Ironically, we had met on a college campus.
Immersed under study of a peridoic table of elements, nature of a Helium molecule and all it attacts. Perhaps that's why I found the air to feel funny but I'll never know.
Being that I was studying Chemistry, I'll say, he just didn't have the kind of free electrons I was looking for.
Putting himself at my table as if he were just another part of the chart. Another element to study. Being hardly taller than me and ten years my senior, I dismissed him. Figured he would be better off as another unknown.
When you're twenty one and fully aware you are a gazelle with hair that poured a waterfall to the full of your back, there's a stable pride. No one mistakes a water nymph for a toad. Or a toad for prince in a reality of the twenty first century.
But irony continued, and he thought himself to be Napolean, only dark skinned. Any woman walking, was grazing on his lands.
I remember dumping my coffee on him.
I remember him calling me in the seven languages learned in the fifteen years since he'd last been to his homeland. A bedroom library pouring over with books in Arabic scriptures and Greek Plays, French Histories and African dialects in original languages I couldn't possibly read. Only a few in English, counting myself.
He told me he wanted to fuck me in French, in rusty Russian and some select dialect of a small village in Cameroon.
He told me he loved me in English
It may have been that I mistook his mind as an open sky where wind traveled to distant lands through. He being foreign, I found myself wanting to be a cloud that may travel somewhere, too. My only excuse was that youth makes fools of us and I liked how his tongue curved around words I was never going to add to my own vocabulary.
What I could actually comprehend was that we all want to be something more than we are. We all want to have wishes and wings.
But in the end I'm not even qualified to be the British libary. More the less Napoleon's residing monarch.
He treated me more as a book written in braille for children he would never have.
(childish & closed)
And that's as much as there was to this story~
A year and a half later I found myself half naked in heels wandering through snow outside his apartment, looking for scissors in the dark.
He had confessed my long hair had reminded him of a woman he had once loved that he could never conquer.
And so when he reached for the wet apex of my thighs in the dark of his bed,
I wrote the end on the ceiling;
'My body is a blank page,
he has transposed only as a substitute.'
Author notes
another reason I cannot stand men's tongues. liars.
In a list
A contest entry
- Anything, well... almost anything by still.she.waits.
900 points, ended March 26, 10 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 35 of 35
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I really like the range of emotion in this piece, you have written this in a really interesting way - and I love the languages part of it
the cutting hair scene was great, especially with the snow, the contrast imagery was lovely!
Polly
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Amazingly crafted.
This prose expresses your emotions very well, through the poetic devices, the words and the phrases.
Well done!
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The applause was ineviteable, even if I'm still weird about reading anything about sex [or men in general, really. It's sad] .. I really liked this. Your word choice and images have always settled nicely with me, even if it was to leave me feeling bitter like 'I know how THAT is'.
I can't relate to this poem, so I can't say much. But I know people who can.
anyway, as always, the ending is just perfect. I've always tried to pull off what you do with closing a poem, and just can't.
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"even if I'm still weird about reading anything about sex [or men in general, really. It's sad]"
This is awfully ironic coming from you, being that most of your writing is about sex and sour love. lol
The last line is usually irony. You've the right personality to use that as well. -
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A lot of people say my poems are about sex, and I don't usually see that.
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hmmmmmm..... is that so?
Your word choice is uh, pecular then... -
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can you give me an example if you can think of one?
because i can only think of one poem where i was actually talking about sex in it.
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oh my fucking god yes.
welcome to my favorite list.
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Thanx.
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Disjointed...but profound
ok,
1.Try to look at some of these lines: (just a couple examples)
Perhaps thats...
Putting himself..and Another element...
You could combine these lines, or rework but the point is they are not as powerful as thoughts or images seperately. There are many of these throughout.
2. Leave some things for the reader to find:
"But I'll never know
"I'll say
"I dismissed him
These are throughout also
These lines can be removed..the reader will be drawn in more if this is not just reformatted prose...let them move around in the spaces...get it?
3. Disjointed metaphors- you have a setting of the African wilds..You also have a subliminal of "lion" in his thinking all women were on his lands...the toad metaphor is out of place--find another animal from the same area as Gazelle..maybe wildebeast(see subliminal metaphor relating to the bedroom scene at the end? wild beast?)
4. I agree you need to flesh out the scissors scene...you skip over it when it is a pivotal point in the journey
5. Concrete poetry is hard to do, when you move words or italicise or bolden..the reader takes those cues and gives them meaning. So, some of the formatting, Why? Single lines, Why?
Ask yourself these things when you write and make sure they are conveying to the reader what you want or hope to get them to understand.
Now having said all of this, you can do what you want, but as a poet, readers expect more from us and if we put our stuff out there- then we have to deliver. This is a fantastic piece but a little bumpy. If that is what you want to convey you did it, but I get you wanted more. I always ask writers:
What do you want? To just nick the reader on the chin or knock them off their feet?
As always it's your piece and you do what you want.
Great work, keep writing and I look forward to finding more of your work.
IM
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Thanks for a properly constructed criticism. You'd be surprised how few people know how to give one correctly.
I'll take your words into consideration.
The only two things I'll address is that you say it's disjointed. That comes from not realizing that this is more designed like spoken word. Commas indicated a slight pause and a space indicates a greater pause and a slight change in focus. The rest is read continous.
And on point number 4, I will point out that that scene is not pivotal. As a guy, that might be where your greatest interest is, but is not the real point of the poem. The message was delievered in two lines there because I was making one point only. Either you understood or you didn't.
Either way, thanks for your fleshed thoughts. They were interesting.
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Wow :)
Really loved this, especially "He told me he loved me in English" Easier to lie in your own language, eh?
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Actually English was his seventh language, but you got the general gist of it. Thanks for stopping by.
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My god, what a title. waterful. Fix that. Anyway, I was expecting more vivid erotica with a title like that. I would milk the hot intelligent chick aspect more. Also, I would drag out the half naked scissor scene to let the audience feel her pain more keenly. I felt like you should have developed that more for the hooks of emotion to get a bit deeper before the close. The braille for kids line also seemed to suggest to me that he was an incapable lover, and I don't think that is what you were trying to convey. Good framework. The foreign languages were a nice touch. Great title. Flesh it out.
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Thanks for the catch on waterful. That's what I get for writing when I'm tired.
As for the title, just like any poem, the title is nothing more than a metaphor. That's why the 'intelligent chick' aspect was just minor. It's all minor and each statement makes a point and then I move on.
By the way, you understood the braille line just fine. And thanks for your thoughts. They were interesting.
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It was nothing special. The story was fine, though I look at it objectively (subjectively, I take offense), but it was written simply. It was nothing different than the millions of books on shelves already except, perhaps, plotline (though realistically, it was also cliche, even if true). Even so, it was not in any way a distasteful read. I did enjoy it, I suppose.
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Really, the next time you feel you 'take offense' try being straight about it, instead of pussy footing. I could give a fuck, but you're welcome to stand your ground.
And frankly, your poems about sky and dragons aren't particularly unique if we're playing "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours".
By the way, this isn't a 'plotline' in a story. It's prose. There's a difference. And if my life is cliche, ah well, that's the way it is. lol -
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Yes, must love those uncivilized, but I don't particularly care for civilization either. I write prose more often than poetry, and surely, plotline is not needed. But plot gives way to many things, such as depth and meaning.
Thank you for being shallow. My poetry is never just about 'sky' and 'dragons' but about many different things. They are usually metaphoric to my hatred, my love, and of course often delves in abstraction (which, of course, love is an abstraction). I never once said my poems were good, but I do try to make them as rich as possible so the reader gains more than a simple moral from it.
Hm... I suppose my life isn't actually all that cliche. Strange, I always thought my life was somewhat boring. Anyway, nothing wrong with writing for the sake of writing, but then you should never expect anyone else to truly enjoy it. -
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LOL No, poetry isn't supposed to run like a novel plotline with a conclusive begininng, middle and end.
By contrast, prose and poetry have an altered 'plotline' concept of a central idea, emotion or intent. If you don't understand the difference, I can't help you.
And I wasn't talking about whether dragons and sky were a metaphor, but as to whether or not they fall into the cliche. They do. You accused me, of that which you yourself are guilty. That, my dear, is a hypocrite. And while that doesn't rub me the wrong way, your tone did.
If you wish to offer critical critiques, I'm all for it. But learn how to give them. See the one above you by IronMaiden1236, or talk to another poet here by the name of Nam. Either of them, could assist you in your endeavors. -
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You are eithre being too emotional or you're not reading what I say correctly. I said plotline was NOT needed, for either, but it CAN add things, like depth and extra meanings. I never once said it had to have a concise beginning, middle, or end. (Though, in argument, novels aren't like that either: I've read novels that do not have a concise beginning, middle, or end.)
An emotion may fuel or be prominent in a poem, but the poem is very base and simple if it is only about that one feeling. That is fine, and many poems do not call for anything more. However, there is beauty in complexity and there is beauty in simplicity. I unfortunately found neither beautiful in yours, but that is my own opinion. Hm... If one sings about slaying a dragon to save a damsel in distress, that is cliche. If one sings about saving a dragon to slay a damsel, that is not cliche. You have not looked into my poem with enough depth to understand even if there are skies and dragons, the meaning are generally not cliche. I pride myself on that, I at least. Also, no 'tones' atre expressed on the internet, my dear.
If you want a critical critique and said you wanted one, I will surely pick apart your prose. But never once did you ask for it. And, generally, people who don't ask for it act like preteens who want their way when somebody does give it. So, I did not give a true critique. For the record, I love people picking apart my poems and telling me what was horrible, so I generally ask for it so it may happen. -
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"If one sings about saving a dragon to slay a damsel, that is not cliche."
Golly gee, mister, I sure hope you don't consider that an original idea. -
Keep preening and telling yourself that.
God, you love to talk, don't you? zzzzzz..... -
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Well, that is always a great way to ignore the debate, but since neither of us truly care about it, might as well let it die. Also, beng a writer, I like to write, regardless of what for. Sorry your attention span's not much greater than a poodle's.
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It's only a debate when the counter arguement is intelligent.
You're not there buddy. And I don't have the time.
Go play with someone else. -
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Says the intelligent woman who hopefully typo'd when spelling "argument." Thank you for the puerile insult.
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I'm not a liar.
Probably a schmuck, yes, but not a liar. If anything, I'm too honest.
And of course, your prose is always spot-on. I guess he thought he was an artist or something--what an ass. -
The bit about searching for scissors was incredible. So raw and vulnerable and bold. There is something exquisite about the pain that causes you to change for someone else, to attempt to hold on to someone you actually hate. Exquisite and heart-wrenching. Once again, you've penned something that no one else can compete with. Bravo!
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"We all want to have wishes and wings"
And in truth, don't we all have both? It is the distinction in up or down, that we fumble them up instead of wringing out their potential..
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i missed good prose and you!
i am the one with too many names and namechanges *hinthint*
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I have enough trouble remember people without cameleon's tripping me. ~sigh~
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"We all want to have wishes and wings"
that line touched me.
yeah.. what a jerk... that man. telling you your hair reminded him of someone he loved but couldn't conquer.
this was beautifully written.
i think i'll try prose again. or maybe not. i can't pull it off like you can.
this is beautiful
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Yes, being pursued only because my hair reminded him of someone else.
That asshole was definitely at that top of my list.
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You never ever ever ever ever ever (did I say ever yet?)
EVER
fail to impress me. I love when you prose your life in this way, it always makes me feel less alone!
\\He told me he loved me in English//
I absorbed this line in personal way that I can't articulate in any way except a gesture....
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I have never been fond of men's tongues either!
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imagine that...
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