zodiac14 Feb 2006

This is going to come off as bragging whatever I say. I think I'm so worried about not saying things twice, I can barely make myself say anything once. Things I would have liked to include in this poem if I'd known how:

- After killing Cook, the Hawaiians ate his flesh;
- Clerke, Cook's second-in-command who took the Resolution home after Cook's death, had tuberculosis even then, from voluntarily spending a year in debtor's prison to cover his brother's debt.

That said, I think the two poems complete each other. The secret Gusenberg never reveals is, I don't know, the misspent idealism and absurdity of it and love-death that Clerke is trying to express. That's the Valentine, for the Irish who cares or the native girl who doesn't. Honestly, though, I wish I'd made just one of the poems say that, or something better. Of the two, I think this gets the closest to where I want, with the girl leaving. And here I wish the poetry came out a little more.