Me and the Dude

[munkinhead]

Shackleford,
you held me hostage
up on the road
of broken hearts, dude.

You said that you loved me
and you lied,
Shacklefield.

In a dream
I was beginning to see the light,
Shacklefort,
and it felt so right,
seeing the light.

Shackleton

whatever

[Jerrybaldy]

I am not letting a Munkinhead sink without trace. Your post is more interesting and real than the sum total of the majority of the posts you are sharing this page with. I tip the hat from my shiny head to you.

[munkinhead]

Thanks JB. It is great to have a fan, even one who is so obviously off the rails. As you no doubt already know the poem is about the gradual acceptance of the rights of homosexuals to form socially meaningful relationships in a time of disposable, vapid relationships. I usually do not like to explain my poems, if they don't speak for themselves they just don't. I just thought the administrators should know, in case it is subversive, or whatever.

[Jerrybaldy]

Lol Munkin. You better be taking the piss. Your poem is nothing that you said it was. It may well be about a gay relationship but who gives a toss today ? Would work equally well straight gay or undecided so you are messing with your fan. It ain't easy being a fan of yours. :D you must be a bugger to live with.

I am not off the rails on on a daily basis BTW. I just leave them behind on here.

More power to your elbow.
JB

Post note
Of course if I had known you were male, never gave it a thought, then your poems title would have told me what a subversive poem this is :D

[Delta40]

I don't why I would know no doubt what the poem was about, unless one of those words is googleable? but it's loaded with emotion and that's why it's good M.

[munkinhead]

point of view JB, noted

[DieterM]

Strange but I got the meaning at once and immediately presumed you were a guy, munkinhead. Maybe so because a) I really loved the poem in its simplicity, b) I'm a guy and c) I guess everybody knows by now that I'm gay, out and loud ;) That said, I did really enjoy the read. For once, no quibble at all.

[hannah_arendt]

I read th epome with pleasure because of the simplicity and the fact that at the same time, you used strong, evocating images words. Congratulations:)

[blank|verse]

Sounds like you and Jerry should get a room… ;)

That aside, it’s a well-achieved but heartless little poem, which as Jerry suggests, is convincingly contemporary in its language and phrasing. It reminds me a bit of Frank O’Hara. (To a Brit, the name ‘Shackleton’ is linked to the Antarctic explorer of the same name, but I’m not sure if that’s relevant here.)

The poem seems to be about a hollow relationship, whoever it’s between. Any genuine emotion is punctured by the use of melodramatic idioms and clichéd phrases, which express the ennui and disinterest of the narrator, who can’t even be bothered to get the name of his/her lover accurate. Whether or not this is intentionally b1tchy is unclear; either way, it doesn’t make for a particularly warm scene. But that’s not a criticism, because you’ve achieved that sense very well. Whether the poem’s about anything beyond that is difficult to tell.

[AuntShecky]

Full disclosure: if the author hadn't told us what it meant I wouldn't have gotten it from the text of the poem. I did get the "casual," no-name motif, though, with the cleverly subtle changes in the name of the person addressed, which, like Blank_Verse, initially assumed to be the Antarctic explorer.

Maybe someday we'll have a gender-blind world, or at least sexual orientation-blind world. I don't want to disillusion you or present false hopes. We used to be promised a "color-blind" world, but, alas, we're still waiting, and with the discouraging Supreme Court ruling on voting rights last week, it looks as if we'll still be waiting a long, long time.