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POEM #9

I love self-indulgent, maudlin writing and I like this!

Good and not-so-good bits indicated below…



It Doesn't Matter Anymore

Jagged concrete, once pebbly smooth;
Broken pieces protrude
into the pathway all use.

Listen to the rhythm, it is jagged…

Missteps by newcomers
Punctuated by stumbles;
Must really pay attention,
The dangers lead the way.

The abrupt “must” follows perfectly after “stumbles”


First floor gets used
Only to pay the rents;
Toilet in hall closet there,
Closed to all those who do.

This is the first part I am not so keen on. It sounds like a convoluted and not particularly interesting way to say you can’t use the toilet, (is it if you pay the rent, and is there a hint of whoring going on, or is that just my default position?)


wooden steps with indents
From years of others’ soles;

I’ve told you before, no hearts, no soles (nb to myself- must check dictionary for alternative meaning)

Bannister with no splinters,
Guides all to second floor.

Lizzy, I think the imagery needs a bit more weight. What does the no splinter bit mean anyway?


The door ajar, just doesn’t matter.
No belongings there,
To care about,
To care about, anymore.

Hey! We are in that self-indulgent, maudlin mode and it’s got rhythm!!!

Silver on the mirror,
Now faded to dust and shadows.
Temporary filth, long ago,

To us British type people, particularly those in associated businesses, “temporary filth” suggests probationary police officers


Found its way
Deep inside.



Dresser with burned memories
Of cigarettes long forgotten;
The change amidst old papers,
Neither matter anymore.

“neither matter” is not smooth

The glass, half full
Of dirty water;
With wisps of blood,
Dilutes to cloudy gray.

Friends that come to visit
Share a needle, empty bottles;
Stories, long ago forgotten,
Never remembered to be told.

I find some of these verses rather ordinary and yet the poem as a whole is building up nicely

Single mattress,
Partly covered,
Brownish sheet that drags the floor.

Grope down, through stench-worn socks,
Grasp cracked saucer of stale filters,
And make room for just one more.

Amidst the ashes,
Try a cigarette;
Then, who knows, maybe some rest.

So-so yet still good pace and interesting enough to want to read on. In particular, “who knows” is a filler. You could improve this idea, immediate thought “there in the ashes, draw a cigarette, filter out your surroundings, smoke your way into rest”, may not be great but..

The daylight hours,
Bring sparse refuge;
Smoke-stained windows,
that don’t matter,
Just don't matter,
Anymore.

Those damn “don’t matters” are really effective

Bare, bruised, knotted arms,
Hands dirty, blacker nails;
Reach beneath to scratch in places,
Where underwear,
Ceased to be, long ago.

I feel the same away about your lost underwear as I do about your unavailable toilets!

Visions of life,
Sought and lost in cloudy water;
Can only wonder now.

Will the rent this day,
this week, this month
Bring to close,
The lifetime that ended
In a seedy hotel.

It just doesn’t matter.
It really doesn’t matter,
It just doesn't matter,
Anymore.

I enjoyed this, Lizzy. Nice writing

just realised that my use of "self-indulgent" was open to be misinterpreted. I had in mind the voice being self-centred or pitying. I did not mean that the writer was self-indulgent.

Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh, Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh

Actually, I had already accepted it with its unmeant meaning . However, I'll respond to all that you've written when I have more time. Too much to do, and got home too late to do it, and gotta get some rest. Thank you, however! I appreciate your taking the time to give me some feedback . I'll catch up with you on it ASAP.

Thanks again!

~ Lizzy

Hi Critic2 ~

Actually, this was a dreadful attempt to describe what I saw in my mind's eye.

"First floor gets used
Only to pay the rents;
Toilet in hall closet there,
Closed to all those who do."

Mind's eye: On first floor, only rents get paid ~ that way, the person collecting the rents knows that to be the only purpose for someone being there. They know that as soon as someone comes in the front door, they should hear only feet on the stairs. Any other wandering about is automatically suspect. The rather ridiculous thing about the toilet was to give a broken-down image [of course, I forgot to mention that the toilet itself was broken ]. I pictured a very small, closet-like room, just large enough to hold a toilet, with room to turn around. The porcelain piece that lifts off the back was broken, as well ~ what's left was sitting atop crookedly. The toilet itself was dried up with only stains remaining. The toilet doesn't get used by anyone, and hasn't for years. In my first writing, I had something about its being broken, but then it got edited out ~ hey, what can I say .

I intended the soles to be a pun in conjunction with souls......those feet and inner beings wandering up and down the stairs for years; soles wearing the stairs, souls getting lost in the process.

The no splinters [I had it with splinters at first, and then had it with no splinters ~ ah, the indecision of the 'poet' ] was simply to show the years of use having worn it down to nothing, 'threadbare,' not even splinters, which one might reasonably expect in a seedy hotel.

The "guides" was intended as a bit of irony ~ as though the destination of the second floor were really anything worthwhile. I considered something like "pulls" ~ to show the effort required for some to continue going up and down those stairs. Ended up with "guides."

"Temporary filth" ~ I'm glad I put that, if for no other reason than to have 'smoked out' its alternative association. I was a probationary probation officer [though not a probationary police officer ] for a very brief time [till I fell and broke my knee ~ geez, this knee thing I got going on] and couldn't go for certification, which required 'floor work,' as in some self-defense tactics.

You're right ~ "neither matter" almost gets irrevocably hung up on the tongue.

"There in the ashes
Draw a cigarette
Filter out surroundings
Smoke your way into rest"

I omitted the other "your" after "Filter out" ~ I like the way "filter" gets a double meaning, and I really like the active voice of "Smoke your way into rest" ~ as a former smoker, I know how that very well describes that process. Of course, the "your" is somewhat problematic, as I haven't been speaking from the voice of "your" so far. Though I felt like I was 'looking in on' someone, I wasn't directly pointing at them, which the "your" does.

Well, now, about this underwear thing. They're not lost. They've just lost their social-necessity significance....long ago. This was actually a bit of a description of something I witnessed so many years ago. Walked into the room with my heroin-addicted friends. Saw the glass half-full of water, with blood diluting into the dirty water, a syringe there also. The man who stood up from lying on the bed was a skinny, black man in his late 40s, early-to-mid 50s [very hard to tell]. He had on blue-jean material, bib overalls, with no shirt or underwear.....just the loose overalls. He reached down beneath them to scratch himself in the front [not the back, as someone presumed], completely oblivious to anything remotely related to propriety. My friends then shared the needle and some more dope with him.

Those were my idealistic days when I thought I could change the world. Wrote a paper on heroin as the sole requirement for a class [it was called Independent Study] for college credit; and once completed, really thought they'd dispense with their habit [after all, I'd gotten a 4.0 ~ highest grade possible ]. It was one of those situations where I'd become friends with them before I became aware of their addiction ~ and felt it would be a betrayal if I just stopped being friends with them. [My self-preservation instincts would make for a different outcome these days .]

Enroute to the place, after entering into this inner-city ghetto of Detroit, Michigan, somewhere between 3 and 4 AM [to where they'd just driven 50 miles, us leaving their house sometime between 2 and 3 AM, their being out of drugs], when we came into the neighbourhood, all of a sudden, they were very startled by something and were talking fast in almost-panicked voices. It was probably the police, but I had more-recently-than-not seen West Side Story, and thought we were about to be involved in some kind of street-gang shootout, and 'hit the floor' [I was in front seat, passenger side and 'felt' the urgent need to protect myself from 'something'! Bullets? So, I crumpled myself into an immediate 'ball' on the floorboard, between it and the dash ].

It was quite a classic scene in the way of drug addiction.....a black prostitute wearing a tight, red dress [yes, it really was red] and nylons, had on one, still okay, high-heeled shoe, and the heel on the other was broken, so she was 'limping' along the equally-broken up sidewalk, as we pulled up to the 'seedy hotel.' I honestly think it may have been a tenement house, but for my memory's purposes for this poem, I opted that it should be a hotel. It definitely was seedy.

So, I guess it seemed like I was writing about myself[?]. However, I was trying to write from a perspective that didn't necessarily suggest me or another person [i.e. it was up to the reader to decide], and didn't want it to be male or female specific, or age or race specific, either. I wanted the reader to read into it whatever they wanted.

Okay, so there you have it. I'd included some extra verses, and then eliminated them. Didn't feel I ought to do The Odyssey, so cut it 'short' .

Thank you for your critique. The exercise was quite a struggle for me [though fun ]. The verse lengths and placement of them, via their varying lengths, seemed to be without rhyme or reason. I just 'went for it' and decided, after I felt sufficiently hopeless [the way I truly felt when I accompanied them and witnessed the whole of their seedy scene] to end it. I considered that my repetition of all the "doesn't matter"s might be a case of telling it, when I should have been letting the details themselves say it.

Anyway, I still feel great that Laurie actually liked my attempt; and that you also found some things to like about it, too. Thanks, again, to both of you.

~ Lizzy

Sorry to be so late in my congratulations Lizzytysh. You did good!

Yes Midnight, she did do good, didn't she?

Lizzy I think it great the way you took a real-life experience and made poetry out of it.

Hey, thanks, Midnight ~ when it comes to "Congratulations," you're right on time !

Hey, Charles.....so you came back a little toward the middle on it, seeing its relationship [albeit not too-well-detailed] to a real-life experience, eh ? Works for me! Thanks ! I definitely took it over the edge from anything I'd pictured with Leonard's comment, in the magazine article, so long ago. The visceral, emotional memory is what stuck with me most from my experience. In retrospect [even though I questioned it, with myself, before I submitted it] I am very glad that that's what came through most prominently in the poem, and that Laurie liked it !

I really do appreciate both of your comments. When it comes to poetry, however, you two [and everyone else] have just been witness to my "15 minutes of fame" ~ and to think I could've gone my whole life without it .

~ Lizzy

Oh dear, Critic2 ~

I hope my response to you wasn't ego-istica. Just tried to answer your questions where you stated them as such. [Hmmm ~ can you state a question ?] and to give you some additional info in other areas.

Got a little concerned when the next thread I saw was a Reminder of the Egoless Poetry Site ~ did my post remind you to Remind ? Sure hope not !

~ Lizzy

ha ha, Lizzy. *not* at all. I have just made time for a few quick visits to egoless recently and have been so impressed by the site.

thanks so much for explaining the background and thinking behind your poem.


all the best

critic2

Hello Lizzytysh, yes I did like your poem after reading the background of it. Just goes to show that I should not be in the critiquing field. I think I will check out the egoless site of Critic2.

Thanks, Charles ~

Of course, you know that a poem should stand on its own ~ absent the background info ~ so, even though I'm glad it caused you to like it better, it really would be better if you could like it, without it. But, then, I've just climbed onto the raised line that's at the far left end of the learning curve. So, I can forgive myself for not being all I could be in this. I do tend to be more 'literal' ~ hence, the 'poetic' pen may simply be the one that's best left alone. Meanwhile, I'll forever be grateful to Laurie .

Critic2 ~ WHEW!!! You're welcome, of course !

~ Lizzy

Hi Lizzy~

I enjoyed reading your explanation of the nexus of your poem. Thank gawd for artistic license; to take ripe moments and create a word world, in which you are the god or godess of all. You done good.

In the summer of 2000, i went to NYC for the first time in me life. I bought this really great travel book titled: MANHATTAN and in it, i amazingly discovered Langston Hughes. His poem "Weary Blues" was amongst the pages. I had never seen/heard/read anything quite like it before. It was sooo bluesy and rhythmic with a voice so distinct.

Your poem had its own blues-lite feel. Not feigned but obvious to me a real sense of that rhythm and reason. All of which played perfectly with the context of your words.

You should keep 'playing' around with poetry. It IS cheap thrills

later,
Laurie

Oh, thank you, Laurie. These additional comments really do cause me to feel better. Why? Because I was, in fact, drawing on a real-life experience [rearranging a few details, adding some, removing others] ~ but just knowing that the 'bluesy lite' feeling of it came through ~ and that my rhythm and reason, in their context, didn't massacre the result ~ despite my own multitude of concerns. Well, that's just simply gratifying; it really is. Thanks.

I'll check out the poem and Langston Hughes. I've heard of him, but, of course, not the poem [since I've only heard of, and not read, him]. Nice intro to NYC by the sounds of it.

~ Lizzy