You Must Accept (via A)
You must accept that’s who he really is.
You must accept you cannot be his
unless he is yours. No compromise.
He is a canvas on which paint never dries;
a clay that never sets, steel that bends
in a breeze, a melody that when it ends
no one can whistle. He is not who
you thought. He’s not. He is a shoe
that walks away: “I will not go where you
want to go.” “Why, then, are you a shoe?”
“I’m not. I have the sole of a lover
but don’t know what love is.” “Discover
it, then.” “Will I have to go where you go?”
“Sometimes.” “Be patient with you?” “Yes.” “Then, no.”
You have to hear what he is telling you
and see what he is; how it is killing you.
Kate Light
unreliable narrator said,
November 5, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Damn.
anatomyofadress said,
November 5, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Um, RIGHT?
Also pertinent is last night’s post about judgy-ness toward “funny” poems, which came about because we talked about an extended metaphor poem that was HILARIOUS (sort of?) at schoolz yesterday and I felt all jerky, like, wow, I just hate it because it’s an extended metaphor….Then this morning I read this and went OKAY now this one works — though of course this poem has PATHOS so again, maybe the probs is the HILARITY, I’d much rather sit in the dark with a jam jar of whiskey and a cat power record on loop–
unreliable narrator said,
November 5, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Ha ha ha! Now THAT is FUNNY. (The jam jar and the loop.)
You know what’s worse than “funny” poems? Poems about wizards. You know what I think I should not have to read, in a forms class at a top-twenty MFA program? POEMS ABOUT WIZARDS. (With golden magical French horns, and cartwheels amidst the spring flowers of purple and mauve and all kind of fanciful shit like that. And no it was not ironic in the least.)
anatomyofadress said,
November 5, 2009 at 6:32 pm
We have a DRAGON FICTION club, but it is (almost) entirely ironic.
unreliable narrator said,
November 5, 2009 at 6:44 pm
And you don’t have it in your forms class!
unreliable narrator said,
November 5, 2009 at 11:56 pm
And so PS then in today’s class, we’re all dealing quite straightfacedly and programmatically and, I think, fairly respectfully, with an undergraduate pantoum which contains several appalling lines, worst among them being, “I giggle hidden under covers of balloons.” And we’re doing pretty darn well, too, we cynical third-years, suggesting to the author how hard, nay, impossible it is to use words like “giggle” and “balloons” in a contemporary poem, without hot buttered irony–we’re all being very gentle and sensitive and serious and everything, right up until the moment, that is, when an unnamed male colleague leans over to me and says under his breath, simply: “Wizards.”
At which point I am so taken off guard that I literally really never did think I would stop laughing. Which made R., who was sitting on the other side of me, start laughing, and then I was trying so hard not to laugh even though tears were running down my face that I actually started crying, because of the great overwhelming Everything, and then I think the poor balloon kid probably thought we were making fun of his poem, and the wizard lady, who’s like sixty-five, started looking seriously huffy and fierce.
Which, who could blame her? It was Bad. There wasn’t even a way to apologize.
unreliable narrator said,
November 5, 2009 at 11:59 pm
PPS metaphors can be all well and good, until they go horribly, horribly wrong.
elizabeth said,
November 6, 2009 at 10:35 pm
You know what’s worse than “funny” poems? Poems about wizards. You know what I think I should not have to read, in a forms class at a top-twenty MFA program? POEMS ABOUT WIZARDS.
omg. hahahahahaha.
dominique said,
November 10, 2009 at 3:35 am
What my broken heart needs.
anatomyofadress said,
November 10, 2009 at 3:15 pm
And mine, perpetually