Uncertain Love in a Time of Perpetual War

[rowens]

       Uncertain Love in a Time of Perpetual War

Fiercely fighting, and fiercely dying,
another day another hassle, mostly caused-
brought about by me. Why?

Do I not have the same windows
and see the same world?
Was the snow so much colder for the nazis 
and so made them so much more mad?
Well they had their day in history,
when is my reprieve from cold and hunger?

Cold and hunger for something other than
noxious sunlight and food;
I have plenty of that, even the poor are fat in America.
When will my door open on something?—
When someone comes to me and knocks, it's me that feels unwelcome.

But I have my dreams and my memories,
and a stack of hopes taller and wider than me;
maybe if I don't lose them or my house doesn't burn down,
if they're not already fading like the smell of my favorite book
which was the only thing that let me remember my grandma's voice
and the best of times with my old best friend,
I can carry that bliss to the door I cherish
and knock without feeling like a boor.

[dukealien]

This is very fine.  I particularly like the division between material and spiritual at the break between S2 and S3.  And subtleties like "it's me that feels unwelcome," which at first glance looks like a commonplace departure from high grammar (which would say, "it's I that feel unwelcome") but making "me" the object it's also unwelcoming by the Other.  (Anyway, that's how it looked to me on second reading.)

"[B]oor" at the end is a nice, destabilizing touch - the speaker is concerned with being unsocialized more than (or as much as) unloved.  Uncertainty, indeed!  And all those ghosts trying to get in through the door with him.

[billy]

bugger me rowens, i do like this one a lot. i actually felt an emotion towards the person in the poem. some of the lines are excellent. [even the poor are fat...] being just one of them. i think it shows we need more than the basics life gives us. it shows we also need feeding emotionally through love, any kind of love but ideally that of a partner who can share feeling with us.

       Uncertain Love in a Time of Perpetual War

Fiercely fighting, and fiercely dying,
another day another hassle, mostly caused-
brought about by me. Why?

Do I not have the same windows
and see the same world?
Was the snow so much colder for the nazis Nazis
and so made them so much more mad?
Well they had their day in history,
when is my reprieve from cold and hunger?

Cold and hunger for something other than
noxious sunlight and food;
I have plenty of that, even the poor are fat in America.
When will my door open on something?—
When someone comes to me and knocks, it's me that feels unwelcome.

But I have my dreams and my memories,
and a stack of hopes taller and wider than me;
maybe if I don't lose them or my house doesn't burn down,
if they're not already fading like the smell of my favorite book
which was the only thing that let me remember my grandma's voice
and the best of times with my old best friend,
I can carry that bliss to the door I cherish
and knock without feeling like a boor.

[rowens]

When I typed this up on here, it changed nazi to Nazi, and I had to change it back. I wanted it to be lowercase. I do that a lot if you've noticed. Making names of proper nouns or names lowercase. I think I do it to make myself feel better. But I'll say I do it to make these things more generic. . . . I try to learn the lesson of turning something all about me into something, transform it into something that other people can relate to, on whatever levels. I think that's the goal, to make poems more strong and universal. Not just about me and the people I know.

[billy]

it wasn't a biggie and i can see your reasoning for having it lower case.