We wrote our love
on the bathroom wall,
in magic markers,
graffiti they called it,
art – to others,
-to us, it was a preservation,
a documentation of what was,
to some, love hearts scrawled
on a bathroom wall,
with snatches of poetry,
that lingers still, perhaps
and called –
“call this number, for a fuck”
no, chunky black letters
and indecipherable messages
of teen angst and such,
like cuts that bleed
and scab and heal,
childhood– to youth – to age
a wound that opens,
pustules,
on carefree summer days,
that scab over – picked,
reset,
re-picked,
that fades, eventually,
a scar – still there,
barely,
and yet, still scrawled
on the bathroom wall
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"Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb." - The Story of Suck-a-Thumb, Heinrich Hoffman
Wow, there is a lot in this one.. I thought in the first few lines you were going somewhere completely different with this but you really surprised me here. Brought me back to so many places, everytime I have seen writing on walls and wondered who the people were, did they make it, where were they now. Oh and then the last stanza, the wound healing and opening and healing again, so perfectly captured the way young love and lust feels... seriously really blew me away there. I love the way it feels as if you are almost going to fall off course in your writing and then just as you are going "uh oh" you pull the reader right back on track again and reinforce everything you started out with... making it all wrapped up in a package of stuff that really gets you thinking. Anyway, am rambling, this one is one of my favorites out of you lately.
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"Money doesn't talk, it swears." -Bob Dylan
"Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise." -Alice Walker
"I don't know if I can live on my income or not - the government won't let me try it." -Bob Thaves
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wordsmyth
See I'm not worried at all. Bri would save the alcohol and her wolfman in the process.
Beautifully worded. There are so many thoughts and ideas being explored here, but you still manage to make a lovely, circular ending that ties back in nicely with the beginning. Excellent!
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Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles
but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.
Thank you all....and for the edit Lu. I liked this one...and appreciate your feedback.
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"Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb." - The Story of Suck-a-Thumb, Heinrich Hoffman
I love your use of words. The simple yet mysterious way you made the reader think about not just 'Love Scrawled, on a Bathroom Wall' but as if you we're the person who wrote the messages there. Great job.
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"Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb." - The Story of Suck-a-Thumb, Heinrich Hoffman
__________________
"Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb." - The Story of Suck-a-Thumb, Heinrich Hoffman
I really, really love this, especially the last stanza. You have a gift for poetry like this--seeing beauty where lesser poets might see ugliness (and I'm including myself in that category). My one gripe is with the last part of the first stanza:
Quote:
graffiti they called it,
art – to others,
-to us, it was a preservation,
The punctuation here is super confusing. Those dashes made it pretty much impossible for me to follow it. I'd suggest either changing the line breaks, if that will help, or rephrasing so that those dashes don't exist (even though I think they parallel something in the last stanza, no?)
Beyond that though, this is really great.
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"True progress means / matching the world to / the vision in our heads / but we always change / the vision instead"
Re: Love Scrawled, on a Bathroom Wall
Linear Mode
