You say you just want to chat?
As if it were still
some harmless act we could share.
I don’t want to chat, honestly,
because I don’t care about
what’s going on.
People say, “talk is cheap”
but it’s a valuable commodity.
Chat, that’s what cheapened it.
Something strangers use
to find a common denominator
where there never was one.
I won’t lower us to that,
but, if you felt like talking,
I could handle that.
In the last three lines does the use of "that" twice seem repetitive?
Sorry, you cannot respond to an archived poemReviews
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No. It fits naturally. . .
It fits naturally, and refers to the antecedent in 10, 11, and 12, and the second one refers to a different one in line 15.As you pointed out within the poem, “chat” is another word that has been corrupted by current usage into something with its own truncated vocabulary and really quite debased function in some circles. I can remember when it meant pretty well the same thing as talk. I suppose in the process “talk” has been elevated to a more serous kind of conversation, beyond the banter and gossip of everyday life. That is a big topic that you opened here.
2 As if it was still
3 some harmless act we could share.About the verb ‘was’: I checked Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage published by Oxford, 1995 and the use of the subjunctive is still not only alive and well, but vigorous. In a statement contrary to fact, the correct form is “As if it were still// some harmless act. . .” Shocking? Only until you get used to it.
I find this to be a finely crafted poem with a significance that grows as you consider it.
Bravo!. Rewarded 4
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Always nice to hear from. I actually went to reword that line but it didn’t sound right the way I had it so I went back to what I originally had. Thank you for the comment, take care and God bless.
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good!
Well . . . kinda yes, kinda no. You might have said – in the last line – “I could manage,” but to me that would lose the blue collar charm of this work. “Manage” seems kind of . . . I don’t know, unnecessarily high-brow. If there’s one thing I really like about your poetry it’s the unadorned, brutal honesty. In my opinion, you are very good at that!. Rewarded 1
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Thanks you very much, take care and God bless. (p.s. I’ll make sure to get around to reading your poem tonight or tomorrow)
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Yes, considering that no other two lines ended in the same word or that there were only two other cases of lines rhyming (“chat” and “that”, “commodity” and “talk is cheap”
. I’d do a line break before line 13 to add emphasis and to clarify the last three lines as a separate thought and a conclusion. I guess your problem is that you could use “it” in line 15, but it isn’t a stress syllable, whereas “that” is, so it changes the meter of the line. I don’t have a suggestion at the moment but I’m sure you’ll come up with something.
. Rewarded 4
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I had feeling it did but it’s been a struggle trying to come up with some simple that could express the same thing. Thanks for the suggestion, take care and God bless.
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August 23, 2005