Spending Power
Posted: 12 December 2006
Word Count: 403
Summary: Given up on the Reboot America poem for the moment. Wrote this a while back, keep returning to it. Handily, it suits the winter exercise.
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Content Warning
This piece and/or subsequent comments may contain strong language.
I am in your sitting room cum kitchen cum study cum hall,
You have made tea and I have rolled a cigarette from your leather pouch.
The winter nights are coming now, your window looks high over the street,
High over the treetops that make the cemetery beyond the terraced houses,
Over the streetlights outside the pool hall where drunks fight sometimes,
late at night, and we watch them when we're awake,
over the new toilets where the heroin addicts hang around
waiting for their dealer before they go in and stay for hours,
sat on the floor in glorious filth, the world away, warmth in their veins.
I want to fuck you. We haven't fucked yet. You are in your nightie.
We talk. We talk of Africa. We talk about being lost. But not being lost in Africa.
You have a new job starting soon, you'll be moving away. I too am busy with my work.
The night silence creeps in behind passing cars that sweep by below,
along the long road into town or away into Romsey.
We are both waiting for an excuse that will let me stay tonight,
that will let me stay in your bed so that we can touch each other and
spend our power, in this time on earth.
We are waiting for an aperture to open in the night,
the streetlights flicked on hours ago and dance with trees and shadows,
a yellow pane of light on the window, you close the curtains,
it's getting late. I want to stay with you.
I don't love you. I know in myself I may not love for a long time.
It stuns me that so many hearts are broken, and I understand war now.
You ask if I'm going to stay tonight, though you don't say with you.
I could stay next door where I've been working.
I say I don't know and feel aroused.
You say if I do then could I give you a lift tomorrow,
and you smile entreatingly. I know I will love again.
Tonight I want to stay with you and fuck you hard and make you come.
But I don't know that. All I know is that I am burning to stay. My veins burn.
You move and suggest in some way that you want me and I grow harder.
I could never be with you. I could never love you.
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Comments by other Members
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 Account Closed at 13:28 on 12 December 2006
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I loved this. It hooked me from the first sentence.
I don't really have any suggestions as to how to improve it, I'm afraid. The sort of lost urgency of it made it stand out in my mind as something really very special.
I thought this was magnificently strong:
We are both waiting for an excuse that will let me stay tonight,
that will let me stay in your bed so that we can touch each other and
spend our power, in this time on earth.
We are waiting for an aperture to open in the night, |
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and I very much enjoyed this:
You have made tea and I have rolled a cigarette from your leather pouch.
The winter nights are coming now, your window looks high over the street,
High over the treetops that make the cemetery beyond the terrace houses, |
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It's obvious to me that you have a vast talent for poetry. This poem is certainly miles more accomplished than any poem I could write. It's been a long time since I've read a poem I enjoyed so much, either in print or on WriteWords.
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paul53 [for I am he] at 13:46 on 12 December 2006
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Yes, this does hook straight away. This is what I was hoping "Reboot America" would be, what it may become when you return to it later.
You should be rightly proud of this one. Well described without highfallutin words.
I had itches of Charles Bukowski in this, but that could just be me, or the fact of the previous sentence. This is studied and considered. This is e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y good.
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Paul Isthmus at 15:23 on 12 December 2006
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Hi Lisa and Paul,
Gee, thanks both of you for your kind words. Funnily enough Paul, this was written as the continuation of the sequence of Reboot America, but I just couldn't figure a way to link the two. It seems to me that I was trying to balance the pomo angst and games with language with something very weighted, plain and real. I feel like I'm in some kind of groove with it, when I set my intention towards working my way out of what I've got into. I'll keep writing with the same intention, as I think I'm finding some kind of resolve, but still not sure what.
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paul53 [for I am he] at 16:40 on 12 December 2006
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I was told years ago about the old hand-pumps folk used a century or more ago to tap the water locked in deep wells. You pumped and pumped - and got nothing. You pumped some more and got noises of trapped air. You kept on pumping, and finally water trickled out, but it was brackish, dirty and flecked with rust from the pipe. When your arm was just about to give up, out poured sweet fresh water - as long as you kept pumping.
What many omit to pass on these days is that a poet [or any writer] needs a big wastepaper bin. We have to write through the nothing and the air bubbles and the rusty trickles. They never go away completely, but hopefully the more one writes, the less the time of pumping.
This is not to say that I think Reboot America is air and brackishness, but maybe in its first form it was/is the pumping up to this current fine piece that stands alone quite easily.
If it gave you the mind-set for composing this, then it was worth it. If you later polish up and drastically reduce Reboot America into a great piece as well, even better.
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 Nell at 14:32 on 13 December 2006
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Hi Paul,
Need a little time for this - will print out and get back to you.
Nell.
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Nell at 08:04 on 14 December 2006
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Hi again Paul,
Reading for the first time I thought that the naked honesty and lack of poetic devices make this poem incredibly powerful. The first stanza brings the reader right into that room, shows us those two people so tellingly in that lovely second line and in their watching from the window 'high over the treetops'. There's the sense that they're above it all.
I had to read the line...
| High over the treetops that make the cemetery beyond the terrace houses, |
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...a number of times before I gained the sense of that 'make'. I felt too, that 'terraced houses' or just 'terrace' would have been better.
Then the shock of that first line of the second stanza, raw in its directness, yet somehow lovely in its honesty.
| We talk about being lost. But not being lost in Africa. |
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Again, so simple yet so incredibly telling. Love:
| The night silence creeps in behind passing cars... |
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The idea of spending their power that refers back to the title opens up a huge box of questions - I almost stopped reading to think about it but was drawn on only to return to read again and again.
A few small points to note in that stanza:
the streetlights flicked on hours ago and dance with trees and shadows,
a yellow pane of light on the window, you close the curtains,
it's getting late. |
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feels like repetition, as you have...
| ...the streetlights flicked on hours ago... |
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...earlier. I wasn't sure about the use of the word 'pane' either.
Again, searingly honest, yet one knows he doesn't actually speak those words. So there's this sense that he's standing back and watching not only the girl but himself as well, looking inside as if he's made of glass, with an almost dispassionate eye. Yet you turn that around in the next line. He does feel beyond the physical, and he feels intensely, perhaps so intensely that he has had for some reason that we don't yet know to try to shut emotion off. I love this line.
| It stuns me that so many hearts are broken, and I understand war now. |
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The word 'myself' in the following line threw up an image that you might not want here. You could easily lose it altogether.
| I say I don't know and feel myself aroused. |
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The following lines, in which they talk yet don't communicate end with the poignant...
| I know I will love again. |
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...that explains everything.
Tonight I want to stay with you and fuck you hard and make you come.
But I don't know that. |
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threw me just there, made me stop reading to question how he can know yet not know.
The ambiguity of the word 'harder' (hardness of emotion), coming as it does before the desolation of that last line gives tremendous strength to the ending. There's something rather beautiful too in that we don't know how the night ends.
A very special piece.
Nell.
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Paul Isthmus at 19:12 on 14 December 2006
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Hi Nell,
Thanks a lot for your thoughtful comments. I've made a few changes you suggest, I think they're improvemnts.
I was unsure about the repetition you mention, as 'The streetlights flicked on hours ago' occurs only once. If you mean that 'It's getting late' is superfluous because of the mention of the streetlights, that is purposeful to create a feeling of build up, of something straining to move on, which I think works - it does feel slightly repetitious, but it's part of how it works and builds up atmosphere and tension I think, and for this reason I've kept that section as it is.
The word 'pane' is maybe a bit tenacious, but I can't think of anything better. If you have any suggestions please let me know.
I also took out 'myself' as you suggested - I'd be interested to know what image it threw up that you felt was inappropriate. I do quite like what the word myself brings to the rhythmical structure. It also keeps the arousal secret or latent in some way, and distances it as if it's happening slightly removed from his being, if you know what I mean. I may put it back in, but I'm leaving it for a bit to see - if you can say more of why you think it's not needed I can be clearer on it.
The 'But I don't know that' throwing you is perfect. It is a mystery. There's a sort of alienation going on, a sort of lostness. This is part of it, but it also goes deeper, but I won't say any more.
Thanks again, really pleased with this one, glad you enjoyed it.
Paul
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Nell at 16:32 on 15 December 2006
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Hi Paul,
Yes, the 'getting late' felt like repetition because of the streetlights, although I do like that expression - it can easily refer to more than simple time passing.
Re. 'myself', the image that threw up was of your narrator with his hand in his trouser pocket. Hope I don't have to be clearer than that, although I daresay I could manage it.
My comments tend to rely on impressions that persist from the first reading and into subsequent readings - it is (of course) entirely up to you whether you think they should be acted on - I hope only to give you another viewpoint. It's very easy to be so close to our own work that we don't notice things that others do. As always, see what you think before you change anything (as I know you will!)
Nell.
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Jordan789 at 01:13 on 16 December 2006
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Hello Paul,
Good read. I felt myself swept along with the scene at hand. Lovely first paragraph. I had a quick problem with "The winter nights are coming now, your window looks high over the street,
High over the treetops that make the cemetery beyond the terraced houses..." only because I think this image of the cemetery is forgotten about. I was expecting "make the cemetery..." and then some sort of description about it. Brief issue, sorry to make a fuss about it. In this stanza we learn a lot about the person's house, and it's meagerness, and about the two characters who enjoy time spent just watching people even less fortunate, with a certain awe and envy, and, of course, pity. I can relate!
I am unsure what I think about how straightforward the speaker in the poem is about his desires for this woman. And with all of the desire, what is he waiting for? What tentive bit is preventing him from making a move? I can't say I can figure him out. What if this could be played out a bit more... covertly, if, perhaps, his desires are kept shadowed from the reader for a bit longer and the scene goes about it's business, with the secret desires of the narrator kept secret. I wonder how it might seem if we cut out all of the sexual desire bits from the second stanza, until the end, where we can hear the simple "I want to stay with you."
From there on, I say make the sexual desires open as you want them, and as they are already in the third stanza, to great effect. I question, why not turn it into dialogue? Why not have her actually saying, "Are you going to stay the night?" Which immediately has the effect of drawing the reader into the scene. Not sure if this is what you want though, because a certain seperation from the action gives the poem a different feel.
I like how the scene plays out in the end, although I would like to know if he succeeds in his desires or if he does not. The poem ends talking of love, and I hate to say it, but who cares about love when both people are so busy with work? I'm sorry if I'm missing the point of this poem, but I feel it slips into a bit of sentimentalism with all of the love talk.
I want to turn the poem a somewhat different direction, perhaps one you'd have no interest in taking it, one where the scene comes out even more, and the innerthoughts stay inner. Maybe a few subtle changes can fulfill my wishes there. No matter. In all, I enjoyed the read, and how well certain parts pulled me into the poem, and how I felt a part of the scene, if not an interested onlooker.
Look forward to reading more, and maybe a revision?!
-Jordan
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DJC at 12:26 on 30 December 2006
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Hi Paul - haven't read much of your work recently, and I'd forgotten how good it is. Ah, I remember it well, meeting someone for the first time, all that expectation - which you capture brilliantly. For me, the last stanza lapses into cliche at times. I love 'my veins burn' though, and I think this pretty much says everything you say in the preceding lines.
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Xenny at 01:18 on 30 January 2007
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Hi Paul
I think this is great. I absolutely loved:
The night silence creeps in behind passing cars that sweep by below,
along the long road into town or away into Romsey. |
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I wasn't so sure about
| and I understand war now. |
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But as a whole I think it's a brilliant piece and I really enjoyed reading it.
Xenny
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