The First of Nine Loves: Poem I /REVISED

[juliadebeauvoir]

Revision:

She watches me intently.
“What are you doing”?
“I’m digging a grave, silly.” I said.
The sod is the color
of chewed chocolate and tobacco.

I bury him in the back cerebellum.
Ancient remembrances
Of imperfect gaits,
Gazelles painted on cave walls,
scripted in blood and carbon.
Fitting as he kept me off balance
since my youth.

Haurvatat wipes her hands on her apron
But they keep getting wet of their own accord.
These days fountains are spilling out of her.
“Do you think it will work?” she presses.
Hands blister.
Sand grits my teeth.
My face is set like flint.
With my shiny spade
I pat the ground
in happy triangles.

But his hand shoots out of the ground,
folds and then unfurls into a lotus.
“I told you”, she clucks.
“you will never be rid
of the old love”.


Original:

She watches me intently.
“What are you doing”?
“I’m digging a grave, silly.” I said.
The sod was the color
of chewed chocolate and tobacco.

I buried him in the back cerebellum.
Ancient remembrances
Of imperfect gaits,
Gazelles painted on cave walls,
scripted in blood and carbon.
Fitting as he kept me off balance
since my youth.

Haurvatat wiped her hands on her apron
But they kept getting wet of their own accord.
These days fountains were spilling out of her.
“Do you think it will work?” she pressed.
My face was set like biblical flint
Sand gritted my teeth,hands blistered.
Patted the ground in happy triangles
With my shiny spade.

As if a Frankenstein
in an thirties film reel,
his hand shot out of the ground,
flexed and folded into a fist.
“I told you”, she clucked.
“you will never be rid
of the old love”.


There are two more poems which link to this one--I had been writing them backwards and out of sequence. So the first one I posted was number three, then number two and now the beginning.
Poem 3:http://poetsgraves.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... 3&p=52866&hilit=fire+pit#p52866
Poem 2: http://poetsgraves.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... ing#p52770
Here are the links if you are interested. Also here is a link on who Hauvertat is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haurvatat--she is part of the Zoroastrian religion as s state of perfection and acts as a guide throughout. How she wound up in these poems I have no idea as I was raised a good Methodist girl:)

[David]

Kim, I haven't sat down to go through the whole thing in sequence yet - although I will do that - so I'm just approaching this as a thing in itself for now.

I thought at first you were digging a grave for a pet, then it seemed (in S2) as though it might be for your father.

Yes, what is Haurvatat doing in there? I definitely had to google her.

That's a great startling image in S4, but isn't that out of Carrie? I don't remember it in the Frankenstein films, but I haven't seen them all.

I need to read the other ones and see how they link in to this, but this is a good read in itself.

Cheers

David

[barrie]

I think Haurvatat is the alter-ego in this sequence of poems - the one clinging to the past. The one who didn't want to burn the letters, and who sheds fountains of tears. The N is the practical one who tries to move on by getting rid of all the reminders and by trying to bury the past.

The only nits I have are with the grammar -

Sand gritted my teeth,hands blistered.
Patted the ground in happy triangles
With my shiny spade. - This needs a little sorting out, Patted the ground in happy triangles with my shiny spade, isn't a sentence.

As if a Frankenstein
in an thirties film reel,
his hand shot out of the ground, - doesn't read right to me.

Good poem - the second verse was outstanding.

Barrie

[R. Broath]

I absolutely love it, Kim. So much to enjoy (when I'd found out who Haurvatat was).
'Ancient remembrances
of imperfect gaits'
is a great line. And so accurate when we survey those cave etchings and neolithic renderings.
Capitalisation at the beginning of lines is a bit erratic but easily fixed.
Barrie's mentioned another couple of niggly bits; again easily corrected.

What I admire in this is the complicated thought wrought in accessible language. It would be easy to slip into explanation and qualification in such as this but you have got in - got the job done- and exited with eloquent panache.

I'm not sure what exactly 'biblical flint' is but it's a sonically arresting image and deserves to be there.

Loved it.

Jimmy

[bobvincent]

I like the image of the old love remorselessly springing from the grave, like the hand at the end of the film "Carrie".

[juliadebeauvoir]

Believe it or not, I never saw "Carrie"--and now I'm thinking maybe I should do away with the whole hand thing. Not sure what to do with that verse. I thought about using Zombie in its place. But somehow Frankenstein seemed to fit. The narrators recollection of bits and pieces of an old love that won't go away. Much like the bits and pieces of Frankenstein. Sigh...back to the drawing board or the lab .
There will be a revision soon!

Kim

[bobvincent]

Don't remove the hand thing because of "Carrie". It's a powerful image , much better and more evocative than most served up by the ironic and detached scribblers who seem to dominate this forum. What is original after hundreds of years of artistic endeavour. We shouldn't throw in the towel because the Bible and Shakespeare said most things worth saying.

[stuartryder]

Kim

Is this shot in Mehico, or India? I can't quite decide. The chocolate and weed suggests the former, Haurvatat the latter.

Either way I placed this in cave-dwelling times. Is the sequence of nine chronological?

Cheers

Stuart

[juliadebeauvoir]

Stuart,
The setting is in my own backyard here in Wisconsin. I am kind of glad it has a 'worldly' feel to it as what goes on in the inner landscape is usually more exotic than the actual one.
I wanted to set up that the mind (ground) or back cerebellum was rich and fertile. So rich and fertile that it cannot seem to eradicate the memory of him. Every effort of obliteration makes those memories grow even more prolific.

Barrie,
You were right about the grammar. I agree that one had to stumble around the Frankenstein reference. It was cliche and hopefully its revision isn't also the same. Haurvartat is definitely the alter-ego. Very passive--questions a lot and resents when she has to take part in destruction. After all, she is all about wholeness.

Bob,
I appreciate your enthusiasm for my poem but I happen to appreciate all the "ironic and detached scribblers" on this forum. I credit them with the poet I am today because of the fact they don't mince words. I have been here (what?) three years now and it has been the best classroom--far better than any writing courses I took in college with passive-aggressive professors who would have rather worked on their own novels than actually taught. So I am ok with being prodded a bit about the "Carrie" thing. That is the image I really do not want in the poem. Unless I was going for a purely film setting and wanted to rest on some familiar images. Besides, I think Haurvertat would be offended if Carrie were hanging about in her poem.

What I admire in this is the complicated thought wrought in accessible language.

Jimmy,
Thanks very much. I took out 'biblical'. When Jesus was facing his own death he set his face like flint and went to Jerusalem. I wanted to show how determined the narrator was--give it a "once and for all" kind of feeling. That this memory death had to happen at all costs.

David,
It will definitely give you a better back ground if you read the first two. They deal with burning letters from the person the narrator is trying to forget. When that doesn't work then its off to the cerebellum for a proper burial. I picked the cerebellum because it is the part of the brain responsible for primal sensations and motor coordination. Maybe buried back there far enough would undo the continuing right and left brain reasoning and thoughts associated with this person. So I created the cerebellum as a 'cave' so to speak.

Thanks!
Kim