Your lunch is on display again
Chicken salad, a bit of chocolate, semen
Trying to swallow your insecurity
(Sometimes it swallows you)
My heart is on my sleeve again
Over my sweaty palms clutching torn up letters
Stamped and dated, each one sealed
(Sometimes with a kiss, sometimes with uprooted hair and chewed up fingernails)
I know those aren't crocodile tears
But why do you keep drying them on stony shoulders?
Basking in a lonely spotlight
Caressed by empty words
I'd tell the truth, but I wouldn't want to look pretentious
I'd pray, but honesty is such a dead religion
Still, my broken back could shoulder a little more self-doubt
My black lungs could hold enough air to keep our heads above the tide
My hands, scarred and deadened, can still grip this wheel
Long enough to shrink this scene in my rear-view mirror
Baby, I've got a throat like an aviary
And I can sing our dreams into flight
Chicken salad, a bit of chocolate, semen
Trying to swallow your insecurity
(Sometimes it swallows you)
My heart is on my sleeve again
Over my sweaty palms clutching torn up letters
Stamped and dated, each one sealed
(Sometimes with a kiss, sometimes with uprooted hair and chewed up fingernails)
I know those aren't crocodile tears
But why do you keep drying them on stony shoulders?
Basking in a lonely spotlight
Caressed by empty words
I'd tell the truth, but I wouldn't want to look pretentious
I'd pray, but honesty is such a dead religion
Still, my broken back could shoulder a little more self-doubt
My black lungs could hold enough air to keep our heads above the tide
My hands, scarred and deadened, can still grip this wheel
Long enough to shrink this scene in my rear-view mirror
Baby, I've got a throat like an aviary
And I can sing our dreams into flight
posted by Information Sniper at 8:26 PM
4 Comments:
I know those aren't crocodile tears
But why do you keep drying them on stony shoulders?
I like this imagery
also like the aviary business.
Very good.
The semen bit through me off at first, I really liked the fingernails bit and I wonder about the pretentious part (as in, I wonder what the narrator thinks is pretentious) and I agree with Toaster, I like the last two lines.
Good meter.
Looking back, I actually probably would have axed the first two stanzas completely, or possibly just edited them a bit - the semen bit also seems a tad out of place with the overall tone of the poem, I think I was just trying to establish some character with that bit (ie; a girl who reflects her own neurosis and self-loathing in poor sexual choices).
As for the pretentiousness bit, I was trying to establish the narrators own neurosis and self-doubt; the kind of guy who can't make the first move because he's totally paralysed with fear, and as a result of that he makes excuses for himself to thinly veil his own failings.
Thanks for the coments though - when I wrote this it was very "off-the-cuff", if there is any more constructive criticism there is to be offered I'd love to hear it!
Hmm, rather than poor sexual choices I got more of a bulemia feel. I just figured it was one dudes semen though. Man, I never thought I write that when I woke up today!
Is it more about inaction and fear then? Hmm, I would emphasize that in some bits. I got a feeling that it was quite stoic in some parts. But from what yo have just said that could be sarcasm that I missed.
I liked it though, off the cuff usually delivers rich imagery!
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