Men and Women

[matsunosuperfan]

Men and Women


Men and women differ. We desire
differently: one wishes for the moon "Men and women differ. We desire / differently" is terribly redundant.
to take them back, the other aims and fires
at the unexplained, mistakes a loon’s
elastic crooning in the dark for sirens
chasing death across a dotted line
and barrels naked, dazed and dripping, shining
through the sheets into a field of columbine
and dreams. Men I don’t pretend to know— Which verb or set of verbs refers to men, and which to women? Do women wish for the moon to take them back, or do men? Moreover, is there much of a meaningful difference between each type? "shining / through the sheets into a field of columbine / and dreams" is about as romantic as wishing for a luminary to reclaim the self.
their mouths that always somehow taste of honeycomb
and razor burn, the alcoholic’s sting— There's a hint of the interesting in "their mouths that always somehow taste of honeycomb and razor burn"---it kinda reminds me of Louise Gluck's "Mock Orange"---but "the alcoholic's sting", by overplaying the hand, diffuses that interest immediately.
women understand a bird. I think
I’d like to be one for a life or two
and drink the night alone, alone, alone. The last sentence is fine sounding, but it's like the whole host of fragments I have lying in my phone, never likely to see the light of day: they sound fine, their imagery could be vivid enough, but because they don't have a fit context, because they don't have anything to actually say, it would be the height of vanity for me to ever share them, not unless I pin them to the proper canvas. And this isn't, by far, that canvas. Nothing in the beforehand builds to the conclusion, nothing even hints at an anticipation ("drink" I don't count, because "alcoholic's sting" was just so bathetic), and whatever else the beforehand seems to say, it says too poorly by being too muddy, or else it's too vulgar to be worth saying: either men and women don't fundamentally differ at all, or else their differences are sinuous enough to be worth much much more than so blunt an opening.

The kind of writing here, or what's good in it, is like candy: empty calories. Trying to make it seem like anything more is having an entire dinner made of candy, something in which only children can indulge. Make this far less 'big-statement'---remove or rework every line, including the title, other than that last sentence---and this should turn good.

Thanks so much for taking the time <3 these are fair crits! Other than the accusation that the first line is redundant; it's just repetition for emphasis. Not saying that was a good or productive decision, but redundant it ain't  or at worst, purposely redundant. 


I did mean to be a little bit of a Clever Boi with the "who gets which verbs" ambiguity. But I think it's mostly empty cleverness. "Empty calories" is a good charge to level against this poem in present form. The muddiness you refer to is meant to read as gender confusion/anxiety, but I agree that right now it mostly just comes across as vague gesturing from a pulpit that it's not clear the speaker deserves.