Oedipus, Shmoedipus
It is the bitter truth
that everyone marries their mother.
Or rather, after some years
your mate turns into your mother.
And the incest prohibition kills the lust
that brought you together in the first place.
But if you have become my mother, sweetheart,
and I've become yours,
we're both at least taking care of each other
with a son's devotion.
An odd coupling of two quite strange mothers,
joining hands in holy matrimonio?
This is a recipe for incompatibility, I'd say.
As your Jewish mother
I find you a difficult child
who will not listen, when all I'm doing
is trying to get down into you
some chicken soup, to keep you alive.
Then in a rage at your defiance,
I'm transformed into your father
and want to kill,
as the oedipal prescription demands:
Lying there stabbed to death
my dearest child, my tender victim,
crying Mama, mama,
and the maternal heart responds,
breaks for him, my child again,
and, unaccountably, my mother,
who I am unable to rescue
from the inevitable, familial mistake.
Page(s) 14
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Brando's hat
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- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
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- Fabric
- Fire
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- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The