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Homecoming (Free verse) by Dovina I lie beside him in the bed
and feel his breathing slow
his years and gray still bright
mine fading as the night
Until his morning hand
reaches and Iâm gone
nothing will have changed
his mind at rest
my body too
Just a short walk
an errand really
yes, an errand
Out the door
down the stairs
Why was it
I left the bed?
If I think only this well now
and worse with time
how can any other walk
be love?
Itâs kinder now
before the worst
with sense to act
his courage strong
Del Mar Street
still too close
a few more blocks
then stand and wait
Canât quite remember
why I came
or exactly where I am
only that itâs time
Those headlights
yes, itâs time
two quick steps
the lights of home
Up the ladder:
A Night-Croucher's Journey
Down the ladder:
Wipe Before You Weep
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 4.8
Posted: April 11, 2005 5:30 AM PDT; Last modified: May 12, 2005 5:20 PM PDTWeighted score: 4.9761596 Overall Rank: 8378 Comments:
[9]
zodiac @ 212.118.19.157
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12-Apr-05/6:01 AM
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Reply
The third and last stanzas are well-written. The rest could use some poetry.
Congratulations.
Always a super feeling when you escape without waking them up.
I'm afraid she was not feeling super.
The third stanza is a bit out of place and actually redundant. Unless the significance of 'errant' escaped me?
I read the last stanza two ways. Morbid me.
I was hoping for it to be read only one way. There is no effort to conceal the truth of what happened here.
What I don't like about this poem is that it intentionally has me guessing as to what happens. If you don't want to tell us what happens, don't write a poem about it. REVEAL the truth, don't mask it.
Sorry to give you that impression. As you can see this is a revision of a poem I posted a month ago. Most of the people I showed it to did not understand it then. That upset me because I was making no effort for double meanings or cloudy intent. This revision is an attempt to make the situation clear. It seems I may have failed in my second attempt.
Failed? A two-way ending is always nice. Here we have one version to keep readers from committing suicide and one for readers to prompt them
I realise this may be rude as it could be autobio-based. But I have outspoken ideas about suicidal people.
I want neither to encourage suicide nor discourage it with this poem. And I want no double ending here. I have strong personal feelings against suicide, but this is not a poem about my feelings. Nor is it autobiographical. What I failed to communicate is that it is a story, a true story. I often think that if a subject is not close to me I can write rather succinctly about it, and that if the subject or the people in the story are close to me, then it muddles within my feelings and comes out wrong. So I think it has come out here. This is a powerful story about love and respect of an old woman who cannot tell it. I am not going to give up very soon in my effort to tell it for her. I appreciate your comments.
Dovina; in stanza 9 the lady makes a choice. In stanza 10 she comes to action. The power of this poem (and my voting was rather impulsive) is that her choice can be two quick steps in the wrong direction, or it can also be a choice of hope: two quick steps up and into the bus home. This does not square with YOUR intentions, but you didn't write the poem exclusively for yourself and the people you based the poem on. Otherwise you wouldn't have published it... You wanted to tell the true story, unfortunately some interpretations where 'false', but it doesn't mean that the poem is a failure. It reads like a novel, it has the feel of a film noir. Nothing wrong with that.
Messing up autobio's because of muddled feelings intervening? That's an odd thing to say. Don't you realise that the last stanza may not only paint the picture as it is, but at the same time reflects your feelings, your wish that the person dear to you had made a different choice, or choices?
Yes, I see what you mean now about the other possible ending. The option, which she had all along, of taking two quick steps in a direction away from the oncoming car, never occurred to me. Of course, I see it now, she could have done that, and how I wish she had. No, it is a better thing she did considering her degenerative mental disease. It is part of the muddling that went on in my head. Thanks again.
'Why was it
I left the bed?' This one is another example. For this I read Blandness. She keeps looking for the man who isn't nameless, whose face does not blend into all the other faces, she can't find him and that depresses her. Now how was I to know you meant d.m.d.?... Stanza 5 gives the answer. And I overlooked it. Which means that you wrote a strong poem that requires more than just a superficial reading. That's true poetry, I think. It acutally deserves more than the 7 I gave it.
It is possible to vote again, overwriting your first vote. However, if I have to explain a poem then the poem does not adequately explain itself.
Am I crazy thinking this poem was originally simply about a woman sneaking home after a one-night stand? If it was, it was better that way.
re "Messing up autobio's because of muddled feelings intervening? That's an odd thing to say."
No it's not. To take one instance (of many), I'm currently reading T.E. Lawrence's memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom, where he strains himself trying to make Bedouin bumming sound healthy. Talk about feelings getting in the way! 321 view(s)
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