Poem

This was meant

to be

 a poem

for a very

special friend

My fragile

perfect rose

But now

'Neath the petals

of the longest,

scented stem,

I fear

the growing

world,

Unfolding

In sweeping waves

of monotone

Sinister circles

enveloping

Still, I shall

be

magnificent

in the

river's

flowing robes

And as I

take your seductive,

perfumed fingers

into mine,

I will drown

My

Lovely

Paper rose

Reviews

[Eilis]

I like the way this has a kind of mixed voice. That's my first impression anyway. It makes me think it might be a trick or even a pleading toward something better in the self-- maybe a realization of weakness that then turns on itself and blots out feeling.

I guess what I mean is that there is this play with an archaic voice (or ideal maybe)-- that which is expected of a love poem ie the fragile perfect rose. But, then the urgency and immediacy of the human speaking kind of breaks into that placid idea and shatters it. It's almost like it's a battle of wills. Like the speaker wants to be (or experience the world in) a certain way, but his actual nature precludes that desire.

I like the way it shifts back and forth between those states: the Romantic ideal of a narrator for a love poem and then the private self speaking out the apprehensions. I suppose love is never just one thing, but as variable as any other area of life. If we become too certain-- as older poems tend to do-- too focused on an idealized version of a person or love itself-- then we risk never experiencing the real thing. I don't know-- I think I'm just wandering off at this point, ha. I just like the duality of the voice here.

What makes it work so well, for me, is that I am not fully certain which of these voices is the leading voice. Is it a challenge to the self to be the ideal, or a challenge to the ideal to be the self. I thought this was really good. The play with the expected and making it unexpected. Excellent.

[Shazbatt969]

Wow, Ellis, thanks , I think you thought about this longer than I did and you saw deeper than me, lol is it a challenge to the self to be the ideal or a challenge to the ideal to be the self, no idea, but I love the concept, thanks for giving my simple words gravitas

[jacob erin-cilberto]

oh my...i love the really short lines...that brevity increases the pace and thus the momentum of the love expressed here.

j.

[Shazbatt969]

Thanks j, you got it spot on, the love was intense and what was left was soaking wet, lol

[gram linski]

beautiful piece of writing, conveying love and ultimate loss, "my fragile perfect rose," is a great line, twinned with "my lovely paper rose," lost for words dude, over and out,

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Ok I have read your vitriol which you do so amazingly, and your eccentric, idiosyncratic and surreal, but now you produce such a measured romantic piece! LOVE the stanza:
till, I shall
be
magnificent
in the
river's
flowing robes!

[Shazbatt969]

Thanks John, I like to surprise people and keep them on their toes, lol, as you well know, I have hidden depths, (for a reason, some would say,) let's keep them that way,