To a woman enviable: an enumerated critical recapture and corresponding poetic defense. My gift to you, curious pantheist. The present. How sad even here I cannot conquer self-obsession. How very right you are. How very right indeed.
***
Accusations:
1. overrated beauty
2. rude cultural savant
3. pretty bitch
"You are just as beautiful and smart as you think you are. You just grossly overestimate how much we all care."
*****
KIM. A Poem.
If a woman offered me a trade - existence -
I'd trade existence, deliver her assumed
convictions. To a doorstep doomed threshold-
less, nobody opens, therefore nobody
could claim the present. Past lives - you've
had several, I understand - dissolved with
a solution of time and taste. Yet nothing
solved unwritten words - unwritten words
remain unerased.
Woman, I'd bask in the fuzz of your stable
love. Men they leave me, yours stay freely.
My disposition's dark where yours is cheery.
My beauty chokes without depression, my
IQ strands me from convention. As a novelty
I'll be dismissed, whereas you forever
enjoy the gift of...not having people abandon
you when enigmas are lifted.
To reveal what? A baseless woman without
so much as anything to do but
make up lies and
present them true.
You win, Kim. You won.
I'd trade with you.
but you'd shun the
chance to be me. Rather
see me exposed, sans
fancy clothes and pretentious
prose. Deceptive simple
rhyme scheme, a dream I
had was reduced to
no dream.
Monday, January 11, 2010
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9 footnotes:
It wouldn't be me if I included pomp in my response:
You're an amazing writer. No one will ever write something that anyway relates to me as well as you just did.
"Be careful what you pretend to be. You are what you pretend to be" -Kurt Vonnegut
touché
We hope you're being factitious...the point wasn't to compare aesthetic or intellectual qualities. You know that neither prevent nor promote happiness.
We envy your ability to connect to the world.
By admitting several comments up that neither beauty or intelligence prevent nor promote happiness, I thought to have made my position clear. Evidently this claim has been overlooked, even though it is the position you take as well.
You are very dedicated to erecting a comparison and this is something I wanted to avoid. I implore you to reconsider the second stanza of this poem ironically. The ellipses at the end, followed by the obvious break in meter, was plotted in this manner in order to situate the entire stanza as a sort of joke. A hyperbole of your accusations, if you will. I am dramatizing your perception of me.
I am unsure how you feel about this poem. I envisioned it first as an apology (stanza 1), then as a re-imagining of the situation between us that bothered you so much. If you were expecting something else, I apologize.
Narrative is vital to my existence. To defend (or explain) my worldview at this point would probably only offend you, and perhaps reinvigorate your urges to offer even more suggestions about how to improve my social and mental life. You seem to still be quite hurt by some of the things I said, and if it requires a whole new series of accusations to temper some of that hurt, please do not hesitate to reveal even more ways in which I am an inadequate person. To be clear, I do not say this sarcastically.
Fair enough. The allusions and devices I've employed here do not readily spell out the m-e-a-n-i-n-g as clearly as I'd assumed. Oh well. At least you found another one.
However, most of the claims you have been making about my mental disposition have been your own. This should probably register as insulting, but fortunately my heart's armor is composed of contrary evidence and enduring patience.
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