Poetry Forum

You my love are a hank of hair,
Some bones,
Reasonably well-arranged flesh,
Calcium,blood,trace elements,
And reduced still further,
Carbohydrates, protein
And cells which grow and die.
Many other bits and pieces.
Enough phosphorous to make three matches
And a lot of water.
Your eyes are uninteresting optically.
In fact you are identical with millions of other women,
except in slight details such as
Pigmentation of hair,skin and eyes
Minor differences of voice pitch and vowel sounds
And fingerprints
And in the disposition of tissue.

Why then, in heavens name,do I love you?
Perhaps the answer lies in the fact
That you too
Just possibl y
Might love
A hank of hair, some bones
Reasonably well-arranged flesh
Calcium, blood........and me.

very lovely.

I need to get back with this.....beautiful. Loads..

L

I enjoyed this, very much my kind of thing. However the kind of poem my wife would take the wrong way. .

The ...and me feels slightly wrong as if you are separate to the list of parts, dropping the and makes more sense to me, but spoils the rhythm.

A nice idea here. In South Africa, and elsewhere too, the idea of Ubuntu is widely regarded, which holds elements similar to the one you are dealing with here. The central tenet is something like "I am who I am because of who we all are", but in Zulu society it extends into an understanding that the connection between two people in love lies in their appreciation of the effect that the other's adoration has on their own feelings. I'm getting tongue-tied now. Anyway, the way you break down the human body into its components to demystify it is good I reckon, though it is uncomfortable rhythmically at times, for example the opening line:

You my love are a hank of hair,
Some bones,
Reasonably well-arranged flesh,
Calcium,blood,trace elements,
And reduced still further,
Carbohydrates, protein
And cells which grow and die.

I think that this long sentence could be split into a couple of shorter ones for example:
You my love are a hank of hair,
And some bones.
You are flesh reasonably arranged,
And calcium, blood and trace elements.

Just a spontaneous and bad edit, but hopefully you will agree that by splitting up the list into senteces it gives the reader more time to pause on each couple of items and digest them before moving on, and makes it a bt easier to read.

Just a thought!

Nice one, Petronius. I particularly like

Enough phosphorous to make three matches
And a lot of water.

Is that how you spell phosphor(o)us, though? No matter! (That extra o makes it sound like an adjective, which is an idea.)

Cheers

David

Well written, Petronius. No nits from me. Liked the line:
"Enough phosphorous to make three matches". Enjoyed.

Thankyou for the comments. The caveats are all valid and I shall probably re-write it sometime. Re phosphorus. You are quite right David. Culpa mea etc. I could claim as an excuse my classical education but that won't do. Phosphorus comes directly from the greek (classical) meaning bringing light.