Dth5
 

5.

Your Other Women

Your secretaries, eager to assist you;
your colleagues, protegées, even your dean;
the shopgirls who, you joke, cannot resist you;
my own best friends; the maid who comes to clean;
the women whom you’ve charmed in conversation;
the students who adore you from afar--
how can I resent their admiration,
knowing, better than they, how good you are?

So pick your favorite starlets for your spree
and rent each film they’ve been in from the start--
I won’t complain. How can I say you’re wrong
to ogle blondes you swear all look like me?
For when our jobs require long weeks apart,
we both know what it takes to get along.

You got that right.
RM

Biting. Sarcastic. To the point. Someone's going to read this and say "Ouch! "

Maybe there could be a companion poem: My Other Men. I remember this and know who wrote it. Nice work!

It's a charmer, it's well done - and I'm pretty sure I know who wrote it - but I can't help feeling that it could be even better. A bite more bite, some twists, a bit more of a sense of snark towards the competition, a few back-handed compliments to augment "better than they", could add more depth.

I've no idea who wrote this, but I wish it had been me.

It may not be sarcastic enough--or at all.

I don't think it is sarcastic. I think it misleads the reader into expecting ritual snark and becomes, instead, a mature reflection on "what it takes to get along." I think both people here are in collusion rather than competition. I like it because of this twist.

The last line is where the reader comes in, isn't it? I mean, you ask yourself, what does it take to get along? I think I lean towards Ann's view of this - I think it's more thoughtful, more clear-eyed, than cutting. It hurts, for sure, there's pain here. But something more, too, something deeper that complicates it.

Yes, Michael, Cally, and Ann are right. The poem cuts to the heart of the matter, but somehow there could have been more--although the last line is great. I didn't see sarcasm, but more a kind of rueful stance, also affection, with an undercurrent of anger. The usual complicated human mix Two people who've known each other a while. Or, as Ann says, "I think both people here are in collusion rather than competition." A good poem, but... doesn't entirely lift off, perhaps?

Charlotte