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The Mammal Blues
Posted: 19 October 2015
Word Count: 126
Summary: the touch of humanity
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The Mammal Blues
sometimes you go out of your mind
and it never lets you back in again,
pictures of the dead in living rooms
red roses crumbling into mantelpieces
clothes hanging themselves on door knobs
hats beheaded falling into witless baskets
books red in truth and cause drink the dripping tap
wall papers are old news to spider traps and moths
sometimes you go out of your mind
and it never lets you back in again,
so you find a tin can or a sea shell and climb in
the king of aluminium the master of barnacles
then roll into a comma dreaming of a full stop
or maybe just the touch of something mammal
throwing you a pound coin from an empty pocket.
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Comments by other Members
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 Bazz at 21:29 on 21 October 2015
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Hi John, i really like this piece, some great lines, especially
hats beheaded falling into witless baskets
and
books red in truth and cause drink the dripping tap
Some very interesting and ambiguous imagery as well. I've read this a few times, and each time something else pops. I love the refrain as well, such an interesting phrase...
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 James Graham at 15:21 on 22 October 2015
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This is the first poem of yours I’ve seen, and it can take time to attune to a new style. If you disagree on anything that follows, or I seem to have missed to point, you can put me right.
It’s astonishingly inventive; the language is vigorous and stimulating. It’s also very nearly incomprehensible, at least in places. Let me qualify that: deliberately almost incomprehensible. You present the reader with conundrums and an invitation to solve them. The invitation ought to be accepted by most readers because the language is so interesting.
I was especially intrigued by
books red in truth and cause drink the dripping tap
wall papers are old news to spider traps and moths
The play on ‘red in tooth and claw’ is clever. The cliché is under the surface, but now it’s morphed into a striking phrase. I’ve read books which are ‘red in truth and cause’ – left-wing or other polemic. Truth is what the author believes to be true; a cause is being promoted. They can be ‘red’ in the ‘tooth and claw’ sense, passionate, angry, impatient of other opinion. Beyond that, these two lines present imagery of decay, or perhaps more accurately neglect – specifically neglect of a living space, as if a house has been abandoned to spiders and moths. For some reason, books lie sodden in the sink, under a dripping tap.
This is how the poem works for me: words, phrases and lines set off trains of thought and associations. I find I can accept its irrationality but so far can’t arrive at much of a general meaning. A clear answer to the question ‘What’s this poem about?’ However, clear answers – ‘cut and dried’ – aren’t always to be found in poetry, and aren’t meant to be.
I like this line:
pictures of the dead in living rooms
for a different reason. It’s the most ‘real’ glimpse in the poem: my living room has photos of dead people, sepia portraits of past generations, one of my grandfather in his WW1 uniform. In odd moments the contemplation of these can make one feel a little ‘out of one’s mind’ – there they are, still ‘present’ though their real selves are bones in some graveyard. (In my grandfather’s case, a war cemetery in France.) Another train of thought.
I’m struggling with the last five lines, which seem to juxtapose such disparate ideas. Climbing into a tin can or a sea shell suggests hiding from reality, narrowing one’s world down to something easy enough to cope with. The ‘comma dreaming of a full stop’ is puzzling, as is the beggar who seems to appear at the end, being given money by passers-by who can ill afford it. Maybe time and a little more reflection will reveal more of the meaning of this.
As I said at the beginning, please feel free to put me right on anything. The poem is enigmatic but stimulating. I keep coming back to it, and it would be interesting to discuss it with you.
James.
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 V`yonne at 18:54 on 26 October 2015
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a pound coin from an empty pocket
eh? That act of charity as disultary thing is cold indeed and colder than charity usually is! In fact I like all of these images and they do carry weight with the repetition of
sometimes you go out of your mind
and it never lets you back in again,
And I like the places to hide!
Is the pattern of the poem deliberate? I think it would make a very good PANTOUM if you had a mind to do that. The images would roll around the mind more but that might only increase their power to confront. Or maybe this is a BLUES beat?? I always miss that in poems because I am not a blues fan but if that is the case do tell me.
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John G.Hall 
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