Things I’ll never be: A Slim Collection, A Votive Candle, A Year’s Best.
Living in a hexagonal house w/out you would be worse than going
To New York City you go! Subways! (Cats in sawdust!) Better, cheaper
ethnic food! Yellow cabs & the same McDonalds as everywhere else!
Living in a womb-like apartment (bequeathed by an ex) is worse than not
going with you. But going with you is worse than letting you go alone.
I am the most charming when I’m quantitative. I’ll never be slim, but I’ll
collect. I’ll be a second best. I’ll light your candle when your time comes.
It’s not all over now, just now--over all--not it, see? I told you.
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1 comment:
Love it. It's great; really fine. Nothing wasted. Good full lines -- rico. Full of "minute particulars" -- "(Cats in sawdust!)" and a hexagonal house. Brilliant ending, the framing of the poem. Really great. Some great lines. Good melopoeia (bie'n Lola Beltran). See? This is why you are high on my list of newly discovered po'bloggers who are, contrary to popular misconception, *excellent* poets -- or, potentially excellent poets. I think you have some really good poems. What's "good" to me? Rooted in the earth and rendered in blood. This is. Good energy and integrity. Tensile.
Now, here's where it gets touchy. There's a burr. It's a little thing -- but it's burying the best part of the poem, that closure at the end with the candle. The "I am most charming. . ." line clunks where it is; both in sound (the rhythm's off with that quadrasyllabic word that gongs us out of the poem as we think of ways "you" are quantitative and we miss the best part unless we read it again. I'd move it down and create another closing couplet. Beginnings and endings are crucial in poetry; that's the only thing that sets it apart from fiction, the advantage of multiple beginnings and endings. I'd begin that stanza with (permi'teme):
I’ll never be slim, but I’ll collect. I’ll be a second best. I’ll light your candle when your time comes.
I am the most charming when I’m quantitative.
It’s not all over now, just now--over all--not it, see? I told you.
Then, "I told you" ends up modifying that line. Both lins are complicated -- and brilliant. really. But takes a while to get it otherwise.
Really good poem. I'd end your first major book with it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Now, don't go off again. It's a little thing but I really love this poem -- so I can't help but pipe up. Especially since, after reading your meme (sheesh) I was just hoping to cheer you up.
And, to say: Good luck writing *any* poems at all while "dissertating" much less pulling really good ones "out of the vault".
Bravo.
P.S. Currently jamming on that No Tell Motel anthology review and revved on the part of trying to explain why your poem is the best in the book. So, sorry, in the mode.
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