Poem

A trellis of legs and sheets,

the sunlight green through leaves

falling across us. It takes courage

to say no more than:

there’s little point, rushing

off to save the world. People work

themselves into and out of trouble,

agreements are made, broken,

while I live in the bounds of eyelash

and breath and half-sleep – the place

into which all things ground.

And in grounding, grow. 

 

Difficult to speak from such

silence, with the day’s petty weights

pendant.  I want to understand the phrases

that rise in me, to have grand design,

to know my work in the world

not occluded. Or just have the illusion

that things end cleanly,

do not have to be struck, struck

clean of myself and my loves. 

 

Her breath threads across my neck,

pooling itself in the hollow

of my throat, a poem into which is let

everything but doubt and frustration,

across which moves that blur

of evocation, of detail. 

 

She hums a line from an old love song

and bites my shoulder.

 

Comments

[Scott Scheule]

Two caveats:

1. I'm not a poet, and I am an elitist, so I generally think that people who know poetry well--as I don't--are far more qualified than I am to pronounce on its quality.

2. Even considering that, I don't know if you post these poems for criticism, so if this is unwarranted, please let me know.

So, with those two caveats, here are two observations:

1. Generally, besides a really smashing last line and some attractive phrases, this poem is overly sentimental and a tad whiny (like my poetry).

2. The previous summer poem, however, is excellent.

[Scoplaw]

Well, that follows because *I'm* overly sentimental and a tad whiny.

[Scott Scheule]

Me too!

[Scoplaw]

For some reason I tend to write poems in pairs - and in the sense that one eats up the other, they're sometimes like fetal twins.

[Scott Scheule]

What are the chances! You write poems the same way I get STDs!

[Scoplaw]

Well, these days it's infrequent, mostly-but-not-exactly what I want, and usually not divulged to others. I have a small core of people who are seeming always on the lookout for new ones. . .and they generally think I have far more than I actually do. I acquire 'em at all hours, and it usually involve some sweating and concentration, but sometimes I get them when I least expect it. Like on a bus.

**

And apropos of our extended parallel, one of my fav. lines is "Life: it's a sexually transmitted disease that's inevitably fatal."