NGD1313

damned to antarctic postcards;
turning token leaps of faith into
a jigsaw of bones pieced not unlike
a ghost all over the parquet of
the bedroom floor. i had a sentence
once left hanging on my teeth,
(it sounded not unlike 'i'm leaving.')
it promised to turn the dashboard into
a dining room and all wake-ups into
parade floats of morning, night and noon.
what little left undiscovered of mice and plans
(and far more yet left unsoiled by man)
would feel like it dissolved into pensacola coastline,
when i fucked up my soul on dextromethorphan,
dramamine, jim beam, and klonopin
(on poorer nights, a fourth of river-water gin)
maybe i should've listened to more tom waits records
to figure out how all weary men cope with deliverance,
but it hurts too much to know it and keep my mouth shut.

maybe i'm just waiting to be destroyed.

voodoochild23

seems like you're trying too hard to include clever references and words no one's heard of

i mean its very poetic and all, but i did cringe everytime it got a bit too clever

maybe thats just me

Eskil Rask

i think its awesome. very magic and dynamic wording! +1

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RatmN'Roses

like the lyrics but please give credit to Tom for the title
I'm a big T.W. fan btw hope you didnt take what i said the wrong way.

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Nilchii

I clicked the link for the Tom Waits reference, but I stopped reading for the density of your rhetoric.

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NGD1313

too clever? is that a complaint now? and what words have you never heard of?




is this really that dense? i'm not questioning your opinion at all, but this just didn't strike me as especially more dense than anything else i write, so i'm genuinely curious as to how this is being read as such.

thanks for the words everyone.

Nilchii

I have no immediate, easy access to the meaning of "damned to antarctic postcards," let alone the second clause or anything subsequent to it.

I am sure that you mean something by it. I am equally sure that (as I sit here typing, giving your poetry the time, attention, and focus that all poetry deserves) I am developing an understanding of my own that I did not allow myself to develop on a cursory glance.

But having read the poem and given it more attention, I still find myself unable to push aside the obfuscation and verbiage to find the kernel of meaning, the heart, the soul, the need to read this. Maybe I need to listen to more Tom Waits.

Sleep might help. I'll see if tomorrow I am any more compelled or delighted.

peace

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Nilchii

Okay, I did in fact sleep on it. As I lay in bed, I pondered "damned to antarctic postcards," and this is how my thought process went, or something like it:

"Damned to antarctic postcards?" What is he talking about? Why not capitalize? Why do people DO this to themselves?
Okay, okay. Damned to antarctic postcards. WTF is an antarctic postcard?
Antarctic is a reference to a cold and lonely place, so we're probably dealing with a metaphor.
Postcards. Pithy, brief communications from far away.
Cold and lonely. Communications.
Okay, he's alone and sending out a communication, I bet he's talking about this poem.
Why "damned?" Damned is when you're being punished for your own actions.
Okay, okay. I think I've got it.
"I'm cold and lonely by choice. I hope this poem reaches someone."

Is that something like what you mean? Because, if not, I've gone through a lot of mental gymnastics to arrive at the wrong idea. And if so? I've gone through a lot of mental gymnastics to arrive at the right idea.

It is true that a poem should make one stop and consider it. A great poem will make you want to do mental gymnastics to figure out what's going on in the poem.

I've done a lot of work to try to suss out what the first line means. I'm going to take a break before I try to tackle the second, let alone the rest of it.

peace

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NGD1313

you're more or less right, it's about isolation, antarctica obviously represents the vast and cold and lonesome and a postcard is a piece of the picturesque yet resolutely asserts distance and separation, since you never send your next door neighbor a postcard from your house. being damned to such a thing means you're trapped in that isolation almost as if a punishment. this whole poem is more or less a sulk-fest on how awful it is to be stuck in a life of disappointment, loneliness, and futility, where leaps of faith leave you with shattered bones (because your faith was unrewarded) and you can't bring yourself to leave so you can only imagine how glorious it would be. instead turning to drowning yourself in various pharmaceuticals and liquor and tom waits records trying to find a sense of purpose or wash out the need for one.

now obviously if deconstruction is this difficult i've failed because it's my fault if i can't convey that message more concisely, but to be honest this was slapped together in about 5 minutes after listening to rain dogs on repeat for a couple hours and i don't really consider it an opus so i encourage you to not strain yourself anymore, and we'll chalk this up as a failure to learn from. thank you so much for your insight and genuine interest though, it means the world.

Nilchii

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Milo.

f--- that. i love this poem

vintage x metal

beautifully written, it's a common scene from you. I've been thinking about it lately - your work shows a certain strain of masculine vulnerability that's really admirable, but there's a touch of darkness to all of it, a salivation for escape, a kind of smirk, a slyness. I'd love to see you gritty. I think you can work with more than the vulnerable. I think you're ready to adorn a bit of a shit-eating grin. you already do it; we need it to cope, don't we? so show me sometime.

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