10/03/10

i painted you on a postcard
and sent you away
to be handled by the gruff men
who deliver the mail.
in the city
seventy starlings
made their headlong flight
into the cold concrete
of the paving stones
the impact smashed their tiny beaks
crushed their fragile little bones.
you came back to me
with a dent in your heart
lost and alone.
i am a fool--
and i gave you a home.

Reviews

[TAO]

That's how it often feels when we open up, isn't it? Great work, Sea Lily.

[Rosette Jewel]

Beautiful. I can't find anything about this I do not like. The metaphoric sense, the simple style...

[Liza]

a love waiting to meet its deserving counterpart...
the muse turned on your heart but didn't love it back
this was a heartfelt and touching write

[Nothing Personal]

Whether its is metaphorical or its real, its a beautiful piece of thought provoking read. Sometimes i tend to think whats the life of an inanimate object. It sits there watches everything, lives immortally, you can do anything with it.But its interesting. The thought or the image that came floating across to my head was what i cherished about this one. Sometimes the feel is more important than the literal sense. Great write

[Frantzuu]

It's one of those poems you wanna actually think about.

[Frantzuu]

wow this is truly amazing! Going straight to my collection. Awesome
It's simple but so much is said, you picked your words carefully, the poscard can represent so many different things in this poem, its like a whole story by itself, a journey, self discovery. I love this piece a lot!!!

[Brad]

now if that didn't read like jack kerouac than i'm jack london with lupophobia...excellent write, my friend, this had class

[Alessander]

This is such an awesome poem! Very rarely am I impressed with writing on this site - mostly it's a polite review - but this is truly excellent. So much so, that I don't know where to start, so I guess I'll just do a rambling critique.

What strikes me most is the depth of the ideas, that broods beneath the surface of such small things as post cards and birds. So many writers on here simply announce, "I am sad" or some something equally absurdly overt, but here you paint a biography in bluish tones that settles down to a readers gut.

The post-card conveys the theme of a journey, or a traveler, or maybe even a rambling type person, and "gruff man" may allude to that drifter perhaps being more of the sensitive type. Then, the poem (as only a poem is allowed to) abruptly and seemingly randomly cuts scene to starlings. But it's not some trite scene of them migrating or the such, but of the more brutal kamakazi like smashing of beak, and tiny bones, which the reader must connect to the original character, so as a metaphor, it works perfectly.

The rhymes of bones/stones/alone/home also serve to connect the poem thematically, and it just makes the rhythm more enjoyable.

the ending is equally as ambiguous, and very tender, potraying the scene of a restless figure, perhaps defeated, being forgiven for his/her adventurous spirit, while the more (though apparently equally as "foolish") patient and domestic one offers understanding and comfort. It reminds me of a Frost poem in that sense, as he says famously, "home is where they must take you in."

Fantastic poem! truly impressed. rare 100.

[Obsidian Blackbird McNi..]

the postal handlers are less gruff than the bin men, he's lucky you didn't hand him off to them (as I think you should have right away)

[Zeitgeist Manifesto]

Wow..this was just amazing. I love the metaphor.