Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Writer
You said that I make you feel guilty.
I said, “I’m no Wyrd Sister.
Had I the power to make you feel
I would …
then I could smile as you stoned me.”
I love you.
Your derision,
your anger,
and the spite.
Your work is only butterflies
tacked under glass.
The Proustian, dead wings,
forever in process and damn
if avoidance isn’t delicate work.
Agreed, your mother is a bitch
so you use her like a shield
with a crest of paranoia and excuse.
You wear martyrdom well
on your crusade against all that is pink.
I love you.
Your derision,
your anger,
and the spite.
My life is as hard as the substance
from which it was carved
but I’ve lost all the will to blame.
Call me if you find the wrong Muse,
I hear she’s failed you once again.
© 2007 Marcy Stoeckel
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I can't even begin to describe the ways I enjoy this poem, but let me try. First, you've managed to include "Wyrd Sister" and "Proustian" and "martyrdom" and "crusade" and my favorite line, "then I could smile as you stoned me."
ReplyDeleteI love that line so much for so many personal reasons, such as the person this makes me think of? He once got me high and he was the one, over the years, too, who threw all the stones. So maybe that's a double meaning that works only for me, but I love it.
I love the play between the image you create and the tone in lines such as, "Agreed, your mother is a bitch," the balance between the history references included here mixed with our modern lingo.
I love everything the world "carved" implicates and could implicate. I love the final lines and I love that despite everything, there's tender power coming from the speaker.
This poem is timeless and modern at the same time and if I could place it in a time capsel to demonstrate good poetry of the 2000's, how I would.
Love it.