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Posted by: saore May 15 10, 20:00

The Appetite


Oh rising Lord of broken mirrors,
you are cheap paper towels
on wholesale, secret appurtenance
subjugating veil and breath
inside my concatenated purdha—alms
beggar with the tempestuous training sword,
cut-throat assassin of my visibility
shifting the clarities of my appetite
with whatever it is you crave
on the hour of my every hour.
Your steel indecision fans
the morning-glories of my bruised
and discolored skin.
This is the chaos you provoke!
It crystallizes into a myriad of
ignorant parakeets gawking
at my silk stockings, the ones
you desire but are afraid
to buy in public.

Posted by: Eisa May 30 10, 14:50

Hi Sergio

I must apologise from the start that I can't quite grasp the complete meaning of this - but I do like it and find it fascinating and well wtitten.

Please could you help me understand ( I am a dimwit!)

Snow

The Appetite

Posted by: saore May 30 10, 15:29

Eisa I guess I wrote this for my mother. Once my stepfather took the plate she was eating from her hands and said she was too fat. It was at the beginning of her 5 year illness (she had a fungus in her lungs that eventually killed her). I was furious and I let him know I was furious. But now all that anger came out in this poem. Thank God I was not born a woman (although I think I would have loved to have given birth) because I would probably be in jail. LOL :+) Thank you!

Sergio

Posted by: Eisa May 30 10, 15:57

QUOTE (saore @ May 30 10, 21:29 )

Posted by: saore Jun 6 10, 05:26

thank you Snow, thank you. I have been studying Sylvia Plath and I have realized a writer has to skin himself every time s/he writes a poem. I guess I have found no better teacher than Sylvia Plath to show me that. Most of the time I have no idea what she is writing about, her poetry is not easy. I have to read the notes and do research to be able to understand her poems. I read the complete works of different poets on a monthly base. But Sylvia Plath has a place in my heart with Pablo Neruda, Tagore, and a few others. To me she is gigantic.

Sergio

Posted by: Daniel Barlow Jun 6 10, 07:15

From the description you gave to Snow I can see what the poem is about or where it is sourced from.

I found the 'oh......' and use of advanced language a bit of a mood killer in getting into this, I mean I know a guy who writes words and words and words you've never heard of and not that poetry or the poet should be limited to common things but generally I'm a bit distrustful of it because I don't or haven't read a lot of poetry from famous authors that was constructed in that manner. Generally the ideas are complex but the language, for the most part, is fairly simple.

I liked the transitions in this, from alms to beggar, assassin to shifting appetites, steel indecision/bruising to parakeets etc... the transitions are the most pleasing aspect of the poem for me. However it comes across as a bit intellectual rather than with feeling, and the key would be to employ both aspects but I think the greater focus should fall on delivering a gut punch. I've been struggling with writing recently because I've been exploring what you might call eureka moments as they relate to emotional turmoil, however they are coming out a bit dry, saying with the head, but going unpaired with what the heart is feeling. I post them, look at them, and then delete them, because they don't compel me to think, 'this is what it is.'

db