Thursday, February 12, 2009

Happy Early Valentine's Day


(Ladies, I want to hear you chime in and tell me if these poems would help you reconsider a love in peril. This is a poem sequence that I've entitled Diary of a Heartbreak that I'm going to present to my SO on Valentine's Day. She recently complained that I don't write poems anymore. So these are the first ones I've written in going on 13 years. I guess I still have a few of the moves. All the same, I want the feminine perspective on this sequence in process.)

Valentine Villanelle

Your arm evades me when you slumber deep.
Once, through your slumber, you had sought me still.
Now, you don’t hold me tightly in your sleep.

Love once had slept between us in a heap.
I miss that more than poetry can tell.
Your arm evades me when you slumber deep.

These evenings, there’s a chasm wide and deep
That love or poetry can’t hope to fill.
Now, you don’t hold me tightly in your sleep.

Quit poetry? The poetry had seeped,
A broken poet with an empty quill.
Your arm evades me when you slumber deep.

Palimpsest of your ideal me, I weep.
I cannot be that man for good or ill.
Now, you don’t hold me tightly in your sleep.

We’d miss eachother even in our sleep
And find eachother as through force of will.
Your arm evades me when you slumber deep.
Now, you don’t hold me tightly in your sleep.

Couplet Sonnet For a Troubled Couple

“You live alone”, the misinformed would say,
But one is not alone if loved each day
Without condition by one whose love burns
So hot and white for little in return.
But, Jesus help me, I can’t fight for two.
Especially if half the war’s with you.
You say to live alone’s your greatest fear.
My own? To live without you for a year,
A month, a week, a day or just a chime
Of a clock. There was once upon a time
We would defend each other to the death,
Each inhalation of ours a shared breath.
Our life these days is not worth fighting for.
But what we had once is worth waging war.

Chekov’s Gun
“One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” – Anton Chekov in a letter, 1889

Like Chekov’s gun, fat trouble sat
Above our heads within its rack.
A bullet needed to be jacked
And shot before the final act.
There’s not much one can do with that!

My literary pedigree
Compels me to agree away.
This ain’t a novel or a play.
Our love is now the hunted prey,
My love of you, your love of me.

Now that damned gun’s been taken down
And sits within your pretty hands
And threatening to kill my plans.
So what if Chekov now demands
You use it like a verb or noun?

This ain’t a novel or a play.
Just ‘cause we’re born with cancer cells
Does that mean we should not stay well?
Forget the bullet and the shell.
Our love is now the hunted prey.

8 Comments:

At February 12, 2009 at 9:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Because you're not this guy...there's Helzberg Diamonds.

 
At February 12, 2009 at 9:46 PM, Blogger D. said...

Good luck, dear.

That stuff goes on hurting for years and writes itself into the body.

Give reconciliation your very best shot. Vulnerability may help.

 
At February 12, 2009 at 10:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm just guessing....but I think she's out hauling some manly guy's
ashes.I could be wrong but I dont think so.

 
At February 12, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My feminine perspective? My favourite is Chekov's Gun, it's clever and does a great job getting your message across. I like the sonnet a lot too, especially the last two lines. The villanelle I'm not entirely taken with, I thought it came across a tad whiny.

Of course, having said all that I should probably mention that I'm not overly fond of mushy stuff - rather unfeminine of me I suppose, but perhaps your SO feels differently?

 
At February 13, 2009 at 12:59 AM, Blogger Bukko Boomeranger said...

Not a woman, JP, but I'd say "TMH" -- Too Much Honesty! Seems to hit some unpleasant truths there... OTOH, it may be too late for gushy hearts-and-flowery stuff, so you might as well go straight for the vein of truth.

 
At February 13, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

That's interesting because the villanelle's my favorite one. I worked on it the longest and hardest.

 
At February 13, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Blogger The Minstrel Boy said...

count me among the fans of the villanelle. that form's a bitch, right up there with terza rima.

just fitting the words alone inside that form is a chore. to fit them with meaning, motion, and above all, deep feeling, is genius.

bravo my friend.

it may not do the job you intend. but, if nothing else, something lovely has been produced.

beyond that

fuck a bunch of goddamned words.

 
At February 14, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Villanelle has my vote. Beautiful. Knowing nothing of your SO, have no idea how the response will be.

mikefromtexas

 

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