienist

            last year we had the clumbsy Swede

            but now the harvest's gone to seed

            to kick the gang man's greedy caper

            has driven the burly Niss Croatia

            to drop the hoe

            and grab the scraper

© William Botley

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“Please, Mr. Postman”

When my father shared the handful of old letters

I’d hoped to find just one

that would sweeten a side of my mother

deeply soured by resentment

Only later, when the radio

sang a song, from a time when

I’d discovered love,

was I folded back,

restored to myself again.

© Sophia Roberts

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Love Letter

Tender blue lines curl,

horizontal weight of symbols

depress the surface of paper,

knife rips through sticky seal,

in danger of pulling a word apart.

Spread and flatten the folds,

greedily eat meaning,

vacuum up, memorise,

put it in my eyes,

again and again –

inhaling into my heart.

© Valerie Taylor

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