Large Vehicle Management

[Delta40]

My scabbing lips,
press the thin line of yours.
We stick together but not in the way
I want.
My breath,
bitter from too much coffee,
dissolves all possibilities.
You're the judge of intimacy,
I'm just hoping to make the grade
as I ransack the drawer for peppermints.
You say you must gallop away
so I watch you dress silently
and prepare to leave.
I don't get the horse comment
since a one seater tractor
is all you own.
Perhaps paintings of bolting stallions
tell you more than I know about loneliness.
'There's no room for you at the front, you'll have to walk'
I understand.
We passed that post years ago.
I used to thrust up and down on your lap
steering haphazardly as you instructed
me in large vehicle management.
'Oh yeah, you're doing real good baby,
don't stop'
The growling commotion of wheels
dared us to hold on
as your tractor reached its rocky peak.
Now, I trail after you,
without boots,
my face caked in mud.
Down the hill we crawl
no speed
no hope
no extra strong mints.

[MystyrMystyry]

Notwithstanding the subject matter I'm still a bit confused - at first I thought it was about a- and then I thought it was about a- and then I thought it was about a-

Is it about two things at the same time? Or just the one twisted in a loop?

I ask because I don't quite get the crawling down a hill if you're in a tractor - I don't get the no room at the front - and I don't get the sudden horse thing

I'm sorry Delta, but I can't criticise it if I don't understand it - I'll have to come back to it later...

[Delta40]

she is not in the tractor since there is no room in the front. he said he had to gallop and she did not understand either since all he owns is a tractor! Crawl also implies at a snails pace.

hope this helps.

[MystyrMystyry]

That makes it much clearer - perhaps I shouldn't have posted earlier because I was really tired when I read it, but I was quite perky the first time too - just that the phone rang and I had to race to a forgotten appointment

Yeah, with more time to digest it I get it - and it's a grower, but I still wouldn't have understood the 'crawl' verb (why not put it in neutral and roll?)


Ah - had a nap - feel better now :)

[Delta40]

I thought about 'trundle' but I didn't think it fit very well.

[hillwalker]

I liked the metaphor of their sexual relationship mirroring the road-handling abilities of an old Massey Fergusson 135 perhaps (if I've read it correctly).
And of course, riding on horseback although more outdated would lend itself to more intense 'pleasure' than the vibrating seat of a clapped out old tractor.

This can be read on so many different levels - a really interesting piece.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

I don't know about the many different levels: there's the metaphor or there are the metaphors and then there's the sex, or what was the sex and the hope and the affection (?) that went with it, and on whichever level one reads there is so much sadness, so honestly and bravely confronted.

[everyadventure]

Sounds like it's time to go shopping for some new farm implements, Delta! Or find yourself a horse who can actually "giddy-up."

I thought this was a powerful piece.

[Delta40]

Thanks everyone for you comments

Hill - I didn't make the connection about a bareback horse!

Prince - Sad brave honesty is what I strive for!

EA - I think I need an old nag...:biggrinjester:

[Jerrybaldy]

It was a joy to read Delta, but I have no idea as to the meaning behind it. I felt I was being pointed somewhere but that it was so subjective to yourself I had no chance of ending up there. That said I would return to my opening seven words.

[MorpheusSandman]

This is one of those pieces where the ambiguity is as frustrating as it is fascinating. I'll join the other posters in expressing my inability to really interpret it, but it nonetheless gives a definite sense of meaning, purpose, and even sense itself behind the entangled metaphors.

[deryk]

What I really like about this poem, is that there is nothing literally happening and yet it is so easy to understand exactly what has occurred unspoken. I feel like there are multiple metaphors wrestling with each other in this. It's like a layer-cake boxing a jelly-roll meditating on an ice-cream sandwich.

[Delta40]

Jerry - I'm glad I'm consistently being a woman who is not understood.

MS - I agree it is rather ambiguous. I feel what it is about but have never been too good at openly expressing 'stuff' which when it comes to poetry, is not necessarily a bad thing.

Deryk - I love your description of my poem!

[AuntShecky]

You had me at "We stick together but not in the way I want."

This piece is jam-packed with equine and farm equipment imagery, multi-level puns, and humorous innuendo. The reader was near to thinking she's being told something that is far too private for her to be privy to. Yet it's just subtle enough to keep a thin --very, very diaphanous-- veil over the top to keep the poem itself
from going over the top.

[Delta40]

Thanks Aunty. I envy the expressive skill of some poets and find it a challenge to convey meaning in what I write

[Hawkman]

I rate this one pretty highly too, Delta. it's skillful narrative conveys, as has previously been said, multiple levels of meaning and it's a damn good read.

Live and be well - H

[Delta40]

Thanks Hawk. I will relegate this poem to the 'One of My Best' category.