licked lips kiss eggshell
tongue-to-pinhole
blow
white syrup and yellow yolk
out needle-point poked rectum
suspend
in-testinal constipation
above my bowl
...
a trophy is borne
bright blue dye and pink polka dots
birthed from the pouch of some candid hare
picked from among my father's green bushes
placed in my woven picnic basket
...
the sterile fetus forced
like so much excrement
bloodless, sizzles white
turned over easy
i blush it red with tomato paste
freckle it with pepper -
go down through the other end of me
impregnate my stomach
Reviews
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Pap, there are so many startlingly opaque images in this that I hardly know where to begin - or end with some kind of coherent clarity. Eggshell blown into; testicled and/or rectal emptying; an easing of a painful sexual restraint; a boy-blue or girl-pink fetus, dead, either imaginatively or really picked up from bushes and kept as a trophy; a sterile egg fried and surrealistically blooded and spotted, then consumed; an egg-seed come alive again in the poet's guts, and who knows what else I'm missing or misinterpreting.
Add to that the poem's title and the diversity of its possible meanings - and I end up with no clear meaning but with a impressionistic sense of life aborted, either in a blow-job's effluence or a life expelled from a womb, or both...or more than both of those intuitions.
All of which is to say that the whole poem is very nearly an intractable complexity for me. I get a strong feeling of sexual debris from the piece, but unfortunately no meaningful clarity as to what, as a unifying image, these lines are all about. I sense lots of writing labor underneath the chosen language, or maybe it was created in a smoky haze, quickly - I can't tell. But, for me at least, the separate metaphors, although brilliantly surrealistic and tenuously placed together under the title, don't cohere.
There seems to be a deliberate attempt at obscure hiding in the poem, but that doesn't disqualify it as strong writing for me. Not all poems have to MEAN; some simply ARE in the totality of their felt images. That latter expressiveness is what this one is for me: egg and sperm, however the latter is released, come to nothing, but with some stretch of imagination might be the seed of an eventual rebirth of meaning for the poet, else what would "impregnate my stomach" mean? But there I go with "meaning", which is not how I fully take in this distantly conceived and executed poem.
I think that it's the second stanza that mostly threw me off; I'm with you in the first and third stanzas as a blending of images leading to a vague meaning of life aborted. But "candid hare", "my father's green bushes" and "picnic basket" - I just couldn't break into them. Knowing your poetic abilities and talents, Pap, I'm wondering why all the deliberate obfuscations in the poem, but that's only a wondering, not necessarily a criticism - unless, as I've said, you didn't "mean" as much in the poem as you "felt" (without literal meaning), and which I think I can feel too.
Well, my friend, all of that hot air in my comment is a long way around saying that this poem seems to be stronger on obscure imagist surrealism than on metaphoric clarity - not necessarily a bad thing, especially in the Freudian-influenced works of logic- and reason-free surrealists like Rimbaud or Beaudelaire and such: unfettered images of the subconscious mind. Yet, I'm likely missing something important in it, and I regret my confusion. Help me out?
Later...
Lad. Rewarded 8
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how deep does the rabbit hole go?
Lad,
when i try to write creatively, i often chose diction that is fresh to my mind (and hopefully everyone else, too), or at least i try to find odd ways of describing things.
with that said, there is, however, i believe a level of subconscious thought and meaning that i don't directly dwell on while composing, but is at the back of my mind all the while. this abstract thought DOES influence my diction (more than i can know), therefore making it onto the page somewhat randomly.
i suspect that other poets with well-trained eyes then pick up on these subtleties, but when trying to make connections between them, can often find no coherence, because it was not directly my intention to carry one specific meaning hiding beneath the surface of my poems. however, perhaps as i mature as a poet, such innuendoes will become clearer and more coherent as i focus upon incorporating deeper levels of meaning within them. i can only hope.
as for this poem, Lad, on the surface, i tried to find a creative and perhaps unexpected way of describing the American ritual of hollowing, coloring & finding Easter eggs, then eating their emptied contents. so on the coloring part, ladyjanew was right. however, throughout the poem, as you perceived (and perhaps the more obvious thought), there is this recurrent allusion to pregnancy - the creating of life and the destroying of life and the recycling of destroyed life. this, i believe, comes from something much more personal, as recently someone who is close to me had an abortion. this event has brought forth all sorts of emotions which have been waiting to spill out onto the page - anger, sorrow, regret, confusion & even a dark satisfaction (which probably came out in the eating of the egg in the last stanza).
the first stanza describes me blowing out the egg through two pinholes on opposite sides of the shell - blow through the top one as the yoke stuff comes out the bottom, somewhat suspended and gooey, into my bowl. i was semi-aware of the sexual reference while writing this part.
the second stanza describes the creating of the emptied shell into a colorful Easter egg, then going on an Easter egg hunt. complete nonsense. this stanza is semi-structured, unlike the other two, and lacks any reference to pregnancy, except for that my father has passed down this ridiculous tradition to his children. he hides the eggs, thus continuing the cycle; there is no bunny (candid hare).
the last stanza describes the cooking and eating of the egg's content, which was blown into my bowl in the first stanza - allusions to new life, but un-Christ-like; physically, not spiritually, satisfying.
take into consideration that Easter is the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not the Easter bunny! no doubt my somewhat jaded view of egg painting and hunting and bunnies on Easter all contributed to the darker tone of the poem. obviously this poem has nothing to do with Jesus, just as the bunnies and eggs. where Christ's sacrifice is a cleansing of our sins, the Easter bunny phenomena replaces our celebration with something false - therefore cleansing becomes abortion. are you with me? it's all very abstract. i feel the bunny has become an idol on such a significant holiday, but i still blow the eggs, paint them, hunt them and eat their discarded contents. and it makes absolutely no sense to me.
Pap
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Thanks, Pap, for your exegesis on your poem; its intentions are much clearer now. And I do agree with you that the bunny-and-egg business (and I do mean "business") at Eastertime is a silly carryover from pagan fertility rituals around the Spring solstice. I guess we can only hope that colored-egg-chasers also have some idea of death and resurrection, the main true myth of Easter, after all, which the Gospels share in faith.
And, right, I understand completely how you want to experiment with freeflow, sometimes only half-aware of implications other than what's in the front of your mind; I do that myself sometimes, and then I find myself going back to it for clarity's sake, while still trying to keep the stream's feelings intact. Your way of writing such poetry is just as valid; as I mentioned, the very fine Rimbaud and the sparkling Beaudelaire did the same early in the last century. Their work was critically trashed for over 50 years, and is only recently being seen as works of divergent genius. I agree.
Hey, my friend, I like the self-confidence of your commentary on your own poem here; you stand by your work no matter what commentary may come to it. I don't mean that you don't edit when necessary - I've seen you do that - but your strong stand on what you're experimenting with does my poetic heartmind good. I think it's the accepted self who is the real author of good poetry.
Always good to give and take with you.
Later...
Lad
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Deep!
I just read Lad's comments, because I was confused as to what this poem meant. I haven't read much poetry, but I like this one for it's startling images and challenging wordplay. I'm not good at interpreting poems, but I think this is great. The book I am using, Poetry for Dummies, says that some poems simply exist on a symbolic level, and you have to dig deep to get the meaning. I admit my ignorance, and I don't know what this poem means, but I like it! You write like a published poet. Are you published? If so, where? My wonky interpretation skills tell me that it's about colouring Easter eggs; that the eggs are chicken abortions? Just a thought.
. Rewarded 8
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I really like this. It reminds me of all the images I get from Easter, which are very very many. In New Mexico at the end of Lent (but before Easter) there is a traditional dance called "Baile de los cascarones" which means "dance of the eggshells" the premise being that it's time to be happy again. We do the same thing you mention here by blowing the egg out of the shell and dying them. Except we also fill them with confetti and they're used at the dance. When a man/boy sees a woman/girl that he wants to dance with (they're on separate sides of the room) he approaches her with an egg and upon smashing it on her head (gently!) effectively "asks" her to dance. I always thought that simple easter eggs were just hard boiled and dyed, and that we were crazy for getting out all the stuff inside, but i guess it isn't so.
I for one am not a fan of eggs. That I am eating what is the embryo (or even just egg) of an animal really makes me sick. since I was little I have had problems with the idea, because as a child I imagined tiny birds inside the shell. Thus, my stigma was born. I still cannot bring myself to eat eggs or anything with eggs in it. It sort of makes me sad that eggs are used in Easter--hard boiled, or blown, either way. I'd much rather give an egg with a chick inside it.
My own faith is sort of flimsy (as perhaps you know), but around Easter there's always something that intrigues me. It wasn't until this year that I was able to put my finger on what it was, but sitting in the midnight watch mass at the carmelite monastary sort of made me get it. Sitting in the middle of the mountains in a tiny dark chaple with candles made me realize the pagan aspects of Easter, and how it really is about the light coming in to conquer the darkness, whatever that light may be. For some it's easier to believe that it's something or someone. For me it's spring, and fertility, love, coupling, etc. Somehow, out of the winter, the barren, the cold comes life and love again, year after year. Why a bunny and dead eggs come to symbolize this I will never know.
So there you have it. Leticiology 101. Hope you took notes. Got all that?
Nienna
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Hey Pap
As a hater of all egg related foods except for french toast, I'll have to say that it was purely your poetic take on this piece and the originality behind it that captured my eyes and soul. Especially for me cause I just have such a bad connotation when it comes to eggs. I like the abortion take on the whole chicken laying eggs and us basically stealing them from the nest. Aborting them from ever developing into an organism. A sad but sometimes and I'm sure it IS necessary to have this process of gathering food. Good job with taking a sideways look at such a common/bland topic. Exactly what poetry is supposed to be. Congrats Pap!
TTYL
MM
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A very cool poem. To take such a hot topic as abortion and then have this fun, truly creative piece really shows how strong your poetic mind is. I am just blown away by poems which take two things I would NEVER put together and present them as if they should have been paired for all ages. This was such a perfect fit, and great timing as we just came out of Easter! Thanks for sharing this one. I read the title and expected a very heavy, thought-driving piece. It certainly had its own message and it definitely got me thinking, but there was that much appreciated strong dose of pure entertainment mixed in and that made it even more unique. A pleasure to read this one... thanks.
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Indeed.
A good poem.
Lad
April 1, 2008