At my poetry group last night I took along what I thought was a fairly
innocent autobiographical poem about wandering around a town with not
much to do. Since I'd not come up with a title, I just gave it the
working name of "KL4". The group commented that the fourth stanza was a
fairly unremarkable episode and maybe wasn't pulling its weight. Then
someone pointed out that if I deleted the fifth and final stanza, the
fourth could be read in an entirely different way, and the whole poem
would take on a much more sinister tone.
This both pleased me (because I think it makes a better poem) and
frightened me, because, after all, the poem had come out of me, and
everything in the poem is factual (even the price of the spider).
I thought in the context of killer poets, it might be of interest to
post it. I'll leave the last stanza in, so you can see if you agree that
removing it has the effect I think it does.
It *is* a work in progress, so any comments or criticisms would be
welcome.
KL4
---
It's a beautiful evening. I'm hunting down the surreal,
and my feet are killing me. I turn a corner at Do-It-All,
past the masking tape, into an aisle of wall fixings and hooks.
There's a sign: Reptiles/Spiders. I've found what I'm after.
It's not lying either. The tarantula's a definite bargain
a snip at twenty-four ninety-nine, but I
reluctantly decide against it, head back
to the lampshades where I'm on more familiar turf.
I'm not in the mood for pub food; the queuing arrangements
at Pizza Hut daunt me; I never eat burgers, so
I'm in the nearly deserted carpark, eating a Tesco
Chicken and Chargrilled Vegetable Pasta Snack,
and watching a woman with rather nice calves who's walking
to her car. I wonder if she perceives me a threat, if she's not
hurrying because she's not hurrying or because
she's telling herself there's nothing to worry about, no need to hurry.
These days, the glasses I need for reading and writing
are too strong to allow me to see distant things clearly.
Darkness drifts in like the trickle of audience
turning up for the last session, the pub and the party.
--
Peter
http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/
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