Backward Suicide (a partially stolen poem)

[Manna]

The preparation of his leap is stored
in a brain the color of stone in a scene
where dead leaves crunch into a nest
around that fountain of lightening thoughts
in the slow minutes before an inconsiderate funeral.
The clock is finished, the parking lot empty
under high lights clouded with moths
that form his name in their flight patterns.
The same city street through another lens
might seem to bring back the circles
that grew from his eye to the road
to the countryside darkening in and out
like a coma. Four of us fumble
for the handle and squeeze
with numb fingertips wild
and windblown to have you come back to us.

[lizzytysh]

No idea which parts are stolen and which not, but there are a lot of images that create an overall, overwhelming sadness.


~ Lizzy

[Marisha]

hello Manna, I am sorry but i find your poem really sad and depressing. the future will be whatever it will be but treat today as the PRESENT! I think suicide is so unfair to the loved ones left behind and we should all do our best to stop it. I really don't understand who the four people are (wife and 3 children maybe?) but what handle are they squeezing. Is it the window?
Anyway, I hope your next poem is a lot happier!

[Manna]

This was an exercise in editing. I took a poem written by someone else (someone I like a lot), and wrote it out in reverse, the last word first, and so on. Then I edited to
try to make it make sense.

Here is the original:

The Failed Suicide

You have come back to us windblown
and wild-eyed, your fingertips numb
from squeezing the handle grips
of a four-day coma. Somehow,
out in that darkened countryside,
the road grew circular
and brought you back. We seem
another city, but the street signs
keep spelling your name, the same gnats
keep clouding the lights
high over the empty parking lots,
and the clock on the funeral home
(always a few minutes fast)
shines down upon a little fountain
where, nestled in curls of dead leaves,
a stone frog the color of your brain
prepares his leap.

- Ted Kooser (who else?)

I wasn't sure what to do in that section you asked about, Marisha. The idea that it invoked Pawl Bearers crossed my mind. Or friends/family.

[~greg]

Pawl Bearers

I presume you mean "pall bearers".

I only mention it because "pall" used to be my favorite word.

"pall" -- being the cloth covering a coffin.

"To cast a pall on the proceedings"
--was what I thought I was supposed to do in life.
(-- what Derrida called "deconstruction"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction )

You may think that was going "beyond the pall"
on my part, but you'd be wrong again. The correct
expression is "beyond the pale" -- "pale" deriving
from "pole", - the expression meaning: beyond
the last pole surrounding the village, hence:
beyond accepted community mores.

~~

In the early 1960s "Pall Mall" was the best selling cigarette in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pall_Mall_%28cigarette%29

But in the mid-1960s they finally lost out to "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should",
-- which was the most famous ad in the USA from 1954 until 1972.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_ta ... tte_should

My older sister came home from school one day in a huff about it.
She had a crush on her English teacher, who said it was bad English.
I, on the other hand, sided with my father, who subscribed to 'descriptive'
vs 'proscriptive' linguistics.

Nevertheless I went with Camels, because you could do all kinds of tricks
with the pack and cellophane wrapper. And because all my aunts used to
collect coupons, whereas the Camel pack said ---

Do not look for premiums or coupons
as the cost of the tobaccos blended in Camel Cigarettes
prohibits the use of them.

("dead leaves"
- the poem was about smoking, wasn't it? - like "5 leaves left"?)

[Manna]

yes, Greg. That is exactly what I meant.
I never knew how to spell pall.
Though my great-grandfather's name was Paul,
and so is my Grandfather's middle name,
my father's middle name a
nd my brother's name.
And they have all smoked at some point.
So it all makes sense now.

[Paula]

Greg the Pall in Pall Mall is the name of a street not the cloth covering the coffin. It is the road that leads up to Buckingham Palace.

It is pronounced Pal Mall not Pall (Pawl) Mall

With Marlborough fags if you crease the box in a certain way it has the KKK for Ku Klux Khan. Although Marlbough have always said that was not the intention.

[lizzytysh]

Thanks, Greg, for the origin of the phrase "beyond the pale" ~ it's one I tend to use, but never knew how it came to me.

Pall Mall was the first cigarette I ever smoked. They were a strong cigarette and were long, always lasting longer than you needed or really even wanted a cigarette to. I was done with having a cigarette, but there would still be 1/4 of it to go... being non-

wasteful . Camels, on the other hand, were short, yet seemed more tightly packed and even stronger.

My older sister came home from school one day in a huff about it.

Seems she would've come home in a puff.

Thanks for the info, Paula, on the street and pronunciation of Pall... I heard it both ways... Pawl Mawl or Pal Mal, but never a mixture.

With Marlborough fags if you crease the box in a certain way it has the KKK for Ku Klux Khan. Although Marlbough have always said that was not the intention.
Greg the Pall in Pall Mall is the name of a street not the cloth covering the coffin. It is the road that leads up to Buckingham Palace.

It is pronounced Pal Mall not Pall (Pawl) Mall

With Marlborough fags if you crease the box in a certain way it has the KKK for Ku Klux Khan. Although Marlbough have always said that was not the intention.

I'd be interested to know who the original owners/manufacturers of the brand were. Was there a "Marlborough" family in England [that seems a Brit spelling] and they changed it to "Marlboro" for the brand? If the family came from the southern or south-eastern portion of the U.S., we might be able to put some meat on the bones of that "KKK" theory.


~ Lizzy


P.S. I'm so glad I quit smoking. Paula ~ that one's for you.

That's a REALLY interesting technique for a poem exercise, Manna.

[Paula]

http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/marlboro.asp

This is a link to a page about Marlboro and the KKK. It could well be an urban myth.

You are right Lizzie it was a British Company and the fags were named after Great Marlborough Street and they changed it to Marlboro.

[lizzytysh]

Oh, okay. If it was a British company, the likelihood of its being an urban myth skyrockets. Snopes saying that it is pretty well confirms that it is.

I prefer the Brit spelling to the Americanized one. Much prettier. But I guess when you're smoking a MARLBORO, you're not so concerned with prettiness. At least the Marlboro man didn't seem to be.

Thanks for that interesting bit of trivia.


~ Lizzy

[William]

What, no comment from Michael.
Is this a record?
Is he on holiday?
When can we expect the photographs?