Existential Angst: The Woman And The Mirror Poem by Richard Blanch

One word has had to be represented by its initial letter ‘b’ to avoid the poem being taken off again. I think anyone can judge what it should be. It rhymes with the penultimate word in the line above.



An ironic fragmentary Parisian monologue..

Jeanne looked out of the pane, ill at ease,
And stared. There were the plane trees
Plunged into the ground. She pondered.
What was the root of this, how could it be?
She wondered, most of all-. where was he?
.
Confused, she turned to the looking-glass. O dear.
How cynical surfaces get bruised!
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is…….if at all? .
A stray red lock fallen, plastered down
The side of her face. The b……….
But anger would not come.
Or came ravelled, undone,
Unsatisfying. Not even his lying
Could raise more than a frown.

The smell from her perfume jar
Intimate, confiding-
Irritated her memory, defining
Her too nearly. How smug it lay
There, shining with memories,
Caresses and kisses..
She pushed it far, far away.
Then had to move to stop It sliding
Off. And breaking
Like so much else she had shoved
Firmly into regret and dismay.
She was an expert. In making
And unmaking love..

She didn’t want him to change. It would
Shake her. Like an invasion of –
No, a retreat from her space.
It would be a first principle breaking,
Something falling upwards. A violation..

No. Rather the reverse.
A perverse inversion. An atheist’s
Conversion. A hardening of the heart.-

A rock forming where before there was sea.
Green, broad, deep – not hers, but free
Something to swim in. Nothing to hold.
That was what must not vary- his
Bold variability. ….....

But water freezes. Loses its ability to move.
Like everything as one grows older,
Her mother told her
In a tired moment,
On an unmade bed,
Shredding an old glove.
In unkind morning light,
Eyes once focused, intent
On life, now abstracted,
Distracted, contracted…….
How things rigidify. Lose their bite.
How things grow strange
By ceasing to change.
Except when they die.
Then she did.

Jeanne leant forward with grace and with lipstick
Drew a square round her face
(Which certainly continued to change)
Stopped and looked at herself stuck
In a rectangle. A vision of some kind.
Herself in a prison?
Going out of her mind?
Herself in a shape longing for escape?
Herself in a pattern, in a dwelling
In at least something?
A decisive picture?
Incisive?

Derisive.

She looked for him out of the window. Looked far, far, far.
She dipped her finger in the jar.