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Revision posted.
(John, I didn't see your comment until just now. I still think the original version accomplished largely what I set out to, as you indicated. But I've rewritten it to be something of a different poem. I like them both.)
To all who have taken the time to respond — Jayne, Phil, Jim, Trevor, Glenn, Harry, Max, David — It fills me first with chagrin and then with inspiration to hear everyone's take on the original. In the end, inspiration won out. I dug in and re-imagined...
I’ve taken a sharp turn away from the darkness and tried to lighten it up to be what I had intended. I got lured into the darkness of the imagery of knives and tongues and blood : ) The revision is more accurately emotional, which is where I wanted it to be in the first place. (Darkness whispered and I followed : ) Now I’m back in light.
It seems I managed to set most readers to thinking something sinister lurked between every line! Please set your minds at ease— there’s nothing dark in the poem except the allure of the absurdness and imagined danger of the image of licking a knife. I had only wanted to express the exasperation that comes with trying to get my daughter to stop pushing my pet peeve button. It was always something of an inside joke for both of us. The poem essentially is saying I don’t like the look of someone who licks a knife clean — at least in public. She always replied, essentially, "I don't care!".
What spawned the darkness in the poem was that I liked the heaviness of the interplay between these two lines, which hijacked the poem: “Don’t lick the knife” and “You’ll taste blood.”
On the surface, it is meant to portray a simple parental warning always given but never heeded. As parents, we are prone to exaggeration as a means of deterring a child from doing something. There are many parental warnings we throw at our children. For example, "If you sit too close to the TV, you’ll go blind!" and “"Don’t cross your eyes—they’ll get stuck like that!"
As children, we half-believed them. Then there are those alarming/arresting parental cautionary warnings such as “Don’t run with scissors” and “Always look both ways before crossing the road.” My warning not to lick the knife was more in that vein of parental warnings. It honestly gives me the chills to see someone licking a knife. I can't help but imagine the skin on the tongue splitting open.
Btw, in the States there’s a phrase used to describe something that someone likes to do: “That’s her jam.” or “He likes to jam with his friends after school.” That’s why I thought the title “Her Jam” might work: licking knives is what she likes to do. It’s her jam : )
For now, I’ve retitled the poem, “Peeve”. For now, I like the revision. Although I think I could have just as easily "leaned into" the darkness, as Glenn said.
What a pleasure it was to re-imagine the poem based on everyone's responses.
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