poemranker ::Smiling by Jill Stockinger

DetailsThe poem, its numbers, and the conversation.

Lyric № 159

Smiling

by Jill Stockinger

Member since 2001 · Posted 16 Mar 2002 · 18 comments

My love is dark and beautiful My love is haunting strange My love is an Aztec priest With offerings of pain. You hold my heart within your fist You pulled it out with one mean thrust Using your curved obsidian knife To satisfy your blood lust. Yet somehow I still walk and talk And pretend to life quotidian And behold your visage from afar With guilty fascination. Maidens fair will always view tormentors so, And lust for what's forbidden. "Be careful what you wish for" Is a lesson oft unheeded. Someday I'll reclaim what is mine- My heart held high, triumphantly Still beating in your sweaty grip As you walk so blindly by me. A blindness that I plan to make Permanent in every sense For I have got a wicked knife And am learning how to use it. I sit and carve the live-long day In soapstone and in marble. I am so good at rendering eyes Some swear my staues "sighted." Revenge can be so very sweet As I take my knife in hand. Now my heart is back where it belongs As I carry out my plan. Your howls of rage and searing pain No longer have power to move me. I've placed your eyes in a marble frame And I smile upon them daily.

Rate it

0 is the worst, 10 the best. Pick a number, add a comment if you like, then send it. Keys: 0–9 pick, Enter sends.

mean 5.48 weighted 5.48 rank 2811 views 587 View voting details →

44 votes so far. Yours would make 45.44 votes so far

18 comments

[5] anonymous 30-Jul-01/12:45 PM Reply
bold and heartfelt. clean rhythm and focus.
[5] anonymous 31-Jul-01/1:17 AM Reply
Very nice. You hold the metaphor together throughout.
[5] anonymous 9-Sep-01/8:09 PM Reply
primal...
[n/a] Shar 10-Apr-02/6:19 PM Reply
This has great rhythm. And bloody revenge always makes me grin.
[8] -=SeTTle=- 13-May-02/5:14 PM Reply
obsidian knives are really more seperate flat chunks of obsidan blade tied together on a stick. They were more like reusable razors than knives, since although they were sharper than surgical steel when first made, they became dull fast. One wouldn't make a long curved obsidian blade.

Other than THAT, it was okay.
[5] anonymous 19-May-02/1:37 AM Reply
Your rhyme scheme at the beginning places the "rhyme feel" in our minds, then, when you deviate from the rhyming, something seems lost. Either rhyme or don't rhyme, but don't mix, especially when you have syllabic structure.
[2] hoopoe 19-May-02/3:02 AM Reply
like "my love is like an Aztec priest" but it falls after that into banality; and you haven't made an effort with the form. if you are going to use a form, take possession of it. Rhymes??? and what's with this fluffy cliche: And behold your visage from afar - why the hell not "and see your distant face" or faroff face... I don't buy that the language is pastiche of some imagined courtly period. That's just lazy.
quite like the sudden Addams Family turn at the end. But it's disjointed.

and this.... Maidens fair will always view tormentors so,
And lust for what's forbidden.

loadarubbish. If that's what YOU will always feel, say so; but don't speak for this fair maiden!!! meaning is distinction.
[8] deleted user 8-Jul-02/4:07 PM Reply
loved the final stanza!!
[8] deleted user 8-Jul-02/4:08 PM Reply
love the final stanza!!
[8] deleted user 8-Jul-02/4:08 PM Reply
love the final stanza!!
[8] deleted user 8-Jul-02/4:09 PM Reply
love the final stanza!!
[5] flatliner 10-Jul-02/7:48 AM Reply
very nice .....but how do you PULL out with a thrust?
[4] deleted user 12-Jul-02/8:23 AM Reply
A little bit of Sylvia Plath's dark undercurrent here, but lines don't scan and don't rhyme, and so the poem loses momentum as it goes.
[n/a] wunboi 18-Jul-02/4:24 AM Reply
A great foundation but see cyberians comment. It does lose control especially from stanza three, where the rhythm abrutly change & verbosity takes charge . Otherwise I wish I could do it
[7] J.B. Manning 2-Dec-03/3:05 PM Reply
I'm not sure what's more interesting, the flow, structure, depth, simplicity, or the votes and comments. hehe. Good piece.
[7] Heather Dee 11-Sep-05/8:51 PM Reply
Very nice work, it flows rather smoothly
[0] Edna Sweetlove 16-Jan-07/4:52 AM Reply
Suspiciously familiar. A richly deserved zero.
[0] mr cunt 27-Feb-07/5:17 PM Reply
This poem shows you and ROCKMAGE (same person) are cunts, total and utter cunts, and that's being polite.