we focus too long on longing.

Here,

Right here. Under earnest plead;

under sympathy,

I waited for a call or a sign

to adorn my security like any reasonable

horse knows the magnitude of stile

his Equus discrepancy suggest.

And yet,

I placed the big old fashioned

rotary phone to my face

(my indefeasible right to succeed)

until it grew so accustomed to being there

it bit its way through my cheek

as if possessed by some giant

with teeth like Buddy Rich.

Then I thought,

oh s**t

this brutality that asks for patience

is making me so ugly.

So twistable with index fingers

so ringing in my solve

of faulty observations.

Then one day I decided to

pull the apophysis off and just let it

dangle along, which it did, happily

like the ghostly figure that it was.

Sometimes during the summer months

when I walked into the doctors office

nurses would notice and direct me

to the waiting room where the others

sat with hurt that dangled

into the deceptive white light,

with their awful embellished scars

that partially hung off.

Reviews

[CD Campbell]

I still have a rotary phone and hold on to the old. Sometimes I think we should all go back to them. As far as longing goes, it's an addiction that we all relish. Great write, Dana. Only you could use equus and apophysis in a poem without looking stupid. CD

[_mal]

You are so talented...it's a pleasure to be waltzed through your words/mind

[h d e rushin]

thank you _mal and where in hell have you been? dana

[Terpsichore]

Long time ago now, I was taught, along with other so-called golden economic rules, that the market responds to demand; excuse my French, but experience has taught me that is crap! Demand is driven by the bottom line, and the greedy old wheel of commerce will keep turning regardless of consequence Time perhaps to haul on the brakes, before we forever lose control of the juggernaut, (if we haven't already done so.)

Insightful poetry. T

[Nadia B.]

I am amazed at this poem, as if three different stories were being told yet they are all part of one. The calling for a sign, the longing for a rotary phone, and the waiting room. It is as if I have watched an eloquent theatrical play as I was reading your poem. The words you use are careful and concise to their purpose. Very pleasant indeed and intellectually written, thanks for sharing, please keep writing!

[Beccy]

'We focus too long on longing,' and pay not enough regard to this beautiful gift of a planet. Food and shelter, the love of those close to us and the right to live our three score year and ten in peace and cross border harmony is all we need. The rest is just add on engineering; bright shiny jewellery that collectively has less value than a single field of wheat.

Hard to go through life unscathed and unscarred, but the trying is worth it.

A wonderful poem. Beccy.

[Shae]

I love your style of writing. You are truly an artist. Please keep writing.

[Emily B]

it is up to the poet to draw the pictures that no one wants to see

this society is a little unbelievable, like an angry mob from a movie, they only know their places and movements, somebody forgot to give them their lines

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i like the allegory here...i feel this way about those who walk around all the time with cell phones...in their ears...although there is more texting these days than anything else.

but in this poem...that rotary phone is from the old days...and this is about longing too much...and those scars that appear as we long for that return call...that reciprocation of love...and don't get it...

the nurses and doctors shake their heads sadly..we are a lost cause.

our sadness and frustration dangling...in plain sight.

[W.k.kortas]

Ah, Buddy Rich--with those huge-a*s choppers of his, you could never tell if it was a smile or a grimace, and I always wondered if he was having another coronary while he was playing.

This, more than the general run of your work, has the feel of the folk tale, or perhaps more accurately the oral tradition. Thematically and content-wise, there's a significant difference of course; there's none of the James-Baskett-sitting-in-for-Joel-Chandler-Harris fol-de-rol, no easy prepackaged morals (I doubt Disney would film anything dangling, apophysis or otherwise), but for me, the feel is certianly there, and it's just a shame I'm a bit large to sit on your knee and listen.