(no subject)

[vaalski]

I am much too proud of this very ludicrous poem.




I Don't Make Fun of Your Coping Mechanisms

1.
I am the saddest crocodile.
Since I was young all I've
ever really wanted was to 
be able to stick out my tongue
and touch it to my nose, the way
a little boy did once before
my mother rose from shallow water
and dragged him down to visit.

2. 
And of course no one takes
me seriously about how upset
I always get about this. You're only 
crying crocodile tears, they say.
But reptiles have feelings too.
I can't help it if I'm hungry even 
as I cry, and if it looks as if my tears 
are just a lure to bring you close.

3.
I suppose that you could say I eat
my feelings. Do I judge you for the way
you deal with your emotions, the strange 
and sharply human way you wail?

Comments

[-wolfling-.livejournal.com]

People who don't want critique or criticism are not proper writers.

I find that this piece is more effective in situ; as a stand-alone it may need work I'm not at the moment prepared to do. It's located directly after some seriously tough poetry, acting as a transition piece from the flat brutality of what comes before, through black humor into a place where things are moving towards okay. It's in the middle of several water-soaked poems, although that's a happy accident (things like that, unconscious groupings, are why I consider myself a proper poet). It's meant to be dark; it's meant to be performed with laughter. It's not meant to be side-splitting; nothing I write is.

I suppose it can be read straight; it loses a little bit of its cachet, but at that point it's in the hands of the reader.

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

People who don't want critique or criticism are not proper writers.

*shrug*

I find that this piece is more effective in situ; as a stand-alone it may need work I'm not at the moment prepared to do. It's located directly after some seriously tough poetry, acting as a transition piece from the flat brutality of what comes before, through black humor into a place where things are moving towards okay

I could see it being very effective in that position.

I suppose it can be read straight; it loses a little bit of its cachet, but at that point it's in the hands of the reader.

Such things always are.