After she's put
the husband to bed
mother lays a trail
of cigarettes
end to end
across the kitchen
floor and smokes
her way
from one dark corner
of the room
to the other,
the rings glowing
on her finger.
When she arrives
at the plate
she bought herself
last Christmas,
the one of the cow
whose black spots
form a map
of the world,
she licks the surface
with her eyes
closed but never shut
and falls asleep
standing up.
Danniel Schoonebeek, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
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3 comments:
One ends up wondering where the emotional center is in both the poem and the marriage. This ambiguity may be the poem's most worthwhile aspect (as far as the marriage goes - who knows). It is, I think, most present in this anecdote's lack of didacticism. It's straight story almost all the way through.
With this in mind, it might be little surprise that the weakest line is the most message-heavy:
with her eyes
closed but never shut
My initial reaction was to think: The weaker ambiguity of the open-shut dichotomy overpowers the more interesting and beautiful ambiguity of her
tasting the plate
with her eyes
and
tasting the plate
with her eyes
closed ...
The hint of synaesthesia is, again, overpowered by what immediately follows, the heaviness of
...but never shut
The line in question is heavy, I think, because it's the most grammatically involved in the poem. Most of this is due to the "but", which I feel forces the line to fold in upon itself - like one of those fortune-tellers we made in third grade. (If you still make them, no offense.)
No other line in the poem is forced to carry the weight of two ideas separated by a "but" AND the turnaround idea of the "but" itself. That's three ideas in one line - compare to the purity of
her way
which is almost no idea at all, or
After she's put
which is really only half an idea.
That the eyes suddenly carry an unexpected level of psychological drama doesn't quite help, either.
In sum: What I felt this poem earned was ambiguity - on all-over and line-by-line levels. Until, that is, the aforementioned interruption. Sometimes, as we all know, it's good to have a puncher in there. I don't feel that's the case here; the line feels at cross-purposes with the poem and against its strengths. If I had my druthers it would end as follows:
...
the one of the cow
whose black spots
form a map
of the world,
she licks the surface
with her eyes
closed
and falls asleep
standing up.
As a final note, the rhythmic tension with that omission may be more suitable to the mood than the flabbier "but ..." line.
You may like the idea of the eyes being closed-but-not-shut, but it strikes me as unnecessary and, anyways, sometimes you got to leave a kid on the mountain.
Micah "The Spotted One" Guts
I like that the line breaks emulate the progression of the cigarettes across the room. It definitely succeeds in creating a slow, crawling pace to the reading that not only fits the actions of the mother, but creates a kind of resigned/contemplative tone.
I'm not sure about "the rings glowing/on her finger." I get that the significance comes from the title, but "glowing" might be a bit too awkward. Are they glowing independently? Are they glowing off the cigarrettes? Logically I'd think the latter, but the first image I get is of them glowing by themselves (maybe because action of the mother smoking is four lines away?).
Except for the "glowing" hang-up, I enjoyed it overall.
Keep it dirty,
Adam
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