Shreds

[Xamonas Chegwe]

This is a departure for me. My first attempt in years to use a traditional rhyme and meter scheme. I would be interested to hear any comments, particularly what people think of the structure of the poem and it's meaning. I will hold fire on explaining any of it for a while, to let others read it (if anyone actually bothers!) without preconceptions. There are a couple of points which I'm wondering if anyone will spot.

I will say one thing - and I doubt it will shed much light - it was inspired by exactly where I put a book on the shelf. The whole concept of the poem came to me then. I hope I've done it at least some justice. All will be explained later (maybe ;) ).


Shreds

Shock of black on white, this hateful page
Which cannot be unread, unsaid, unknown;
Blurring eyes that burst, as clouds, with rage?
Or sadness? or despair? Emotion shown
As fickle as the one that draws these tears;
A love, long clung to, now in flesh removed,
Though, to be truthful, absent many years;
That long suspected, now on paper proved.
Nails dig skin, pull hair as if to show
Some penance for a blame that should not be
Attached to who is wronged and does not know
The reason for this gift of misery.
“And so another note I’ll write”, it’s thought,
“A note of far more serious import.”

My dear, I cannot leave without a word,
My love. Yes, still that soubriquet you bear;
To say that leaving thus is not preferred,
Though waning passion left our feelings spare,
But necessary, you yourself must know,
Without your presence, life for me is smashed,
That things have changed as seasons ebb and flow;
All joy removed, all simple pleasures dashed;
What held me fast now presses me to leave,
My own departure, so soon after yours,
And deep inside I know you too believe
Shall be to steer a far more lonely course,
I go to arms far warmer than thine own.
I go to arms far colder than thine own.

To cease; to end it all this very hour?
(But thought of how drags chills across the brow)
A knife to slice, a poison to devour
The flesh within (and if not this, then how?)
To drown? To choke and gasp and fight for breath?
To let the oven’s gasses fill the room
And carry off the spirit to it’s death?
"Ridiculous! This shall not be my doom,
To rush to greet Persephone so soon
For sake of one that does not merit tears.
Rip to shreds both notes and leave them strewn,
I have no need for ghastly souvenirs."
So, till nights grow chill, they wait their fate
Crumpled tight together in the grate.

[genoveva]

Mmmm....a poem written about someone who left you for another? I'm glad you chose not to kill yourself over it! And, it's hard for you to let go.

I'll leave the rhyme and structure to Virgil who seems quite the master...

[Xamonas Chegwe]

It's not autobiographical. :lol:

Thanks for reading.

[jon1jt]

I initially agreed with Genoveva's interpretation, but after a second reading, I think the full meaning of the poem hinges on S1, which is over my head...way too obscure to figure out who exactly wrote the letter(s). :confused:

Shock of black on white, this hateful page

The line above introduces a possible first letter (or page from a book??), written presumably by an significant other ("my dear") that caused initial "shock" to whom came upon it. This coincides with the later line in S1, "That long suspected, now on paper proved" as if it's being discovered for the first time, and in the final stanza "'both' notes" are to be destined for the fire. But, what is very obscure is the use of the word, "another" in the line before last in S1.

“And so another note I’ll write”, it’s thought,
“A note of far more serious import.”

And so a second note emerges, "it's thought" (by whom?) It's possible that we're privy to reading the second letter (along with the poet) which was left behind by the one who departed.

Moving on, S2 is sincere and convincing, an expression of heartfelt loss in "Without your presence, life for me is smashed" followed by S3 with several line bursts contemplating suicide. S3, however, takes a wicked turn and the whole act is followed with anticlimax:

Ridiculous! This shall not be my doom,
To rush to greet Persephone so soon
For sake of one that does not merit tears.
Rip to shreds both notes and leave them strewn,
I have no need for ghastly souvenirs.

I assume these final thoughts come from the poet, who realizes that the object of his affection is not worth suicide, the end. It left me searching for significance. :confused:

[Grumbleguts]

I agree with a lot of what jon says. The first stanza is about receiving a note from a significant other definitely and the mixed emotions it brings. I think that the "other note" is a suicide note as that would fit with the last stanza which is all about contemplating suicide and then rejecting the idea.
Stanza 2 has me puzzled though, I thought it was the second note but now I'm not so sure. These lines really puzzle me in their cotradiction.

I go to arms far warmer than thine own.
I go to arms far colder than thine own.

Anyone else got any ideas here?

About the structure. It is in the form of 3 shakespearean? sonnets. Nice pentameter, although I feel that a few lines are a little forced as if the poet chose words to fit the rhythm and rhyme rather than what he? really wanted to say. The only error in metre is in 'The reason for this gift of misery.' which ought to end in two unstressed syllables but the iambic rhythm forces stress onto the '-ry' which feels unnatural.

A very good effort though and far better than any of my attempts at sonnet form.

[rachel]

This is a story, a life on tossed seas, with all the emotions and thoughts and resolve up and down and blown here and there.
This is a comedy of extreme emotions and rich texture. No mere pouting lovers problems. I really like it and it touches my heart.Just way life is, even when the worst happens, that shred, that tiny shaft of remembered light of love trickles in and out and makes the pain worse, the dark darker. thank you for this

[genoveva]

You find a letter that someone else wrote (and they'e very sad & missing this dead person) about someone who is dead??

[Grumbleguts]

I think I understand the second stanza now. But I will PM the author with my theory rather than spoil the fun for everyone else. I think it is the key to the whole poem.

[jon1jt]

Stanza 2 has me puzzled though, I thought it was the second note but now I'm not so sure. These lines really puzzle me in their cotradiction.

I go to arms far warmer than thine own.
I go to arms far colder than thine own.

Anyone else got any ideas here?

About the structure. It is in the form of 3 shakespearean? sonnets. Nice pentameter, although I feel that a few lines are a little forced as if the poet chose words to fit the rhythm and rhyme rather than what he? really wanted to say. The only error in metre is in 'The reason for this gift of misery.' which ought to end in two unstressed syllables but the iambic rhythm forces stress onto the '-ry' which feels unnatural.

A very good effort though and far better than any of my attempts at sonnet form.

I agree with Grumble about the structure. While 9/10/11 syllables work, it's a bit contrived. As to the two lines below, I had the same problem understanding where they fit; it's almost as if they're hanging off the edge of the stanza and don't belong there:

I go to arms far warmer than thine own.
I go to arms far colder than thine own.

Perhaps it suggests the duality of beauty/suffering and the "cold" "warm" play is metaphorical for life/death? :confused: I read this poem numerous times now and I wonder if X's soul intention was to confound the hell out of his readers!!! :D Great work, X, thanks for getting me to think.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

There are a lot of people on the right track here - or at least they are getting from it what I thought I put into it - which may well not be the same thing at all!

Grumbleguts did PM me and he was 90% right - I thank him for not giving it all away.

I am going to make a small change, just the addition of quote marks in stanza 3, to make it clear that it is the character talking and not the poet's voice. And if I think of a better line than the misery one, I will replace it. I never spotted any problem until GG pointed it out, now it bloody well shrieks at me every time I read the thing. Ending a line with a pyrric substitution, I ask you!

About the contrived rhyming / meter, I have been working on this for weeks - as I said, I don't usually bother to rhyme at all - and finally got fed up of tweaking and put it "out there". It may well change from time to time. It was an ambitious project.

Thank you all for your comments and for reading it, especially those that read it more than once.

Remember, GG was right about stanza 2.


I think it is the key to the whole poem.

[jon1jt]

I think I got it. Stanza 2 is not a note, it consists in alternating lines of a spoken conversation taking place between the character and significant other!!! Stanza 2 L1 begins, "My dear" and L2 with, "My love" What we have going on is a back and forth talk, which is why the last two lines of S2 stand in stark contrast and also correspond with L1 and L2. Don't hold out on me X and Grumble!

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I think I got it. Stanza 2 is not a note, it consists in alternating lines of a spoken conversation taking place between the character and significant other!!! Stanza 2 L1 begins, "My dear" and L2 with, "My love" What we have going on is a back and forth talk, which is why the last two lines of S2 stand in stark contrast and also correspond with L1 and L2. Don't hold out on me X and Grumble!

Close. Very close. But you have an intuitive leap to make yet. You are right about the alternating lines but there is more to it. There are clues in the last stanza.

[Virgil]

First, I found this to be incredibly sensitive. The traditional meter and rhyme I think adds to the gentle feel of the poem. It is a sequence of shakespearian sonnets, which I find very appropriate. I didn't feel any errors in meter, but Petrarch is probably better at scanning it.

While I, like everyone else, don't quite pick up the entire situation, I didn't find it detracts from enjoying the poem. If anything it adds a bit of mystery. That said, I took the second stanza to be the start of the narrator's letter.

I absolutely love the first stanza. Perhaps "gift of misery" is a little too cute. It sounds more like Xam's wit rather than the narrator's response, but nonetheless ok.

The second stanza is very good too. Minor criticisms could be that "dashed" struck me as an overpowering word relative to the rest of the poem, a little striking to me. That's a personal preference, though. The other comment is "seasons ebb and flow" are a bit of a cliche. I'm sure you could be more original there. I found the ending couplet excellent and powerful.

I found the first half of the third stanza interesting and powerful. Going through the options of suicide is quite innovative and appropriate. I didn't care for the second half of that stanza. This line, "To rush to greet Persephone so soon" is problematic to me. (a) Again a cliche but even more important (b) we are in the 21st century and no one refers to Persophone any more. I also didn't carre for the ending. To me the heart of the poem is the feeling of the narrator. To focus on the immanent burning of the letters was sort of melodramatic, like a TV show or something. It reminds me of something Byron woud do or Joyce pretending he's Byronic.

But otherwise a real fine poem.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Thanks Virgil,

I appreciate your comments.

I know what you mean about Persephone, but I inserted that line in an ironic moment, as a deliberate nod to the long history of classical poetry (I was using a classical form so I slipped in a classical reference). On another level, there is not much in the poem to set the timeframe in which the events occur (except that gas ovens have been invented) and the Persphone line is actually spoken aloud by the protagonist, so I will leave it in if it's all the same.

The end of the third stanza is supposed to explain the second. I'm sorry that you feel it an anticlimax, because it's essential to the poem's structure! The last 4 lines unlock the apparent confusion and contradictions of S2 (or at least that was the idea - I might have tried to be too clever here.)

S1 and S3 follow sequentially and tell a fairly straightforward story, S2 is something else entirely - an aside. So far Grumbleguts is the only person to get it spot on (in a PM), but jon1t was almost there in his last post.

And thanks for comparing me to Byron and Joyce. I hope you realise that I am going to be unbearably smug for the rest of the day now! ;)

[Riesa]

It's well done, xc, I keep checking back hoping your'll explain, but no luck. I enjoyed the writing, but I'm with Virg on the 'dashed' thing, but to me what stood out was 'smashed', and I know you can't have one without the other here, it just didn't seem to go with the smoothness of the poem. Otherwise, I'm hoping you'll tell who or what it's about in the end.

"So, till nights grow chill, they wait their fate
Crumpled tight together in the grate"

Is it about a bunch of old newspapers? ;)

[Xamonas Chegwe]

OK - explanation time. I must confess to thinking that it was too obvious!

Stanza 1 is about someone reading a letter from their partner, dumping them. It charts the mixed reactions to the news and finally, a decision to commit suicide - hence, “And so another note I’ll write”, it’s thought,
“A note of far more serious import.”

Leaving stanza 2 aside for now, stanza 3 sees the same person, having written the note, thinking about how to actually perform the act of suicide and being put off by the gruesome images of death. Deciding not to go through with it, both the original note from the partner and the suicide note are ripped to shreds - hence the title - and slung into the fireplace (which is not yet lit).

Which brings us to stanza 2. This is the 2 notes, ripped up and jumbled together. If you take alternate lines, you can read them both. I am going to italicise one set to make them easier to separate.

As for my earlier comments about the bookcase. I got the idea for the poem when my copy of Sylvia Plath's collected poems arrived from Amazon. I placed it on a shelf and then noticed that I had crammed it in next to my collected works of Ted Hughes. This coincidence got me thinking and led to the poem. Although the protagonists in the poem are not meant to be Sylvia and Ted.

I also was very careful not to specify the gender of either the main character or the absent lover. I wondered if anyone would fall into the trap of assuming that it was a 'he' dumping a 'she' - to all your credits, no-one seems to have done - or maybe that's because I made it too unfathomable. ;)

I hope it makes sense to you all now. I would welcome any revised comments - even if it's only, "You bloody clever dick!"

XC

[jon1jt]

Now that's a damn good poem! You really brought it together, X; it makes total sense to me now. The mixing of the two letters in the poem is so subtle and artfully done, especially in the context of what inspired you. And by the way, you've shattered my earlier contentions with the poem (I'm not worthy!) Thanks again for sharing.

[Riesa]

You bloody clever dick. :D

[Xamonas Chegwe]

You bloody clever dick. :D

I thought someone would do that. Why am I not surprised that it's you Ri? :D

Thanx Jon.