Almost a Kennedy

[larryrap]

Hi Michelle,

It's quite a thread - turbulent, furious, hurting. Like a great battle for dignity is going on amid endless humiliations.
I like the synesthesia effects in "When You Heard It". Doom-laden colors and desperate music and the taste of salt.
"On Drowning" is despair powerfully rendered.
"Seven Steps" is chilling, a relentless tour of the extreme cruelties of the extremely hurt.
"Anniversary" takes a slower pace and has its own force. The last two strophes stand well on their own.
"It's Not Me, It's You" seems like 80% bravado filler but the "the person you thought I was" part is brilliant and could be the meat of a poem.
I see a lot of value in "Untitled"'s structure: breaking every few lines makes for a careful, slow buildup and there's a tension and simmering intensity that feels very promising.

[M]

Thanks, anita! I'm glad you enjoyed.

larry, "like a great battle for dignity is going on amid endless humiliations"...uh, you just described my life, not my thread. haha (but I agree about the thread too). I also agree with the 80% bravado, but it sure was cathartic to get all of that bravado out on "it's not me...". Thanks for letting me know which part is potentially poem-worthy. I would like to leave the month with a few snippets here and there to work with (and hopefully my dignity). Thanks for dropping in!

[Julie]

-Only when you run out and approach
need, do you wish you had
employed restraint during prior usage.

QFT, my friend.


"She is normal but
in the same exact way that Monday

follows Sunday."

That's just great. I love the unexpectedness and ambiguity.

[M]

I know you are not well, but it is critical
that I tell you what happened
to the dog this summer. A mishap left him
in the hands of strangers, left us to bide time

and aim lower than hope. Nine years
of licks and barks and fur, cuddles
and nudges, the twitch and whimper
of doggy dreams lay heaped on the silver slab
of a table. I drove home, your son's head
in my lap where the dog's should have been.
His fists clenched, released, clenched

the empty leash. His face stippled
pale and flushed from the fight
against tears, your son did not know if men cried

for lost dogs. That night, we made love,
frenetic, as if energy could tip a scale
toward life. We did not sleep.
We skipped work to make the wait

more acute. He snapped up each call, but stalled
an extra second to speak, willed the words
to go unsaid. When the call came, we broke
every traffic law. The nurse led us to a white
room where my lover's best friend lay, his gray
coat so gray. His sick eyes pled for home.

I kissed his nose and left the room
because your son does not know if men
can say "love" to a best friend.

So now, I want you to understand
when he heard of your white room, septic
blood, your failing organs and treatment
and your request that he come to you
for a goodbye, he turned to me and asked
me to pass the eggs. He carried on
with his day. That evening, we scarfed
pizza and beer, finished painting the kitchen.
We had a fun, kinky romp and then slept
the sleep of those who know goodbye
is reserved for those you knew.

The dog, his surgery scars healed,
whimpered doggy dreams at our feet.


Ack. I'm running behind. Had to phone this one in a little...I have to catch up on poems and fluff tomorrow!!

[M]

It irks me when you gnaw your nails
to nubs; the allure of keratin snapping
against enamel eludes me, but I am obsessed
with the dermal mole on the back of my neck, this bulbous
mass of misplaced nipple-flesh
that I can't even see, but I see people turn to gawk at
in my mind. I've been told that I could freeze
it off without much pain, but I need it. I need to nip, pinch,
cram it against my fingertips under the nails.
I rotate through all of the fingers until I find
the right one; each time, a different one,
and when I find it, when the tip fits just right
and runs along the crease where nail meets skin, I float.
I do this for hours, until I require the assistance of my fingers
for some task or another. I do not know when I discovered
that this brings me pleasure; I have done it since I can remember,
but I have learned that the mole is not the object
of this tactile fixation; it is a victim of my fingers'
need. When the scab sheds, I go at it again,
and your fingernails always grow
back. I wish you would tell me
from where your need stems.

One man's shattered mirror is another's bent spoon,
and I wonder what it is in us that is attracted to one
over the other, but I know why we do it. We do it to make contact
with those parts of ourselves that have never been touched.
When the rough texture of the scab meets the tender
area of skin for the first time, or when the tooth grabs the nail
in just the right place with just the right amount of pressure,
it scratches an itch we were never even aware of. We do it
because it feels good. Then we do it because it feels normal.
Then we do it because it does not feel normal
if we don't. And then we do it because our life or death,
whichever comes first, depends on it.

[Janet]

Hey Michelle! Last two are really excellent. Loved Letter to my Lover's Father. Such truth in it...really resonates with the whole macho idealization thing. Also taken with it's not me, it's you... the back and forth. The in-the-moment sense of the entanglement. The memory about the must-have been writer stood out for .me too, the way he edited (whether withholding or selective memory). Habits is deep, been thinking a lot about this kind of stuff too. No wonder we enjoy each other's poems

[5th column]

Hello Michelle, the letter to my lover's father - feels like a long wait for the payoff? I would lose the closing couplet and break down the close so that it feels less personal / internal. The danger is that this becomes a poem with an intended audience of one. Who's dead

I enjoyed S2 of Habits, which felt tighter than S1.

Excellent thread, enjoyable to consider.

[kristalynn]

Letter to My Lover's Father and Habits are both engaging and insightful. I especially liked the line about passing the eggs.

[M]

Janet, you know what they say about great minds...! Glad you enjoyed.
Neil, thanks for your feedback. I'm pretty frazzled this past week, and haven't really had the time to dedicate to editing. It's been pretty much type, type, send. So your thoughts will be helpful when it comes time to trim the fat and find the poems in all of this.
kristalynn, I was partial to that line myself. Thanks for stopping in! Glad you found something to enjoy.

[M]

Playing catch-up for the poem I missed on the 14th (and I have another one to catch up for yesterday, and still one for today). Ack. I'm dyin.


I try and try
to read
into your words
something different
than what I know
you meant
but you leave
nothing
up for interpretation
and so
I want badly
to edit your thread
to make it say
what I need
to hear
but
I can only
edit my own

[M]

I painted a cityscape at a time when
we still made plans, and now: a man, lit,
stands before a woman -- a match
in his hand, lit (a fire), arms at her sides,
mouth open, flames on her
tongue. It melts slow, slips graceful
over her lips, a red trickle down her chin,
pools on the floor at her feet.

I hate, hate, hate how the city smells
at night: all alive and teeming with life, steeped
in living. My words mean nothing
to any of them with their busy and their citywalk,
their pedestrian lights and their planning ahead
with their sidewalk stilettos and their flats stuffed
in fresh-dirt trees for the walk home.

He zips around town, hailing cabs,
sliding metrocards, hopping the N
train or the R train or the whatever-
-the-fuck-train-gets-him-there-fastest train
(there is wherever something is, and he
is always there, and I have no sense
of direction). Nothing I say: no
darling, no dinner, no sheets, no night
stand lamp, no please, no time, no song, no
wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
I do not have the right words for him
as he traces lines from one end
of the shore to the next, glides
onto the ferry landing just as it abandons
the dock, sets out on the black water
toward the smooth lights reflected
on the other side. Take me out tonight...

He wanted to take me out every night,
but I couldn't go, because I'm not
a Four Roses Bourbon Old-Fashioned,
nothing muddled, a twist of orange zest, simple
syrup, heavy bitters, and one cherry on the bottom
thank you very much. No, I'm just a beer.
Not a lager, not a craft beer, not even a draft.
I'm domestic. In a bottle. And when he's ready
to leave this bar, there may be no Four Roses,
but there's always more beer at the next place.

I really don't hate the way the city smells
at night, but it smells like that one song
that leaves you throat punched,
dumbstruck and gasping, trying to put out
the fire on your tongue but you can't
and it melts, melts and spills out of your mouth
with all of your useless words and your plans.
Down onto the hardwood floors
that you just finished cleaning, and he
steps in it, tracks it all around the house,
but as he walks out the door, he leaves
no trail to follow. And I never go out.

[5th column]

Just a shout out for the closing S of this latest. 'The one song that leaves you throat-punched' especially

[M]

Julie, I missed your comments until now. Glad that works for you!
5th column, thanks! I like the closing s on this one too.

[M]

It starts off small: a new car charger, your sister's hair
bands, a blue lighter, the receipt for that dress
you shouldn't have bought and need to return, a ring
of keys, a recipe card from your great aunt's spaghetti
that's been in the family for generations. Not the pasta,
of course, the card, and spaghetti will never taste
the same now. Your mother tried to put her own twist
on it, but she doesn't even know what al dente means.
Neither do you, for that matter; just slap that down
on the list of things your mother never taught
you like how to know that a little boy chucking rocks
at your face does not really mean he likes you, like
how to know that not being wanted by the guy in home
room doesn't mean you don't exist. To be fair, she taught you
things. She taught you to speak multiple languages,
but Holy Ghost speak doesn't translate well on a honeymoon
in France, and being "slain in the spirit" is not an acceptable
DUI defense. She also taught you how all babies are born
fundamentally fucked up, that all wrongs can be blamed
on one woman's desire to be equal, that the only way to be whole
is to lay yourself down at the feet of a man who has no desire
for a woman's touch, and by now, you've lost your desire
chip six times in the past month (it's only week one). Oh well,
you've never really cared about Paris, and who the hell
buys a wedding dress a year in advance anyway?

[Emily Bronte]

Michelle, I'm so much enjoying this thread.

You really seem to be gaining momentum from Letter to my Lover's Father on. The last few are all incredibly strong pieces. There is a fierce, raw energy that leaks out from behind deceptively colloquial and simple language. This seems to be a particular strength of your poetic voice. And I said before I love fifth anniversary.

Ten days to go!

Cheers,

Mari.