I can see my house from here

[Jerrybaldy]

'I can see my house from here'
I said to Sally, as she lifted her skirt
to pee on the dandelions.
I took a dead one
and told her the time,
it was fourteen o'clock.
I held a buttercup
and the glow on her chin
told me scientifically
that Sally loved butter a lot.
I picked her a daisy
and counted petals
of she loves me
she loves me not.
The summer sun was burning
the tip of her nose
and her freckles
were ablaze
on her cheeks.
She gave me her gum
and I tasted
the sweet warmth of her spit.
' I can see my house from here, Sally'
Her lopsided smile was unimpressed.
She dragged me to a bramble bush
and we scratched and we bled
as we kissed.
We climbed the big oak together
and sat upon its bough.
The sky was misty orange now
and we held bloody hands
as our features faded out
with the light.

It is a wet Sunday
I have walked to our oak tree
and it is ageing so more gracefully, than me.
I can see our house from here, Sally.
I am coming home.

[deryk]

Unbridled familiarity. I love the near-ambiguity of the final stanza. At a loss of better words; sad but sweet and O so true.

[Delta40]

You capture moments which fills ones imagination with so much detail, including the said and the unsaid.

[everyadventure]

A poem with a happy ending from JB?? You continue to shock me even when you don't intend to :)

I liked this one, especially the sharing of gum. Very sweet.

[PrinceMyshkin]

What a wonderful poem! Balm from and for your heart - and for Sally's, too.

[blank|verse]

A poem with a happy ending from JB??
I find the word 'sentimental' comes to mind, ea! (And it's not alone in the Baldy oeuvre, he does have a softer side. Sometimes!) :)

You'll note the poet tries to disguise this emotion somewhat by offering a more bluffly realistic opening image of the girl peeing. Hmm, poems about girls peeing... try 'Piss Flower' by Jo Shapcott (http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do;jsessionid=1AF590758FDC2B532BA8C89C8 43A64D2?poemId=6477).

I do wonder whether it would have been better as a short story, though; as enjoyable as they are, lines like these:


I held a buttercup
and the glow on her chin
told me scientifically
that Sally loved butter a lot.

read more as cut-up prose than poetry.

But as for the ending, so much depends upon that switched pronoun. Well writ, sir.

[Jerrybaldy]

deryk, you are becoming commenteer extrordinaire. thanks.
Thank you Delta and Prince.
BlV you see straight through me. I wasnt aware of attempting to derail the sentimentality in the opening lines but upon reflection you are quite right as you are with your comment on the prose. Thanks most of all for noticing that all important switched pronoun.
cheers
JB

[Buh4Bee]

I'm not sure if you are a lunatic or what, but I find all your poems to be so strange. This one though worked. It was strange, but it made sense.

[Jerrybaldy]

I am quite mad jeresa and as my name is jeremy and my sister is named teresa you are some mad sibling mishmash to me :D

[firefangled]

Very nice, Jerry. If it was not intentional to rescue this from sentimentality, you couldn't prove it by me. So, I will still say well done on that aspect of your poem. And the same goes for the last stanza. The echo of the earlier use of coming home and as BV pointed out the pronoun switch that made it happen.

[GEETASHREE]

Very intense. Very nostalgic!

[blank|verse]

I wasnt aware of attempting to derail the sentimentality [...]
Well, you're in good company, Jerry. I thought of Romeo and Juliet and how, at the very start, you have the 'bawdy' conversation between two laddish servants of the Capulets, before you have the 'true' love later.

So the contrast between the two emotions is therefore more extreme, and works very well.

[Haunted]

I enjoyed this very much Jer, though the end makes me sad. But maybe the end makes me sad, I enjoyed it even more. Something like that.

[Jerrybaldy]

thanks Getashree
ff and blv. It is more the other way around. I started with the opening line and then softened it and thanks to a previous comment from misadventure I came up with a happy ending... so why is it making you sad dear haunted?

[Haunted]

oooh its just a feeling but let me try to answer that...

it is ageing so more gracefully, than me.
could very well be:
it is ageing so more gracefully, than you.

Either way it signifies a passage of time and its quiet distruction and it makes me sad.

I wondered if he was just coming home from work, or coming home after 50 years, and at that thought I felt a bit choked up.

of course the change from
'I can see my house from here'
I said to Sally
to
I can see our house from here, Sally.

and knowing they did get together in certain capacity is very moving.

And this, so endearing, in addition to sharing a peeing moment:

She gave me her gum
and I tasted
the sweet warmth of her spit.

and
we held bloody hands

ah that's soulmate status!

Then the last line...
I am coming home.
Is he "coming" home or is he coming "home"? I'm never home and those I ever loved are never home either if you know what i mean *screwdriver* *screwdriver* *screwdriver*

And the bramble, so English, so sexy. First heard of it in movie Serpents Kiss. its a wonderful poem jer, my little chick flick like Serpents Kiss. Bloody and pissy on the outside soft on the inside.

[Jerrybaldy]

Dear haunted. You think too much. I agree with you on the soulmate status and I have no idea what you mean about the coming home but I love that you liked it. *screwdriver*