Afterward, at Sodom
Olivia
Afterward, at Sodom
Salt on my cheeks, and taste of salt
on lips carved open
as though in a single cry
as stilled as stone or ice,
my vision terribly
caught in a dream with no waking.
Love, I stand on bitter ground
in a broken land,
nor know why you have fled from me.
Let me wholly melt in my tears,
dissolve into this earth.
Let it be holy ground, never to flower.
Idi ta
Date: Tue, Nov 17, 2009, 3:51pm From: ty...@gmail.com (Olivia)
Enjoyed this.
Does it pivot on Lot's wife, or that which she is forbidden to observe?
I don't mind that you don't need to mind the story's template, and have
made a reversal, but there's an emotional circuit that must be lucid and
complete to justify "tears". Make the reversal complete.
azzMATTick
news:%FGMm.6210$cX4....@newsfe10.iad...
and let my ass cheeks be dried
from the thousand cries i've
endured from Uranus whose clouds now rain
another thousand goodbye tears-
each one reflecting the "wet sun"
that will only set when you are gone, gomorrah.
azzMATTick
Olivia
"a reversal," if you would care to explain --- just imagined Lot's wife
remaining conscious enough to know that she has been stilled and that
Lot has deserted her, without her knowing why. Anything is possible in
such a magical punishment, even salty tears!
> Olivia
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Olivia
Hi, this sounds like part of a longer poem that I'm not familiar with.
The last line resonates as true poetry--love it!
Olivia
Olivia
George Dance
I think "reversal" just means that you're telling the story from her
point of view, rather than (as in the official one) her husband's. As
for his question, I'd answer the former: there's no mention of 'what
she's forbidden to observe; it's all from her viewpoint. (As you say,
she doesn't even know why it happened.) Which I liked: she's
representative of any person whose partner has abandoned her. Even the
specific mention of salt tears, while it ties in to the Bible story,
doesn't change that; she's not necessarily Lot's wife, but could be
anyone emotionally identifying with her.
Here's a rather longish poem I wrote using the same source material:
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.arts.poetry/msg/8ad156c39debcdd0?hl=en
Rob Evans
Salt
I am muddled with wine and loss
and too old for this but the girls
know all the ways of the Cities.
They move on me like wise wet eels
in the darkness, make me forget age
and tiredness, again and again.
This is a night of urgent fingers,
disembodied mouths and blind entwining,
without consciousness or conscience.
We are like desert beasts, moaning
in this cave of heat and blackness.
We dig for every drop of moisture.
But when I taste the salted beads
that drip from throat and breast and thigh,
I see, once more, the blinding bitter
picture of my wife, their mother:
a spike, a sentinel as pale as crystal,
on the dark ash of the ruined plain.
Rob
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Olivia
Wow, Rob! A picture of Lot with his daughters that is both sad and
sensual. The last lines are especially graphic, contrasting the pale
sentinel with the dark ash. A new view of the story, beautifully told.
Olivia
Olivia
Hi, George --- I see. This started out just as you intuitively said,
about a woman who is deserted but with overtones tying her tale to that
of Lot's nameless wife, and morphed into being (almost) entirely about
Lot's wife, with perhaps an overtone of any deserted woman.I read and
enjoyed/was horrified by your graphic portrayal of some of the violence
toward innocent women portrayed in the Bible tales, and that is
continued in the world to this day. Thanks.
Olivia