offtopic: neat trick, if my font is too small to read, or any site, hold the control button and scroll with your mouse up or down to make the page larger or smaller. The font gets larger so its easier to read.
Hello. This will probably be a long post. There are multiple poems that got placed into one, and I will explain to you my process and such. Here is how the poem finished;
She Was
Out cold in a shivering December
holding close to his toes
trying to forget
he had no home
She threw the pills against the wall
her eyes red, her skin blue
She knew no one lived forever
and she was sick of trying to
The cigar rolled from one side of his mouth
to the other
Listening to the silence of the house
as he stared at the moon
He had her cremated
so he would always have her
part by agreement
part by necessity
He stretched out across the bed
awaiting his lover's embrace
but was met only with cold cotton
that will never be as soft as she was
__________________________
COMMENT before you read my thoughts on the poem okay?? For those of you who comment. There is no wrong thought, there is no wrong question, there is no wrong answer. Here are my thoughts on the end poem itself (highlight of course);
Each of the four lines were from different poems. Some of them had sets of four lines, and others were just four lines on their own that got put in. They had been imagined to be separate characters, each set of four lines. I must have been thinking similarly throughout each one, since they all seem to tie together. I wrote all but the second set in one night. The second set was after I woke up and had a dream, which is written down of course, that had nothing to do with the lines at all, but soon I had that idea for her. I wasn't satisfied with any of the poems alone, they really had no endings, so I placed them together and thus, all the male characters became one, and the female character was added as well.
The first (I'll call them stanzas, a set of four lines) stanza is about a man who is homeless. That was how it was written in its own poem, but emotionally, it stands to be true in this poem. Cold as in cold-hearted or lonely. It has more emotional aspects when placed with the others, but on its own, its about a homeless man feeling cold, and that's all.
The woman is blue, because of her veins, which isn't described since veiny isn't a word. She is (was lol) the main point of the poem, the source of his feelings.
The third stanza is simply a man who is almost, almost content with what he is doing. He seems to me, an older version of the man in the other stanzas, but not as old as the first. Oh, I meant to say the first stanza feels like a prelude to the entire poem - thats how he was AFTER she had died. Died being implied, she could be sick. Then it explains why she died, then it explains how he felt. So the first stanza could be physical or emotional or both. So the man feels older, like he is getting over her death simply.
I think the real order of the poem to make sense would be to read the stanzas in the following order; 2, 3, 4, 5, 1. Yeah, that's how I explained it earlier. OK. So she dies, then he feels okay, then he knows he isn't, then he feels lost without her in bed, then he is out cold, homeless. Or maybe that's an emotional stanza, and that should be first? You tell me haha.
The fourth and fifth stanzas are essentially the same man, both very lonely.
OK, now that you have commented, and then read what I was thinking when I wrote the poem originally, now I can show you the remnants of the poems the stanzas had originally come from. They are similar to the other ones, but went through changes as I moved them to the collaborative poem.
1. Starving
Written originally to convey the feeling of starving, but not only for food, but for home, and love, which was what my larger poem was going to be about, people starving for something different all the time. Some don't tie together, but what was on one page is written together as one poem here.
Sharp pangs seeming to pull from underneath
Like a thousand fingers all wanting a piece
Out cold in a shivering December
holding close to your toes
trying to forget
you have no home
Stretching out across the bed awaiting a lover's embrace
feeling only emptiness when you palms rub the wool
that will never be as soft as she was
Ravenous
Teeth sinking into fruit
forgetting to care about your famished brethren
Can famished be used as starving and for full? I think it could be used for both. I don't know which one it means exactly. You'll notice the poem was originally meant to be third person, which I kind of like better actually.
2. Ashes
He had her cremated so he would always have her
part by her agreement, part by his necessity
He had the jar placed in the most intimate area of their house
where he could always see, (where she would always be)
and imagine the rest of her
The line in parenthesis was originally crossed out. I wanted to talk about the jar but had no more ideas to continue through with it. I think the perfect song to accompany the small poem, at least what comes to mind every time I hear the word "ashes" is Porcupine Tree - My Ashes - "where a boy rides on a bike, and never smiles..." That line stands out to me in that song.
3. At the Moon
The cigar rolled from one side to the other in his mouth
He fumbled with the playing cards in his right hand
his arms covered in rich fabric to the wrists -
fit for a king, and not the foolish kind
He sat back in his chair and listened to the silence of the house
as he stared at the moon
This one I used, but left out so many details of what he was doing since it seemed useless in lieu of the mood of the poem it was put with.
The poem about the woman is exactly the same as its own, just the four lines.
I wrote two other poems I didn't use but conveyed some feeling. I guess I might post them later but they are totally irrelevant to this entire poem besides being written at the same time.
