She Has Soap Opera Hands He Has Tickets to Elsewhere

[Terry A]

In the endless winter

what grew within        Tropical

leaves twining in greenhouses

where outside moon-raised hellish nights

and paralysed days in heat coma

Doors marked: Leaving unwise.

 

            The turning of the land

to party lines inducing senseless over-load

Heavy wars to end blockages with undivine

right to rule     lost minds in lotteries

with weighted balls.  Magic theatres

The poster said: Take a Ride on the High Side

Where cold water poured down a hot back

awakens feelings soon enough.

 

She said: What is anti-life will not persist.

He said: Endings are only new beginnings.

                        Their dance was sadness

in blue fields of tears washing

always washing.

 

[badger11]

Fab title, quality write Terry, insightful and resonant phrasing (liked the opening punctuation space too). The Lou Reed ref was cute. I don't think you need the final three lines. Rather overload the emotive.

Bw

Phil

[Terry A]

Well......the last three lines were intended to enrich the title.  But I'll revisit the writing and see if I can do better.  Lou Reed had the makings of a poet, shown most in his Poe album, where he felt the muse.  When music carries words, I always think half the work is done. That's why poems have to work much harder to achieve note. But really, I think without music (Dylan, Morrison, Cohen, Mitchell, etc.); poetry might have passed almost completely out of the public mind,  for academia and their formula writing set voltage so low it couldn't power a 12 volt lightbulb.

Thanks for your comments!

[badger11]

Referencing the title does create a circularity and binds the poem, but 'blue fields of tears' was too poetic for me. Of course, just one subjective reader taste!

Bw

Phil

[David W. Parsley]

Hi Terry, welcome to PMO!  I really like the music in this thing, the original turns of phrase, biting irony for matters both public and private. 

I agree that the repeated "washing" at the end is a welcome tie-in to the title and emblematic of the sense of futility that undertows the entire poem.  The problem that arose is the kind of thing that just happens during composition: concatenation of two creatively imagined images results in an inadvertent stock phrase, "fields of tears."  It is exacerbated by the previous line which dares the line separating generalized telling-rather-than-showing and movingly well-tendered metaphor.  Together, they make an unintended brace of bromides.  At least for this reader. 

I identify with your desire to do that "work harder" part that brings a poem into full expression.  It's part of our calling, as poets.  Not everyone has the patience to embrace and experience, not just the labor of it, but the joy of breakthrough.

Wishing You Joy!
 - David

[Terry A]

David, thank you for expanding the point Phil made, I understand better now. The "brace of bromides" is truly something I often have not been guilty of, but definitely in this poem.  I wonder how it is that sometimes it's difficult to see something until it is pointed out (?), sometimes repeatedly, but now I do.  I'll revise those lines, that poem never deserved a Hallmark Card ending anyway.