Tell the Truth but Tell it Slant*

[Tim J Brennan]

I’d like to re-marry
my wife, kiss her like a younger lover
would, hard, remember her again
in the white dress at Bar Harbor

It was toward nine pm
and she looked beautiful
because she was

Life is all about pieces,
isn’t it, connected through steps
we take down streets, toward intersections,
away from where we’ve been, closer
to where we’re going

I’m getting older; maybe
I should re-marry the rain
instead, and settle into the earth
like March snow.

*(emily dickinson)

[ajduclos]

That is wonderful, Tim.  Love the life progression... marrying the rain, into mother earth.............

a whole lifetime in a few words.

Aj

[poet-e]

Beautiful poem.

Last stanza feels like a separate poem.... how abt N's wife, unless she is the rain?

[Dave]

I ahve read the Dickinson poem and it's funny how it illuminates and distracts from the poem here. The title here is missing the word 'all'; is that deliberate, if yes why? There is no need to answer, the question is rhetorical and reflects the tension resulting from the juxtaposition of the two poems.

I ask myself where the truth might be here in your poem and what is slant. The direct description would appear to be truth but then again we are told the N would like to remember his wife before we are given a memory. So, does the N remember or not and how accurately?

There is the assertion that younger lovers kiss hard - assertion more than truth if describing lovers generally but true if a memory.

Then there is the redundant seeming 'She looked beautiful (subjective truth) because she was (subjective impression being asserted as fact, - beauty is in the eye of the beholder not a fact).

The words 'pieces' is for me at least also an odd choice: pieces of what? Pieces as in bits and pieces or simply not something that forms into a whole. It seems to be pieces of a journey. Life as a journey is a journeyman image so perhaps there is another reason for its choice.

The last stanza contains a beautiful but figurative image preceded by a startlingly obvious and dry statement. Seems redundant. But maybe not.

Thoughts.
 

[Tim J Brennan]

That is wonderful, Tim.  Love the life progression... marrying the rain, into mother earth.............

a whole lifetime in a few words.

Aj

Kind words, Aj. Thank you.

[Tim J Brennan]

Beautiful poem.

Last stanza feels like a separate poem.... how abt N's wife, unless she is the rain?

Not following your last thought, poet-e. Sorry. Thanks for the read.

[Tim J Brennan]

I ahve read the Dickinson poem and it's funny how it illuminates and distracts from the poem here. The title here is missing the word 'all'; is that deliberate, if yes why? There is no need to answer, the question is rhetorical and reflects the tension resulting from the juxtaposition of the two poems.

I ask myself where the truth might be here in your poem and what is slant. The direct description would appear to be truth but then again we are told the N would like to remember his wife before we are given a memory. So, does the N remember or not and how accurately?

There is the assertion that younger lovers kiss hard - assertion more than truth if describing lovers generally but true if a memory.

Then there is the redundant seeming 'She looked beautiful (subjective truth) because she was (subjective impression being asserted as fact, - beauty is in the eye of the beholder not a fact).

The words 'pieces' is for me at least also an odd choice: pieces of what? Pieces as in bits and pieces or simply not something that forms into a whole. It seems to be pieces of a journey. Life as a journey is a journeyman image so perhaps there is another reason for its choice.

The last stanza contains a beautiful but figurative image preceded by a startlingly obvious and dry statement. Seems redundant. But maybe not.

Thoughts.
 

Not sure what happened to the other word in the title, Dave. Must have dropped it on the way in. That you have so many thoughts about this poem, I will take as a good thing.

Thanks for the read.