joi

It's true             half of us have waited for someone who wouldn't return.

Reciting            how you would never let that happen again.

letting well enough alone          how this time would be different.

This                 time you would be the non-combatant. 

Land grave       when the canoe tipped over at the nature dive.

And                  we both stood waist deep in the dirty water.

You gotta          love it when 70's hairdo's lose their shape.

Yet                   we sat, trying to not be naked in front of each other. 

Sometimes        ego's sits alone on the shelf like dying Seagulls before the tide.

Welp                smiles like threads tightly woven to give off the effects of disregard .

Be                    skeptical , struggle for independence, agree to intuition. 

Since                love is going to make us both savages. 

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

It was a chore- more an ordeal, in school, read "That Long Poem" by That Famous Poemwriter. So of course I did. Grinding the words like cornmeal around between my ears until my eyes crossed and I entered that state the swamis call brain dead.

A teacher, who taught woodworking or something useful like that told me I had it all wrong. I should ignore meaning, inches and degree of arc were important in making a proper bookend or shoeshine box, but poems were slippery about measurement. "Ask yourself this" he said, "do you feel different after you read it?" " If you do it's a poem if you don't it's a failed shoeshine box."

Thanks for sharing. I felt different after I read this.

[h d e rushin]

I love the analogy to woodworking. I too took woodworking class in Jr. high school. But Sawdust depressed me and each day Angela Tolbert would show me the half moon impression the metal girdle clip made on her pink thigh. But that's why we throw the young on the front lines in battle. They cant resolve patriotism visavis the shrill-splendor of bombs exploding like shooting stars. If poems make us feel different, like that poem you wrote about when your mother died, then the earth is in space just like the other planets. If not, then we are alone here.....thank you my friend.....dana

[Beccy]

I am often amazed at how the human race has managed to somehow perpetuate itself for so long, how we almost always overthink the simplicity of the rut and the lust of it all.

Enjoyed both the poem and the instructive title. :))

Beccy.

[h d e rushin]

Dearest: "Like deja vu , poetry intimates that the past is never quite over and done with" Matthew Bevis. Thank you for your insight my friend.....dana

[Coyote Poetry]

The sad part my dear friend. The below lines are true.
" love is going to make us both savages"
Thank you dear friend for sharing the amazing poetry and your thoughts.
Coyote

[h d e rushin]

thank you my friend....hope you're keeping cool. My computer room is over 100 degrees.. I try to stay out of there as much as possible , lol.

[Coyote Poetry]

You are welcome my dear friend.

[Einstein Noodle]

never disappointed reading your stuff Dana ... lots of human foible in this one says i! love the enchanter, the divine .. the ravager .. sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! ....the teacher truth be told.
the form strikes me just after your title "joi" ... is it a take on joie? my feelings are mixed .. my "old loves" who are gone are cracking open their tombs .. i think you are generous when you say half of us .. i would guess more. L6 is killer .. the preceding leading up to it .. and your speaker vowing to make things different this time .. oh man!!! how we try .. how desperate sometimes .. to fill that hole .. egos aside .. perhaps we have a chance eh!? your closing is ....rubber meeting the road big time .. fine read for me my friend! thanks for sharing

[h d e rushin]

thank you dear Einstein Noodle....your words are like pearls......dana

[olla]

this is so good.. so much truth here.. and so well presented.. I read it several times..

[h d e rushin]

thank you so much olla...for those kind words.....dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

reminds me of my first ex. And I love the double meaning of the naked line.
Yes, we want to hide our feelings in front of each other when has gotten so bad between us, and yet the other already has seen us naked and we are no good at hiding.
The fig leaf has come off a long time ago.
Egos cause such disaster in relationships....maybe more than money or sex...
and your last line...it is reminiscent of Adam and Eve getting tossed out of the Garden and becoming
just raw, crazy humans....damn that original sin.
And the apple wasn't even that good.
and I have been dumb enough to let it happen over and over again..."not no more!"
j.

[h d e rushin]

thanks brother...I love the Adam and Eve reference. Great insight as usual.....dana

[redzone]

amazing how many of the little things we promise ourselves we wouldn't do again get torm up in the passions of 'savage love' ... and how often do we sit naked in front of each other, in spite our best efforts to keep ourselves closed and yet it is only in opening ourselves is love able to give us 'joi' as well as a heart ripped out savagedly.... I guess 'joi', love, is and will always be a conundrum, a complex contradiction for us humans....

enjoyed the form you used in this poem as well as the poem itself Dana....

[h d e rushin]

thanks redzone. We are all such broken little things I guess. Great words my friend....dana