This craven braveheart spoke of love,
dependent on your firm denial
else it would sabotage my plan.
Unspoken plea:  Stay in your tower!

Don't take a step toward me now,
or reach beyond the formal.
Remain aloof, back off I beg,
and leave your flaws in hiding.

Don't bring the mother out in me,
or summon my compassion.
Maintain yourself, that's what to do,
side-step my declaration.

Fast-forward now, go on away -
don't even let the notion stay!
There is no pact, no obligation -
refuse this knowing of the “we”.

I'm not refined (such a mis-match)
so exiting to find another,
and dwell there in a graceful state -
safe from broad academy.

So why then did I speak at all -
why such a revelation?
I'm sure you erred, theoretically,
entwining earth with heaven.

Ruth, this may sound crazy.  But on a poetry board I tend to look first for poems standing alone, without comment.  Poems are my friends.  They keep me going.  The sight of a stand alone poem pulls on something, what I don't know.  The funny thing about this habit is that frequently I find a poem speaking to me.

It is a mild critique forum so I wont get too close.  But I come to the last stanza and I think, ah, yes, this speaks clearly to intention.  It so trips the light fantastic.  Suddenly I am thinking of Blake's Marriage Of Heaven and Hell.  Then I'm thinking of the old Alchemist notion concerning the Sacred Marriage between heaven and earth.  Soon I am thinking of an older Irish notion about Sovereignty, a notion implicating a relationship between a king (or a poet) and the Earth (Sovereignty).  The associations are okay, yes?  

So I go back through the poem and I think, yeah, in the lyrical way it is after something a bit bigger than it actually trades in.

I guess I also notice how the poem first sets out and then keeps to its own rules of procedure.  The organic thing.

Tere

Ruth, hi

It's a pleasure to meet you.

I too look for poems standing alone, without any comment. It is a bit crazy - when I first started posting poems I'd always look forward to reading other people's opinions about my personal ponderings into the mysteries of life. It is true that poems are like friends and sometimes they speak so intimately to the reader/critic that I've often been inspired to keep writing and writing.

I agree about the organic unity of the poem. Your voice and the rhythm are constant throughout the poem and this makes for a pleasant read indeed.

I like the contrast craven/braveheart - it nicely sets the mood of the poem.

The poem seems to move along through a series of contrasts and doubts up to the climactic lines ...
There is no pact, no obligation -
refuse this knowing of the “we”.
Then, the ending, sort of solves the question of the 'pact', in a way which is very similar to the structure of a sonnet.


I enjoyed reading your poem this morning. Thanks.

Divina

Tere and Davina

How special I felt when I read your comments, thank you.  Even more so when I googled some of the references made by you Tere in 2nd paragraph.  Perhaps I've joined the crazy gang or something, because as I looked through some websites - and did a bit of learning - thought "Hold a mo, someone's been here before me!"  Now, that is an odd feeling.

Truth is, that as a member of the great-unread this sort of thing can happen.  Somebody I once worked with in my office was convinced that I'm the real "Alice in Wonderland".  Another time somebody kept insisting that I should read "Catchers in the Rye" because he'd got the idea that I was in there somewhere.   I've kept meaning to read those books, but haven't done so yet, so still have no idea what these poor men meant. This doesn't have anything to do with my poem by the way, I'm just glowing because you both liked it.

My poem is about a love story:  Years ago I fell in hopelessly in love with a man who was way "above" me socially.  There was no physical relationship at all, but we wrote to each other:  a dangerously intoxicating medium, I think, because the imagination can be released without any rude physicality to keep it grounded.  From things he said, I suspected that he was in love with me too.  He'd said he was shy, so I took advantage of that, and got in there first.  I reasoned that if I told him I loved him he'd run like the clappers (rigid academic = does not want to change lifestyle).  But .... it then looked as though he might want a proper relationship after all ... so it was actually me running away in the end.  He seemed to take what we'd shared right into heaven itself ... not good in my book.  

So, it's just another common or garden love story really.

Thanks again both for your comments.

Ruth

 

Have accidentally posted my reply twice, so edited out this second one.   Ruth

Gone googling mad, and checked out Alice in Wonderland and Catchers in the Rye and am left feeling self-conscious .. my spontaneity's gone for the moment.  Will leave poetry alone for a while until I manage to become myself again.

Thanks.
Ruth