Love Poem/The Dog
 

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You say you want me coldly: in abstraction,
while I burn. This then is the arrangement
I can live with, if I squat in my chains
like the sea, to suffer tidally the estrangement.
Maybe you'll come back every now & then
& I'll grow docile as a dog to pool

beside you. Language cannot scrape this scene:
the doglike eagerness, pathetically small,
& up to his neck in black with the sky slabbed
down on him like cement, an optimist
inside his Happy Days, as Goya gouged
it. Perfect lover: cute, crushed, there he sits
& still believes that you will come, will stand
before him just to let him lick your hand.

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Rejected Alternate Version
You're lucky up there: only wanting in abstractions,
while, I burn, down here. It's an arrangement
I can live with, if I squat in my chains
like the sea, to suffer tidally the estrangement.
Maybe you'll come down every now & then
& I'll grow docile as a dog to pool
beside you.
Language cannot scrape this scene:
the doglike eagerness, pathetically small,
& up to his neck in black with the sky slabbed
down on him like cement, an optimist
eyeing his no-one sky, as Goya gouged
it. Perfect lover: cute: crushed, there he sits
& still has faith that you will come, will stand
before him just to let him lick your hand.
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Goya's The Dog:
https://www.franciscogoya.com/the-dog.jsp

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Hi Cameron,
You’re back in Goya blackness again. To say you’re channeling his darkness/angst is an understatement. You have devoured it.

I read this poem first without noticing it was an ekphrasis. It gave me a torturous feeling. I empathized with the N. I puzzled over it. There is some mystery in it. It felt (and still feels) near-impenetrable. Then I noticed the thread title and that it was a love poem and skimmed it to see where I could find love. Then I clicked on the link and things do now begin to fall in place, but I’m still not finding the love. My hunch is that it is hiding and it will all come down to the dog. I look forward to it.

Right from the top you dive directly into darkness at the thought of love, so there is a strong current of something uncomfortable about this love. The opening line is hard for me to parse. Is it the “you” (lover?) that is speaking coldly? Or is the N? I may be being thick-headed about parsing it, but it’s the placement of the word “coldly” that is tripping me up. It may come clearer with another reading or two…

Someone will come along and shed more light than I can on this at the moment. I should give it more time before saying any more. It will be an adventure, I’m sure of it.

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Hi Cameron,

Dare I say it, this feels to me like one of the more straightforward poems you’ve posted. I read it as being about a romantic relationship with a dysfunctional imbalance of power. The speaker feels that while their partner says they want them, the sentiment feels cold and abstract, while they themselves “burn” with more passionate emotion. The speaker feels they have no choice but to “live with” this imbalance and abasement. They see themselves in the image of Goya’s dog: pathetically eager for any affection, while drowning in despair.

It is effectively done, though it doesn’t grab me as much as others you’ve posted. I’m not sure why. The tone feels torn between intellect and very raw, uncomfortable emotion and somehow isn’t quite finding the right balance. I’m not sure about “Language cannot scrape this scene”, which is the kind of thing that can feel self-defeating in a poem, particularly here where it is followed by what I think are the poem’s most striking lines (“the doglike eagerness, pathetically small, / & up to his neck in black with the sky slabbed / down on him like cement”).

Mark

Cameron, this is a fantastic painting for an ekphrasis. I must have seen it before, but never paid it much attention. The whole series, of course, is astonishing, though I wouldn’t have it on the walls of my house.

Like Jim, I hesitate to thank you for a relatively “straightforward” poem, since you may not take it well.

Also like Jim, I get ambiguity from “coldly.” You mean that the loved one speaks coldly, but it can be misread (leave it to me) as meaning that the loved one wants the N, but wants him coldly (whatever that means).

The sea is a metaphor first for the N (the “Fern Hill” quote), then for the beloved, who is an incoming tide, while the N “pools” beside him. That verb baffled me until I thought of the tide making pools in the sand as it laps the shore.

“The sky slabbed down on him like cement”: You’ve used a phrase like this before; I don’t recall what I thought of it then, but here it describes the picture perfectly.

Is “Happy Days” a reference to something? I’d suggest dropping the caps (and/or quotes) to get the old American sitcom out of mind.

“Perfect lover: cute” is a charming description of the dog, but the dog in the poem is at least as human as animal (dogs aren’t “doglike”), and the words could smack of vanity as a self-description. Irony? Ok, but it’s a fine line.

Thanks for treating us to this excellent ekphrastic experience.

That's my reading of it too. The lament of a rueful troubadour to his courtly (possibly less than courtly) love.

Do the references to Dylan Thomas and Beckett come too close to overturning this frail barque? I think they might.

I do like the tidal aspect of the estrangement. (But then I start thinking I'm hearing echoes of Matthew Arnold.) And the brief, directly ekphrastic section about the dog (and "The Dog") is terrific.

I also think the submissive ending is very good. We seem back in the realm of courtly love here.

But, I'm sorry, but it will take a less juvenile mind than mine not to see the dog poo in "dog to pool". Even you, from your lofty viewpoint (I'm conjecturing here), should watch out for such things. Unless, of course, it's a brilliant intentional reference to something that's gone way over my head.

I think Harold Bloom said we should embrace difficult pleasures. It's always a difficult pleasure to read you.

Cheers

David

Thanks, David. The Beckett went over my head. My cultural memory is cluttered with old sitcoms.

Aaaay, Carl! No problem! (Mine too, although you've probably never seen Porridge, for instance.)

I'll be honest, Cameron, and in doing so perhaps revealing the true quality of cement in my head:

I found this a somewhat torturous read. On the other head, if read to me, I think I'd like it a lot more. My problem has to do with enjambments and what seem to me to be complicated expression that would be more appealing if more direct.

I am braced for the backlash against my initial response, meanwhile really intrigued by what you are doing with rhyme.

I love the Goya painting, but I interpret it somewhat differently, which is what is so great about the Goya painting. Are you familiar with Turner's "Dawn After the Wreck"?

Rick

I think I would have followed the poem better on first read if you broke the line after "beside you" for a pause to signal a transition of sorts, like so:


beside you.
beside you. Language cannot scrape this scene:
the doglike eagerness, pathetically small,
& up to his neck in black with the sky slabbed