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Torn Stockings

Missing image

Only a certain woman
can wear torn stockings.
Demure, polite, unsure?
No way.
A whore?
Just shoddy packaging.
She has to be a rebel,
pure and simple.

Now the imagination
can run with the ball.
She was in a fight.
Right or wrong
she won 

and you like that.
 
She'll give you a come-on
just to spite you.
 
And you like that. 

You want her to write you
in her diary,
score you out of ten,
you know she thinks,
'men! fucking men!'
but then
there's always one
and instantly 
you've begun
to believe
you're it.

Shit!
That's how she fools them all.
You think you're her hero.
that she's gonna get saved
and maybe you're 
gonna get laid!
Afraid?
Hell no!

You should be. 

coz maybe you will 
get her 
to put her fists down,
save her from drowning. 

but pretty soon 
you'll be floundering
around
in a whirlpool
and she'll be walking away
in torn stockings

with one more notch in them

 



 

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Comments

1 - 26 of 26

  • Kailasrose
    October 6
    Edit | Reply
    wow. this is amazing


  • honeybrown
    September 27
    ?
    Edit | Reply
    wow. THe picture totally sets the tone for the poem. its hot. i really love the flow of it, and the diction, especially in the beginning, was on point. Great write. I really enjoyed it all the way through

    love always
    Tiffany

  • readmylips
    September 3
    Edit | Reply
    i dont like the smileys. i want to applaud but they just dont suit the tone of the poem. oh well


  • Windhover gold member
    August 31
    Edit | Reply

    Who is the mystery commentator...

    ... called 'poem' and why can't I reply by message or note?
    Mystery just surrounds this poem. Very few of well over a thousand visitors to it (at various locations) ever leave a comment. And now I get one, apparently from a gold member here, who is completely incognito. I'm not one bit surpised.
    Let me tell you a little about the poem.
    It was written as a direct result of reading a poem by a newcomer lady poet to this site a few months ago. Her poem (since taken down) bristled with attitude but also had something more - a certain pathos and even a sense of danger, for no discernible reason I could see. Somehow the magic of the poem was 'between the lines'.
    I wrote 'Torn Stockings' because they somehow contain that same sense of 'loaded' suggestion and danger. I hope that, as a poem, it has something of the same allure as the poem that inspired it.
    My best to you, whoever you are. >W<

  • poem
    August 30

    Edit | Reply
    You were recommended to me. A woman I know said to read this poem. most poems can't keep my eye for long. thought I'd try reading them for a bit, though. I understand this. the photo's hot too.


    • Windhover gold member
      August 31
      Edit | Reply

      Who is the mystery commentator?

      And why can't I reply to this comment?


    • Windhover gold member
      August 31
      Edit | Reply

      It's just one of 'those' poems

      Let me tell you how this poem happened. I read a poem by a lady poet, my first time reading her work. This poem (hers) just bristled with attitude but it had something else. It had undercurrents of both pathos - and danger, for no explicit or discernible reason that I could see. It fascinated me. As humans, and perhaps particularly as poets, we are sensitive to a huge range of intangible stimuli and signals.
      The poem 'Torn Stockings' was a direct response to those feelings. I mean just what IS it about them? They are so loaded with suggestion and taboo.
      Love it or hate it, this poem has to be my most visited work although few of the thousand or more people (at least) who have now read it, have chosen to comment on it. I'm not at all surprised to find that your identity as a gold member here is ingeniously hidden. That sort of thing just follows this poem about. It has (I'm told) a cult following in Montana. It has brought some good friends in writing circles. It has made me some enemies. It just seems to be 'that' sort of poem. Which is why I love it.
      Unfortunately the lady poet who inspired it viewed it with great (and unjustified) suspicion and now believes I am a stalker of some bizarre nature. Who knows, YOU, 'poem' the inaccessible gold member, could even be her. Nothing surprises me when it comes to 'Torn Stockings'.
      Thanks for commenting and for 'understanding' it. >W<

      • poem
        September 2
        Edit | Reply
        Yes. She should have said thanks for a poem like this. Stockings. Underwear. Fights. Sex. Does poetry get better?

        You're better off without her.

  • zt
    August 25

    Edit | Reply

    Hmmm...

    I’m not sure what to say in this critique. If I just say that it didn’t work for me, that carries no weight without explaining why. It’s just a lot of little things that all add up to an overall impression. This is a serious picture (short skirt, lots of leg, switchblade cutting holes in stockings, high heels—a stiletto in stilettos as it were), but you never do more than play with it superficially. When you finally start to delve into it, you switch to rhyme and that defuse the situation. Why do that? The point of view that you take in this narrative doesn’t lend itself to the reader engaging. You are an observer and not a participant and, so, neither is the reader. You tell, not show. You jump to erroneous conclusions and try to make the reader buy in. The image shows her cutting the holes. A “whore”, as it were, would wear torn stockings because they are worn out (as is she) and she can’t afford new—not make her own holes. Granted, you are trying to tell a story and could be taking artistic license, but your ending tells us that you know what is happening in the picture. You have a great ending. The idea of cutting notches in the stockings fits in well with the image, but the line before it doesn’t help that transition. Repeating the “torn stockings” there detracts from the impact of the last line—it appears as a set-up…you are broadcasting what is coming and spoiling the ending. You throw in a few expletives (apparently for shock value) and that doesn’t work. Why? There are good things in this (like the ending as mentioned above). I also liked the repeated “and you like that”, though it would be better served set off in brackets as an aside. Technically, the poem was fine. No typos that I found and the spelling & grammar were fine. Anyway, I hope these ramblings make some sense to you and that this helped!


  • Lute
    August 21
    Edit | Reply
    my first reaction is that it is too simplistic a portrait. it does not reach beyond her surface, the torn stockings are metaphor for her darkness, but the poem only skims the surface. The tag line at the end seems a cheap escape, tho accurate to a degree. The poem is there, the idea, but as yet it is not fully executed.


    • Windhover gold member
      August 21
      Edit | Reply

      I shall endeavour to persevere......

      Hey Lute. This is pretty high handed stuff from a guy who still wears check shirts and dodgy hats! I reckon you missed the title. Nobody ever suggested this was a portrait of anybody. It's just about what a particular item of clothing might suggest about ANY person. So fuck off you pompous little...... Ha Ha. I jest. Thanks for the lesson. >W<


  • Kiddy
    August 6
    Edit | Reply
    Sad that he went to rescue the hooker and find himself a prey to her plot in the end...(.the picture of female legs in torn stockings, more of a glamour quotient, kept me from reading this poem for long time. I realized that it’s been missed for long time. )
    Great work, bird!
    Love
    -Kiddy


  • leigh heart
    August 3
    Edit | Reply

    wow!

    this is a such a great piece that only you can carry off, WH...i am so glad that i came upon this...the imagery is very original and i can just imagine the turmoil of the man who thinks that he is the one who can rescue this rebel in torn stockings...really...i can't say anything more...this is absolutely one of my most favorite narrative poems here in sharepoetry.

    kudos for this great work.

    leigh

    . Rewarded 6


    • Windhover gold member
      August 4
      Edit | Reply

      A certain 'something'

      Hi Leigh Heart and thanks for finding one of my all time personal favourites here. I like to write about quirky topics sometimes and there's just something about 'torn stockings' that , well, needed a poem writing about it. I love to get positive comment on this one because, as I said, it's just one of my own, 'quirky' favourites.It also has a certain 'cult' following it seems, as I have more 'visitor' views on this than any poem I ever posted anywhere. Thanks for the review. >W<

  • Gypsymuse
    July 23
    Edit | Reply

    Poem was great

    this was a very well written poem. My opinion is to ommit the last line. "With one more notch in them." It is almost like the after thought that shouldn't be there. Everything flows very well up until in torn stockings, and to me it seems complete that way. Think about it.

    . Rewarded 6


  • oxymoron270
    July 19

    Edit | Reply
    holy crap i really love this poem. it's sad. it's also really different than most poems i've read... subject matter, perspective, and imagery are pretty unique in this one. i like the set up also.

    nice one,
    adie

    . Rewarded 4


  • ravenontheleft silver member
    June 30

    Edit | Reply

    very strange(amazing)

    This poem has a very nice tone to it. It's a little weird, but that just makes it better in my eyes. This is one sentiment I've never seen expressed in a poem and you did it well. Engaging to read.

    Andrea

    . Rewarded 4


  • CinfullyDelicious silver member
    May 27
    Edit | Reply
    I swear I do remember viewing this previously, but I don't see any comment from me, so hmm lol



    this is different to the fishnet one...I like it a lot more actually hehe cause it has so much of a story within too

    love how you ended it, how else could you


    Cindy


  • riveralex silver member
    April 1

    Edit | Reply

    An erotic fixation

    ...so we know a little more about you.(!) A window into how something unusual - an unusual choice, for a woman - works.... yes, I think you've nailed this one down, gone to the inside of it, as well as giving this from your p.o.v.. Very clear and cleanly written, and brave too - admitting your desire to be the hero who "rescues" her (yes, I think most men long to be that, or another hero, in someone's eyes) but it's her rage that wins, as ever - it's a set-up, Mate. Now that you've spotted it, will you be able to save yourself? Kind regards and best wishes Alex b

    . Rewarded 8


  • marcusmoore silver member
    March 25

    Edit | Reply

    hey WH

    Very nicely crafted, very nicely narrated, and very true. I liked the way you told the story, like in reality, confusing the reader or male that the female is the one who needs saving in this one and the male is swooping along to pick her up to make everything all better. Then suddenly, but not too surprisingly he gets left behind with nothing, if lucky a dear john letter. All in all I really liked it alot. very nicely done.

    TTYL
    MM

    . Rewarded 8


  • Lad silver member
    March 3

    Edit | Reply
    The lure of the shoddy rebel, seductively sexy in her "drowning" routine, and the guy, the poor simp, gets all "whirlpooled" up her her wiles. What a finely wrought, libidinous narrative poem this one is, John. I've felt that way a hundred times, always the sucker for torn stockings, and my manhood can't possibily refuse the challenge and the "come-on" - while either she or he toddles off with one more "notch" in the stockings.

    Nice work, smooth as silk in style, rough as all get-out as it perfectly images the "shoddy packaging", with a surprise inside the...box.
    I got a special pleasure in your combining two images, 400 years apart, into two keen lines, Shakespeare in the first line, modern sport-talk in the second:

    Then the mind's eye
    can run with the ball.

    And that "ball" has so many appropriately sleazy undertones to it that I just won't go into it - children might be watching!

    Absolutely delightful with its flowing raunchiness. And the American-South's Confederate flag up there flies "rebel"liously like good old Dixie, also a fine name for a feisty, "fist"y broad.

    Lad

    . Rewarded 8


  • gnosisonG silver member
    March 2
    Edit | Reply

    Pure Flow...

    smoothest set of rhyming, tongue in relevant cheek, uncomfortably close emotive embarrassment of reality I think I´ve seen on this site. And (surprise!) worthy W. is the twisted purveyor.
    Torn stockings - scorned shockings.
    well, it turns me on.
    Cheers

    gGarter-belt

    . Rewarded 6


  • Mark McNulty
    March 2

    Edit | Reply
    Very nicely done, as usual! Oddly enough I am one of those people who is almost obsessive over tears in any type of sock, so the title along got my mind churning. The poem is really well crafted. I did not hit a single speed bump along the route from beginning to end, nor did I need to stop and re-read a particular part because it didn't work for me. It was smooth, effective, and entertaining. Another great mix of humor and and thought. As always, thanks for sharing this with us!
    All my best...

    . Rewarded 8


  • algoressister
    March 2
    Edit | Reply
    LOL, very good.... I love the subject and the whole gunslinger metaphor, Your Imagery, Shockingly Sensuous......I love your turn of phrase...

    She has to be a rebel,
    pure and simple.

    I've been needing something to rev me up....this was the cure....I love it.......ttfn Laurel

    . Rewarded 6

  • dave ochs silver member
    March 2
    Edit | Reply

    hey W

    pretty cheeky her mate. (me trying to sound Irish)

    anyway you create a, never may care, women with attitude here that can use us and spit us out even and even though we know she's doing it happens anyway.

    i like the raunchness, and your style is getting so recongnizable you should patent it.
    dave

    . Rewarded 6

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