Listening to Simon & Garfunkel in the bath when

it suddenly occurs that if weight is dependent on mood (and a wealth of metaphors tell us this is so) then perhaps the same can be said of water, the weight and density determined by the disposition of all bodies contained therein. And what keeps me in this steel tub, a sybarite in the luxury of lavender and scented candles, stops me rising like steam toward a ceramic destiny, or dropping like a golf ball in an ocean, are not laws of buoyancy and physics, not salt or inflated lungs, but an unashamed contentment. And what keeps me in this country, this country, this country, is not a sense of responsibility, mortgage repayments and a good job, but the one who likes to poke toes in this plughole, the one who lit the honey and rose hip candles, the one who right now is lying on her side, breast feeding our baby girl.

i was originally tempted to call this prose.  then i read it again.  and once more.  the poetry of your words is immediately striking.  what took me the extra reads was seeing the poetry of your form.  i realized nothing could be more fitting to the subject matter than its presentation as a meandering thought.

where i might have encouraged structure, i now praise consistancy.

I like this prose poem, Brian, especially for its discreet conexion to daily life while it uses - here and there - abstract elements. Excellent! A pick again.
Vasile

Very good. No critique, just very good.

James

What a nice surprise! thanks for the pick Vasile, and thanks James and Jonnie for kind words.

B.

Brian,  I enjoy the masculine reality, romance  and nostalgia  (á la Garcia Marquez) of this piece.  Speaking*  as one who has lain on her side...  I would be pleased to hear a subtle bit more of the sexy still there, p'raps at the end? As is, I do enjoy it.


"the one who right now is lying on her side, breasts ripe (so right), feeding our baby girl"

Call me weird, but de-coupling "breast"  and "feeding", yet keeping them close together, gives me a sense of both romance and sexy.

Shari




*typing

I am choosing this piece for the front page for its prose poem form, which is not used very often by poets, and for its modern mixture of abstract and real elements, while both the voice and the perspective add a human feeling to the entirety. A good poem, indeed, Brian!
Vasile

Good chioce, Vasile...

It's the sustained restraint of this piece, focussed on the senses including the oft neglected sense of weight, which makes this so satisfying. 

congratulations Brian.

I agree with your very interesting observations, as well, Sue.
Vasile

Good to return to this on the front page - a fine poem, Brian. Did wonder, for a while, whether or no the bracketted 'aside' worked. Then I approved it, as an element of doubt works very well with the final certainty - excellent. Not totally at ease with allusive titles of this nature, unless they are a tribute. A bit 'clubby'? and will all readers be able to attach the music to the names? Could you have dared 'Eureka'? (and got away with it?) Don't mind me - well done.

milner

Well done on the front page award... Speech, speech!

Seriously though, it's well deserved; there is an increasingly lucid voice in your work.

Fantastic, B!  And congrats on Featured Work -- Well deserved!  And ditto that increasing lucidity in your voice.  Mike nailed it perfectly.  Such an enjoyment to see the growth -- Excellent!

lynn

It's excellent to see your work being recognised, Brian. A warming sense of reverie and tenderness to this piece.

Lovely!

Rick

Wow! Thank you all so much and Vasile, again, for the pick. Such an honour.
Sorry to disappoint Mike, but no rousing speech. Instead I'll tell you what my wife had to say:

I can't believe they stuck my boobs on the front page!

Cheers.

B.

Tender tribute here, Brian.  Congrats on making the front page, you've earned it.

d

Thanks Desiree, your words are valued.

B.

Nice excursion into the prose form. Well done and brightens the Front Page.

larry

Hi Brian

I like the construction of this
but I don't understand why the person
speaking couldn't move to a different country
with this other person and their baby.
I can think of some possibilities
but I don't think I see any hint as to why
within the poem.
I'm assuming the song playing was homeward bound. 


cheers

boring ramble throughout, predictable ending, hated repetition of country, i don't know, maybe i'm the only one. peace&love, just opinions.....

and they're like arseholes right . . . .
Thanks Jess, I love your honesty. I'm sure you're not the only one.
You too Skaadee.


B.

what would make this less of a boring ramble?  a car chase scene?  knife fight?  lightning?  i really don't understand.
i don't want to sound like a jerk and i'm all about helpful criticism, but this is a bit ridiculous.  any piece of writing is going to seem like a boring ramble if you don't invest in it intellectually.  this poem has incredible depth of thought and has captured attention without the use of stylistic gimmicks.  at the very least, i would encourage a second read.  just opinions.....

Oh
I don't think it s a boring ramble.
I love how it unfolds and goes from the metaphysical
to the specific.
I just couldn't get comfortable with it
because the pay off seemed flawed.
But it may just be more subtle than I am able to understand.
Strange that this small critique could be seen as negative.
 
   

 ;D

This has a few neat stylistic touches but it really has nothing to say. Apart from  I'm happy being with my wife.  I have to go with Jesse on this one.

Scott: I think when reading this poem, the point is not to say that the narrator stays in this country for any reason other than his contentment. The poem really is a gospel-like affirmation of the 'now', of the family life, of the home.

Jess: The repetition of 'this country', to my eyes, is quite spectacular, and evasively so. Thinking about it, to me it denotes the constant to-ing and fro-ing of modern life, the repetitious anxiety that seems so prevalent these days. In fact, the whole point of the poem is that the moment discussed is an anchored, immovable object, never to be belittled or diluted by anything else.

Maurice: I agree with you that this has some great stylistic touches. I think 'I'm happy with my wife' is quite a beautiful thing to say - primarily because of how it is said, and how the whole future seems to be contained blissfully within this snapshot.

Good to offer criticism, but personally I find the points offered a little tenuous and wayward. Don't really know why, but felt quite strongly about that.

Thanks,

James

goodness brian everyone hates me now! ha-ha, you know i like your work, this piece for me, i was thinking about what really annoyed me, and truly i think it was because it was in prose, and i think it would speak louder volumes if not, at least for me your poems always have good rhythm and pacing, probably thats why i called this a ramble. cheers!

Jess, when I said I love your honesty, I meant it. Shit, when I was 20, if some middle class 30-something white dude read me a poem about how he was happy and in love with his wife, I'd have told him to go fuck himself.
You are a credit to your generation. If anyone hates you for what you wrote, that's their problem. Me? I love you more.

Having said that, James and Jonnie, I was touched by your defence and appreciation of this poem.

Maurice, welcome, thanks for looking and commenting.

B.

Brian......I enjoyed this - my daughter spirited away my Simon and Garfunkel up to her room and I haven't seen it since.....good thing I had already loaded it on my ipod....  ;0)

I'm big on the huge messages in the poem that seems to be about nothing.....I find lots here....(you know, one could say that my birds and snails are about nothing too......lol)

xo M

& congrats on the front page....love the comment from your wife!   ;D

To be fair, if this notion of hatred is a referral to me then it's complete rubbish. No hatred, only honesty. As for me, I'm middle middle middle middle middle class, 20 years old, and loved this poem. Have at you, convention (!?...)

James

i'm sorry jess, i didn't mean to sound hateful.  it had just seemed (and this was my opinion) that you'd typed those things without much consideration.  i take back my harsh tone.  opinions don't always get along with each other.

tough skin, :)

b, for some if you're not pissed off in your twenties, then it just hits later in life, and in youth we can be angry and beautiful, like a poem can be or an opinion or even middle middle middle middle middle class, 20 years old, and loved this poem. hehe :P im 20, but the one thing i've learned about anger, is its stem is poverty.

I love this piece, or would love it, except you confuse me beginning here:

but that which likes to poke toes in this plughole

To what does "that which" refer? It seems initially to refer to the speaker, not the woman in the poem who is breastfeeding. And regardless of whether it refers to the speaker or to the breastfeeding woman, why use "that which"? Grammatically, this would not be used to refer to a person at all.

Your reader is thus required to backtrack and try to make sense of this. The ambiguity undercuts the effectiveness of the poem.

I agree with Jay; 'that which' tripped me up a little bit.

James

Jay and James are so correct - (I can see my professors shaking their heads at me for not pointing it out, even though I noticed it - lol)

easy fix -  "but that which likes to poke toes in this plughole" - becomes

"but the one who likes to poke toes in this plughole"   - I like the repetition it forms with the next part...

I'm going to weigh in on the side of changing it - xo M

Done!

TBH, I took a chance with that dodgy grammar (I was thinking along the lines of "that" aspect of "she/her" y'know, that unnameable "thing"), and thought I'd gotten away with it . . . .
Good catch. Guess that's why you are top dog eh Jay ;)

Chasan,
ain't it great how this thread has thrown up such a diversity of opinions and yet those opininions have been expressed, contested, discusssed, in a spirit of friendship and professionalism. I hope this can continue throughout the site. Wther or not this poem is a fair representation of this site is not for me to say, but I think the thread it has spawned definitely is. (except maybe me ending that sentence on aux. verb!)

B.

nobody told you about the 20 year old quarterlife crisis!!???? hehe

and ok im doing this for b, i messaged him and told him that i decided today that i do like this piece, and he dared me to post it, so here ya go! :P

the breast feeding line still gets to me though, i dont know how i would change that line.....

Hi, Brian. I suddenly see this front page is a community post, so let me add my two bits. Regarding the praise of meandering style and the criticism of rambling, it is obviously a fine and curving line to walk between the two, requiring exquisite balance! To that end, I would consider removing '(and a wealth of metaphors tell us this is so)'; removing 'unashamed' and just letting 'contentment' plunk down heavily on its own amphibrach (how's that!); and removing 'not a sense of responsibility, mortgage repayments and a good job, but'. I don't know; is it still the same peaceful, friendly, leisurely warm soak? That's the test. --Tom

that's the best love bubbles, so nice to read on the first page

camel

I agree.

Don't change that line, Brian please...there are so few poems which mention breast feeding...that's what breasts are for...not to hang sweaters on!  Anyway how would your wife feel to have her moment of frontpage glory snatched away...

Sue

Don't worry Sue, the boobies are staying put. I'm confused by the suggestions of cutting or changing, as to me that seems to misread the poem completely. Mmm. Perhaps Jess and Jay would care to enlighten us?

B.

Yes, this is very good. Sorry I missed your first (first?) front page pick-- it's well deserved. A slight (moot) point: the repetition of 'candle' is a nit, so I'd scotch the first one and replace it with another herbal bath product (cardamom?). But really, who cares? Well done!

Take care,

-O

Second . . . but who's counting . . . ;)


Cheers,

B.

Ahh, right, 'How Does It Feel'... I'd totally forgotten about that. I think maybe because of the odd font I just didn't associate it with you. Still, congratulations!

-O