Little Portions

[PrinceMyshkin]

Have you learned yet
with all your heart to be sad
or are you still nibbling
in the garden, furtive poisons,
and sending out small flares

against the day the plague
lays waste everywhere
and you, alone, among the fallen,
stand taller than you stood?

Little portions of grief, I tell you,
go down harder than the whole.
Take this gall, and swallow
all of it, or fall, some
sunlit afternoon, shallow,
beneath an inch-deep pool.

[CdnReader]

Have you learned yet
with all your heart to be sad
or are you still nibbling
in the garden, furtive poisons,
and sending out small flares

against the day the plague
lays waste everywhere
and you, alone, among the fallen,
stand taller than you stood?

Little portions of grief, I tell you,
go down harder than the whole.
Take this gall, and swallow
all of it, or fall, some
sunlit afternoon, shallow,
beneath an inch-deep pool.


Wow....!

[firefangled]

Wow cubed!

This is you at your best, Prince.

The breaks in this are perfect!

The feeling is beyond words, where it should be - snug in the heart, ringing in the mind.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Cdn, Fire: I feel like a bit of a fraud, or a plagiarist... since this was written quite a while ago, & was published in my collection. Since the cells in our body are completely changed every 7 years (or so I read somewhere), it is some two or more incarnations removed from who I am now. Insofar as I can speak for the guy who actually wrote, I'm sure he'd be pleased by your appreciation. Excelsior!

[Virgil]

Have you learned yet
with all your heart to be sad
or are you still nibbling
in the garden, furtive poisons,
and sending out small flares

against the day the plague
lays waste everywhere
and you, alone, among the fallen,
stand taller than you stood?

Little portions of grief, I tell you,
go down harder than the whole.
Take this gall, and swallow
all of it, or fall, some
sunlit afternoon, shallow,
beneath an inch-deep pool.


This is a wonderful poem Prince. There is not a syllable of fat in here. Perfect imagery, and the perfect pitch of sadness. I'm not sure I understand the fall "beneath an inch-deep pool" line. What am I missing there? But this one is a definite keeper in whatever catalogue of keepers you keep. ;)

[Sweets America]

Oh My GOD. That is so wonderful!! Deserves to be read and reread!! Deserves to be stuck to the walls!! This was in your book?? I did not see it!! That's strange, it's not the first time I feel that someone mysteriously adds pages to your book behind my back.

[PrinceMyshkin]

This is a wonderful poem Prince. There is not a syllable of fat in here. Perfect imagery, and the perfect pitch of sadness. I'm not sure I understand the fall "beneath an inch-deep pool" line. What am I missing there? But this one is a definite keeper in whatever catalogue of keepers you keep. ;)

It is meant to suggest that the woman is so emotionally shallow that she could drown in an inch-deep pool.

[Virgil]

It is meant to suggest that the woman is so emotionally shallow that she could drown in an inch-deep pool.

Thanks. That works!

[goldenrod]

Although we replace all our cells every seven years (some types earlier, some later) We are somewhat better than clones as we retain our memories and appropriate feelings towards passed events...so you can take full kudos NOW, for this magnificent poem!

goldenrod.

[ctalerico]

Fantastic--fabulously powerful and wonderfully acerbic! All elements work superbly well. The poem has touched me deeply and the phrase Take this gall, and swallow/all of it is engraved forever in my brain!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Although we replace all our cells every seven years (some types earlier, some later) We are somewhat better than clones as we retain our memories and appropriate feelings towards passed events...so you can take full kudos NOW, for this magnificent poem!

goldenrod.

May I take a portion of those kudos? I mean, which of us really believes he's a writer unless he's actively engaged in writing something?

I think it may have been WH Auden who was asked once how he felt after he had completed a poem, to which he replied that he felt like someone who might never write another poem...

[PrinceMyshkin]

Fantastic--fabulously powerful and wonderfully acerbic! All elements work superbly well. The poem has touched me deeply and the phrase Take this gall, and swallow/all of it is engraved forever in my brain!

It's comments such as this that remind me that this isn't simply a place where various anonymous or semi-anonymous people post their poems, but that it is a community!