Marriage on the Rocks

[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.