The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/6/07 Bonus

[BlueIris]

"Variations on the Word Love"

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
This word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

—Margaret Atwood

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear BlueIris...

Ah, very nice!

I like it, even though I'm not sure why...

The words flow together very nicely...



My teacher is trying to get the second semester going of my poetry class; a bunch of us want to keep on taking it.

All we would do would be write and workshop poems! Hope she can make a go of it...

:hi:

[BlueIris]

2. Ooooh, careful. Poetry workshops can be addictive.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. Heh...I already know that!

I am completely addicted to them!

It's great to read my stuff and hear what people think!

:9

[madeline_con]

3. No truer words....

It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.


I LOVE that! :loveya:

[RetroLounge]

5. My favorite Atwood poem

:applause:

RL

[BlueIris]

6. Hee. I thought you might have posted it sometime last year,

and yes, I could have checked, but I didn't and would've posted this anyway. It's one of my favorite Atwood's, too.

[RetroLounge]

7. Actually, it's my 2nd favorite of hers

Variation On The Word Sleep is my Favorite...

RL