A Poem a Day (753): No pedigree required

No pedigree required
 
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
They don’t know the dog.
Every single one is different.
Each breed similar but still different.
Every bark and every wag unique.
You think of symmetry when everything is asymmetrical.
Take a face reflected, unreflected,
the two halves can’t match, and that’s the way
it’s supposed to be – says who?
 
Some guy wrote that women should be seen and not heard.
They used to say this and women roared. Loud. Out loud.
As if we’d walk quietly with our fingers on our lips
echoing our school programme, cross-legged on wooden floors,
eyes down, backsides numb, looking that odd word ‘demure’,
careful not to offend anyone with our bare naked selves,
our bold flesh, our fucking wild opinions. As if.
As if we couldn’t be full-figured human beings
rather than replicas of some rich director’s wet dream.
 
But the new old guard is washing in with Victorian views,
a slow ebb, seeking to drown female voices bit by bit,
stealing thunder, concealing faces, muting a generation.
We’ve been talking about it for decades.
Are we simply throwing words at the prowling tide?
History will stare back at lists and lists of missing names.
Things unsaid, unplayed, unseen, unfelt, un-everything.
But all these things were dreamed by someone special.
 
It’s how the West was won: the unbearable pursuit of power.
Seek and destroy rather than lost and found.
If you don’t understand it, or you can’t control it,
strike a light and watch the whole damn forest burn,
turn around and wait for someone else to pick up.
Pieces stay pieces. The bones of twigs snap underfoot.
Vacant spots in queues miss bodies. They rot in graves.
 
They say hope is the last to die.
Or at least I read the book of one woman who said it.
Survivor of a death camp. So she should know.
The weight of living when everyone else you know has died.
We all need the water wing. The bridge to walk on water.
If a person offers false hope, steals it away with a smile,
don’t let them re-enter your room. Lock the door.
 
A left-open diary should remain unread.
A sealed letter should remain sealed.
Someone else’s note is not yours to be played.
Items left in trust should sit undisturbed.
If they build you up only to pulverise,
flatter you only to disfigure,
befriend you only to judge,
lie in order to lie with you,
you know the answer, I don’t need to say anything.
You don’t need to prove to anyone that you matter.
 
People speak of boundaries, of keeping them,
not letting feelings leak, as if a person is a bottle
without a message they might need to send.
An SOS to the night sky, the moon and stars,
shedding anonymity for truth. A call-out for the missing.
It’s not weakness to break.
When did everyone start pretending?
 
No two pieces of armour are the same.
Defence, humour, explanation, absence, anger.
No one should be submissive unless they want to be.
No one should be forced to give way, to suffer in silence.
But every rose has the potential to scratch.
Take a secret to the grave unless saying it saves a life.
Forgive and be forgiven. Don’t let it eat you up, inside out.
Let it go.
 
White noise is white noise.
No vocabulary, no punctuation, just empty sound.
A language with no code floating in space. A cloud of jam.
It’s not for you. It’s not for you to understand.
Insignificant. Wasted energy. A balloon already burst.
 
We seek sound sometimes. Sometimes silence,
the whole wide world emptied out, the bath plug pulled,
so we can rest in the midst of this storm we call life.
Everyone needs peace or we shed ourselves.
Just as trees lose leaves when winter bites.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 1, 2026