Lousiana

[jon1jt]

Louisiana, she can be such a boy,
so sweetly luring in her boyish-bountiful sounds
of swing songs,
singing a whole disrobing of moral sense.
The mouths close around her,
but she sticks to the inside of the glass,
digging her fingers into the frost
to withhold beauty and love
till it numbs.
Dawn’s damp face presses---
in the Eternal City,
---against bar room windows,
the bodies bowing out with foolish joy.
Only the children may cup their hands,
catching angels that fall from the trees
and wear their whiteness.

O what men would do to curl up beside her bayou,
to pierce the water’s skin,
where language
can no longer find them---
or me?
below,
to be loved once
for what you're not.

[ampoule]

I want to say unbelievable, so I will.

[Pendragon]

And I wish to say whispers of Mardi Gras-- so I will-- http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Jester.gif

[Granny5]

There's nothing I can say. Your poem has taken my breath away. It's beautiful.

[kiz_paws]

That poem was beautiful, Jon. I love the language you speak. :)

[TheFifthElement]

Hey Jon - it's been a while but worth waiting for! Cool poem, especially the final stanza which is just lovely. There's a lot here, as there always is with your poems, only a couple of points I wasn't overly sure about, in this part:


Louisiana, she can be such a boy,
so sweetly luring in her boyish-bountiful sounds

I found the repetition of 'boy' a little jarring, and perhaps as a result of my schoolgirl English I feel the need to turn 'luring' into 'alluring' but that, I think, is as a result of reading with my expectation instead of reading the words (bad, bad me). and this:


to be shown in dawn’s damp face pressing---
in the Eternal City,
---against the bar room windows,

with the reference to the Eternal City made me think of Rome/the Vatican which completely altered the tone for me. I also wondered if there was some irony intended in the dashes a' la Gluck given your comments in another thread?!

But this, this made the poem for me:


O what men would do to curl up beside her bayou,
to pierce the water’s skin,
where language
can no longer find them---
or me?
below,
to be loved once
for what you're not.

[Virgil]

Umm, I can't' say I'm overwhelmed with this one Jon. The language is good, don't get me wrong, but I'm not a big fan of personifying abstract things in such an extended way. An occaisional line of personificaton is ok, but the whole poem, ehh. The whole poem rests on that extended metaphor, that is Louisiana the state as a lover. Acutally you confused me a little, unless you were deliberately suggesting homosexuality: a sweet boy at the beginning and someone men curl up to at the end. Hahaha, perhaps given mardi gras it fits. But it does have really good lines and images:


..sweetly luring in her boyish-bountiful sounds
of swing songs
singing a whole disrobing of moral sense.
and


Only the children may cup their hands,
to catch angels falling from the trees
and wear their whiteness.

[jon1jt]

Thanks everybody for taking the time to read.

Fifth: You're very observant. I used the dashes in just that way, irked by the fact that Jack Kerouac used them in 1951 for an actual purpose, but the establishment never kissed his *** like they do hers. Anyway...I also see what you mean about the word boy...and as you can see, Unca Virge thinks I may have been alluding to homosexuality or something with it. :lol: For the boy it's always about pure pleasure, as is the case with Swing music. Watch one of those old 40's clips of high school auditorium dances. Wow. :)

Virge - I suppose I am personifying, though I'd like to think I'm not. But abstractly the case? Hmm. You mean to tell me that you've never caught an angel falling out of a tree? never curled up beside a bayou? never gone skinny dipping? Gosh Virge you're missing out. ;)