We jerkily flail into one another like bumper cars,
At times accidental, at others, more deliberate,
The nudge of another rubs along our sides,
Reverberates, connects or repels, fulfils motion
Sideways or forwards, or drifts backwards, but not still
Once, as chance would have it, snow fell uncommonly,
We were shut in like moles peering out from our own dirt,
Yesterday was clear and even and cold, it was liberated
From your revelations; the grave grace of your delivery,
The darts of your studied, outlined calculations, such time
Given these collisions and misses we see each other
In shifting colours as if through kaleidoscopes
And reserve our fixed focus for ourselves, we hoard
Our perspectives in treasure chests ferocious, hungry
Only for agreement or concession, or the withholding
Hurt did it? All that deliberation and decision sucked in,
Repressed as you waited like an alligator to snap attack,
Thrash in and bind me up in your rehearsed words
That took no account of me saying anything back,
To drag and pin me down with your slicing
Finality weaves in with all these moving starts,
All of us, stories winding in and out of the tales
Of others, we become mise en abymes, any parity
Or shared sense are just dreams, I am your conceit,
You are mine, to give comfort we assemble
Mutual, it’s what you’ll claim in the aftermath,
In the smoothing over of wrinkles, but that afternoon
As you unfolded our conclusion like a map and showed
The route you’d highlighted that took us from there
To here it was your steer alone that unveiled this ending.
Comments
Dynamaso | July 28, 2008 - 00:49
I really like the construction of this. As with your previous poem, there are so many good lines in this, I really don't know where to start. This is very accomplished work and inspirational too.
tcook | July 28, 2008 - 16:04
I'm not so sure. I found it wordy and difficult. I got the gist but I'm not sure that I fell right into the deep meanings and whilst there is no problem with a level of obscurity, I thought that this was just a tad too muddy. I appreciate that we have two poems running alternately and kind of concurrently - but the final verse of the italic one seems better suited to the non italic one - and the non italic one has two excellent opening verses whilst the italic one is too obscure with verses one and two hardly inter-acting.
It's probably me being thick but I'm not sufficiently convinced that it's worth the time to delve deeper.
Doeslittle | July 28, 2008 - 16:14
Thanks for your comment Tony, no I'm not sure it is worth the time delving any deeper.
Foster | July 29, 2008 - 01:08
I think this is worth the time. The thing about poetry (like any art form) is that we can make it into whatever we wish, but it takes effort on our part, as well as the writer's. Yes, some poets take a hard line and insist in a specific meaning, but in the end, they can't control what I take from a piece.
True, this is a bit muddy, I agree. But therein lies the beauty. DL allows us to take from it whatever we wish. I don't need her to tell me what to think, how to feel. I rather enjoy the obscurity. I've always felt the best writing is unclear, and when I find something like this, I'm happy not to be lead down a certain path. A little time to delve deeper can unveil wonderful things - things intended or not.
Doeslittle | July 29, 2008 - 10:28
Thank you for your comment Foster.
It is obscure and I intended it to be as open as I could make it because I wanted to write about something that I think is universal - that we are all small balls of a story, our own story, that bumps or weaves itself into other people's stories - like a mise en abyme. And I wanted to create a mise en abyme as a poem - so one verse (in italics) provides a reflection, an example of what the non italic verse tells you. My italic verse was about a person or me reacting to another person ending their relationship, cutting them out of their story.
I wanted to convey the fact that we are writing our own stories every day, but the one thing we can't control are the 'plots' of others who are woven into ours and how they will affect how our story pans out. I tried to leave the italic verses slightly open (obviously way too open for some) to allow it to apply to any situation like this, not solely the break up of relationships.
I wanted it to be able to be read as a whole or in separate parts which was another reason for leaving it open.
This is why one of my other concerns was poetry itself - I didn't use much imagery because imagery can push meaning where, in this case, I didn't want to.
I think it's partly complicated and obscure because I tried to make it a mise en abyme in itself, which felt hard to do in the confines of a poem, but I was trying something out and I asked for crit and got a mixed response!