thanks for the kind words, everyone!

Daniel, it is odd, surreal stuff. I don't deny it!

K, you seem to be on my vibration... :) ... though I might not be the narrator...

thanks, Mike, I'll consider it. I didn't do it for metrical reasons, but for grammatical. "is working" is like an ongoing condition in which the dog "waits" in simple present tense. But if "works" has a better rhythm I would consider it.

We met at a crowded Irish pub
with poorly arranged seating.
Your head was breaching from under the table.
It was the only way you could get to the chair.
You spilled my wine and I complained bitterly,
but never drank the rest.

A wide shaft of hair covered a third of my face.
Was this a stunning work of fashion
or the first leak of darkness
from a mind that was breaking?
Your sorrows were circus bears
ballroom dancing, and I could hear myself cackle
like a Faberge bookend hitting the floor.

I went home with you.
I was afraid to leave someone
who was so good at nostalgia.

Headlights from the street
reflected into your apartment
like fairy dust upon the dust.
Smoothly the conversation
set me on your vinyl couch.
Another country whispered through your voice,
interrogating my checkpoints. I was devastated
by your cup of tea.

A month in your shower curtain
showed me Buddha, Kong Fuzi,
and your face with a glowing nose
(you called it “idiosyncretic”).
It was made from the same plastic
used in sentimental photo albums
to corrode the images of the dead.

A beautiful day reminded me
I had to get back to my ship,
by which I mean the ship I am paid to clean.
You said it was a poetic injustice.
You said I could never escape
because you would hear the clatter of my heels
against a sidewalk of tarred together pieces of me.

Syl, I have mixed feelings about the comma... I could go either way on it... the grammar of that sentence is a bit long and tortuous, which is fine as long as it doesn't gt out of control. thanks for pointing it out!

Daniel, sounds like you're really getting my poem and I'm very happy about that. the passive voice I think is a bit of critique of this obsessed artist... maybe he's flirting without really taking it on or honestly feeling it... at least that was my reasoning

Critter, maybe it's the artist's assumption that the dog doesn't comprehend, surely the dog comprehends something, but is above the details of the artist's process and work.

RC, I can't resist those juxtapositions, thank you!

Thanks for the thoughtful reads, everyone!

what an array of beautiful and terrible. the fingers cracking on guitar strings. all the things i read on the wikipedia page for carbolic acid. and the butterflies beyond.

what songs you give us.

The dog at the door doesn't scratch or make any noise;
she waits. The Crab Nebula expands, the Marshall Islands
lose another well, the religions of the world melt a little
in their mirrors. She lies peacefully, unseen. The man
is working in undisturbed ferocity through a tunnel
of ideas. A shadow of jealousy crosses his path,
madness and distrust are flirted with, his eyes
grow like train headlights, utterly unhindered
by any dog at any door, however perfectly she might
curl into a bruised sky or a laundry bin, no matter
how similar little black dogs are to punctuation
they will not pause or contain or cease him,
will not exaggerate or interrogate his moment
crisping into solid thought, heard in its brute birthing
by precise, uncomprehending, compassionate ears.

I still like wipes

For me this worked without knowing much background. It was quite simple for me to think about how time has moved you from the garden to the hospital and how the Ladies have turned into nurses. With this in mind, the tattoo/needle connection is crystal clear.

It may not have been precisely what you meant, but it worked very well for me.

I like the rich but not inflated diction. My only two notes are that I completely do not understand the dash in line 1. isn't the wind fanning her dress? If not, then you have a dash followed by a sentence fragment. But really you clear the whole thing up just by removing that dash after her.

My second note is the comma in line 10. This should be a period. These are two separate sentences and they deserve to be sentences. Let them be so.

when you say "Eiffel" instead of "the Eiffel Tower" and "yet" when "or" would do, I feel like you're hanging poetic ornaments on your voice, distracting me from the real voice, the real feelings, of the piece.

"I remember climbing the steps of the Eiffel Tower: I hated being out of breath in Paris."

To me, that is the poem hiding inside your poem. What a gem. Everything else flows from that, whether it comes from you or the reader.

your first verb is "wipes." I realize that you and I are "separated by a common language," but for me this verb has a strong connotation of cleaning, like a window wiper or a dust rag. And then later you say not just "purity" but "cleanliness." She is nothing so much as clean fresh sheets on the bed... ahhhhh... for me this kind of imagery is that of the married man and not the young knight. maybe that's why I find the poem so effective.

A,

I may or may not accede to your further comments.


W, D,

I love what you're pulling from the poem. The story is true but full of metaphor nonetheless. And yes it was a poignant moment, that felt less odd when it happened but seems so odd now. Really only 18 years later did it suddenly seem odd enough to write about.

IMHO, your changes to A2 are still in the spirit of a villanelle. But to repeat "spread," that is a cardinal sin and sorry I missed it.

Zoe!

I hope the spirit moves you to poetry and you share it with us

this feels perfect up until "buried" ... I wonder if you could even end the poem on that word. After that word, there are no surprises. Your ending loses its punch because at the very beginning you say she "doesn't know" so you've already excluded that possibility.

Now I'm feeling a bit obtuse... yes, clearly you are talking about a storm "excavating" like an archeologist.

With this in mind, it's your "Set the every day on fire" that becomes a mixed metaphor. Maybe if you use a lightning image here instead...

this is actually pretty good, which is a big compliment from me for a villanelle. But I think the repetitions work well for a light piece.


My only suggestion is for punctuation... That's how things spread! Should be more like an interjection. This shows your own American bias and fear about germs, providing a good counterpoint to the main point.

the meter is good, iambic pentameter without being sing-song.

Cleo and Psyche, I like the allegory you've pulled from this poem. I was aware that more than one interpretation is possible of the "circus" that is a failed marriage.

Thanks to this forum's great readers, I've changed the first line and hopefully cleared things up.

This is a joy to critique. A great poem with a few problems, perfect for a workshop!

First, why it's good: you do the hard thing, describe a complex landscape and bring it to life. And now, a few suggestions for improvement:



as I said, you did the hard work, making a picture with words. I hope my comments help.

I love the sonics. This poem blows like a storm. My only quibble is that when a comma comes at the end of the line, you leave it off... but punctuation seems as subjective as line breaks to poets, so I won't harp on it.

The only other problem I had is with the "dig" metaphor. It just doesn't fit with the storm metaphor at all.

This was my ex-mother-in-law and it is a true story, otherwise I wouldn't have dared make it up!

Thank you for pointing out how unclear that is!!! That is invaluable. I never had kids so that possible reading didn't even occur to me. duhhhhh

The "I" in the poem is hard to place. Seems more a moviegoer than an actual witness. Sounds like a criticism but that might actually be the whole point, or at least the poetry. A strange, almost funny, cynical retelling of a Biblical tale.

Glad to see you here, Heather!

I'd been a bit stuck myself, but now some poems are escaping the cell block of my mind

Hail, Mike! Glad I can keep reading your poems!