instrumental

[amuse]

1/23/06. edit to topic: i kept her longer. couldn't let her go. don't know that i ever will...long enough to hear, not imagine, her heartbeats...what a miracle...and to find out that my dreams of a girl were correct. and to put my life on the line and (partly because of that) be less angry with him.

i've also added a stanza and italicized one word that needed it.


our months
together/her
tiny heartbeats
fall from the scalpel
as i lay
vanquished in post-op
they are scurried into
the autoclave

what a lucky
thing to be
born a scalpel!
it will
shake itself
free will
never
see
or be haunted by
any hopes and dreams

...dreams last
night of
snatching
minis in bassinets
from wildfires
and overly tipsy
garbage trucks
with tons of
smelted goo,
from hammocks
nearly broken above
bald rocky ground-

but the scalpel,
you wonder?
ah yes.
the scalpel.

it will
traipse along
its merry way
go on to
save lives in
triple bypass,
repair
herniated disks and
remove polyps
as blithely
as it
removes beauty
(as aged women
attempt
to destroy crow's
feet and character-
to look Good!)

but i will always
remember the
heartbeats that i
never heard
the heartbeats
that i hate you for

that you couldn't
wouldn't let me keep.
...it must be nice to be a
scalpel.
it must be nice to be a
man.



*is from dreams this morning and a dripping red scalpel image with words as i fell asleep.
ignore if you find it unpleasant!

[white camellia]

I am impressed by your red scalpel image, amuse! No hesitation, no fragility, it appears hither and thither, shaping lives freely, and most of all, its color fascinates...But I don't quite understand the first stanza... :blush:

[amuse]

np! and hello, white camellia.

re: the first stanza...i'm aware that abortions aren't performed via slicing and dicing (have been witness as a med. asst.), but it's the image that presented itself last night when i thought of one - hence the reference to tiny hearbeats, the scalpel, and sterilization of the latter in an autoclave.

*have revised it ever so slightly for clarification.

**it also has to do with her/well, my [former] man as the instrument for life and death compared with the scalpel as another instrument for life and death

[verybaddmom]

wow, touching as always. it never fails to amaze me how you can paint such a picture ... so abstract, yet so clearly defined.
and omg love the ending....

btw ..... HI!!!!

[amuse]

btw ..... HI!!!!
Hi darlin'!!! and wouldn't you know it, the school comp doesn't have messenger, i just checked. now i must get that computer part in. :)

and omg love the ending....:lol: thx.

[verybaddmom]

well c'mon now ash....git er done!!
long time no speak ;)
got news coming out the wazooo
i bet you do toooooo

[blp]

You could remove 'it's merry way' and the whole bit about old women without doing a jot of harm, and I'd say it would improve things a lot. The first is old rope, the second sounds like a pet peeve that has nothing to do with the rest of the poem. Other than that, it has loads to recommend it, especially the third stanza, the remainder of the second minus my cavils and the 'I hate you' line - except that it relates to the very end and the very end is weak, or feels incomplete. Man = scalpel? Not sure the poem's really about this. It's a lament and the anger comes up suddenly at the end. Seems to deserve it's own poem - whether extending the metaphor, finding another, which might also be to do with some kind of gyneacological instrument, or going into more realist detail about the man in question, or all of those.
Not sure the title's really working either. The pun lacks a rationale.

[EpItApH]

WOW!!!
Your a TALENTED one indeed!
amazing yes..
I'm so out of words to describe :|
Very ummm professional and well its just amusingly brilliant: Amuse :o :)

[Avalive]

This is one of your best. You again amazes me, amuse.