'Strapless Backless' has a lot of punch, nicely coiled during the poem and
released at the end.
'The Old Ward'...hmm... seems to be about giving a lecture or reading in an
old people's home or hospice and seems to be trying to say that the old
people are a threat... but I'm left unconvinced. I might like it better if
the poem was written from the point of view of one of the old people, as in,
"We're harmless, but...". Then you could get some serious evil happening.
Just an idea.
Janet
2008/5/29 Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>:
> The Old Ward
>
>
> They're harmless, but you should be careful.
> Assume that, however many years
> have passed since they spoke, smiled,
> or met someone's eye, if ever,
> they're very aware of you.
> Think of it this way – they'll try
> to command the screen
> where you try to arrange them without having
> to smell them. Even they want
> to direct. Would love
> the jargon, the learnèd papers referred to
> by parenthetical dates in *your eventual
> paper; though ideas, as you know,
> rank beneath images. Beware
> the leaky crone in the wheelchair:
> she thinks you're an admirer.
> That chap you can barely see, in deep shadow,
> postures and winks as he does to prove
> he's brilliant.
>
>
>
>
> Strapless Backless
>
>
> But what is her *father doing here?
> – It could be a night in fall
> except for the authorized hope
> embodied in expensive curbside blooms
> and the afternoon's speeches. Thesis:
> that fraction of a city's restaurants
> where limos dock and tuxedos swarm
> the sidewalk equals
> the percentage of graduates
> who know what they are worth, i.e.,
> what they will earn next May.
> Discuss. "In an age of transition,
> one learns there are only transitions, never
> arrivals, and celebrates that."
> Someone may have said that
> today. They duly applauded, now
> look loudly forward to drinking.
> She, in that gown,
> could be queen, the still center, but no:
> she hurtles, clutching, from one
> tuxedo or lesser (bridesmaid) creation
> to another, shrieking. And Daddy
> is there. How else interpret
> the older, fussing, balding, paying
> gentleman? One knows
> they never leave or never can
> leave home these days;
> call home each day; discuss, no doubt,
> their affairs … Or is it
> in this case a deeper,
> more upper-class protectiveness?
> He's here to tell her
> gradually, gently, "Sweetheart,
> except for that dress,
> this driver and car, and dinner,
> the system has no need for you."
>
--
Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
www.proximity.webhop.net (Poetry)
www.myspace.com/poetjj (Includes occasional arts & culture blog)
The Line Mine, bulletin board for Perth poetry & spoken word:
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groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinemine
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