»
Archives
»
Open Poetry #42
»
Light One Up for Me, Please
| Open Poetry #42 |
|
Light One Up for Me, Please |
|
Alison 
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! 
|
Tonight I look at the lonely self of me. Words drift to a place deep within my heart that I suppress behind a wall of protection and an incessant longing for a cigarette. Tonight, I feel the need to inhale words and feed addictions that never die. I can feel the cigarette between my fingers and, again, feel the smoke slip into my lungs. and the longing almost hurts. ... Alison |
||
| © Copyright 2008 Alison - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
Marchmadness Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271So. El Monte, California |
Don't do it, Alison. I want to see you on these blue pages for a long time. My husband and my sister-in-law were smokers. I watched them both die from the effects of smoking. My husband finally stopped after he had congestive heart failure but it was too late. My sister-in law smoked right up to the end. Ida |
||
|
Robert E. Jordan Member Rara Avis
since 2008-01-25
Posts 8541Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Yo Alison, You don't need those stinking fags, i.e. cancer sticks. What you need is a good Italian stogie, you can't inhale them, and they’ll blow you away if you do. Bobby |
||
|
Alison
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
Ida and Robert, My friends whom I am so adoring at this moment - thank you. I didn't smoke. I don't smoke. I wanted to smoke. Love, A |
||
|
Earth Angel Member Empyrean
since 2002-08-27
Posts 40215Realms of Light |
Many moons ago, I lived fpr a few years in a nursing residence and my fellow student nurses thougt that it was cool to smoke. I joined them rank and file as a way of asserting my independence from my parents and a rite of passage into adulthood. ~ Some faulty thinking going on there, I'd say!  Anyhoo, apparently I didn't look cool at all! I held the ciggy puff wrong and I looked like I was sipping a straw! Well, did quit when I found out that I was preggers a few years later. Then I started 'smoking' celery sticks to help me get through the need to suck on something. I kept them in a bowl of water in the fridge. I actually ended up losing a few personal extra pounds (but gained in baby pounds) because I'd eat the celery after I 'smoked' them. I got laughed at at parties ~ but I paid them no heed. I managed to kick the filthy habit and came out slim in the process! A win/win situation.Healthy pregnancy, healthy baby, slimmer me! I can understand your longing for one, but after awhile, you will eventually come to loathe even the smell of a cigarette. Hey, Alison, I have an idea! Go suck on a pen! (with the ink refil removed). ~Inhale potential words instead of smoke! lol Thanks for sharing that personal moment with your readers. I imagine that there are many who could identify with how you are feeling. Now count to ten and breathe in the fresh Arctic air! Awwww, isn't that nice? Now go write more of your frustrations awa!  Love to you, Sweet A, Linda  |
||
|
Dark Stranger Member Patricius
since 2001-03-19
Posts 13631West Coast |
Ms ali-san. I have an idea too. Enjoyed the thought here. |
||
|
jwesley Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563Spring, Texas |
Never even, ever, had the urge...smoke? Heck, I wanted something good...so I ate...really tasted good! Enjoyed... j. |
||
|
JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
I pity the poor smoker, the price they pay for their addiction, in loss of money and health...James |
||
|
Jaime Fradera Senior Member
since 2000-11-25
Posts 843Where no tyranny is tolerable |
ali! what a strange somehow funny poem! ... I just have no idea how to take it ... I was attracted by the word "please." I just can't explain how funny and, this is the strangest write I've seen on Pip? You de light (pun intended) amuse and confuse me all at the same time, and in a way no one has really done before ... And EA, slurping celery? Now what did a celery ever do to you that you had to mistreat celery that way? In psyche 101 they taught us that Freud said: sometimes a carrot is only a carrot. (No, I just made that up) More Rises peanut butter cups please? |
||
|
Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Alison, I assume your cigarettes are your business and you're more here for the poetry. If you want to swap smoking stories, I'd love to, let me know. They were wonderful and hard to quit. The poem is something I think you're still reaching for. I'm going to use depth metaphors here, because it feels to me that those are what you may be struggling with in your writing right now. If I'm wrong, please correct me, and I'll try to come at it from a different angle. But I think you may be tangled up by the model you're using to get at the poem. That is, if I can try to put it into words, that you are trying to follow a feeling that you have inside that you identify as being the poem, and if you can put that feeling into words you will have your poem on the page. When you run into problems, you feel them as losing contact with the feeling or not being able to find the words to put to the feeling, a sort of going blank. A block. This is, by the way, a fine way of writing a poem. It is a process that is ongoing inside poets pretty much all the time, however, and sometimes paying direct attention to it, makes the process a little bit shy about being watched. I've noticed that you're a little bit shy of objects in your poems: objects, things, people, names and places. Why not make a list of fifty of such things and use at least five of them in every poem you write for a while. When you use one from the list replace it. No abstract nouns. I once used a street where I lived in a poem, and it ended up published. I've used my internist's name (not that one, yet). Real places, real things give you a sense that the poem is about a real world. Make a list of verbs that have some kick that you like. Work some of those in, at least one a poem. Make a list of words that you like that you like that you don't recall ever having seen used in print before. I managed to use Barcalounger once, and I've used a fair number of others. Words you think are snappy and that you think most people are too stuffy to put into a poem, or to expect in one. Heard "blow off" in a poem? as in "to blow off the bill collectors." There are always fresh turns of vocabulary and language waiting around, waiting to be used. The main thing for now is to give you a chance to experiment with following the language and the pictures instead of the elusive feeling. Listen for the rhythm and the movement and follow that, too. Then, on revision, read it out loud and see the places where the feeling and emotion emerges naturally from the draft, and revise to emphasize those. Let those feelings come to you. You don't need so much to chase them. Some thoughts, and some stuff to experiment with. Let me know if any of it's a help. Yours, BobK. |
||
|
Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Actually, I think the poem very good, Alison! You set a tone, a mood and make the connection between the desire to smoke and to write, feeding your addiction. Ya done good  |
||
|
Alison
since 2008-01-27
Posts 9318Lumpy oatmeal makes me crazy! |
Ida, I understand what you are saying to me. Once my entire family smoked (with the exception of my Mother). Today, none of us do. My father died of lung cancer and we all quit within a year or so of his death. I can't say that I don't miss a cigarette now and then - I do, but it's the feel of it more than the actual act of smoking. I would not start again. It was too hard to quit the habit and I smell a lot better now. xoxoox Alison ------------ Bobby, Thank you, my friend. I'll keep that in mind for sure. A ------------- Linda my dear, I hear you. I have not smoked for years - just last night was a strong longing and one I knew I would not act upon. Really the poem was not about the smoking - it was kind of meant to be an anology to the feeling of lonliness. It was a bit hidden behind the smoke maybe. Love, Alison ------------- D Thank you for getting it. A -------------- J. My good friend - a chocolate bar might have hit the spot for me last night. A ------------- Yes, James. I know what you mean. ------------- Jaime, Okay, I laughed. Glad that I wrote the "strangest write" that you have seen here. Do I get some kind of "get out of jail free" card or something when I post a really bad poem? Alison -------------- Mr. K Thank you for the suggestions and sharing of your observations. I will certainly give your ideas some thought. It won't hurt to try and who knows? Maybe I'll be carrying a notebook to jot ideas on for a long time. You are very kind to spend the time helping me out. Alison ------------ My teacher, Thank you for seeing it. Alison |
||
|
Margherita Member Seraphic
since 2003-02-08
Posts 22236Eternity |
You brought your longing across powerfully, dear Alison. It does hurt most assuredly! And the cigarette is just a substitute for something far more necessary to the heart. You did a great job! Love, Margherita |
||
|
LindsayP Member Elite
since 2007-07-28
Posts 3410Australia, Victoria |
Alison, I felt so sad when I read your poem but my mood changed completely when I read that you had kicked the habit. congratulations my dear. well done. A big hug. Lindsay |
||
|
Richy Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 3050 |
Dear Alison, be careful inhaling too many words, I would stick to maybe half a book a day. We’re already addicted to the nicotine of your heart, a habit we’ll never be able to, nor, ever want to, quit. Oh and by the way, the surgeon general just released a statement saying that, “Not Reading Alison’s Poetry Is Hazardous to Your Health.” So let’s light up a few more poems, yes? Oh yeah, one more thing, this poem was, Smokin! Rich |
||
|
secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
your 'need to inhale words' is a far, far finer thing than many folks' apparently irresistible propensities for exhaling them! write on!! applause for this 'penning!' |
||
|
OwlSA Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347Durban, South Africa |
Alison, I avoided this poem for a while - as I don't find smoking interesting - but what a mistake! I should have known better - I should have known that if it is an Alison poem, I will enjoy it. I did, and understood the feeling. I have never smoked in my life and wish like crazy that my son and his wife didn't smoke, but now and then I get the above feeling and I have sometimes said to my son when I am visiting his home, in a joke, "I need a cigarette." Richy's reply had me in gales of laughter. - Owl |
||
|
2islander2 Member Ascendant
since 2008-03-12
Posts 6825by the sea |
Hello Alison I'm sick with tabacco and that's a chance...However your poem is a temptation and I enjoyed the moment when I could feel the smoke raising up in my mind... thank you very much yann |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
