I want to stroke the faces of strangers on the tube.
They’ve got skin like modern art,
all texture and bluff. Like guts on the surface,
stringy and pressable. I want to touch them.
I want to kiss them good-night.
I’d tell them stories as I did, if they’d tell me mine.
I love them. I love their dry skin,
like it’s about to fall apart.
Their stomachs, soft and round
or crushed right against their bones.
Their flashlight eyes that notice
or don’t notice me.
When one of them gets off
it’s a loss,
it’s an emptiness.
It’s lucky that they’re always replaced so fast.
I want to run my fingers down their arms.
I want to dance with them,
I want to hug them till they bleed.
But I won’t, I can’t,
so I’m touched inside my head instead,
while outside
lights carve up the darkness,
and disappear.
Author notes
Just in case you're giving preference to new poems it seems only fair to tell you that this is actually a prewrite. I never posted it cos I entered it in a competition and I was worried about plagiarism, or the judges finding it on the internet and thinking I'd stolen it. But it's all judged now so...here it is.
The city's London.
A contest entry
- Cities with a metro by unknownpleasure.
400 points, ended January 21, 2009, 12 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 6 of 6
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Silver
Congratulations on the silver, and no worries at all it was a pre-write - if I wasn't open to them I wouldn't have allowed them in! Was the city really London, or was that just to fulfil the contest requirements? I liked the use of the abstract here, and this had a style unique among contest entrants. Only thing that strikes me as awkward in this piece, and I guess it was intentional is the use of mine at the end of the first stanza. It just strikes me as a little non-sensical. Anyway, thanks for entering, and again - well done on the silver - you had to overcome my natural inclination to be as arseholey as possible to fellow metro dwellers... -
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Well, I guess in the poem itself it really could be anywhere; it's not that specific - but I live in London & I was thinking of the underground here when I wrote it. Thank you very much for the contest & the helpful criticism.
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congrats for the silver!! were you at FYP 2008? i recognised the poem! i love it, it's really understated and true.
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yeah I was! *is somewhat flattered to have had her poem recognised* were you there? I'm glad you like the poem
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yeah i was! i thought it looked familiar then read in your AN it was in a competition and put two and two together... i got top 100, it was a really nice evening how was the retreat?
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congrats on top 100
haven't been to the retreat yet; it's in feburary, but I'm really looking forward to it.
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