No Way

[lizzytysh]

Hi Linmag/Linda ~

This post may likely only be of interest to you, as I'm just breaking your poem down and relating the things I appreciate about the way you've constructed it. Your poem itself also has the effect on me as it does on Iubita ~ a feeling tearfulness comes from deep inside. I think your mum's fate is one we all fear....and your poem touches on and gives [ironically] voice to these deep fears.

I remember being surprized to see how many of Leonard's lines in his songs rhyme. The thrust of the content of your poem was so strong that several things went unnoticed, as well.

I didn't notice your beginning each verse with "No way," as it was the vehicle to all the losses, and it was the losses that I was seeing and feeling, not the actual words ["No way"] that brought them into my awareness. It wasn't until you ended the last verse, as well as the poem itself with the words, that I connected it with the title. Only later did I look down the poem and notice that you had begun each of the verses the same. For me, it made for a powerful reenforcement of the losses.

Then, out of curiosity, I looked for rhymings, and saw that there are many, yet as Leonard does with his songs, they aren't "contrived" and are so fully contextual that they had gone unnoticed.

In your second verse [first line], you say "No way to express the confusion." With "no way to express" being a figurative way for people who do speak to say, "I just don't how to tell you how much I love this [or whatever]," it has a figurative meaning as well as a literal meaning, "No way to express." Finally, how does one express confusion to begin with.......when one is too confused, how can accuracy occur, even if/while speaking? So, it works three ways.

With your second line [same verse], "As you wake to a body half dead" ~ "as you wake" depicts gaining awareness, while a body half-dead is near the ultimate of losing awareness....so you've shown opposite ends of a spectrum in your single line.

With your third line [same verse], "Or the slowly dawning".....dawn being the beginning [of a day] and "conclusion"......they come at the end, so again you've shown opposite ends in a single line.

With your fourth line [same verse], "no way out"......a "way out" would be a release....and "out of my head"......a term often used for being crazy, and in this case being used to depict a literal wanting [to give expression to] what remains locked in her head. So, it's both figurative and literal, again. Plus, opposite ends of a continuum [with release and locked up] in one line.

In your third verse [first and second lines], "No way to write my name again / My right arm and leg don't answer," you've both given and simultaneously taken away body "language" from her right arm and leg ~ they don't "answer" because they can't physically move or respond, in this case, the arm, in order to write her name; yet if they had voice, they still couldn't answer because of the stroke having removed it....."don't answer".....literally nothing answers now, figuratively or literally!

In the third and fourth lines [same verse], you contrast "kindly" with a sardonic joke, which she seems to take in good humour, though it seems a rather cruel joke to me.


In your fourth verse [first and second lines], "old pathways" have a certain, generally understood reliabililty to them.......and "that lead" also has a certainty to it. Lead is a strong word of guidance. Yet, then comes the inherent negation of what old pathways and lead should mean, as "elusive" words are all that are [and, in fact, are not] found. It's like speaking of the old country lane that lead to the fog, as fog is so hazy, indistinct, nebulous. Inherently contradictory, yet in this case, so true.

In the third and fourth lines [same verse], you cite both her emotional needs ["tell my husband I love him"] and her physical needs "or the nurse where it hurts" [and even that is inclusive of the emotional, as she is in emotional pain, as well, and can't tell the nurse about that, either].

In the fifth verse [first and second lines], "go home," "wash," "dress myself" ~ all active.

In the third and fourth lines [same verse], "Sit all day," "where they put me" and "book on a dusty shelf" [no longer a source of pleasure to others] ....these are, of course, the inert aspects giving the contrast with vitality and involvement with life [in the first two lines] that you intended.

In the sixth verse [first and second lines], the contrast that is set up is extreme, from the volitional action of making a trip and to two, great, world cities.....

.....To the third and fourth lines [same verse], "no active, fulfilling retirement" ~ underscores the moot and meaningless point of retirement [in its typical meaning], with her entire body now into total, forced "retirement." "For those of us stuck in a home"....from the macro of Paris and Rome, to the micro of permanent, total immobility, housed permanently in a single dwelling, and wheelchair, in fact. Stuck also has additional meaning with stuck, as in getting stuck in a car and being unable to move, "stuck in a home"; and yet "stuck in a home" is what has been done to her, as well, from the outside, by those who put her there.


By the seventh and last verse [first and second lines], we have just come through all the losses that precede the "redemption." The seeds of joy that are there to be found are found, planted, and watered for growth and to be built upon ~ for her own enjoyment. She is doing her best to accept her lot and make the best of it. She notices and appreciates that the girls are lovely. She still wants to and can laugh, each day, and in a way that suggests non-verbal communication and sharing with the nurses and other patients.

In the third and fourth lines [same verse], she now [who can't relate to anyone what she is thinking] considers what someone else might be thinking, as she contrasts "glad" with "end it" [suicide being an understood negative, though obviously not by the one considering it, it's still a positive/negative contrast, regarding the ending of her life]. "But if I could" [the final reminder of her inability to speak], "I'd say 'No way!' " ~ her final declaration of will, her will to live and to be.

Her last two words, lead back into the title, and back into line one of the first verse, and so on, through the poem again. Not being a critic, I have the liberty of just telling you what I like about how you wrote this, and why I like it. Fortunately, what I say doesn't have to be correct or to measure up to any literary standard. Your poem replays itself in my head. I think you've done very well in imbueing it with what it's all and really about, with the way you've constructed it and the words, along with the representative concepts, you've chosen.

I admire this poem a lot.

~ Elizabeth

[linmag]

I have been truly amazed by the strength and variety of people's reactions to this poem. Thanks to everyone who has commented.

I have just got back from visiting my parents for the weekend. Mum has somehow managed to re-access her schoolgirl French, and is using it correctly and in context, causing great hilarity among the caring staff. The human brain and the human spirit are truly wondrous things.

[lizzytysh]

Dear Linmag/Linda ~

I'm so happy to hear that your mother's truly oldest pathways are being found through the will of the spirit and the mystery of the brain. It sounds like some rerouting has occurred and look what we found on the path. Very exciting. She and all of you must be ecstatic for her.

~ Elizabeth