…first impressions

grace and poise take affect. TK U MLJ LV NV

A swimmer meets an Emperor ~ proceeds to straighen him out on things ~ as we leave them they're drifting hand in hand in the soft forgiving sand. Interesting illustration.

an adage I subscribe to though break from when needed. Many have commented on the image: befitting/unfitting/ relevance. I’ll give it my best shot though how one sees/ explains and/or interprets art I haven’t a clue.

I created a dripping phallic image to connote manhood. The well-known fable has always amused me and was the ‘seed’ of the poem. The image spoke/mirrored to me (and I had hoped the poem) in myriad ways. I believe KOLKORE’s comments specific to the poem itself covers the rest.

Thank you everyone for your comments. Special thank yous to Liar and My Erotic Trail for the “New Poems Reviews”!

Man Ray

My personal groove is at its peak when I’m being hit by equal amounts of visual and text; but that’s just my bias, not this poem’s fault. After all, I would not ask any of the poems in the ‘non illustrative’ category to please show up in 24 hours with an appropriate accompanying visual or else, would I? I’ll confess that my visual imagination dept. seemed to have gone on a strike, and therefore no concrete resolution re. the image. Unless I am totally blinded to an obvious depiction, it seems like this poem does not ask for more than highlighting, (dare I say – Illustrating?) the mood it creates by the power of the words.

What I missed in the dialog with the visual I regained in the quirky dialog between imageries within the poem. On one hand the Mythical/fairy tale imagery, on the other the imagery of the court. There is nothing like the power of a poem to bring different worlds together! Here it allows for a lighter, even ironic take on themes which otherwise could have been too familiar. The ocean and the shore; disrobing and getting into the ocean as indicators of different stages in the erotic encounter have been identified as such by numerous poets; films; even by this poet. But take the same dive after a not so hidden parody of both a fairy tale and a trial (every king deserves a trial before his punishment) and that is a different dip altogether.

Don’t take my suggestion for ironic reading too far though. Without risking an over psychologizing read into this poem, its seems pretty clear that the serious romantic core is there. Only it is covered by multiple layers which serve the purpose of distancing us and the narrator from that core. That’s why a poem about love seems more like a poem about a story (or a myth or a fable) about love. And the suggested treatment of this love? Almost like you would treat a suspected criminal - with suspicion of course, then investigate and shed all the layers of untruthfulness and pretence. No one is born with those attitudes, so we can all think back, each about our own legacies of being hurtful or being hurt in our personal histories of failed loves. Yes, somewhere at the end there is a happy end, but I am mostly impressed by all the measures taken to first distance that object, so that I am left with a sense of: yes, there are loves, but they belong in the songs. As the great Guru of love songs Georges Brassens bemoaned in his poem: “Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux” (There are no happy loves), the title gives you the message.

Callin' on ya Ya-Ya Sisters. Ya tongue tied? Hogtied? Bound and gagged? No comments! Tsk Tsk girls! @--->--->--ya gotta admit this is good!

Jen