Not surprised by your labels
I've adjusted my heart to them
just a bit tired of them
but call me what you wish
no different from your mother
so you're calling her bitch
Fear what you do not know
refuse to know me
throw stones
from your glass house
your sister
my spitting image
laugh at my old rags
scorn my dusty hair
leave me
raped
blood covers
the side walk
pretend I wasn't there
I am your daughter
and you didn't even care
I wish
you'd stopped that day
labelled me
dirty bitch on the sidewalk
© copyright Tia L. Clarke 2007
5 comments:
"your sister I could be"
This is an awfully awfully worded or arranged line. It is awkward, unoriginal and incongruous with rest of your poem, its original music, its natural rhythm. This line is so contrived, is what I mean. Avoid falling into such pits as these, these clichés of established poetics or what is imagined to be poetic. I do not expect such pitfalls from who has real talent, you!
awkward...I agree but I typed it and just posted. I'm not very anal. I check the poems later most of the time. Not because I do not care, but because not many ppl view my blog. I don't know if I aggree about it being unoriginal but it does throw the poem off.
Thanks.
"instead I'm six feet deep"
This is such a melodramatic conclusion, love. This is not art.
My suggestion is that you establish a greater distance from these concerns your poems discuss.
You need a broader view, a greater detachment to be able to truly attach.
Your sort of involvement, your seeming to care, your level of care, paradoxically, is counterproductive.
It's just sentimental. It doesn't work. It wouldn't do.
"the splitting image of me"
is prose, "my splitting image" or is it, "spitting image," would be more poetic. Remember, keep it tight, just the essence, in as few words as possible!
Beautifully modified conclusion:
I wish
that you stopped that day
labelled me
dirty bitch on the sidewalk
You can eliminate "that" but you cannot exclude "had".
I wish
you'd stopped that day
This idea cannot stand up otherwise; it instead caves in, collapses.
Structure, structure is so important, as important as in constructing with steel and concrete; whether using some form of our Creole or our so called, Standard English.
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