Where all that is grubby grows

[PrinceMyshkin]

On the underside of truth
where all that is grubby grows
and luxuriates we expose
that which we otherwise choose
to hide from the lovely ones.
For they are lovely and our hearts,
at times, are comatose.

Ah but she, a certain she,
is a needle straight into the heart
of your heart! For her
you’d get naked in the most public place.
You’d will your quite average penis
to grow to a monstrous and yet elegant
size for her. You’d fit it into her
as if it were yourself
being inserted, at long last, into the world.

[Delta40]

I feel like there is quite a leap from the first stanza to the second. I really wasn't expecting that and nearly choked on my porridge!

L3 in the first stanza doesn't make sense to me but it is very early here and I am still waking up!

[Maryd.]

Hey Prince... Talk about getting straight to the point.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I feel like there is quite a leap from the first stanza to the second. I really wasn't expecting that and nearly choked on my porridge!

L3 in the first stanza doesn't make sense to me but it is very early here and I am still waking up!

I thought I installed an NRDB (No Reading During Breakfast) barrier on this thread?

L3 is a run on from line 2 but imagine a slight pause (smaller than a comma) after "luxuriates".

[Delta40]

I have to, otherwise I miss all you lit-netters. I take really fast showers too!

[Skia]

Talk about getting straight to the point.

I bloody well agree !
Fair one for being so Brutally honest :D

[PrinceMyshkin]

Hey Prince... Talk about getting straight to the point.

Um, Mary, can I confide something in you? I was very nervous about posting this poem because the "you/your" that I use throughout the 2nd verse is a very thinly disguised "I/my".

And "the point" that I assume you're referring to is known by a couple of other names around these parts...

[Maryd.]

Um, Mary, can I confide something in you? I was very nervous about posting this poem because the "you/your" that I use throughout the 2nd verse is a very thinly disguised "I/my".

And "the point" that I assume you're referring to is known by a couple of other names around these parts...

Well then sir, you are more courageous than 'I'
regards
M

[Delta40]

I must admit 'where all that is grubby grows' rings like something out of a children's book. Roald Dahl perhaps.

[hillwalker]

I feel it's not my place to comment on this one Prince - since all the females of the pack seem to be managing well enough - so I won't.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I feel it's not my place to comment on this one Prince - since all the females of the pack seem to be managing well enough - so I won't.

H

I confess I suspect this to mean you have some critical things to say about it and if so, I wish you would. Anyway, aren't we all supposed to be getting in touch with our feminine sides these days?

[Delta40]

does that mean I ought to get in touch with my masculine side and wish I had a.....ok, I refuse to walk to the door of Freud (am putting on my make-up now)

[hillwalker]

I confess I suspect this to mean you have some critical things to say about it and if so, I wish you would. Anyway, aren't we all supposed to be getting in touch with our feminine sides these days?

I could have mentioned the possibly sexist undertone of the term 'the lovely ones' and the abject lack of foreplay in the second verse - but since the ladies are not complaining then how dare I pick fault?

As for exploring my feminine side - I think I've posted enough on here from the feminine pov to confuse enough readers already.

H :-)

EDIT visions of Delta applying lip-stick.....

[PrinceMyshkin]

does that mean I ought to get in touch with my masculine side and wish I had a.....

But, Delta, you'd look funny with a beard!


ok, I refuse to walk to the door of Freud (am putting on my make-up now)

[NikolaiI]

I'm sorry Prince, unlike apparently most others, this didn't do much for me. I found the second stanza rather distasteful and cheap.

[Delta40]

Well, I'm outta here. Have a great day everyone. Think about writing a second stanza Prince or as Hill suggested include foreplay!

[PrinceMyshkin]

I could have mentioned the possibly sexist undertone of the term 'the lovely ones' and the abject lack of foreplay in the second verse - but since the ladies are not complaining then how dare I pick fault?

As for exploring my feminine side - I think I've posted enough on here from the feminine pov to confuse enough readers already.

H :-)

EDIT visions of Delta applying lip-stick.....

I couldn't help but relish the irony that you found my use of "the lovely ones" to have a sexist undertone shortly before you referred to "ladies," a term to which Marilyn French's novel The Women's Room is a spirited rebuttal!

As for the absence of foreplay, I agree with you that it might or ought to have been there. I didn't think of it but if I had, I am - believe me! - much too prudish to have attempted it.

[hillwalker]

I couldn't help but relish the irony that you found my use of "the lovely ones" to have a sexist undertone shortly before you referred to "ladies,"

Me too.... and as for your reluctance to engage in foreplay methinks you do protest too much.

H

[Silas Thorne]

This one really pushes the boundaries! Bravo! :)
I rather like this one, poetically. Content-wise it disturbs me somewhat, but I love the way you throw the words down here. I particularly like the way you keep to the rhyme scheme (which is quite beautiful, by the way) in the first strophe, and throw it out with the 'exposure' and lack of restraint in the second part of the poem. Excellent pacing, by the way.
I really appreciate the boldness in this poem. That shows particularly in these lines:
You’d fit it into her
as if it were yourself
being inserted, at long last, into the world.

The line-break :biggrin5: shows a lot of courage. Read aloud, I'm sure you'd see a lot of shocked glances for a brief instant- but then you turn the statement around completely in the last bit of the line.

[symphony]

On the underside of truth
where all that is grubby grows
and luxuriates we expose
that which we otherwise choose
to hide from the lovely ones.
For they are lovely and our hearts,
at times, are comatose.

Ah but she, a certain she,
is a needle straight into the heart
of your heart! For her
you’d get naked in the most public place.
You’d will your quite average penis
to grow to a monstrous and yet elegant
size for her. You’d fit it into her
as if it were yourself
being inserted, at long last, into the world.


I'll have to second Silas in this one. I like it (very, very much) poetically. The style is just amazing here. The seeming propriety-- with just hints of the grime-- in the first stanza, then the runaway rawness in the second. Very powerful. I love poetry when it's this powerful, when it spurts out with such energy. Sometimes I find English too sweet/suave/smooth to put much power in poetry. In those instants I think my own language (Bengali) has much more muscle. Although an optimist for the most part in life, I like poetry when it cuts. (It might be because I only write poems when I cant express the content in any other form.) Poems like this-- thanks to you poets-- are just what I need from time to time, to realize that the words will speak on and out, no matter what the language is, if the speaker knows how to feel them first.

[drago]

You’d fit it into her
as if it were yourself
being inserted, at long last, into the world.


This, I believe, was my favorite part. Even if your audience does not agree with it, as some evidently do not, this line itself is pure poetry. Bravo.

[tailor STATELY]

A different side of the coin. For one stray moment I thought of "The Beautiful People"; then wished I hadn't.


as if it were yourself
being inserted, at long last, into the world.

I found this last line quite sad, though most likely off the mark again, as if without attaining "his" love (or desire) your protagonist wouldn't feel part of the world, alone in abject poverty of the heart, alone as if "he" wouldn't exist.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Hawkman]

Something of a refreshing change of style from you, Prince. And certainly worthy of comment, although I, like others, am a little taken aback by S2. Nothing subliminal or metaphorical here! I feel as though I've just been the victim of a flasher while walking in the park, lol.

Keep up the good work :D

H

[TheFifthElement]

If you read it you may understand why this poem made me think of Courtship (http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/mark_strand/poems/11839) by Mark Strand. Unlike Strand you didn't withdraw from what many may feel to be the unsettling or discomfiting aspect of the poem. I like that. It is what makes me feel so strongly about Sharon Olds' work. She doesn't shirk from exposing the 'grubby' to use your term, and yet by doing so she also exposes the human in all its vulnerability and frailty. You also do that here.

It is a striking poem, Prince. Not for the faint hearted, but better for it in my opinion. I'm with hillwalker on 'the lovely ones', which makes me shudder, but changing it could destroy some of the dynamics of the poem, so I would counsel against doing so if you were considering it.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Silas:
This one really pushes the boundaries! Bravo!
I rather like this one, poetically. Content-wise it disturbs me somewhat, but I love the way you throw the words down here. I particularly like the way you keep to the rhyme scheme (which is quite beautiful, by the way) in the first strophe, and throw it out with the 'exposure' and lack of restraint in the second part of the poem. Excellent pacing, by the way.
I really appreciate the boldness in this poem. That shows particularly in these lines:
You’d fit it into her
as if it were yourself
being inserted, at long last, into the world.

The line-break shows a lot of courage. Read aloud, I'm sure you'd see a lot of shocked glances for a brief instant- but then you turn the statement around completely in the last bit of the line.


You’re one of the first to comment on the poetics of this, which I appreciate, and the lines you high-lighted are ones I was particularly pleased with..

That you were somewhat disturbed by the content can only mean, to me, that you would somewhat be disturbed by my personality, as the poem is a candid reflection of it. Were we given the opportunity, I can only hope that either you’d reform me or we’d find some other basis on which to be friends.

Symphony:
I'll have to second Silas in this one. I like it (very, very much) poetically. The style is just amazing here. The seeming propriety-- with just hints of the grime-- in the first stanza, then the runaway rawness in the second. Very powerful. I love poetry when it's this powerful, when it spurts out with such energy. Sometimes I find English too sweet/suave/smooth to put much power in poetry. In those instants I think my own language (Bengali) has much more muscle. Although an optimist for the most part in life, I like poetry when it cuts. (It might be because I only write poems when I cant express the content in any other form.) Poems like this-- thanks to you poets-- are just what I need from time to time, to realize that the words will speak on and out, no matter what the language is, if the speaker knows how to feel them first.


I love your response and as for its muscularity, I wish I could write in Bangla!

SarahDrago:
This, I believe, was my favorite part. Even if your audience does not agree with it, as some evidently do not, this line itself is pure poetry. Bravo.

If you refer back to my comments on “Experimental Poetry” you’d see that we are of one mind when it comes to speaking candidly - even what some might consider raunchily!

Stately:
A different side of the coin. For one stray moment I thought of "The Beautiful People"; then wished I hadn't.



as if it were yourself
being inserted, at long last, into the world.

I found this last line quite sad, though most likely off the mark again, as if without attaining "his" love (or desire) your protagonist wouldn't feel part of the world, alone in abject poverty of the heart, alone as if "he" wouldn't exist.


Yes, there must be a trace of sadness in the concept of someone who does not always or usually feel himself to be fully of or in this world, but surely much of the time we take our being in the world for granted, and rejoice in those moments when we more fully experience it?

Hawkman:
Something of a refreshing change of style from you, Prince. And certainly worthy of comment, although I, like others, am a little taken aback by S2. Nothing subliminal or metaphorical here! I feel as though I've just been the victim of a flasher while walking in the park, lol.

But dare I suggest that some flashers are more interesting than others - and not merely by the size or whatever of what they flash?

I’m reminded of the joke about a Jewish woman walking through a park when she’s accosted by a man, who parts the two halves of his trench-coat to reveal that he is naked underneath it.

“What,” she says contemptuously: “You call that a lining?”

TheFifthElement:
If you read it you may understand why this poem made me think of Courtship by Mark Strand. Unlike Strand you didn't withdraw from what many may feel to be the unsettling or discomfiting aspect of the poem. I like that. It is what makes me feel so strongly about Sharon Olds' work. She doesn't shirk from exposing the 'grubby' to use your term, and yet by doing so she also exposes the human in all its vulnerability and frailty. You also do that here.

It is a striking poem, Prince. Not for the faint hearted, but better for it in my opinion. I'm with hillwalker on 'the lovely ones', which makes me shudder, but changing it could destroy some of the dynamics of the poem, so I would counsel against doing so if you were considering it.


I will look up Courtship by Mark Strand. As for “the lovelies,” one might monitor the PCness of one’s speech, but for a man of this protagonist’s generation, that is, I believe, how he would think. And I for one have never found a woman “lovely” unless her appearance were animated by an inner spiritual or intellectual loveliness.

Likewise, I’m not especially intrigued by the appearance of a man who doesn’t seem to have something lively going on inside his head.

The length of this reply will have displaced many succeeding threads from the head of the queue, so I’ve restored them to their original places.

[AuntShecky]

[Deleted.]

Sent via PM instead.

[Lumiere]

Oh conflicted reactions!

"the underside of truth" is a marvelous and complete image. I'm curious to know if it was what sparked the rest of the poem.

On the 1st reading, I thought "You'd fit it . . ." to the end good; on the 2nd, it made me . . . how to say it . . . emotionally queasy? Still, it's good.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Was this a conscious, or unconscious reference to
"Heart's Needle" by W.D. Snodgrass? If it were the
former, everything that follows in the second stanza is
quite disturbing!

Wow, you ARE sharp! No, it wasn't intended to evoke that glorious prefatory anecdote by Snodgrass, but I was reminded of it as I entered the image. I'm deeply sorry if my 2nd stanza leaves a stain on your love of Snodgrass, whom I admire greatly.

Do you know that poem of his in which every verse concludes with the self-mocking line

Snodgrass is striding through the universe!

Love
Jer

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh conflicted reactions!

"the underside of truth" is a marvelous and complete image. I'm curious to know if it was what sparked the rest of the poem.

On the 1st reading, I thought "You'd fit it . . ." to the end good; on the 2nd, it made me . . . how to say it . . . emotionally queasy? Still, it's good.

Surely it couldn't have made you as "emotionally queasy" as I was anxious before posting it? I wouldn't know how to defend it if I were inclined to do so.

[Jerrybaldy]

With so many wise words already said it only leaves me to say in the voice of Harold from Steptoe and son
'You dirty old man'. :D

best wishes brave Prince
Jerry