my heart's in the lacquer box

i broke the seashell eggs that once were a gift
from you to me. then i picked up the pieces. I put
them in the blender: ground them tiny and sharp
till they cut, till they were like tiny puzzle pieces
that would not match but could be forced into
some alien shape, some image that wasn’t just
skewed circles upon circles. i have those pieces
i need to use and these sounds i need to drown,
and for tonight at least i have you.

i guess you’ll do.

watch closely, lady: i’m setting tiny shells along
an outline of your body. it’s the way you look
when you’re lying under the red lights; the curve
of your neck bent under the weight of your tears
and the ripple of your spine under the bedcovers
is an image i do not want to lose, ever, and i find
you are beautiful like this: so beautiful in eggshell
white under the faded film of raw lacquer and the
cinnabar-powder scattered across your shoulders.
don’t move, don’t breathe; let me oxidize you black
on gold with broken strings of painted sunlight and
thin copper plaques threaded through the calligraphy
of your eyes. under my brush you are forever a
work-in-progress, a succession of sea-smoothed
sighs and songs written in a language even loss
will not forget, and i’m working, alright, won’t you
stop talking? look how the lines of you sink into the
wood; how they spell out names of distant ghosts,
how they sketch out a history of murmurs and grief.
when we’re gone, all of you will still be here,
mother-of-pearl iridescence and resinous strength
that’ll last longer than any flesh or body. and i know
how you love history, with its cortege of tombs and
testaments, its smooth artifacts and mementoes.
i wish i could make you stop crying, but there’s a
whole room between us, red lights and shadows
like broken boxes burnt into another shape, another
lie, and me i’ve got those eggshells to drown a little
deeper in and you’ve got those dreams of cinder
and ashes never to be spoken of.

hush lady, this isn't just for you.

----
Pretentious title, yeah. Shameful self-indulgence on my part. So's the whole of it, really.
For an idea what on earth I'm rambling about: Vietnamese eggshell lacquer.

Edit for typos: thanks mizz-iceberg!

Hi, Jagged.

My first thought on this poem was that it reminded me of that old myth about the sculptor who creates a statue so immensely beautiful that he wants her to be alive. The way your words flowed into each other and created this vivid image struck me as particularly poignant. They formed such a strong picture that I felt like the artist's work was breathing, living... In addition to the language, I thought that your choice of format was excellent. The large stanzas would be a little dense if the movement of the poem was any any slower, but I think it works well punctuated by the single lines.

My favorite part was this:

Jagged wrote:it’s the way you look
when you’re lying under the red lights; the curve
of your neck bent under the weight of your tears
and the ripple of your spine under the bedcovers
is an image i do not want to lose, ever, and i find
you are beautiful like this

Gosh. Just perfect.

I felt the meaning of this poem, and I think that's the most important thing in poetry. Fantastic.

Keep writing!

--Glim

Hey Jagged! I'm Mizz Iceberg. Nice to meet you.

I like this poem. Your use of imagery and metaphors is beautiful. The amount of details and emotions in the poem adds to the over all feel of the poem. I especially liked how the poem flows smoothly in a free verse narrative. Few nitpicks:

i broke the seashell eggs that once were a gift
from you to me.

I don't think "to me" is necessary. It's rather repetitive since we've kind of established that they were a gift to him.

when we’rebe gone all of you will still be here,

Unless you meant 'begone' which is one word. But even then 'begone' would sound awkward. Just 'gone' is good.

that’ll longer than any flesh, any body.

Did you mean last longer?

From the links below I did get a better idea of what you were talking about after reading the poem, but while reading the poem I had gathered other ideas. I thought a lover was trying to preserve a memento of the girl he loves and knows isn't happy. Something like that. But the links shed some new light to the poem, though my idea of still fits in somewhat. And no, I didn't wonder what on earth you were rambling on about, though the links helped. Perhaps you can title the poem to effectively hint what you want the reader to get from it, if you want the reader to definitely get that idea from it. Otherwise you can leave it like that, open to interpretation, which is always more fun in my opinion. Over all I like this poem a lot. Great job!

Hey Jagg -

I find it hard to pinpoint why this reminded me of Siken so much (perhaps it is our mutual love for him ), but it did. Maybe it was the combination of the tone and the content, more so than the style - a kind of black, beautiful, melancholic love, something similar to how in Little Beast he says: 'I know what the night is thinking. / It's thinking of love. / It's thinking of stabbing us to death / and leaving our bodies in a dumpster / That's a nice touch...' For despite its lyric love, there is a constant darker undertone to the story, a hint at something of a conflict - always good, since it helps highlight the paradox of relationships - such as in the lines, 'that once were a gift / from you to me,' 'i need to use and these sounds i need to drown, / and for tonight at least i have you. / i guess you’ll do.' 'is an image i do not want to lose, ever,' 'songs written in a language even loss / will not forget, and i’m working, alright, won’t you / stop talking?' 'i wish i could make you stop crying, but there’s a / whole room between us' etc. So. I think it the mixture of the languid pace of this poem and the continual restlessness that underlines every action that lift it up beyond the realm of mere prattling love poetry and that allow it to say something deeper, more serious about the duality of love - and art.


If there is one thing I might ask you to consider, it is the relative scattering of your imagery. Personally, I found the lines that had greatest impact were not the flowery, adjective-laden ones, but the ones that had delightful verbs - for example:

'the curve
of your neck bent under the weight of your tears
and the ripple of your spine under the bedcovers
is an image i do not want to lose, ever, and i find
you are beautiful like this'

This was so much more poignant than

so beautiful in eggshell
white under the faded film of raw lacquer and the
cinnabar-powder scattered across your shoulders.

this or

let me oxidize you black
on gold with broken strings of painted sunlight and
thin copper plaques threaded through the calligraphy
of your eyes. under my brush you are forever a
work-in-progress, a succession of sea-smoothed
sighs and songs written in a language even loss

this. (Oh, and in the first quoted part, I would probably remove 'ever' since it doesn't add to the emotion nearly as much as the rest.) The first quoted bit actually has something to say, and says it well - the other two seem there for the sake of superficial prettiness, if that makes sense - as if you felt the need to write wondrous lines for the sake of it, to put interesting words in just because. Of course, it's delicious imagery - I'd just recommend scattering it out a bit more, since you are so much more powerful in action than in description.

Also, I want to question your structure. Is it set out that way for any reason, or just a whim of the moment? Despite the seeming density in both major stanzas, you maintain a certain lightness to the lines that makes them accessible - I am just curious as to whether it might help in any way to further fragment the poem, to give it a kind of haphazard shape, something akin to the eggshell painting itself. An idea, that's all. Play around with it.

And as with any Siken poem, I want to gnaw at the actual details, to see what theme you are driving at. I see this as being important in some way -

i wish i could make you stop crying, but there’s a
whole room between us, red lights and shadows
like broken boxes burnt into another shape, another
lie, and me i’ve got those eggshells to drown a little
deeper in and you’ve got those dreams of cinder
and ashes never to be spoken of.

hush lady, this isn't just for you.

I know they are now apart in some way - the 'whole room between [us].' For some reason - and I would love for you to tell me if this is wrong or right - I have this feeling she has died, or something terrible to do with fire has happened (all that repetition of the 'red lights' and all, as well as the idea that the lacquer art will last even while they are in death, coupled with the 'dreams of cinder and ashes never to be spoken of'). Of course, there are things that contradict this, too - the fact that it's told in present tense suggesting she is right there, 'watch[ing] closely' while he works and 'can't stop talking'. And that makes me think that it might be something else, something we as the reader are not privy to know, only to observe. Still, a few more clues would be great. To satisfy my curiosity, if nothing else.

On a broader, less plot-oriented and more intellect-oriented level, I see this as a poem about how we preserve emotions - love - and people in art; about the paradoxical nature of a relationship (how we can love and not love) leading to a kind of ever-changingness, and this, in turn, leading to a need for some kind of permanence, a concreting-down of the brighter, better side of the love - the love itself - by art. In short? Emotions are fraught with inconsistency, and art is an act of making permanent one aspect of the emotion/relationship that we enjoy, to preserve it in memory forever. And of course, the title 'my heart's in a lacquer box' captures this perfectly, with the fact that it is nigh impossible to trap one's heart in a box, in a consistent thread of emotion forever - the best we can do is take a snapshot, a photograph of it and simply revel in that.


Anyway, I haven't read much by you, poetry-wise, for some time, so this was certainly a good read.


Navita