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How Angels Sleep (Free verse) by Dovina They roll and turn
with minds confused
to understand their earthly charge
Angels have no pain or joy
from which to learn the art of comfort.
They know so very little
how a woman feels
with wounded knee
or poison word.
About an earthly hand below her ribâ
once a pleasure, now a scarâ
about this feeling,
only theories can they bring.
And for the missing manly snuggles,
they tout prescriptions learned,
obeying Teacherâs word,
then listen while she grumbles.
All their efforts leave her sobbing
beside him on the bed,
bewildered,
while their platitudes roll on.
But once an angel felt it brieflyâ
the way to reach his chargeâs heart.
He lay beside her sleeping soundly,
and she knew he understood.
Up the ladder:
Writing the Books
Down the ladder:
How Well I See
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 6.8333335
Posted: August 15, 2005 2:39 PM PDT; Last modified: August 15, 2005 3:53 PM PDTWeighted score: 5.493059 Overall Rank: 2788 Comments:
[9]
Bethy @ 24.222.32.147
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15-Aug-05/4:24 PM
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Reply
I really love this Dovina...its beautiful...:) Bethy
[n/a]
Dovina @ 69.175.32.104
> Bethy
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15-Aug-05/5:04 PM
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Reply
I think the proper response is âThank you.â So thank you. Some poemrankers come down hard on this kind of exchange. They say itâs just trading praise or that a âthank youâ is simply fodder for more praise. They even say that praise such as yours is given only to stimulate like flattery on your poems. Ignore their ranting. You liked the poem and Iâm glad. I believe itâs really that sincere.
[9]
Bethy @ 24.222.32.167
> Dovina
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16-Aug-05/5:31 PM
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very sincere...its very good...I enjoy everyones poetry...and being rated is a bonus for me...I have been writing for nearly 30yrs...and a number would never stop me...I like the responses I get...and the help...I tell everyone the truth...or I just do not vote or submit a response...:) :) Bethy
Nice poem. Not my view on angels, but I won't let that detract from it. -8-
please drop the full stop at the end of s-2. some stanzas have a submissive beat others don't. why?
I got interchangeability between man/god/angels. For some reason that works for me.
That works for me too.
I think all the stanzas have a submissive beat. The angel is submissive to the Teacher and to his task. The woman is submissive to being comforted by the angel, even as he fails. And the woman in the last verse, who is finally comforted, is submissive to the angel. Could you explain what you mean? The full stop at the end of s2 is there for grammarâs sake. But I see how it breaks the flow, and may do well to disappear.
Submissive was the wrong word. Indirect might be a better word. Nevermind. I read it with VOLUME this time and heard the beat in all stanzas. bravo.
It flows beatifully except for the last line. Needs one more beat I think. "and she knew he understood(Dadum)."
PS. beatifully was a pun.
I worry about what you mean by âbeatifully was a punâ and will not go there.
The last line has only three beats, while the previous three lines have four beats each. I see how you want another da-dum. The other verses are not so regular, however. How about, âShe understood he knew her heart.â
Beatiful: A word invented by ALChemy meaning full of beat or full of rhythm. Something with rhythm that's beautiful.
âShe understood he knew her heart.â sounds OK but the repetition of heart sounds a little like Fred Durst trying to rhyme. I was thinking not a change so much as an addition. i.e. "and she knew he understood it's beat."
"it's beat," referring to her heart - not bad.
"confused to understand" is not real grammar. I like the rhythm of it, but'd really prefer "failing to understand" or something such (and it's nifty sprung-rhythm!)
"About" in the third stanza stopped me a minute. I'd like to see "Nor" in its place. Would you consider dropping "About this feeling... can they bring" and the next stanza? Thanks. It was kind of superobvious. I'd change "platitudes" to a less-strong word, or example, or cool turn-of-phrase of your own. Okay, I made all the comments above without reading the last stanza. Wow. Oh. Okay. I don't think it works at all. For one, City of Angels???? For two, it's kind of just whimsical wish-fulfillment, isn't it? Not to mention utterly non-doctrinal, against everything you've written so far, and a rather trite Deus ex Machina. My suggestion (ie, if this were my poem, so you know what that's worth): The narrator-woman ends wishing for an angel to sleep beside her, knowing it doesn't really feel or understand anything she feels, but she settles for the compromise anyway. Yeah. Cool. I dig. Liked quite a few bits of the writing. You're good when you're poetic.
But what if it's about a man she loved and then lost. People sometimes project their lost loved ones as angels in their minds. Then it takes on a subtler more symbolic meaning.
Indeed it does, but I like to provide the reader an ambiguity when it seems to work. Here you can look at it as all about angels, or you can project angel behavior onto men.
"confused to understand" I see your point, and for that alone deserve a kiss.
I don't think "nor" works in the third stanza because it's about a real hand below a real rib, and not a continuation of verse 2. The duplication in "about this feeling" is there to show the difference between the act and the feeling. Weird, I know. "platitudes" is strong, but it reminds me of the sayings attributed to angels - rest in peace, God be with you, I'm by your side, etc. "City of Angels" might work into a nice addition. I'll consider it. It is whimsical and non doctrinal, but your seggestion of fantasizing about sleeping with an angel is farther afield than I'm willing to go. The last verse is about sleeping with a man, and it compares this man with others who are like the angels in the former verses. I'm good when I'm not poetic, but thanks, I see what you mean.
"City of Angels" is a movie (Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan star in it) about an angel (Cage) who falls in love with a doctor (Ryan) and gives up his wings to become human to be with her. The ending in the movie by the way is absolutely hilarious.
re: "Nor"
Don't you really mean, "They know so very little [about] how a woman feels with wounded knee or poison word, [or about] an earthly hand below her rib"? I mean, you've basically just broken the list of things angels know little about into two sentences. Which is fine enough except the first item in the list starts with 'how', the second starts with 'about', and there's nothing immediately connecting them. It seems just as well to say, "They know so very little how a woman feels with wounded knee or poison word, or/nor an earthly hand below her rib." I don't see what the hand being real has to do with anything. Nor the "about this feeling" line. Flipping through the Bible, I find angels saying "Go back to your mistress and submit to her" (Gn16:9), "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here or you will be swept away when the city is punished" (Gn19:15), and "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God." (Lk1:19). If these are platitudes, they're news to me. re: the last stanza Even if you meant the last verse as a metaphor for a man (and isn't the whole poem a metaphor for a man????), it still means you've set up this great description of the nature of angels and then without explanation just changed it and made an angel/man do something totally against what we've understood as its nature. Without explanation or anything. And isn't the whole poem a metaphor for a man? Yes, it has to be. You can't write a whole poem about angels, make the angel in the last stanza a man, and not make us think about how the things you've said previously about angels relate to the metaphor-man. So, you've either got "Angels can't ever feel except this one just happened to feel once" or "Men can't ever feel except this one just happened to feel once" or both. Doesn't that strike you as a kind of silly (if, yes, sloppily gratifying) thing to say? SOLUTIONS: Of course I'm not suggesting you make the woman sleep with an angel any more than the poem suggests she sleeps with an angel (metaphor or not). But you somehow HAVE to make the man/angel not really change its nature. YOU HAVE TO. The easiest answer is the man/angel DOESN'T really feel anything. Hey, that would be kind of like the reality of angels/men, too! Wouldn't that be cool?
re ânorâ: I see your point about the wording and agree that yours is clearer. But I want to stress that she has an emotion (feeling) concerning the hand below her rib, not just a physical feeling. The angel might understand the physical feeling, but not the emotion.
The poem is whimsical and non-doctrinal, as we have both said. So why are you bring the Bible into it? The last verse is a metaphor for a man, and the whole poem could be interpreted that way. Since Iâve used the plural, angels, throughout the poem, it seems fair to say in the last verse that one particular angel (or man) is different from the others. Therefore the man/angel has not changed his nature. Maybe I could make that more clear. Thanks for your comments.
Not to drag this on any further, but I think that, as a general rule, an image you've carried through a poem shouldn't suddenly become a metaphor at the end without you expecting people to carry the metaphor back through the poem.
And, for the last time saying this, I don't think it works suddenly having one angel/man be different from the others. Oh well, maybe sometime I'll get around to writing it the way I would write it instead of telling you how to do it. I don't know why I brought the Bible in. I guess I thought that's where angels live.
re: âNot to drag this on any furtherâ Fine. But dressed as an angel, you might understand.
Oh. I thought you were talking about angels, not people dressed as angels. My bad.
Just another whimsical meaning of "angel." Pink chiffon, I think, would suit you.
I suggest changing to title of the poem to either "How Not-Real Angels Sleep" or "Not How Real Angels Sleep, But How Things that Are Kind Of Like Angels (Or Would Be Like Angels If They Didn't Sleep Differently From Angels) Sleep" to avoid confusing us literal-minded.
Hey you've been doing well while I was away.
If "good" is tossing the heavys, ok, thanks.
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