if you
when window shopping tap
the plateglass
with the corner of your specs
your head jerks
back ~
a billion snail horn years recoil
. react
. recall
retract
touch was the first
it felt the light
. it felt the lack of sight
need seeded it
. to differentiate
to pucker up locate
parts to start
rudiments of tastebuds
nostrils
ears and eyes
. *
but here and now
your woman soundly sleeps ~
from a fraught
five sense inventory you need to pick
a perfect birthday wake up call
clearly inappropriate ~
with a nice hot cup of tea or not ~
would be
the shining of very bright lights
or a small laser on her eyelids
so too
to utter loud uncouth noises
shout “Fire!”
or trickle water between two glasses
by her ear
to make her need to pee ~
unthinkable
to introduce some drastic odour
to her comatose nose
or a tastebomb past her teeth
quite so
instead you must
with patient fingers
loving lips
and subtle tongue arouse her ~
bend her body back
all the way back
to the ancient urgency
to the primal sea from which she comes
by touch
Oh dear, I see the indents have disappeared.
The re-draft works extremely well, John. A really great response to the prompt!
I like the snailhorn years and the use of the full stops at the beginning of some of the lines. An interesting way to make the reader pause for a moment. I also like the way the poem alternates between the here and now to the profound elements in life.
I really enjoyed reading it.
oh good – it’s here – the first version felt like two different poems to me that had been stuck together however this one reads like one poem – don’t ask me why because I don’t know – I leave that sort of stuff to people who know – I can only give you my gut reaction – I am sucked into the poem and feel like at different times I could be any of the characters in it – from a woman to a snail to a writer to a person catching their own reflection in a shop window – and if they are all metaphors so what – I can read it at my level and enjoy it so thanks for posting John
This to me is what Workshop is all about – works in progress, the reactions of others in the form of the comments so valuable. Great to see someone else joining in!
yes it can be a bit daunting posting and it can be even more daunting commenting – it isn’t always easy to express what you want to say and you never want to offend anybody when you comment but it doesn’t really achieve anything if you just say “I like your poem, it is nice.” I read something yesterday which said not to think of writing as a competitive sport – like all of the arts it is very subjective – it is not an exact science and the best doesn’t always win – and the lovely thing about this workshop is that it isn’t a competition at all and you can take time to look back and reflect – as long as you get feedback to look back on and reflect – ah – what would it be like to live in a perfect world and be a perfect person …