Not Quite Gemini Stars

[hillwalker]

NOT QUITE GEMINI STARS

on separate flight-paths destined never to collide,
detached by gravity, and through time’s giddy metronome
we never met

I followed in your wake, a fragment of your horoscope;
invading your vacated bedroom, absent lover in your still-warm sheets,
my hands reach out for those ghost fingers
that we never got to hold

I inhaled the same life blood you once swam inside,
gaped at the same cave paintings
and drowsed to the same rustle and gurgle of laughter,
the same modified lullabies

did these same tastes patrol your reptile tongue,
the same maelstrom from menopause to puberty appear inside a single blink,
did the same spasms of multiplying cells make you kick out
as you sought your first bottomless step?

no,
I took that first stumble for you,
stammered those first words,
reduced all promises to smithereens,
my scrabbing fingers squidging up those letters
that you never got to read

and I didn’t get to show you that trick,
the one where I hold my thumb under the tap;
never got to tease you about your golden curls
or battle the world for you;
never got to miss you,
to grieve for you

not quite gemini stars,
on separate flight-paths destined never to collide,
I emerged a newborn planet
while you….. you supernovaed…..

[Hawkman]

Outstanding poem, hill, so quietly tragic.

Best, H

[hillwalker]

Thanks Hawk - a little tragic, but also a sort of love poem I suppose to a lost sibling.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The title returns at the beginning of the last verse, but with so much more depth of sadness. Beautiful poem.

[Bar22do]

Sad and beautiful, hill, and the ending

"I emerged a newborn planet
while you….. you supernovaed….."

simply sublime.

"time’s giddy metronome",

"did the same spasms of multiplying cells make you kick out
as you sought your first bottomless step?"

were my preferred. Starting S5 with this tense, determined "no" is so strong. S6 in my view could be a bit shortened, less sentimental and thus more poignant, but it's only my feeling so pls disregard if you think otherwise.

It brought to memory a similar personal experience, therefore it moved me even more profoundly. A beautiful way to be with a beloved -- void... a beautiful poem.

Thanks a lot, hill, Bar

[hillwalker]

Thank you Prince for your kind words,

and Bar, I'm pleased it was able to touch your heart although the memory it stirred within you has a touch of personal sadness.

[blank|verse]

A poignant and heart-felt poem, hill, that certainly feels like it has come out of personal experience.

It might be interesting to have a go at re-writing this in form - couplets of some kind naturally suggest themselves, rhymed or otherwise. I just feel that kind of poetic effort does more justice to a subject like this, and provides a tension between control and emotion.

Still, what you have is effectively moving and avoids sentimentality (although I'm not keen on the repetition of 'you' in the final line.)

[Jerrybaldy]

Hillwalker
excuse my directness but two questions. Is the picture you as a boy and is this poem personal about the loss of your sibling? No doubt I have broken some unwritten laws in asking, but to quote some ******* in most training courses the only silly question is the one you dont ask.
Enjoyed what I understood of what you wrote along with what I didnt ;)
regards
JB

[hillwalker]

@ b|v - thanks for your suggestion. Rewriting it as couplets is a possibility (probably unrhymed) as I am aware it needs some polishing and tightening.
The 'you... you' in the final line was intended as a slight dramatic pause (probably over-dramatic!) to draw emphasis to the closing phrase. I can appreciate that perhaps it is rather a hackneyed device.

@Jerrybaldy - laws are there to be broken.
The picture - yes, that's me in my black and white days.
The poem was a response to learning that I had an older sister who was stillborn a year or so before I was born (something that I was only made aware of about fifty years after the event - weird, I know).

[Jerrybaldy]

I wonder if that fringe is quite so full but im betting the grin remains. Your sister would be proud that her brother wrote of her.
best wishes
JB

[xtianfriborg13]

I'm in awe. I love it. :D

[hillwalker]

Wow - thanks for pulling this out of the vaults and giving it a dusting.

H

[Bar22do]

It was good to read this poem again. Thanks Xtian for bumping it up. Thanks again Hill for gracing us with your art.

[Jerrybaldy]

Remember it well with good reason.

[hillwalker]

Thanks both... again...

H

[Jerrybaldy]

Still so good to see a reminder of how it should be done. I have to say it and I do not discount myself from this, this place has become a steamy pile of dirge.

[Haunted]

Two thematics going on here, the bigger than life celestial symbolism, and the ever so tender love theme, both making the poem truly Gemini in nature even though not in life. I didn't get the full scoop until I read your comments. Such a sorrowful tale, losing something you never had. A supernova of a poem, in itself.

[hillwalker]

Thanks both of you.

H

[hallaig]

Aye its good, first time I've read it. From a personal point of view I can't help thinking it's perhaps too sprawling, and that the last 3 verses are much more focused and penetrating and therefore resonant than the more abstract and wordy ones that precede it?