why can't i write anything new?
alright kids, this is the one and only poem i have written all summer. (i just started a second, but so far it's just a stanza that seems to be missing the poem, so that will come later i hope...) anyway, since i wrote it over the summer it hasn't gotten much feedback, so any comments or suggestions or whatever would be great. thanks friends!
could-have-beens don't buy you a beer
cigarette in my right hand, your
baseball cap backwards
in my left. I couldn’t taste
vodka on your breath or the cigarette
that dangled from your lips before
I shared it. and I am convinced
ninety percent rum kissed back,
the other ten percent this poem
that wishes I had kissed
you longer, knows I meant it
when I said I don’t smoke
when I’m sober.
could-have-beens don't buy you a beer
cigarette in my right hand, your
baseball cap backwards
in my left. I couldn’t taste
vodka on your breath or the cigarette
that dangled from your lips before
I shared it. and I am convinced
ninety percent rum kissed back,
the other ten percent this poem
that wishes I had kissed
you longer, knows I meant it
when I said I don’t smoke
when I’m sober.
posted by KTB at 2:18 AM | Permalink
2 Comments:
katie,
this poem has a great feel, a swirling occasion of wantoness/love and slipping from your mind, but needs something, I see things, but not like when i am drunk on screwdrivers looking through one of those great circa '80s viewfinders.
The first line would be more effective with something more specific. "cigarette in my right hand" is too general. Describe an action, taking a drag, or waving the cigarette, or lighting it before resting it into your right hand, taking it from his lips. Was there something more to that cigarette than just that cigarette? If so, make a small implication for the reader to wonder about.
Try to replace "dangle" with a word that doesn't need a suffix, it will give it punch.
Remove "10% poem" from the fifth line from the bottom. Try replacing it with something more intimate, perhaps as simple as "...of me wishes..." or more intense "...of my friday night desire...".
Great conclusion though, stating drunkeness without stating it flat out as a fact. Not to mention, your title is incredable!
more...more...more...!
Katie,
I can't get away, I've come back to read it three times. You know, it feels like there is more here than you have written. Maybe expand it, just free write till you find more that fits. The scene is amazing, the conflict is so subtle, wow. The troubled communication between two people... it makes the wonder, is the narrative and miscommunication driven by the influence of alcohol, or is it something in the relationship or desire. Ahhhhhhhhhh, it is crazy/mad/loving/out-of-it poem girl. Keep with the things that make you feel something, like when someone who has been drinking/smoking kisses you, those are strong!
Sorry, I can't get enough of this poem. :)
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