I take the knife
and slice open my abdomen.
I pull my entrails/intestines
out of the slit,
and arrange them –
still attached,
still throbbing –
in coiled piles,
on two side-plates
and four expresso cup saucers.
The others poke them
and stroke them,
gently
loosening tangles
and lifting steaming tubes,
to see what lies beneath.
I stuff my intestines/entrails
back inside me,
and pass the knife on
with sticky fingers.
[The next person
fans out his guts
on one large, silver tray.]
24 April 2008
We had the first meeting of the East London Stanza on Sunday, and I was aware how much more vulnerable I felt showing my poems to total strangers, as compared to Paula, who I've known for years. Despite the graphic imagery, I actually really enjoyed the meeting, and found it really helpful! Still not sure about a title, and the choice of "entrails" or "intestines": which is better in the first verse, and which better towards the end? Also, do I need that last verse at all, or shld I expand it? Is the poem just about me, or about all of us?
1 comment:
Incredibly Good. Poetry is not only an escape from emotion as Eliot said but it is also partly self-exposition which is why sometimes it is wise not to explain the occasions or circumstances of their composition. The graphic imagery brilliantly describes what it means when a private poem is unleashed upon the page. Pope Writes
As one of Woodward's patients, sick, and sore,
I puke, I nauseate— yet he thrusts in more:
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