oh… duh… LOL
Poetry / Head Count
It must get crowded in the bedroom
She reminds him of another
He reminds her of someone too.
So now we have a spectral foursome,
or maybe even more, because everyone here knows
the shadows have shadows of their own.
But we aren’t done counting yet.
A whole pantheon of angels and devils
join our revels
Guilty pleasure’s well fed little imps crowd the scene
always under foot, striking at the worst moments.
Jiminy Cricket’s cousins, the angels of conscious
looking half starved and disreputable in the corners,
their tattered wings make the only noise that gives pause.
How do we breathe with the air so full of presence?
Where is the one force whose hand is all any of us really want?
Since he is blunt, blatant and unwilling to accept excuses
we just aren’t Eros’s type of people.
We’re on the wrong side of the tracks…
Fucking snob
The angels keep inviting him
But he always loses the number,
then makes his own convenient excuses
when we see him the next day and try to convince him, and ourselves,
what a great party he missed.
Maybe he just doesn’t like group sex.
R. Lowry
12/14/06
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Quite enjoyable “Jimminy Cricket’s cousins, the angels of conscious” did you mean conscience like as in morality or as in conscious like it being awake as above. Either fits really. I like the breaks in paragraphs they are used quite well as are the metaphors and you’re ability to tie earlier metaphors into later ones -i.e. angels devils crickets all, in this case, tie into imagery about wings and also ideas about morality- this creates flow even if you want to play with meter. I thought it was good but the imagery used is very common in poetry I’ve read. This is partly because of the power and religous nature of angels and devils as they tie into ideas about life death and perfection however the metaphors I liked best were the unexpected ones in a slightly dark poem like this -jimminy cricket- so you might want to look at some stranger connections like that.
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nicely done , is this some kind of potetnail spirtual gangbang. Its pretty deep stuff and a bit complicated but I do like it
This is great stuff. All the more so because what with all the Eros-related poetry hereabouts, this is the first treatment I’ve seen of this particular subject. So kudos for artfully covering new ground.
Found almost nothing to quibble with, except perhaps…did you mean ‘conscience’ instead of ‘conscious’ in stanza 3?
Personally, I think that “fucking” should never be said in a poem, unless you’re Bukowski. He’s the only one I ever thought could get away with that.
But I enjoyed this piece anyway. The beginning seems incongruous with the second half because you head in a direction that I completely didn’t expect. Why is it that Eros doesn’t like you just because he is “blunt, blatant and unwilling to accept excuses”? That was an unusual statement.
I also wish you had put so much of a narrative voice in it and the direct addressing of the audience, like in the lines “But we aren’t done counting yet” and “How do we breathe with the air so full of presence?” It really bothered me. I’d rather, in this case hear the story, than to be sucked into it. Just stick to the two and the metaphorical others.
~georGIA
I liked this piece a lot. Actually found it quite amusing – not in the belly busting way but in the way that a good comic can turn real life experience on his/her audience and show them the absurdity in everyday life. I think you do really well in the communication breakdown of a relationship and how everyone and everything else is blamed for the demise of that relationship – the last line really punctuates that sentiment with the pair trying to covince themselves that there’s nothing wrong. A+!
The moral to me is a bit clouded. Then again, I like works with moral. But I do like your referance to Jiminy Cricket, a character we all relate to is some form or fasion.
This is a very unique idea and therefore you are well on your way to having an amazing and publishable poem. There are some parts that could be changed in my opinion and these parts are:
I think the poem starts to falter at the second stanza. The first stanza sets the scene and establishes the theme of the poem quite nicely but then you introduce the image of angels and devils which just seems easy to me (for lack of a better word). Angels and devils are an overused dichotomy and you originality starts to pale here. I’m sure you can think of your own more unique juxtaposition. I’m also not really getting the jiminy cricket reeference and honestly all it makes me think of is disney which seems out of place in this particular poem.
This was a nice piece to read, thanks.
This is good, very good infact. I love this bit;
‘But we aren’t done counting yet. A whole pantheon of angels and devils join our revels’
This poem is filled with thought provoking stanza’s that just make the mind excite, I didn’t want it to end!
This poem must get published, it would be a travesty if it doesn’t.
Thank you
I need more.
I was really into this piece until I reached that fourth stanza--it was both jarring (not in the right way) and felt like someone shoved it inside the poem forcefully. That said, I will try to dissect it best I can… First of all I didn’t like the questions in the fourth stanza. You do such a glorious job of careful and vivid description of these two lovers in the first three stanzas that the sudden introduction of the questions, specifically the change in perspective from third person (the two lovers) to first (asking how “we” i.e. “I” breathe air so full…) was a bit jarring. I think the second question of the force and the one hand (I know you are linking it to Eros) but I really felt like it could be cut. It’s really a dangerous thing when anyone surmises that there is something out there that ANY (i.e. all) of us want. That’s a truth you usually have to let the horse drink for himself, so to speak. Alluding to a figure like Eros is a good move here in the context of your poem, but to follow it with such a cliche like “wrong side of the tracks?” Your following line should refrence more of the historical context of the figure of Eros, perhaps establishing a deeper rendering of how these two lovers and their wayward desires link to Eros. The “Fucking snob” comment? Sounds a little too opinionated--like I said, you did such a great job on objective description in the first three stanzas, why shove opinion down the reader’s throat? You were already leading the horse to water so well. It does work as a great punchline perhaps, but the “wrong side of the tracks” line preceding it is not a strong enough setup for the joke. All-in all I would cut down the fourth stanzas by a line or two and definitely lose the “tracks” reference and then this piece would flow quite nicely. Good luck.
December 17, 2006
Deleted User
the ending, definitely unexpected. judging from the following lines:
“The angels keep inviting him
But he always loses the number,
then makes his own convenient excuses”
i clearly did not think the poem would end on the note it ended on. it kept my attention and held it from start to finish. your lanauge is mordern with a hint of “old school” to it, just a pinch (if you will). i appreciated this. thanks for sharing.
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