Here is tonight's poem from the Tearle vault of vintage efforts. It was written, my records tell me, exactly three years ago this Wednesday. Enjoy.
Key Phrases
As one door opens, another closes. Life is no prison.
Locked out. Locked in. It sits to reason.
The world's my oyster, sickly, most
of it unpalatable, waste.
You were the apple of my eye, rotten to the core -
a peach, a stone for a heart. A real dead wire.
My thoughts are narrower now than the sky,
could fit inside a tumbler of whisky
or a bottle of meths. The world, a stage:
no one's who they say they are. I'm third stooge
from the right, my interval a mid-life crisis.
Play the game with me. It's noughts and crosses.
In my (humble of course)opinion the use of sayings emphasises the loss that is being felt- that life is reduced to a series of hackneyed statements because you cannot accurately pin down your thoughts- so life is reduced to a child's game, which as a reader I am sure you do not actually believe but are saying it with anger?
ReplyDeleteWould love to know if any of this is remotely close to what you intended!
Thanks so much for your comment, Katy. And I think you understand the poem better than I do myself! :) I think what was at the back of my mind when I wrote it (three years ago I know, but still lingering in memory) was the sort of emptiness punctuated with anger that you identify. A series of bitter punchlines, if you like. Or a bit like T. S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men' (which also ends with a child's game of sorts, and a subversion of a hackneyed phrase). The invitation to play a child's game at the end, indeed, is supposed to be a sort of admission that there is nothing else worth doing, so we might as well play something vacuous (noughts) and anger-inducing and/or negating/negative (crosses). The way you put it was much better, though, and made it sound like a better poem - so I'll say no more about it. But thanks again for your thoughts :)
ReplyDeleteOli
PS Have you thought about returning to literary criticism? If you can see into my own nonsense so well then there's a career waiting for you! :)
that world seems a million miles away after 6 years away from it. TBH I don't think I'm intelligent enough to take it much further than my degree- my grammar is poor and phrasing is clunky.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should revisit it? (I tried doing a creative writing class but the tutor was just awful!)
Also, should add the shakespeare ref and "interval" nod nicely to life being a "play" which marries nicely with "playing" a game.
ReplyDeleteWell spotted - again I hadn't noticed I'd done that! Proves that writers (even middling ones like myself) put more into their work than even they themselves are aware :)
ReplyDeleteAs for grammar and phrasing, even if that's true, I think that's just because you've been away from essay writing for a while. Anyone'd be bound to be a bit rusty! I've been on a few creative writing evening classes myself and I found them mostly useless, so I can sympathise there. You should keep up your blog - I really enjoyed reading what you wrote, and your ability to see things in my poor poem that I hadn't even noticed myself proves you have an aptitude! Grammar and phrasing take a poor second place to that sort of insight anyway :)
But I'm just making the comment that I was impressed - I hadn't expected my poem to get any comments, let alone such a perceptive and insightful one. So thank you!
Okay, here I go with a very amateur opinion and after reading your comment conversation with Katy, even more nervous!
ReplyDeleteI actually love the fact that the title leads you straight into the theme of the poem; you are using common, even cliched phrasing to bring out the deeper meaning of your feelings.
Your feelings are wounded as you write and the use of what people would envision as trite phrases gives a harsh starkness to the words. I do really like the contrasting use of opposite phrases 'apple of my eye', 'rotten to the core'. It shows the sweetness of the past and the pain of the current.
Lastly, I do like the rhythms of the poem, it reads well out loud which is something I like to do with poetry, my 18th century Jane Austen inner persona. The terse 'A real dead wire.' comes across as a dead, cold phrase as you say the poem and to me sums up the whole theme of the verses.
I really like this poem, its sense of loss and pain are real, you should be proud of this. I have tried to write occasionally but will stick to my own blog for donating to kids charities as I do not write as well as this......
Thanks so much for your incredibly insightful and sensitive observations. I really cannot convey how lovely it is to have this poem of mine so acutely analysed. :)
ReplyDeleteI think you're spot on in everything you say, and you're right about the clash of the past with the present - something that, again, I suppose I must've been doing unconsciously, as I didn't notice it as I was writing, but you're right - it's definitely there in that couplet (or half-couplet I suppose). Thanks so much for taking the time and trouble to comment, and for saying you like the poem - I should add that nobody starts out as a good writer and however you feel you write at the moment, keeping it up does, I think, make a real difference (it took me a few years to get to the stage where I could even write a poem like this, such as it is). So if you like to write, in addition to your blog :), then I say give it a go. I find writing incredibly liberating (even when it goes wrong, as it frequently does!).
Thanks again for your kind words and insights :)