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Open Poetry #11
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love is lying on the floor
| Open Poetry #11 |
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love is lying on the floor |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855
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I can smell bourbon and spilled flowers, petals and colors drifting on the floor. Love is lying on the floor, her hair makes it partway under the door, her face is in a state of waiting for more. Love is waiting to be adored. Wonder leaves wounds. Salvation leaves scabs. I read this in the back of a cab. The radio was low and the heater was high. I couldn't see the scenery or the black sky. I can smell bourbon and spilled flowers sopped up in newspapers, the daily vomit. Let's get hit by a comet, the announcer had said. She said she was dead. Love is lying on the floor because the bed is unmade, the future unplayed, the street is unpaved and I'm jarred awake by the sound of love falling asleep. She wears only what she wants me to see. She sleeps in dreams that terrify me. Love is wailing please, please, please, please see me. The soft breathing of the fan, the soft glow of the lamp. The soft bed is softly damp but not by her. Who is she? The soft song is softly ending. The soft cover is softly rending. The soft metal is softly bending at the joints that connect and oil pretending. The softest sound is not her breath as she contemplates suicide in a blue dress. The softest motion I could make is not on bended knee to confess. The softest prayer I ever heard erupted in tears from her closed face. It was jagged and broken and full of hurt and whispered I must leave this place. Love is lying on the floor. Her hair makes it partway under the door. Bourbon secrets in her rancor. The flowers are floating in a cup of razors. Love is lying to me again. Love is wanting to be a friend. She lies on the floor and now that she died I can only think of how she was alive. (and the softest sound was the bourbon mingled with her blood on a note i have never read) |
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Rosemary J. Gwaltney Senior Member
since 1999-08-26
Posts 997northern mountains, Idaho |
You write some of the most astonishing and starkly real work that I have seen. The lines "her hair makes it partway under the door, her face is in a state of waiting for more.", and, "She sleeps in dreams that terrify me. Love is wailing please, please, please, please see me.", and then the ending ("and the softest sound was the bourbon mingled with her blood on a note I have never read") shred my heart. I can feel it. I can see it, smell it, it's so real, it's like an oil painting still fresh on the canvas in glistening red. This is very strongly worded, and addresses a very challenging subject with astonshing purity of speech. I mean to say, mingling deep care, with an absence of the self-pity that ruins most such efforts. Excellent. |
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Paula Finn Member Ascendant
since 2000-06-17
Posts 5546missouri |
This is so starkly real...so devastating... |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Rosemary, Thank you so much for your kind words. Luckily, this has never happened to me, but something similar came close to happening (my cousin once attempted suicide, and so did a close friend) Paula, Thanks for reading, as difficult as it was. I'm not exactly sure of all the elements that lead to this poem, but it was a long time coming. Mike |
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ethome Member Patricius
since 2000-05-14
Posts 11858New Brunswick Canada |
Hey Mike I'm really impressed with this work some of the lines and images are outstanding! The metaphors are clipped while ascending and dumped into the dark basket of lost love..and the search is never easy but the results like you say leave scabs...hold on there's a shifting and a whispering going on and I wouldn't want ot miss anything...would you? |
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shira Member
since 2000-12-12
Posts 88Hamburg, PA |
This is eloquent, beautiful yet so haunting. A wonderful read. I hope that this is not derived from personal experience, but if it is, my heart goes out to you. The poem is fabulous. |
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Irish Rose Member Patricius
since 2000-04-06
Posts 10263 |
It IS fabulous. It's very intense, stark, specific, and bold. Nice work. "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you." Winnie the Pooh |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
ethome, Thank you. It's weird how this one came out. It was basically from head to screen, with only one small edit. What a great release. shira, Thanks. Well, the feelings are from personal experience -- that feeling of trapped defeat you sometimes get -- but it's not a true experience, thankfully. Irish Rose, Thank you. I appreciate it.  Mike |
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Lone Wolf Member Ascendant
since 2000-03-16
Posts 5842Lansing, MI USA |
Powerful, vivid images in this one. Well done. Haunting I believe is the word for this. Nice work. LW Poetry should surprise by fine excess...it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance. -J.Keats |
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bsquirrel
since 2000-01-03
Posts 7855 |
Thanks, Lone Wolf. |
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SEA
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 2000-01-18
Posts 22676with you |
How did I miss this amazing poem......so brutal......so real..........I did have a friend try this and she was never the same........they took her away.......we were so young.......her life was hard......-SEA |
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