Collage

8PM. The subway. The overheard conversations. They’re never about lemon trees. Someone’s friend’s boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend slept around. Someone put gum in someone’s hair. Someone tripped on their heels. Cats. Club nights. Ecstasy. Love...


...Ladies and Lovers, when tonight you meet in jazz,
pour yourself some of that celestial wine.
Take small sips. Laugh. Attract. Bask. Forget...


The stores are always on fire. But oh you look so good in that dress! Wow you changed your hair color! And your eyes too! I’m thinking of getting new lashes soon. And yes new nails. Are you seeing him anymore? ‘Cuz if you don’t I might...


...When she sipped, she sipped deep, so the wine and her lips
blended in one red lie. Turning in the Paris of his arms
she smiled red, and whispered in his ears, “L’amour passera”... *


It’s the end of a day. I’ve reached my stop. I get off the train. My hands feel cold and numb. I’m not, though. I walk an empty platform, thinking about lemon trees.


...The city neons pass him every night as he drives.
Once in a while he looks at the rear-view mirror:
“L’amour passera”. He tunes in to a slow jazz and smiles.

Symphony
26 August, '10

* Love will pass.

I really like this narration effect of overheard conversations on the subway.

A very original and engaging style - and some of the lines are extremely well-crafted.

I particularly like :

the wine and her lips blended in one red lie

H

Thanks, both of you. I have been trying to write this poem for a few days now. Then it suddenly came very easy yesterday when I was on the subway for an hour. Wrote it there.

The trivialities in the conversations are very fun to read.

Ah good old subway ;)
Very good for inspiration..
Oh you meant "trains" subway... Thats good too :P ;)

Speaking of lemon trees, did you know this gorgeous quatrain:

Quote:

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Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom,
Where the gold orange glows in the deep thickets gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves are of Laurel and myrtle and rose?

---

Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

I had it somewhere in German but have misplaced it.

It's SO GOOD to see you back here again with your incomparable ear for the music of the English language whether in prose dialogue or in poetry!!!

unique and accessible well crafted and satsifying to read.
cheers
JB

Thanks all for commenting.

Prince, it's SO GOOD to be back. I wonder already when I'll write another poem though. I seem to be quite slow these days. And thanks for that lovely quatrain (no I havent seen it before), which makes one want to look at life as a celebration.

It would actually help to get a critique on this one. Anyone?

Quote:

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...When she sipped, she sipped deep, so the wine and her lips
blended in one red lie

---

What a line!
Simply love this piece, symphony! Very unique and engaging.

Thank you Pensive. :)

I was just checking out this round's picture in the Picture Poetry contest thread and noticed the previous rounds picture by Alexander. Amazing how it goes with this poem so well. So I thought I'll post the picture here. :)

http://www.wellesley.edu/activities/.../ballroom1.jpg

I really like the concept Symph and what you have is engaging. It feels however incomplete, or too short. The problem I see is that if you expand it becomes a short story and loses the poetic intensity. So there is a balance between story and poetry. The other criticism I might have is that it doesn't have depth. The comments seem bubble-gummy, or in other words adulencent. I guess at my age such overheard conversations don't mean much unless there is some deeper meaning. I would venture to guess that the satiric point you're making is that these people are childish. Ok, but that leaves the poem on that level too. But I think the form has potential.

I know the prose parts are bubble-gummy and I intended them to be so (although I agree they threaten to quash the quality of the writing itself) but I also hoped the sudden dives into the instants I started picturing while listening to those overheard conversations will serve as a contrast and build the poem here. I wanted the italics parts to be like flashes-- pictures...images that come up-- as influenced by the collage of conversations one might hear in the subway, while giving off the concept of love today, and thus make the piece a collage of prose and poetry.

Thanks Virgil for the feedback. Much appreciated.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by symphony

I know the prose parts are bubble-gummy and I intended them to be so (although I agree they threaten to quash the quality of the writing itself) but I also hoped the sudden dives into the instants I started picturing while listening to those overheard conversations will serve as a contrast and build the poem here. I wanted the italics parts to be like flashes-- pictures...images that come up-- as influenced by the collage of conversations one might hear in the subway, while giving off the concept of love today, and thus make the piece a collage of prose and poetry.

Thanks Virgil for the feedback. Much appreciated.

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The italic sections were by far more interesting. :)

I am going to look at this closer and comment on it later. I am putting this here so I will 1.) remember and 2.) feel an obligation to do so. If I haven't replied in a few days, please begin to harass me.

Okay. The impression I get from this poem is a poet who is living in this non-poetic world. He's hearing all these meaningless conversations, but his mind can't stop going back to poetry. Maybe he's composing the italicized stuff on the subway while listening to people talk? The unitalicized stuff seems inconsistent. In the first stanza, you have the speaker reporting what he overhears. In the third, you have the voices of the people on the subway coming into the poem directly. My issue with this is that you have many lines in these unitalicized sections that are very lyric or poetic, for instance, "The stores are always on fire." What a line! It conjures up so much. It seems related to the material that comes after...the material/appearance stuff. I think some of these examples in the third stanza (that seem more like overheard conversations about hair dye, nails, etc.) are too general. Actually, the ones where the speaker is reporting what he overhears are kind of general too. Even though they are supposed to be kind of funny and depthless, it would still be more interesting if they were really off the wall in some way.

And I'm not too concerned about this seem cross genre.

I hope this helps, but I'm so bad with communication it probably won't. I can't totally see where you are going with this, and I think you just need to solidify the movie in your mind on the page.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shortstoryfan

Okay. The impression I get from this poem is a poet who is living in this non-poetic world. He's hearing all these meaningless conversations, but his mind can't stop going back to poetry. Maybe he's composing the italicized stuff on the subway while listening to people talk? The unitalicized stuff seems inconsistent. In the first stanza, you have the speaker reporting what he overhears. In the third, you have the voices of the people on the subway coming into the poem directly. My issue with this is that you have many lines in these unitalicized sections that are very lyric or poetic, for instance, "The stores are always on fire." What a line! It conjures up so much. It seems related to the material that comes after...the material/appearance stuff. I think some of these examples in the third stanza (that seem more like overheard conversations about hair dye, nails, etc.) are too general. Actually, the ones where the speaker is reporting what he overhears are kind of general too. Even though they are supposed to be kind of funny and depthless, it would still be more interesting if they were really off the wall in some way.

And I'm not too concerned about this seem cross genre.

I hope this helps, but I'm so bad with communication it probably won't. I can't totally see where you are going with this, and I think you just need to solidify the movie in your mind on the page.

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Thanks for commenting. It does help. The friends I showed it to said they could relate to it right away so I wanted to know how readers who have no idea of what influenced this and are less familiar with my perspectives would make of it. Will they see the same things? Hear the same music?

You made a good point. I'll have to edit and put quotation marks in stanza 3. And no I didnt want to put in random or any overheard conversation in general. My intention was to address the modern (especially western) perspective (or should I say approach) on love. I failed if that failed to come through. Or may be not, there are so many ways to read a poem, whichever works for a reader will make me happy enough.

I appreciate that you also thought of it as the poet thinking of the poem -or if I may- seeing these flashes of another (although related) world in her mind while indifferently listening to the conversations in the subway. I wanted it that way (and it was sort of created in that way). The monotonous rhythm of the train, along with the broken conversations and perspectives on love that we know we hear everyday, where fashion also comes in, because of the dependence of this love on updated and upgraded looks. This, slowly turning into a slow jazz, taking one to a different evening. But it is the same lie, the pretentiousness that love has become. A love that will pass. One can look at their past and see those many loves passing by...
And yet there are the evergreen lemon trees to appreciate, and to have.

i'd like to say two sentences....
its wow!!!
its not you!!!