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thousand lonely
men & women
hold themselves back
looking for life commitment:
self-inflicting pain and torment;
don'tcha know a happy life's made
of a
hundred-
thousand-
million
brief moments?...
Come do-own, my baby,
Underneath the table: just
kiss me in the morning and
call me if you're able.
Wanting passion,
she swoons for brawlers;
Wanting brilliance,
this one settles for dollars.
Wanting connection,
he settles for handsome;
Wanting commitment,
this one
takes a
hand for
ransom...
But rings mean nothing!
Come make a moment holy,
and it will last a lifetime, while
vows—are broken slowly.
Yours, ours, mine, - - - - all on a pin:
that rushing tip of time - - - -
- - - Childhood drawings and aching teen crushes,
seem laughable now - - - -
- - - Metals to rust and crystals to dust:
we all buckle and bow - - - -
- - - Growing, shedding; absorbing, forgetting—
I ate my old skin: - - - -
- - - Our joys live and die. Our joys live and die,
at the moment we're in. - - - -
(So Come do-own, my baby,
underneath the table...)
Over-thinking,
under-doing?
Leads a virgin
mind to ruin.
Overdoing,
under-thinking?
Can lead a fool to
wisdom in a blink—So
Come do-own, my baby,
underneath the table:
just kiss me in the morning and
call me
if you're able.
When I say 'able,'
what I mean is
there's no need to
lifetime-guarantee this:
A thousand years of
faithful service—
done as habit?—
is still shallow,
cold,
and
worthless.
Your word's as good
as the passion that it's based in.
Be with me,
fully,
here and now: that is dedication.
- - - - love is not!
- - - - right/wrong! - -
just profound! - - - -
- - below the!
- - scales, so! - -
come down! - - - -
Watch my fingers,
as they feel your arm bend;
touch my low back,
as I breathe your cheek in;
taste my lip's edge
as I hear your throat hum:
fill my senses
as yours,
too,
overflow.
Come—
Come doown,
my baby,
Our borderline's
a fable.
Come feel
your heart
beat
through
my chest,
underneath the table.
Reading this poem, my eyes were initially drawn to the collage, because I couldn’t pinpoint what I was looking at. My brain kept picturing it as two abstract, grotesque, alien-like creatures appearing as mirror images to each other. After reading the poem, the pink and blue of the mirrored sketches represented the fundamentally different yet undeniable similarity between the way women and men suffer and feel like isolated creatures when it comes to love. I found this poem to be very relatable, at least in the aspect that it reflects the fundamental attitudes of people I have grown up with. People I know set high standards for themselves, and are always focused on some kind of end goal, not letting anything get in the way. In this instance, the poem discusses how people set incredibly high standards when it comes to love. They want to find the one, be satisfied and happy, and be done. They don’t appreciate the fact that all the other lovers they may encounter along the way will make up a conglomeration of moments too, and that the way to have a happy life is to have a collection of happy moments–even if they are fleeting. By streamlining the process of love, people will have a specific thing about a person they will seek out, in which doing so will cause them to ignore other crucial aspects of a person’s character. I particularly enjoyed the part where it discussed the transience of wedding vows. I loved how it was structured like a conversation between two people, emphasizing the idea of how both lovers yearn for the past, where they were more inexperienced and the world of love seemed mesmerizing and pure. One of the biggest conclusions the poem makes in my eyes is that one of the best kinds of love is love that has that forbidden kind of feeling, that focuses heavily on physical touch. This feeling is what sets people off in love, elevating their standards and mood to an extreme. This poem notes how they “come down” from that high.
ReplyDeleteIn my brain, the "come down" is an invitation.
DeleteThe table holds a scale on it: right/wrong; good enough/not good enough; give a chance/throwaway...
And the speaker is begging this person (the world, really) to come down underneath the table and just experience! In that peaceful dark and intimate quiet, away from the judgmental weight and illusory static Truth of the scale ... invented by change-averse minds, in a world where everything is continuously crumbling and reforging.
We spend so much time imagining, dreaming, hoping, and perfecting what we plan to be the important moments of our lives that we sometimes forget to focus on the real ones. The lover is calling to his partner from under the table, under the expectations under the overthinking. They invite the other to just enjoy, to forget the rest and simply be with them. I know people who are “planners” , people who live on a rigid schedule, a time table of their own design, finding happiness in the self creation of their experiences. They strive to experience important events, or at least events that are perceived as important. They try to cultivate these titanic feelings, the ones shown in movies, in plays, but end up missing the real. It's a feeling I can't understand, the chance encounter with a foreign stranger is always more memorable than the museum. Eating ice cream on a curb as it starts to rain is always more memorable than dinner reservation. Finding something on a whim whether its food, music, movies, or love will always be more meaningful than being fed it. I live for the spontaneous, for the moment. I sometimes find myself getting too caught up in worry, where life ends up going by. I need to experience, to just be. Not worry of what could happen, instead experience everything that does. Life is defined by the unknowns, by the excitement, by the little things. We fail existence by curating it to our tastes. Some are so caught up in the details, they forget to see the rest, forget to live. Endlessly chasing perfection we fail to appreciate the wonder of the world, of people, of life. I find myself happiest when I let life just roll over me. When I get too bogged down in how something should go, how I want it to go, I often end up disappointed.
ReplyDelete