You once told me that heart surgeons burn out.
Too many single-handed repairs of broken ventricles,
pockmarked by the memory of cigarettes and grease
Will break your own.
You would forgo the glamourous fibrillation of saving lives
for the pulse of a geriatrics ward.
You would mend the harm that eighty years on this world inflict.
But you'd listen to its wonders too
from widows with rosary beads wrapped around their rheumatoid hands.
I want to be that old and tell my physician the wonders of you.
ii.
This city thrives on the old and beautiful.
It was founded by roaming rapists and pillagers
who built on the banks of a muddy river and called it "home."
Thirteen hundred years on, it evolves by quiet nights in pubs,
cheap umbrellas, gentle "I'm sorry"s on the street passing from stranger to passing stranger.
It is the city
where you kissed me in December's nakedness
and whispered secrets to me when March turned green.
We embraced on O'Connell Bridge with the November wind howling down from the sea
and sat by the port in the summer dusk as you left me for bigger places.
You came back. Because this city makes you want to plant your feet
and announce your staying, your not-leaving. Not for Sydney or London or Philadelphia.
You'll stay for me.
You once called me "home" and I understand.
iii.
I do not want to be the nightsky for your meteor.
A backdrop for one moment of iridescent perfection
before I set you aflame and you plummet to this strange earth,
smaller and lonelier because you met me.
I want to be your rock, let your roots find rivets in my surface and cling on
and you will grow tall and strong and green.
I will be your reason to elude the mundane affairs of airline tickets and work visas,
navigating the ways of crueller, brasher cities.
and instead have the adventure of a warm, soft life within arms reach of me.
iv.
I want you plant seeds as kisses on my forehead while we watch too much TV
and feed each other morsels of Roman history.
I will not demand passion from cleaning fluids, but I will insist
it is your turn to wipe down the counters
And I will do the finances with a calculator and you will drive
because even in love, the world turns.
Our world was formed by glaciers.
A/N: haaaaaaaaa I am so not a poet! But I was inspired by all the wonderful poetry I've been reading lately on YWS and I figured, why not? I'll give it a go! Apologies for any injuries incurred.
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You're "so not a poet", except that you are an exceptional poet.
Despite the author's note and its warnings/implications, I really, really liked this! I liked the countless, but still well developed, metaphors. I'm no poetry expert, so I didn't understand all of your ideas, but I got the basic gist, and it was beautiful. Well-written. Surprising. Haunting.
Write more poetry, please!
Hi, StellaThomas. This is pinkie here for a special review. Well, it is not that special because people does this everytime. Anyway, I hope you like it.
Why you say that about yourself? You are great poet that I'd ever seen. You had a great vision of poetry and these poems are like a readable lines. I meant I love this poem. I didn't see any errors on here at all! You did a great job on this poem, dear friend. I enjoyed this poems very much. Well, I hope to read more from you.
Awesome Job!
Cheers
Your reviewer, Pinkiegirl13
This was fantastic! You may not think of yourself as a poet, but I greatly believe you have the potential. Your poem was very professional and beautiful nonetheless. I am in envy that you are able to write like that and consider yourself not a poet. The whole time I was reading this I was thinking "this writer must do a lot of writing." I loved your use of metaphors. It gave the poem an elegant way about it. I loved all of section 3. If you don't my making assumptions of the meaning, I just want to say that I love the way you say how you want to be more than just meaningless to your person. You want to be important, you wan to be #1, not just a passing thought. This poem is absolutely wonderful. I do really hope you go on to write more, because I will most definitely be reading them.
Thank you so much for your kind words <3
This poem seriously sounds professional. This sounds like something we would read in my English class and annotate afterwards. I love the way you compare love to a growing tree and how you use metaphors to signify what you are saying. "I want you to plant seeds as kisses on my forehead." is the tree metaphor again. This is truly brilliant.
Skipping pleasantries. I want to get into this.
My major issue with the piece is that your titular image of glaciers/ice imagery doesn't seem to belong. It makes sense to me on a time scale in the way that glaciers move more slowly than time itself, but the image just doesn't connect for me. That said, your other images and narrations keep me reading for more.
Your beginning is slow, and it can probably be rephrased and restructured to give it a more enticing flow for the entry point of readers, but the concepts and execution leave me juggling my opinion--so it's a lesser thing to consider. The other bit that bugs me in part one is the final line, where your narrator gives away the subtlety of her feelings by clearly stating that she wants to Think Of You Forever. You could survive without this line, possibly lace a remnant sentiment of the idea into the widow in the end of stanza two.
In part two, stanza three, you hit a frequented sentiment of kisses/secrets in conjoining lines. I'm not saying it's a problem--just that this progression happens frequently, and I'd like to see what you could put in its place. That said, I'm rushing this section because I want to talk about the meteor.
Jesus Christ The Meteor. Part three in general is where you sold me on this piece because of the rawness of craving being Your Foundation. It steals a lot of its sentimental momentum from part ii, and that's pretty well done--considering that fragmented pieces don't always ramp up, but instead act in disjointed pieces; I like this buildup very much.
Part four is my least favorite section because it very quickly ramps down into the closing image of glaciers that I don't really get. I like the second stanza because it's real and there's no going wrong with real. It's just that final line about glaciers that kills me. If there's something I'm missing by a mile, please tell me. Anyway, this is just omnom yes.
Thanks for the thoughts! The glacier image was the one I originally had in mind but then I didn't want to overplay it and I guess I underplayed it. I actually originally was leading with the meteor! I'm glad you liked that section. But yes yes yes you are very right and haaa, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to poetry so thank you! <3