Stampede (of middle class Mums)

[Billydo]

Stampede

 

There they go -

those jim-jam under-clad Mums

ramming Kellogg-crammed kids

into wagons more at home

amid wildebeest

than wincyette-wearing women.

Depositing darlings:

Camilla and Beatrice;

Boris and Charles;

in herds of teenage hims and hers -

neurons, hormones and mobile phones,

snack-pots and pink spots -

lolligagging at bus-stops.

Then to congregate at school gates.

Their arms fold to scaffold

child worn weary bosoms,

and mask nipples stiffened

by the early chill,

and clinging baboons.

Back home

to shower and flower their hides,

skim skin ready for daubs of hue.

Then off to do,

whatever they do,

to provide drink and feed,

before the evening stampede

[tonyv]

I love the "jim-jam under-clad" soccer mom , but I'll pass on the "clinging baboons"!

 

Nice to see you, Mike!

 

Tony

[Billydo]

Thanks Tony - more the school run is what I had in mind - but the soccer mum works.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

[tonyv]

I definitely got that part from the poem, Mike. You show their day, from beginning to end. "Soccer mom" is just an expression we use here in the States.

 

Tony

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

hi mike aka billydo,

 

this is one of the most unique poems i have ever read. nice job. our vice-president candidate Sarah Palin McCain's running mate was called a hockey mom. i guess you live in the united kingdom. you must be a big soccer an. i think it world football is so boring. i love American football. but soccer (football) is more civilized than American football but American football is very exciting and scores many points in a game. i also love watching rugby when it is shown on American television. that is exciting to watch.

 

larsen aka victor

[goldenlangur]

Hi Mike,

 

A real pleasure to read your work again! As a portrayal of a social phenomenon, your poem is absolutely superb, reminding one of Larkin's poems. Two things strike one immediately about your poem, one is the sense of a contemporary situation and the other is the irony that in this age of individual choice and personal freedom, how certain aspirations (of the middle class here) renders one to be of a 'herd'. Their trappings of the 'class' set up another layer of irony in that accoutrements, suitable for another time and place (wagons - evoking the wild west and large empty expanse of wilderness in Africa too, perhaps)lend a comic contrast to the clothes of the mothers and the school drop off scenario. And again, like the 'stampede' of the 'wilderbeest' in the wilderness, these 'under-clad Mumn' with 'their darlings' on the school run are on a rampage. One imagines them clogging up the streets and lanes in their morning rush.

 

Then they are back at the 'school gates' with their not-yet school-going children, 'clinging baboons' and despite the chill of the season, 'under-clad'. What a brilliant detail this:

 

Their arms fold to scaffold

child worn weary bosoms,

and mask nipples stiffened

by the early chill,

 

You convey a sense of dreary routine executed in a frenzy, with an underlying sense of threat to an observer - God help anyone who gets in the way of these Mums and their '

herds of teenage hims and hers -

neurons, hormones and mobile phones,

!

 

The ambitions and aspirations of these 'middle class' 'Mums' and their 'teenage herds' take on another cycle of frenzied getting ready for after school activities:

 

Back home

to shower and flower their hides,

skim skin ready for daubs of hue.

Then off to do,

 

 

I love the word play, to quote a few of my favourites:

 

'ramming and crammed' 'hides and skin' ( evoking the animal analogy)

 

 

Great rhythm and rhymes here, showing how alike the teenagers are in habits, apperance and behaviour (certainly a 'herd'):

 

"snack-pots and pink spots -

lolligagging at bus-stops."

 

Also love your use of names to suggest 'middle' classness.

 

Have you thought of doing a series of poems on other social groups - I remember one about people during their lunch hour among gravestones in a busy part of an English city.

 

 

Thoroughly, thouroughly enjoyed this Mike. Wonderful to read you again.

 

goldenlangur

[Aleksandra]

Mike, I am glad to see you back in this homeland.

 

Interesting poem. Nice to see you back and that with this kind of poem. Gives another dimensions than usual reading.

 

Thank you for sharing.

 

Aleksandra

[Bloodyday]

Hi Billydo

 

everybody told all the things or even more in expressive way than mine.

 

i should say only thing for you: you know how to play with words mingled with plot and expression. you are a rhythmic player more than a poet!

 

 

nice work!

[douglas]

i loved this! a slightly cynical, yet very accurate observation of the rhythms of the suburbs. i like your allusions to materialism, lack of consciousness, consumerism and the mundane plodding that can sometimes take over peoples' consciousness as they are sucked into their everyday lives...