Marriage on the Rocks

[71degrees]

Paul did not marry until he was forty. He was a crow,
feet nearly at his eyes, bald, a poem composed
of overweight lines. A barrister, a barrister. Always
with this sad feeling of autumn that he did not belong
with normal people.

Natalie was only a fragment of his life, but she was
enough, a declension of soft birds wired against flight.
And he married her.

Often Paul would tell me life seemed so mysterious to him
now than when he started, more a massunderstanding,
but there was enough heaven here for him to stay.
At least for awhile.

Yesterday, Paul called to tell me Natalie was dying,
that how we exist is only a fiber of something much larger,
spiraling out of control to one tiny pinpoint of light
right before our eyes, some kind of pendulum rocking
a thousand miles away.

While we were talking on the phone, my face turned
to look out my rear kitchen window. The taller ash trees
across the greening field reminded me of how
much less I should say since none of the words
made any sense to any of us: Paul, Death, or me.

And Natalie? She wasn’t even listening.


Edit #1

Til' Death Do Them Part

Paul did not marry until he was forty. He was a bald crow,
a poem composed of overweight lines: a barrister,
a barrister, a Sergeant of the Law with this sad feeling
of autumn that he did not belong with normal people.
Natalie was only a fragment of his life, a declension
of a soft bird wired against flight. And he married her.

Often Paul would tell me life seemed mysterious
after marrying her, but finally there was enough heaven
on earth for him to stay.

When Paul called to tell me Natalie was dying,
that how we exist is only a fiber of something
much larger, spiraling to one tiny pinpoint of light,
some kind of pendulum rocking a thousand miles away,
my face turned to look out my rear kitchen window.
The ash trees across the spring field reminded me
of how much less I should say since none of my words
made any sense to any of them: Paul, Natalie, or Death.
Natalie died last Thursday. She leaves no more ripples
on this surface of the world than a calm day.

Paul can no longer ask her how long they can be together;
how long can they hold their breath and wish for another day.

[bena]

I may be totally off base, but given the title, and the nature of progression of the piece, I think that last line means that Natalie and the N were/are having an affair. I wonder though if it could be stated more clearly if that were the case. I did bias myself and read Anne's crits, and most of it I think she nailed on the head. On the two metaphors, I can see so many light-like choices...fireflies, quarks, stars...you've got a ton to work with. I personally love the use of declension, as it can describe anything plural that follows a strict pattern....birds do that.

If massunderstanding is intentional, I think it's too quirky for this piece. Disagree that you need spiraling on the trees...you say taller, not tall, and I believe that particular distinction means taller than before? Surely your eyes aren't scanning and only focusing on the ones that are taller...perhaps there is a clearer way to state this. Not sure.

As for the end, I don't know if I'm right...perhaps you meant that natalie wasn't listening to Paul, who knows. But why would she eavesdropping on this phone conversation?

ah well, it's late...may need to read a few more times to soak up the nuances.

love ya,
mel.

[71degrees]

Hi 71 Degrees,

I enjoyed reading your poem and will go through it and suggest ideas for you to consider.  There is a poem by poet Jim Daniels, you might want to read for comparison as to how he goes about presenting a similar theme (it's titled, "Between Periods").  I love how he uses repetition of the friend's name in the poem.

Anne  

Paul did not marry until he was forty. He was a crow, (do you need, "he was" before "forty"?)
feet nearly at his eyes, bald, a poem composed (I like this enjambment and double entendre)
of overweight lines. A barrister, a barrister. Always (I like the "poem composed of  . . .", metaphor)
with this sad feeling of autumn that he did not belong (can you streamline this a bit?)
with normal people.

(The above offers a believable picture of Paul, this aging attorney, a social misfit).

Natalie was only a fragment of his life, but she was
enough, a declension of soft birds wired against flight. (does "declension work here?")
And he married her.

(The above stanza is interesting in how it almost says more about Paul, then Natalie).

Often Paul would tell me life seemed so mysterious to him (could you say, "Paul told me"? "More" instead of "so"?))
now than when he started, more a massunderstanding, (than when he started what? Is "massunderstanding" deliberate?)
but there was enough heaven here for him to stay. (is "heaven" the right word choice?  It doesn't sound like heaven, maybe contentment.)
At least for awhile.

Yesterday, Paul called to tell me Natalie was dying, ("tell me" could be "say")
that how we exist is only a fiber of something much larger,
spiraling out of control to one tiny pinpoint of light
right before our eyes, some kind of pendulum rocking (pick a simile; these two are too different)
a thousand miles away.

While we were talking on the phone, my face turned
to look out my rear kitchen window. The taller ash trees (why is it that ash trees trigger these thoughts?  I think this needs to relate back to the spiraling - you come up with something else like a dust devil?)
across the greening field reminded me of how
much less I should say since none of the words
made any sense to any of us: Paul, Death, or me.

And Natalie? She wasn’t even listening. (I don't understand the ending.  It feels uncompassionate to me.)

Thanks for letting us read this.  Keep going.  I hope something here is useful to you.

Anne

A couple of things useful here, yes. Thank you, Anne. "massunderstanding" is deliberate, yes. Also, not sure "uncompassionate" is the right word but the poem is not about Natalie, it's about Paul, so yes, from Natalie's POV the whole conversation is pointless. She's dying. Why should she care? If you got this at the end, I'm a happy guy.

---

I may be totally off base, but given the title, and the nature of progression of the piece, I think that last line means that Natalie and the N were/are having an affair.  I wonder though if it could be stated more clearly if that were the case.  I did bias myself and read Anne's crits, and most of it I think she nailed on the head.  On the two metaphors, I can see so many light-like choices...fireflies, quarks, stars...you've got a ton to work with.  I personally love the use of declension, as it can describe anything plural that follows a strict pattern....birds do that.

If massunderstanding is intentional, I think it's too quirky for this piece.  Disagree that you need spiraling on the trees...you say taller, not tall, and I believe that particular distinction means taller than before? Surely your eyes aren't scanning and only focusing on the ones that are taller...perhaps there is a clearer way to state this. Not sure.

As for the end, I don't know if I'm right...perhaps you meant that natalie wasn't listening to Paul, who knows.  But why would she eavesdropping on this phone conversation?

ah well, it's late...may need to read a few more times to soak up the nuances.

love ya,
mel.

Bena,

I need to change the title. It's taking you in an unintended direction and from its connotative definition, it should. Only it's not supposed to do this so I need to change it. Natalie is dying. No affairs, nothing special here. She's dying. The night I called Hospice Care was coming to their house to discuss details so Natalie wasn't really listening to our conversation. I had nothing to offer her. My concern was for Paul, the living. I have a poem here, I just need to find it.

[71degrees]

"Uncompassionate" was the right word for me, maybe not for you but you asked for feedback.

Which is why I thanked you. If you missed that I will do it again. Thank you. I made me a happy guy that you felt it uncompassionate at the end.

Paul is who I called on the phone

[bena]

I think the problem for me in last s is that you mention you're on the phone. So you aren't in the same room talking, you personally can't know she isn't listening, unless Paul says so. Which needs to be clarified, I guess.

There is a great poem here, keep up the struggle, and I'm sorry about your friend's wife. I would offer nursing advice, but I'm sure you know hospice is the end.

As for the title...yeah needs some re-thinking. "on the rocks" implies either divorce or drinking problems to me.
Why not be simple for (us) simpletons..."A Dying Marriage" ?

I don't know, I'm sure something will come to you.

BIG HUGS

mel.

[71degrees]

Just curious, why do you want the poem to feel uncompassionate in the end?  That's odd.  Do you want the speaker to come off as a sociopath?  Did you read Daniel's poem?  It shows how compassion can be employed genuinely.

When working at my degree, my best poet/teacher advised me that at the very least a poem should show the speaker has learned something essential about life.  If what your speaker has learned or not learned is to not have compassion for a dying person then there is no hope for mankind because poets are supposed to philosophically bring further beauty and meaning to an otherwise unkind world.

Anne

What poets "are supposed to" do to the world could make an interesting thread in Poetry Discussion, but here in a workshop please try to keep the focus on helping the OP achieve their goal. Thanks/mod

"When working at my degree, my best poet/teacher advised me..."

Well, there's my problem right there...no degree and piss poor poet / teachers I never said the poem was "uncompassionate"...you did. Again, thanks for your interest here.

[RiverNotch]

Awesome! On an unrelated note, since I've lately been rather obsessed with Talking Heads, the first thought I had before reading this poem was the song "Found a Job". No, it's theme is very, very, very different from this, but still. Anyway--

Paul did not marry until he was forty. He was a crow,
feet nearly at his eyes, bald, a poem composed 
of overweight lines. A barrister, a barrister. Always That's a dense collection of metaphors there, I think. Awesome! I'm a bit shaken by the abstractness of the image of the overweight poem over the rest -- maybe it's because I'm not used to seeing "poems" being used in poems to describe their (the latter poems') subjects. But never mind.
with this sad feeling of autumn that he did not belong  I don't like the throwing in of the word "autumn" here. It feels like an image that demands more exploration, on a point of the poem that doesn't really need it. It adds to the heavy, deathly nature of the work, sure, but with the crow, the baldness, and the drab barrister images at hand...
with normal people.

Natalie was only a fragment of his life, but she was
enough, a declension of soft birds wired against flight. A "declension"? I don't get it. A falling flock? A tense in languages? "of soft birds wired against flight" paints a beautiful and somehow sick portrait of Natalie's character.
And he married her.

Two images of birds here stand out, for me -- "He was a crow" and "soft birds wired against flight". Not an entire contrast, but, for me, a subtle reflection on how Natalie was "enough" for Paul, how she was a proper complement to his heavy, lonely life. Neat!

Often Paul would tell me life seemed so mysterious to him
now than when he started, more a massunderstanding, I'm not really sure, but "then" feels more appropriate than "now", with the whole action here being in the past. But again, I'm not really sure. "Massunderstanding" I get -- it's nice, though using this new word might be a bit shaky in general. Still, it's a statement that I think adds meaning to Paul's heavy character; I guess it's time that'll tell, for me, whether it really works or not. 
but there was enough heaven here for him to stay.
At least for awhile.

This feels more dependent on the well-defined nature of the words than the images. Then again, it is Paul speaking, and "massunderstanding" really is a cool invention.

Yesterday, Paul called to tell me Natalie was dying, 
that how we exist is only a fiber of something much larger, The unraveling of Paul's "massunderstanding" here is amazing (and a bit nonsensical for me, but that's a really good reflection of his fall, I think, rather than a problem). I would, however, detach the rest of the statement from the first line, to make the show of Natalie's dying more pointed, and to make the poignantly crazy image to stand out.
spiraling out of control to one tiny pinpoint of light
right before our eyes, some kind of pendulum rocking
a thousand miles away.

The image of light here stands out, as a subtle jab at Paul's little glimpse of heaven in the preceding stanza ("one tiny pinpoint of light"). The unraveling here feels perfect for the complexities so far glimpsed of Paul -- it's a full breakdown, sure, but the detached feeling of Paul's words here somehow mirrors the detached nature of his existence before, and somehow during (he always seemed to consider her as just "enough"), his relationship with Natalie.

While we were talking on the phone, my face turned
to look out my rear kitchen window. The taller ash trees
across the greening field reminded me of how
much less I should say since none of the words
made any sense to any of us: Paul, Death, or me. I don't gather this ending. I'm not familiar with what ash trees usually symbolize, so maybe that's a fault in my part, but after that, the poem just lightly touches on a natural, rather predictable reaction (I can't say anything), then talks about something I'm feeling is already obvious to the reader (that Paul's words don't immediately make sense; that the universal being he presents isn't immediately appreciable). I think a different idea is in order here -- though, what idea, I've not a clue.

And Natalie? She wasn’t even listening. I don't get the ending. Where's Natalie in all this? Up until this point, she's only been seen through the eyes (ears) of Paul or the speaker. This needs elaboration --  or elimination.  (Based on earlier crits) It doesn't seem to matter what she sees in all of this, since she was never the speaker or the lens of the poem (how does her lack of care affect the statement of the poem, when she's never shown as a character of her own with a voice of her own anyway): it was always Paul, or the speaker.

Thanks for the good read!

[Mr. Creosote]

First stanza is outstanding.

I am confused about how Natalie was just a fragment of his life. It sounds as if she was more than that, much more.

I like the thought on the following lines, but the way it is written is unwieldy. Maybe on purpose? Are you trying to convey discomfort?

Ash tree and death. I think it is clever, but is it forced?

"...of how
much less I should say since none of the words
made any sense to any of us: Paul, Death, or me."

Anyhow, I hate to critique anything that is better than I can write, but I thought I could help.

[71degrees]

Awesome! On an unrelated note, since I've lately been rather obsessed with Talking Heads, the first thought I had before reading this poem was the song "Found a Job". No, it's theme is very, very, very different from this, but still. Anyway--

Paul did not marry until he was forty. He was a crow,
feet nearly at his eyes, bald, a poem composed 
of overweight lines. A barrister, a barrister. Always That's a dense collection of metaphors there, I think. Awesome! I'm a bit shaken by the abstractness of the image of the overweight poem over the rest -- maybe it's because I'm not used to seeing "poems" being used in poems to describe their (the latter poems') subjects. But never mind.
with this sad feeling of autumn that he did not belong  I don't like the throwing in of the word "autumn" here. It feels like an image that demands more exploration, on a point of the poem that doesn't really need it. It adds to the heavy, deathly nature of the work, sure, but with the crow, the baldness, and the drab barrister images at hand...
with normal people.

Natalie was only a fragment of his life, but she was
enough, a declension of soft birds wired against flight. A "declension"? I don't get it. A falling flock? A tense in languages? "of soft birds wired against flight" paints a beautiful and somehow sick portrait of Natalie's character.
And he married her.

Two images of birds here stand out, for me -- "He was a crow" and "soft birds wired against flight". Not an entire contrast, but, for me, a subtle reflection on how Natalie was "enough" for Paul, how she was a proper complement to his heavy, lonely life. Neat!

Often Paul would tell me life seemed so mysterious to him
now than when he started, more a massunderstanding, I'm not really sure, but "then" feels more appropriate than "now", with the whole action here being in the past. But again, I'm not really sure. "Massunderstanding" I get -- it's nice, though using this new word might be a bit shaky in general. Still, it's a statement that I think adds meaning to Paul's heavy character; I guess it's time that'll tell, for me, whether it really works or not. 
but there was enough heaven here for him to stay.
At least for awhile.

This feels more dependent on the well-defined nature of the words than the images. Then again, it is Paul speaking, and "massunderstanding" really is a cool invention.

Yesterday, Paul called to tell me Natalie was dying, 
that how we exist is only a fiber of something much larger, The unraveling of Paul's "massunderstanding" here is amazing (and a bit nonsensical for me, but that's a really good reflection of his fall, I think, rather than a problem). I would, however, detach the rest of the statement from the first line, to make the show of Natalie's dying more pointed, and to make the poignantly crazy image to stand out.
spiraling out of control to one tiny pinpoint of light
right before our eyes, some kind of pendulum rocking
a thousand miles away.

The image of light here stands out, as a subtle jab at Paul's little glimpse of heaven in the preceding stanza ("one tiny pinpoint of light"). The unraveling here feels perfect for the complexities so far glimpsed of Paul -- it's a full breakdown, sure, but the detached feeling of Paul's words here somehow mirrors the detached nature of his existence before, and somehow during (he always seemed to consider her as just "enough"), his relationship with Natalie.

While we were talking on the phone, my face turned
to look out my rear kitchen window. The taller ash trees
across the greening field reminded me of how
much less I should say since none of the words
made any sense to any of us: Paul, Death, or me. I don't gather this ending. I'm not familiar with what ash trees usually symbolize, so maybe that's a fault in my part, but after that, the poem just lightly touches on a natural, rather predictable reaction (I can't say anything), then talks about something I'm feeling is already obvious to the reader (that Paul's words don't immediately make sense; that the universal being he presents isn't immediately appreciable). I think a different idea is in order here -- though, what idea, I've not a clue.

And Natalie? She wasn’t even listening. I don't get the ending. Where's Natalie in all this? Up until this point, she's only been seen through the eyes (ears) of Paul or the speaker. This needs elaboration --  or elimination.  (Based on earlier crits) It doesn't seem to matter what she sees in all of this, since she was never the speaker or the lens of the poem (how does her lack of care affect the statement of the poem, when she's never shown as a character of her own with a voice of her own anyway): it was always Paul, or the speaker.

Thanks for the good read!

There is a plethora of information here for me to ponder. Based on your excellent critique and other thoughts here, I think this poem needs a serious haircut. I'm still with it and I will post a revision when I can. May is hell at my job but we are rapidly closing on another year and I will be free soon. Again, thanks.

---

First stanza is outstanding.

I am confused about how Natalie was just a fragment of his life.  It sounds as if she was more than that, much more.  

I like the thought on the following lines, but the way it is written is unwieldy.  Maybe on purpose? Are you trying to convey discomfort?  

Ash tree and death.  I think it is clever, but is it forced?

"...of how
much less I should say since none of the words
made any sense to any of us: Paul, Death, or me."

Anyhow, I hate to critique anything that is better than I can write, but I thought I could help.

Welcome, Mr. Creosote. Thanks for picking up on the ash trees/death image. Only an individual reader can determine if an image is forced or not. Natalie is currently in hospice care. Death kind of forces itself upon us at the most inopportune of times, doesn't it? Kind of the theme of the poem, I guess. The last line of the poem is supposed to convey this, a bit. She's not really listening to the men's conversation. Why should she? It won't matter anyway.

"…but I thought I could help." You have. And I thank you.

[71degrees]

Update on "Marriage on the Rocks" / new title

Til' Death Do Them Part

Paul did not marry until he was forty. He was a bald crow,
a poem composed of overweight lines: a barrister,
a barrister, a Sergeant of the Law with this sad feeling
of autumn that he did not belong with normal people.
Natalie was only a fragment of his life, a declension
of a soft bird wired against flight. And he married her.

Often Paul would tell me life seemed mysterious
after marrying her, but finally there was enough heaven
on earth for him to stay.

When Paul called to tell me Natalie was dying,
that how we exist is only a fiber of something
much larger, spiraling to one tiny pinpoint of light,
some kind of pendulum rocking a thousand miles away,
my face turned to look out my rear kitchen window.
The ash trees across the spring field reminded me
of how much less I should say since none of my words
made any sense to any of them: Paul, Natalie, or Death.
Natalie died last Thursday. She leaves no more ripples
on this surface of the world than a calm day.

Paul can no longer ask her how long they can be together;
how long can they hold their breath and wish for another day.