Poetry

[talktooloose]

Huh. I seem to have finished a poem that's been kicking around for awhile. I also wrote a new song which is the first in a long time. I've been writing so much long-form prose that my psyche must have been jonesing for the density of verse. Here's the poem:


Stanzas on the Subway

He holds her with apostrophes,
With italics,
With public solicitation
And a bumper sticker:
She is mine
She is mine
And look how I cherish
With cursive strokes
And muscly flexes
Of my clever hand

It's all flagrant lip
service, of course.
To the preening boy
The girl is mere object,
Subject and theme.

But she knows her worth
And the metric limits of his
Big blind love:
Roll me off your
Tongue tonight
And again a thousand nights
I'll be no more than
You can see
Than what you already found
In me

Comments

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

reminds me of a stray thought I had years ago that has never left me. watching a big tough young man embracing his girlfriend my thought was "he has to hold onto her .... she might get away."

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yes, the inspiration was similar. I felt like all his caresses were a show for the crowd and proof that he could score.

The poem metamorphosed more and more into a meditation on poetry itself and I was surprised when the poem/girl herself had something to say.

Thanks for reading.

[briseur.livejournal.com]

The thing that makes me sad about it is that her conscious collusion with him means he feels just fine about it.
I suspect the consciousness of the collusion to be unrealistic, incidentally. To be in a relationship w/ such a man, one would almost have to be fooling oneself as to his intent.