Poetry Thursday

  This week's prompt was to attend a reading, which I planned to do (of sorts) but the car wouldn't start. Water in the gas line.

So instead, let's deconstruct yesterday's Snapshot Poem, shall we?

It seemed fine when I first posted it, but then ... a little help from PoetryEtc and others, and a reconsideration. Here's the text:

i wish i could hold
your heart in my hands

open it
like a chrysanthemum

Hmmm.

• the speaker wishes to be a heart surgeon?
• the person the speaker is addressing has a heart that appears to be sharp & spiky, but is actually made of soft flower petals?
• the poet meant to say:

i wish i could hold
your heart in my hands

open it
as a chrysanthemum opens

?

• the speaker is confused
• the poet is confused

Just a reminder to myself: the poem must have some internal, and even real-world, logic to it. Metaphor is fine, but it needs to make sense.

Comments

[Mary Scriver]

Sometimes the ones that don't "fly" tell a person more than the ones that do. What I always worry about -- and this is not a reference to this poem -- is that my subconscious will show through! It's an old croc (or "ol' crock") that is often pretty resentful or jealous or mocking. To say nothing of Freudian.

Prairie Mary

[Cathy]

I thought the poem was about letting love grow slowly instead of rushing it.Causing regret later on.

Happy Thankgiving too!

[Rethabile]

I liked the pictorial poem.

[Poet with a Day Job]

I love this - the whole thing: I take this whole exchange as one big fat poem that makes me completely love it, from "i wish I could hold" right through to the last bullet point "the poet is confused." It's fabulous. I dare you to take another look and consider it from that angle...nice!