She comes on like one of the ladies
from Covent Garden, knows the price
she can charge for everything.

The flesh pours from bones
at the thought of every vice,
every sick, sardonic smile

and now Carpenter plays
on the TV and I'm thinking of tattoos
as if inking in a cross or crescent
will prevent the worst of my disease.

But they've hollowed me out
with their mania, condemned me
to an alternate fiction where
the pancreas doesn't dominate.

I'm a golden carp
in an ornamental pond
swimming my circles
and looking for friends
beyond the thought of the needle.

But this is no longer Harris'
Covent Garden. Today's corruptions
hold different dimensions
and the ladies have more sullen smiles.

I have read this several times and am haunted by its dark message.

In my understanding of it, the writer suffers from illness and confined to his home, tries to find distraction from this confrontation by watching some superficial TV programs.
You bring in a comparison of a book published to list prostitutes that used to hang around Covent Garden and connect it to modern day women that appear on tel-sell. The story seems in favour of the prostitutes.
The thought the writer contemplates getting a tattoo, is touching in its helplessness.

Like I said, haunting and grim, but beautifully written.

If I am close to interpreting this piece correctly, the only criticism I would have concerns its title. For me, it doesn't sum it all up. I have no suggestions unfortunately.

Hi Mike,

This is a truly haunting one and I don't pretend to follow all of it on first read. I think Kirsten might have a point about the title.

Your descriptions are vivid, enjoyable. Perhaps a different word for 'comes on' which sounds a bit simplistic somehow.

and now Carpenter plays

I'm wondering about this line is it a TV series or Karen Carpenter's music playing?

to an alternate fiction where
the pancreas doesn't dominate.

Does this person have a pancreas disease?

I'm a golden carp
in an ornamental pond
swimming my circles
and looking for friends
beyond the thought of the needle.

Really like this stanza

I will return to this Mike as I'm sure I'll see more each time I read

Great writing
Eira

Thanks people

This is a wild and exhausting interlude.

John Carpenter's film on the tv (forget which, but that doesn't really matter. Point about Carpenter is that he does everything - writes, directs, edits, music everything in most of his music.)

Key to the piece is the pancreas, that creator (or otherwise) of insulin.

Sometimes, my diabetes becomes all encompassing - the only thing that I can consider, the limit of my world in that it is the limit to my energy, the limit to my ambitions. I have yet to need insulin, though it was a close run thing on my last visit to the doctors, a few days ago.

Hi Krista - The ladies of Covent Garden used to carry diseases that corrupted the body of time, and I'm feeling the same about my diabetes at times. That's where the title comes from, and in some respects is the originator of the piece as I read about the book the same day that I wrote the piece. The tattoo is more a reflection on my thoughts about needles - a future certainty, almost. Thanks for reading and I hope the explanation adds rather than ruins.

Hi Eira - thanks for commenting and spending time with the piece. I'm hoping that my comments above will resolve any lingering questions you have about the piece.

Thanks Mike,

It's all clearer now and I can read again with new eyes.

Eira

Hi Mike!
I've been a bit unwell also, but thankful to be back at MM and reading new poetry. As well as learning fresh ideas.







Well, yes, if I get your meaning, maybe you're referring to Big Pharma's hold over us all. If it's also nurses's attitudes, I've had a taste of that as well.
A very good read, for reflexion, as I'm possibly way off topic.
Tx, Psyche

Hi Mike - This is my second attempt at getting something through to you on this one, hate it when that happens, you never seem to get the true quality of that inspired and witty comment you came up with. Anyway, this, to me, is, with all its disconnectedness, about the scattered, unsure feelings and thoughts of the patient. You've free-associated things like hookers, needles, and golden carp in such a way as to give a clear picture of the sort of mental and physical agony you're in. I've always been fascinated by this place, Covent Gardens, out of reading Sherlock Holmes, Galsworthy, and various detective films. A pleasure as always, your sardonic humor always comes through. RC

For me this worked without knowing much background. It was quite simple for me to think about how time has moved you from the garden to the hospital and how the Ladies have turned into nurses. With this in mind, the tattoo/needle connection is crystal clear.

It may not have been precisely what you meant, but it worked very well for me.

Hi Psyche - perhaps the real cost of the Covent Garden Ladies and Diabetes are alike in that they both eat away at the healthy a bit at a time - at least the illnesses that the ladies oft-times carried which I think were described as eating away the bones. And at the end of the road with diabetes is the needle - well at least for now, until we can ingest insulin in pill form. Thanks for the read and comments - means a lot.

RC thanks. There has to be humour of a sorts - or tears - and I'm not strong on tears. I cry too easily, I think.

Hi posthumous - I've always said that there is never a wrong interpretation of a poem. The reader brings a whole bundle of memory, a skein of competence, a flotilla of argument, to any poem and they are as valid as the poet's jumble of ideas. And the move from garden to hospital may not have been deliberate in the design - but it works for me too. Glad this worked.

Mike

Poetry of the highest confessional sort. Confident and confirmed as craft. Thank you