Scopolamine Lecture: Prolix

[I seem to be annotating these poems as I'm posting them. A little context, a little storytelling help me feel like this isn't just an exercise of living in the past. I also think it's the nervous chatter of embarrassment.

As I've said before, many of these older poems are emotionally strange for me now. I admit I have trouble telling how meaningful they might be to other people. I see the patterns, the underlying references, but I don't know if other people can see them. The problem with my poetry is that I'm often busy expounding on my personal mythology and touchstones, rather than attempting to adjust to the sensibility of the outside reader. Like dreams, my poetry has often functioned as my way of sorting out my thoughts and emotions. I suspect much of it comes across as quite cryptic and/or shockingly graphic.

I advise readers to approach my poems like bits of fiction. I often write about situations and characters which are completely imaginary and often surreal. It would be a mistake to read too much of my personality into them.

This brings me to the following poem. I'm a little unsure of the date but probably 1981-82. The tone may come across as callous yet strangely light. Often the key to my poems is the title. The title will provide a setup. Another way to look at it is the poem is a dictionary entry. The title will be the word entry of a dictionary and the poem as a whole will be the definition. Or maybe that's bull.

There's a saying that writers are liars. I talk about getting to some underlying truth but mostly I puts the pretty words together. Shiny, shiny! Oh, sad! Angry! All of this and more. (grin)]

Scopolamine Lecture: Prolix

laughing as we found you broken on the beach
like an unstuffed doll, spewing forth ocean smells
with a slight whiff of rancid grease on your breasts.
you were such a good dancer at one time,
connecting discontinuous images into stories
hewn like almost-forever in our memories.

i once felt your hot touch on my neck when
we were both warm bodies in the sunshine.
the picnic had been finished for some time
as we read sections from giraudoux's electra
while sipping wine with a very full body.
we might have made love that afternoon
but for our talking about it.

there is a gnarled tree overhanging the gully
where a stream sometimes flows and you once sat.
the ravine was dry the day we all went
to visit it in honour of your viscous memory.
we stood next to the tree recalling your face and,
giggling gleefully, we pushed it into the gully.

i remember asking you one evening why you
had never blown dandelions across the fields.
you looked at me with eyes mascara dark and
said: 'who am i to preempt the blowing winds?
they have their uses as i have my own.'
i asked you what function you fulfilled and
your eyes left me, fleeing into the green distance.

we couldn't help applauding when
you finally resurrected, taking
half bows with a curious smile.
i saw deep in your eyes
a gleam of faraway lands i
was destined never to see,
and my heart shattered.

© 2006 wordlackey for php