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Open Poetry #42
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In starvation there is Bliss
| Open Poetry #42 |
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In starvation there is Bliss |
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Ocean Vuong Junior Member
since 2008-03-29
Posts 37NYC |
How strange it is that when the stomach echoes with emptiness, the mind is full of dreams Outside a church, the beggars form a line. Their hands hidden in coats infested with holes, like vultures their chins curl against the heart. They speak in blurbs, sentences unfinished, shot down by snow. The storm spits shards of ice into their eyes as they curse the toes living on their feet. But we play while keeping our place in line. With our bodies we paint angels in the snow, one large, one small. The flakes swirl as we, between giggles, try to kiss them with our noses. Then, guilty from this inappropriate joy, we fall silent. You scoop a heap of snow into your palm; I mimic this act. Licking the white dust, your eyes closed in a memory….—ah vanilla ice cream— I look up at you—and mine’s strawberry— To see a mother’s eyes sparkle like that, any child would forget what hunger was. In time the row of people grew shorter but from a distance it appears, that the fog of snow has faded that church into a shadow. |
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| © Copyright 2008 Ocean Vinh Vuong - All Rights Reserved | |||
Marge Tindal 
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Ocean~ While there is no beauty in hunger, there is tender beauty in your thoughts~ This is a poignant render~ *Huglets*  ~*Marge*~ ~*The sound of a kiss is not as strong as that of a cannon, but it's echo endures much longer*~ |
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gilead Senior Member
since 2008-03-10
Posts 1067nevada, USA |
This is heavy! It reminds me of Socrates' idea of opposites---if there were there no evil to compare it to, good would have no meaning. this is a powerful poem filled with great metaphors and imagery, the conclusion really drives it home the way a good poem should. Art |
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Seoulair Senior Member
since 2008-03-27
Posts 807Seoul S.Korea |
profound. |
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EagleScorpion Senior Member
since 2000-03-08
Posts 1644Here, Now, Forever |
a soup line i wonder, was it in the great depression? or perhaps a concentration camp or prison of some kind whatever it is, this is wonderful a small portrait of a world im glad ive never known |
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Robert E. Jordan Member Rara Avis
since 2008-01-25
Posts 8541Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Ocean Vuong, This has a good first strophe. I'd put a period after "dreams". There is no bliss in starvation. Bobby |
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Ocean Vuong Junior Member
since 2008-03-29
Posts 37NYC |
I like to keep my work as vague as possible, I am a firm believer of the school of visionaries of which the reader finishes the piece with his or her own experience and fantasies, this way the reader can feel something totally unique to him or her, a poet should never tell you how to feel, but shoe you what you can, at least thats how I think. But the inspiration for this piece is not a depression, nor a holocaust, it is right here in America, When i lived in Detroit in 1998, my mother and I would live in severe poverty, every Sunday we would line up at the church for old groceries and stale bread, the bliss here is the love of human beings in times of despair which can overcome the pains of hunger. The key to emotion whether good or bad is perception. I tried to portray this by placing the contrast in reaction to the snow from the "people" and the child and mother. -ocean |
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