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a thing poem

You are unavailable,

 dark wood-smell and coffee...

Coffee Anyone?,

a line of shadow escapes the

lawn silently across afternoon

 shadow, bees, a

 

Bumble bee,

 bumps my head

Coffee and Nectar, a

chair made into bone white metal two chairs,

 three,

and a white table makes a misplaced step...

 

I take the flat eye of the lake

with me when I dream

under the surface reflects the ideal...

What is beyond the apple,

the bee,

 the cup of coffee the chairs the table (that walks without moving), all of it. . . . .. .

 

I left my whole morning open for you,

 

You

never came.

 

Whole trees are

reflected in the lake’s stillness,

 one drop of water lands

 and changes my thoughts of you.

 

 

Reviews

[John]

What might appear at first a poem about personal loss actually opens up to a wider question about meaning, What is beyond the apple? Nature just goes about its business quite indifferent to human life, and I think it is this realisation that compels the speaker to make his complaint about not being visited. The last four lines are mysterious - nature perhaps suggesting a different attitude to the person who failed to call.

[LJW]

A second read.
Brilliant.
Welcome back. :-)

[An owl on the moon]

Such a dance of day... contrasts of dark and light... of wanting.. of the world alive in the essence of scents and sights... and so much more. Beautifully bittersweet.

[Penlady]

Reading yet, again. The single drop that changes the reflection from calm glass to a disappearing vision is quite clear in your poem...the way the movement of one moment in time can change everything..

[Penlady]

Came back to read again and a yearning came over me...a desire not to be alone in this scene of yours, but have someone sitting across that table, someone to reach out and clasp hands with. This scene is so real it breathes...

[Penlady]

You are a master poet! You begin with resignation...go on to possibilities...resignation again and the dismissal...I felt it all and still do...what a waste, this perfect time and place without the one desired!

[Horizon K.]

You spoke of word placement when you reviewed my writing, how ever does your meaning become clear here. Each word captures a piece of this reader, draws me in until this experience becomes completely mine. Poignant and reflective. And the ending... haunting...
I feel like my review just can't do this justice. Gorgeous piece!

[LJW]

One of the best poems I've read here. I adore this!
I don't know if there's a technical term for this type (I'll have to ask one of my learned friends, perhaps Sarah W. or Ken Simms), but I call this observational poetry. You are observing your surroundings; either mentioned things in your sight without embelleshment, or by using only simple adjectives:

Bumble bee
bumps my head

....chair made into bone white
....the cup of coffee.....the chairs....the table

Sets the reader directly in the scene. There is no better way to set a simple scene than keeping it simple. Especially when the writer is describing loneliness or being solitary.

Then you go on to juxtapose your inner state of singularity against UNIQUE and unadorned visual images of singularity, simplicity:

I take the flat eye of the lake with me when I dream. (my favorite line = brilliant.)

I left my whole morning open for you.
You never came. ( A perfect example of less is more...you didn't tell the readet how you felt. You knew we'd know. We, I know I, have to feel a twang of that emotional response in real time as we read. That's emotional impact. Hard, hard, hard to capture, but you did here, exceptionally well.
The ending:
One drop of water lands and changes my thoughts of you.
>>>>>>>clapping

[Marie Anzalone]

A gift, then. To transport us into a moment, make us feel it, touch it, taste it. Understand that the table is walking us through your thoughts, waiting on the one who did not appear. How many of us wait by still or moving bodies of water for ones that never showed; wondering what is under the surface of things, what is beyond the thing at hand? How many of us think to note the bee thwacking us in the head while we ponder?

Ecellent, as always. May want to look at double usage of surface?