David,
I very much enjoyed your poem - reminded me of the space and clutter and pace
of visiting elderly relatives in provincial england as a child. After
snapshots of vivid detail you have 'You enjoy / an aunt's belated accolades.
Choice.' which I think is marvellous. It's a change of pace and focus which is
so sudden and entirely appropriate. Like eyesight moving about. And it keeps
doing it - big/small, near/far. Sorry to lift bits out if it bothers you, but
this is my favourite:
You were born
on a rocky ridge pocked by quarries -
there's no perspective
emptier; understanding was the gap
between cerulean and cobalt.
Your poem has wings!
Sam
At 02:01 PM 1/30/02 , you wrote:
>PRIVATE LIFE
>
>The private life drama, baby, count me out
> - The Pretenders
>
>
>When your father died you became
>lighter by the five stone his cancer had
>left. A bonfire of letters
>
>curling over a semi-detached home
>into the nothing it partitions;
>opportunity's stomping ground
>
>a quagmire of washing-line, mower, concrete
>blocks stacked against the shed
>where he smoked over porno. You enjoy
>
>an aunt's belated accolades. Choice.
>Then that perennial second cousin, Monday, pulls up;
>an orphanage's despair fertilises the firs
>
>bordering 'your' property. Spirited as
>a discharged patient, you
>skip the rest of the story, lifting
>
>off from your 'home' town.You were born
>on a rocky ridge pocked by quarries -
>there's no perspective
>
>emptier; understanding was the gap
>between cerulean and cobalt. Your tennis clothes sweat
>gently as this morning lifts you
>
>clean off the earth. Recreation becomes
>penance and paradise is a glass of pear nectar.
>Words are no longer of this moment
>
>itself, but your experience of it
>self, which is beyond comprehension:
>'It is vanity to desire anything
>
>that is past. The misery afterwards
>was, of course,
>a luxury.'
