My initial reaction to Andrew's poem was "oh, another one of these",
but then it caught my interest and I do like the way it ends.
Personal and global.
Janet
> I wrote this poem over the last two days, and showed it to an American
> young man today - he liked it but asked what Fantales were! It never
> struck me that they were not USA of origin because they were
> (originally) all about Hollywood stars. (They have since broadened.)
> Fantales are a chocolate coated lolly with caramel inside. The wrapper
> details the life and career of at least one major film star - very
> compressed into maybe thirty or forty words. Here goes nothing:
>
>
>
> (title) My True Account
>
> I've seen these hands on old men before—
> swollen rivers, deep valleys and bony ranges,
> dark brooding between knuckles. I know
>
> the back of my hand like my own country.
> In the Fifties, I read Milton and Rosenberg
> on a wooden desk, with a chipped inkwell.
>
> That desktop spelt a history of boys
> before me, their hieroglyphs and spilt ink
> characterising my space, my view.
>
> Upstairs in the dorm, my bed-high locker
> held what was me—all else cluttered in
> grey flannel pockets: rosary beads, coins,
>
> and Fantale wrappers, to be smoothed
> and added to my collection—
> Alan Ladd, June Allyson, James Stewart.
>
> Milton and Rosenberg drew me in to
> their intense reality. I built a chapel in my head
> and read their words like litany: the sudden
>
> uprising of larks on return, then
> dawn. I was twelve, I saw him die.
> 'They also serve who only stand and waite.'
>
> Serve? I am of the individual generation,
> sitting on our merry-go-round horses, riding to
> our faux rebellion, nervous to dismount.
>
>
> Poem ends. Any feedback welcome.
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Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
Poems at Proximity:
http://www.proximity.webhop.net
You cannot love alone
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