TOUCH
touch a poem coming
as you window shop
touch ~
the tiniest
tap ~
the corner of your specs against the plateglass
and your head jerks
back ~
a billion snailhorn 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
with a fraught array of inputs to consider
you must plan carefully
your soundly sleeping woman’s
birthday 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
John Netting
11 July 2016
Damn – I commented here yesterday and it’s disappeared!
I’ll try again…
Really enjoyed your poem, John. The form works really and I like each individual section. The metaphor of ‘window shop’ is very clear. The ‘snail horn’ is harder to visualise, although I now know that a snail horn is a musical instrument! Perhaps, though, it was intended to convey the length of time a poem takes to appear??
From “but here and now” onwards is funny and tender… the metaphor of the woman is powerful – in fact, this section is such a powerful description of a relationship that I wonder if this is really what the poem is about. Perhaps you might consider how the metaphors work together and whether, now that the prompt has done its work, all of them are necessary?
A great response to the prompt!
Thank you for your very kind words, Robbie – and I’m glad you enjoyed it, even in this state!
The “snail horn” refers to the eyestalks on the head of a snail – they are extremely touch-sensitive and quick to react, which is just as well because the eyes are still very primitive, apparently.
I have been working on the poem in the light of your comments. I have removed the initial couplet – as you say, the prompt has done its work! – and I have rehashed somewhat what is now the first stanza. I have put an asterisk between “ears and eyes” and “but here and now” – though seemingly contradictory to increase the section break, it does seem to work, saying “here comes the second part”, and implying “of the whole”.
But the best change is the change of title to “ALL THE WAY BACK”. It encapsulates the unity I see in the poem –
as relevant to the first two stanzas as it is to the last two. “Back” is the keyword – the first part of the poem takes us back (via the window incident and the snail horn metaphorical extension of it) to our remote evolutionary past, when touch was differentiating into the other four senses – and in the second part there is now an embarrassment of sensory choices (!) but the lover ends up using the most primitive of the senses to take the woman back to her most primitive ancestral source of feeling.
Sorry, I’ve gone on a bit…..probably the euphoria. That should await your verdict, though! And indeed that of anyone else who wants to comment. I have also been fiddling with the “but here and now” stanza, and would be grateful for any comment on that. I shall (wriggling letters etc. permitting) upload the new version, leaving the old one for comparison.
Much appreciated, Robbie!
can you post the updated version for us to have a look at John? I am posting this but I am now wondering if you have already posted it as you have said you have changed the title so I will hold my breath it is already on the site …