It would have been easier if your heart had stopped...
instead, it only stopped loving.
It would have been easier to grieve surrounded by neighbors and town -
instead, I bitterly weep alone.
It would have been easier to explain Death's implacable grasp
instead of Daddy's no-shows and skipped visitations.
It would have been easier to contemplate a cold marble marker
instead of your chill marble mask.
It would have been easier when you terminated our relationship,
if instead of exchanging lawyers' numbers,
we had exchanged
hearts.
Author notes
Prompt: Write me a piece using anaphora; emphasize word(s) by repeating them at the beginning of each line.
A contest entry
- Show me Anaphora! by chordphrute.
900 points, ended September 28, 2008, 7 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 10 of 10
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I like it
It is simple, clean and beautiful.
It really shows the longing of relationship with your dad
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you captured the pain of divorce and disappearance of "Dad" all too well in this write. Very sad.
Should "chill" be chilled"?
Also in the last stanza "if when" together sounds awkward. Can you get away with just using "when?"
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Thank you for the most helpful suggestions!
I edited the last stanza, and reconsidered "chill," but still like it. Divorce is sometimes necessary, but always brings pain--particularly so when there are children involved. Feelings of abandonment are too often confirmed in fact.
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This is an excellent write Mirthryl
Well done on you trophy xxx
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It would have been easier if your heart had stopped...
instead, it only stopped loving.
What a great start to a fantastic write. I was captivated from start to finish. Brilliant! Congrats on the bronze! -
This was very good. The anaphora was wonderful without being boring, a marvelous feat. Each stanza expands your theme, building to the last word. Love, grief, children, coldness, divorce...you pulled it all together in a quiet sort of way rather than a screaming sorrow. The painful resignation is in some ways more heart-rending than hysteria. Quite the write.
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I love this! It's wonderful. Very powerful. A perspective that I wasn't even really expecting based on the title alone. I absolutely love the line 'It would have been easier if your heart had stopped...
instead, it only stopped loving.'
That was definately my favorite part. Wonderful job. This is great.
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What a powerful write!
Wishing you all the best
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I like this very much, in the way it meshes two separate anaphorai and almost suggests a third by the way other repetitions creep in and compliment the theme - nothing in the rules against using other devices, but do watch out for them taking the reader's eye of the driving anaphora! Clever stuff, and, as ever, good to read.
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You have such a way of bringing out truth. The contrasts here are amazing and really strike hard on the reader. That marble mask was especially frightful. I know people like that. Sad, scary to be so cold.
Excellently done.
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