and be rid of it:
:The maps and the planning books
the B&B in the historic house
or the windswept one
where the light flashes all night
a slow-mo old movie flicker
flick fli f
foghorn BEEEEEEE --- OH
and you dream of the play
you once made
when you were all at the beach
without waves or lighthouses
how the strobe
hides the flaws
:The poems you can’t love anymore
because they all point to one thing:
you can’t
you can’t
you can’t
you can’t though you look
in the high weeds
of the backyard
in the refuse truck collecting
in the morning
in the hammers that start
sharp at 8
There’s no genius here
There’s no genius here
Not that you can find
Oh but you can make it look good
put a check mark
on the puzzle you cheated at
genius.
:The husband who always wants
one more fuck
no matter how many fucks you’ve had
and brilliant ones
suck-the-skin-off-the-bone fucks
send-the-bed-across-the-floor fucks
despite that lights-out is a better way
to fuck, these days.
:The boxes that lurk under the tablecloth
like the alligator that used to wait
under the bed for a thin dangling arm
the emergence of a foot
just wanting to get across the gritty floor
to the crack of light along the door
these full-of-math boxes, full
of what-will-I-do-for-the-next-year books.
:The wasted time
and the wasted time wasted
with claw-in-the-belly boredom
“should” whispered - no - screeched
just over the left shoulder, from the bookshelf
or the paper on the table
The motes are holding a party in the living room
Oh sure, they scatter like roaches
when someone comes through
but you can hear their subwoofers
rattling the boards oh yes
while you cheat on another puzzle.
:The failing body, fallen flesh
how when you press a finger up the calf
it turns to lumps and parchment
like your mother’s when she died.
You’re going to die and it won’t be long
not as long as it’s been since birth
how you’ve been in pain for two months
for the first time
despite years
and years
and years
of eating right and working out
you’re getting old
you look it
and you’re petrified.
Author notes
circuitous route from Wallaert, but still from Wallaert
A contest entry
- In the company of. . . by Annalise.
900 points, ended July 18, 2007, 9 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 54 of 54
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Spoken Word?
This poem is amazing! I realllllly identify with it, as I'm sure many do! Do you do spoken word? When I read it I wanted to stand up on a soapbox at a microphone and say it out loud
Very refreshing to read something different. ~~Paige
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this is great!!!
how old are you? about a million!?! do you know me? because if you don't, then you are stalking me! THIS JUST EXPLAINED MY LIFE!!! really. i CRYED when i read this. you are the s@#t. you really are. this was wonderful! i am speechless, which is not something that happens very often! this was great! and about that getting old part, well hell, THANK GOD!!! huh? would'nt you hate to be young and go through all of that stuff again? really... love gypsyfish
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god i read this again. and it's more amazing just because the state of mind i'm in is so much better than when i read it before. wow wow wow. this is quite rich with emotion. you deserved the gold and every point you got and more. good good good great fabulous job.
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Wow.... great write. congratulations on the gold win.
♥
whisper
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hey, stranger! long time...
Thank you for commenting. I have a question for you: what brought you to this poem in particular? I ask because I'm getting comments on it every few days despite it being down the list somewhat on my page. I'm wondering if I'm offering rewards and it shows up somewhere or something. Gives me a chuckle every time.
Hope you are well.
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9/10
iT TOOK ME QUITE A WHILE TO GET INTO THIS POEM DUE TO THE STRUCTURE BUT ONCE INVOLVED IT WAS VERY WELL THOUGHT OUT AND CRAFTED WITH GREAT SKILL ABLE TO SEE FROM ONE END TO THE OTHER THE LINES OF LIFE.A pity though that it needs to end in so much hopelesness perhaps it is your personal view that life is shit and then we die but it isn't mine.
I expect there are those who will read this and see a great truth in the last stanza but as for the last line....
Despite the pain I am not petrified of dying.
I just dont want to.
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Rather than hopelessness, it is a love of life that makes me petrified of aging. There is so much I have yet to do! Thank you for you comment.
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this really isn't my style of poem, but even so, I recognize that it is a kick-ass one. I read it a couple of times over, and it got better with each read. You hit on a lot of good points about the too-true truths of life. probably what I liked the most about it!
Excellent job!
Cheers!
S -
yea, be rid of it. damn...you know when you've read a good poem because you can't think of what you could possibly say. This poem was the shit! lol One of my favorite lines was:
You’re going to die and it won’t be long
not as long as it’s been since birth
Thats real...you stop and think about that one because it is the simple truth. Great write here poet!
~Lia -
oh wow!! this is a very deep and gripping pome. i couldnt stop reading, it was so amazingly written and definatley deserved that gold trophy!
xxx
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So many good moments in this - say from about line 1 through the end. This is the first really resonant poem I've read in quite a while (and I just worked through an issue of "Poetry" this week). If there is a weak stanza, I'd point toward the 4th (not counting 1st line). The alligator snapping at a dangling arm or foot is a good visual, but overall that doesn't seem to add to the drama as much as the others, until the last line of the stanza. Also, after reading it through a few times, I wonder if the last line is entirely necessary? The whole thing has a petrified voice, you portrayed that flawlessly. Petrified and indignant at the whole thing, too
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wow
ummm every passage is different. it makes me actually petrified.
in the beginning i wasn't so sure what to think. but it's really sticking with me. the part about fucks: like there's some people who are never completely satisfied. it's insanely hard to deal with that.
this is something. oh man.
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the feeling really does get old. Very funny on how we think that something like that could happen to us. I look at myself and my family and I think I will be there age sooner than I think!! thanks for writting this poem!! made me really look at my life and what could happen!
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Oh, yeah, I know that feeling of getting old. Funny how we think it will never happen to us. I look at older people now and think that they used to be my age. It seems like you ought to be able to fight it, this damn aging.
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This was a very unique poem i liked the repition and this lines alot "The poems you can’t love anymore
because they all point to one thing:
you can’t
you can’t
you can’t"
You used many original comparisions I have never thought of and the wording was very raw and straightforward. Good work -
Congrats on this gold.... I found this to be a rather strange piece... everything about it was so weird... the format, the word choice... it wasn't bad by any means... not quite my cup of tea but again not bad at all.
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Well, what to say here, WOW...a rather fantastic write, I quite enjoyed the entire read...but I must admit there were some things more than others that stuck out so well in my head...I read, and re-read and read it again lol....I even shared it with a cpl of friends I liked it so well...thank you for sharing this with us...
:The wasted time
and the wasted time wasted
with claw-in-the-belly boredom
*sighs* so many of us can probably related to this at some point in our lives....very well written piece... -
It's all already been said. Damn fine stuff, woman, as always. I really wanna make good on spending your points, but I've got nothing better to offer. S'perfect as is, IMO.
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I like this one more
because it contains more emotion than love for writing words
it's not time wasted
if it births this
its your wasted shared to eyes
it's Salome carrying Wallaert head's on a silver plate
at a funeral wedding
is Wallaert is no more long live the Salome
because she sways her hips on his agony's tune
it's one death per minute
pulse measured in vocals
its expiring to haunt
it's the circuit of muse through umbilical musing
from word to heart
from lip to sound
from petrified to sculpted
alive
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I love when poetry shows up in comments, as it just did in yours.
Thank you!
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mine shows up when the poem it touches a string on my emotion scale
means to me it's good
doesn't means though that if I just say nothing or just share my perspective on it through mundane “unpoetic” thesis or philosophical ambiguous prose doesn't raises my interest
I'm a moody person
I guess I appreciate what a person has to offer through their individuality
I only get mad when I see people trying to be like, or write like
If you don't like yourself there's nothing stopping you to reinvent yourself (that's what art is about after all: showing others what they fail to see or it's obscured by material features or their lack of interest)
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Yeah, I'd have no trouble giving gold to this one either. The verbiage accelerates in a very cool way . . . which I think makes the difference between a good poem and a not so good one. Lot's of things to relate to. I like the fuck scene & the betrayal of the body, the realization of your own brevity. Good job, zara.
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Thank you, Jaden
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You're welcome. You're a credible writer.
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":The wasted time
and the wasted time wasted
with claw-in-the-belly boredom
“should” whispered - no - screeched
just over the left shoulder, from the bookshelf
or the paper on the table
The motes are holding a party in the living room
Oh sure, they scatter like roaches
when someone comes through
but you can hear their subwoofers
rattling the boards oh yes
while you cheat on another puzzle."
oh the wasted time.......i have a closet full of wasted time. i really really liked this!!
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good job
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I wake up with small charlie horses in my legs now nearly every morning and think "I did not have these when I was younger..." then... "ugh! it's another sign..."
I could visualize so many verses in this as though I were walking through them. Another tremendous poem...
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wonderful...
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Thank you, Mary.
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When one reaches the end... they do indeed exhale. I felt I needed a cigarette after reading this.
This goes beyond any expectation that I had for this contest. This is just damn good poetry.
Yay!
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Thanks to you, Josh Wallaert and a conversation with cvillelisa - I was grateful to exhale, really. Thank you for your kind comments, and the trophy.
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it was...i dont know what to say about it...
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Best thing I've read here in months.
I realize now I only know the reflection of Zara.
Still waters run deep eh?
Really angry, almost a rant but not.
Form...?
Form follows content they say
whatever
it's sublime
I'm impressed
and not just about the 'suck the skin off the bone fucks'
no, the whole damn thing
Bravo
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I love how it starts off with kind of careful, meticulous things like the maps and the planning books then it sort of get this momentum and gushes out of control into the failing, the falling and the flesh flesh flesh (yes yes yes) and the years years years. Everything about the poem, its chimes and its rush and its nature made me feel panic when I read it - it stirs up this adrenalin, I love that feeling. It made me breathe a bit different to normal and mostly only Plath makes me do that when she's being stompy, or Murdoch when she's writing deaths in sea or young girls fucking professors. Jumping out planes and little tabs of E can create that kind of feeling pretty easily, but for writing to do it's something special I think. It's the feeling Lang creates when he shows Maria being chased up and down the stairs. I don't know how to describe the feeling other than panic but I'm not sure panic's the right word. It's sort of sex and danger and worry and regret and love and anger and dizziness all bashed into one sting. I don't know I don't know. I think I just mean the poem has a real physicality. It seems so vigorous and slapping. The repetition and alliteration making all the words skid into each other - loads of people are shit at alliteration - not here it just skids, it works like someone desperate to get control of the breaks before the crash or lucky escape. It's so free.
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I don't do alliteration - or any of those other sound things - it does me.
Thank you, ClaireyClaire; I think you are a very good reader.
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Well then it did you vigorously with slapping. How wonderful.
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deep contrasts and highly, superbly 'delinquent'
i like it even if i dont get it
[the fucks that is
]
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Zara
my don't get it quip was followed by the bit in brackets
I do 'get' your poem and was immersed in every word, I guess it was the British humour that fell very flat indeed :- i meant as in me personally don't get enough fucks!! purely in relation to the husband who wants one more line!
ffs!
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LOL, well there's me and my insecurity, eh?
Actually, first time I read your comment, that's what I thought, but then I wasn't sure. I got some to spare, you want some?
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mmmm.... can i pass on that offer?
insecurities about most things 'normal' are what make me write lol!
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What's to get? - that's a sincere question, as of course it's perfectly clear to me.
Thank you ElaineElaine.
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Nopey. just nopey.
not that it ain't good, cause it is. very modern. dressed up for the evening and all. lovely words to denote sounds.
politically correct, PC. nopey. it is the party line, that within thing. I don't feel so good. which of course none of us do, barring the husband of course--
Tesla performed an experiment, he was struck by a field from without, from somewhere else, maybe its not possible to translate...the feel of an exercise,
that which I can do, but the feel, the surrounding field does not stretch, the underlying emotive power is artificial, too wrapped in technique, the tricks of the modern trade, Madison avenue.
where is the brute power, the basic emotion?
Considered on that level, the poem is a contruct, a paen to vanity. the struggle is absent. Honestly,
the words are not masturbated stroked, vomited--
hence there is a base artificiality not consistant with the purpose of truth.
so, well nopey.
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We talked.
Fuck you and your nopey.
(I hope you take that right.)
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I hesitate to say I understand but really there's a resonance here for me as if some of it was pulled right from under me. I've been looking in the everything of everyday.
And I only looked at one answer to the puzzle, it was just a hint...
amazing how loud those motes can be
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Oh I think you do understand, perfectly.
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Hit me with a wet cod.. whilst i fan my fanny... this is just bloody gorgeous..
it's a bit young claireystuffstuff with MissZonfrigginheat attached... it's all lubblyjubbly
can I have an F for fuck me... and do me at the same time...
hurrah
in the company of wolverines
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Thanks GillyGill. Who's MissZon...? Cuz I wanna know!
Thank you - I can tell you read it, and when I look now, I may not have read it, had it not been me.
Whatever that means.
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i had to read it... firstly for how it stood out.. and still does
and MissZ.on .. onfrigginheat.. lolol but you can be be Miss ZonBonBon... if you like... 
hehehehhehehehehhe
Claire was right on first impressions this could look all jumbled, but each word is placed carefully, even though they flew out and the sounds are just bitingly good.. it works..
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Yay!
exhaling is good, it really is, and I love how you begin this with ...be rid of it.. (catharsis .. I suspect)
I can't do it, but I do wish I could - really .. REALLY wish - I could.
Love this, and I don't feel like being technical so I won't be
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Lisa said "brain exhale" and I realized that's what I needed, so I did. I didn't expect a poem - and maybe I didn't get one - but that is the point, right?
Yes, don't be technical. I don't want to hear it, not right now.
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Yep... it is
and neither do I...
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YAYYYYYYYYY
I am smiling. So wide I am having trouble breathing. hehe.
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yeah well thanks for the roar
nothin like a good shit, eh? -
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sometimes they smell the sweetest. odd how that works.
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