poemranker ::My Wife by Dovina

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Free verse № 117490

My Wife

by Dovina

Member since 2004 · Posted 29 Dec 2004 · 28 comments

Happiness is fitful and occasional. It’s the escape I get when not meeting her wishes, not performing a trick, and she is not looking up at me smiling. Normally, I am groomed as she has trained, prepared to converse on her topics, it took her years to teach. Her smile is my fish. Then she spots the flaw, spiritual emptiness in my eye. She has warned against corruption of independence, And wants to save me. But there it is. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she hisses. Now I must think of a way to fill my spirit, divert punishment. I never wanted her to save me, only accept me as I am.

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28 comments

[10] jroday 29-Dec-04/5:07 PM Reply
This is a wonderful poem to me. It brings back a lot of memories.
[n/a] Dovina › jroday 29-Dec-04/7:16 PM Reply

Are you the real jroday, back from surgery? If so, welcome back. You once talked about a mean woman. I’ve taken the man’s side here and am pleased if it rings true to you.
[10] jroday › Dovina 30-Dec-04/12:59 AM Reply
Yes I'm the real jroday,still in the hospital, but doing fine.
[10] Lifeboatman 29-Dec-04/6:55 PM Reply
very good.. 10
[n/a] Dovina › Lifeboatman 29-Dec-04/7:15 PM Reply
Thanks.
[10] Bhaskaryya 29-Dec-04/6:56 PM Reply
HaHa!!! Great poem!! Very much like a breathe of fresh air on the site.
[n/a] Dovina › Bhaskaryya 29-Dec-04/7:33 PM Reply

As a young woman you may laugh, but a lot of older men are caught in traps with women like this. I hope the fresh air will expose some of us to ourselves.
[10] Bhaskaryya › Dovina 30-Dec-04/9:18 AM Reply
I am NOT a young woman. Rather, I am a young MAN!!
[n/a] Dovina › Bhaskaryya 30-Dec-04/11:19 AM Reply
Sorry, I looked at your website after making that mistake. A good site it is, and best wishes.
[9] zodiac 29-Dec-04/10:42 PM Reply
The sentence that begins "It's the escape I get..." is not grammatical. You have to take out the "and" to make it right.

"groomed" and "trained" in the second stanza seem weird. At least, it doesn't seem obvious that she trained you to groom yourself.

Also, by the time you get to "it took her years to teach", you've too many adjective clauses.

It was really pretty good up to that point. Then it gets heavy-handed at the "spiritual emptiness" part. People blather on about showing or telling or whatever, but what they're really getting at a lot of the time is that it's just not likely your narrator is so self-aware. So instead he burns the dinner or forgets her name or something, to show how he's like subconsciously spiritually empty (or whatever). It would work a lot better than that whole third stanza.

Actually, I'd like it better ended after the second bit. Or I could think it was really good, changed only very slightly.

Out of curiosity: Do you consider yourself a feminist?
[10] Dan garcia-Black 30-Dec-04/9:03 AM Reply
Love stanza two.
[n/a] Dovina › Dan garcia-Black 30-Dec-04/11:17 AM Reply
Love those salted herrings, eh?
[9] Shuushin 31-Dec-04/10:24 AM Reply
Well, I really thought you was a goil. Maybe you are doing a perspective thing (sometimes I pretend I'm human). I think you have to be a goil.

So. As it is then. Having trouble finding its mission, and if I have then it was found by the end of the second stanza.

Made me consider it though, without hesitation.
[n/a] Dovina › Shuushin 31-Dec-04/10:40 AM Reply
Yes, I’m a goil, or a woiman, trying a hand at thinking like a goi. The mission is to think about how a man feels when hen pecked, when made to feel that if he doesn’t conform to her remaking of him, then he doesn’t get her blessing.
[9] zodiac › Dovina 1-Jan-05/9:50 PM Reply
I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but I think you'd do better writing something that is not so overtly sexist, or changing this one so it isn't so. That's all.
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 3-Jan-05/2:07 PM Reply
I don't think it's sexist.
[9] zodiac › Dovina 3-Jan-05/11:29 PM Reply
Oh. Do you think the woman in the poem has the right to expect that her husband will genuinely want (and wholeheartedly try) to please her?
[n/a] Dovina › zodiac 4-Jan-05/8:31 AM Reply
You say that only because you know a woman wrote it. Look at the poem not caring who wrote it and then decide if it's sexist. If anything, it favors the man. I think the poem makes fun of the woman's naive insistance on training her man and making him behave according to her wishes.
[9] zodiac › Dovina 6-Jan-05/5:19 AM Reply
Um, that's what I meant. That it's sexist against women.


Incidentally, Arabs get the expression "housewife" from American movies. Before that it was just "wife". Or, even better, "woman".
[8] richa 3-Jan-05/3:00 PM Reply
I couldn't help but notice a fish made an unannounced entrance and then just disappeared. This is how it should be.
[n/a] Dovina › richa 3-Jan-05/3:17 PM Reply
Perhaps so, maybe you mean it so, maybe not. I think not, otherwise a crab would do. The fish is often a reward for a trained seal.
[8] richa › Dovina 3-Jan-05/3:44 PM Reply
No. A fish is a fish is a fish. Consider the artistic value of these two sentences:

(i) Real Madrid beat Sur(real) Madrid and get a fish as a reward.
(ii) Real Madrid 1 Sur(real) Madrid a fish.

There is no comparison. The fish is in its rightful place. That is to say nowhere, or indeed present nowhere.
[n/a] Dovina › richa 3-Jan-05/4:03 PM Reply

(i) A beat B and got as fish as a reward.
(ii) A, 1; B, a fish.
Have I oversimplified? Yes they are different. But the fish is present as reward in (i) or score in (ii).
[8] richa › Dovina 4-Jan-05/3:19 AM Reply
The fish takes the place of a score rather than is present as a score. Otherwise you must answer two questions:

(i) What do you think the value of a fish is in association football.
(ii) How does a team go about obtaining a fish on the scoresheet.
[n/a] Dovina › richa 4-Jan-05/8:45 AM Reply
You are making an artistic issue of the fish, and just as well, since it can’t count and has no numeric value to compare with 1. I’m still not sure how my using it as a symbol for her smile and her reward to him in the poem relates to this.
[8] richa › Dovina 4-Jan-05/9:29 AM Reply
because the fish flops alone. Their is no obvious reason to say fish when you mean reward. That the fish comes out of the blue is its main attraction in the poem. That is because it is a fish and fish artistically speaking are ace.
[n/a] Dovina › richa 4-Jan-05/9:34 AM Reply
How, pray tell, is a fish any more ace, artistically speaking of course, than a crab, pig, bull, raven or flea, except that in this particular case it is used to reward seals for good performance?
[9] zodiac › Dovina 6-Jan-05/5:24 AM Reply
If you can't answer that, you've got no place writing poetry.