[John Riley]

Brachiopods

You wore a blue summer dress because you said
I was a cliché perv who liked girls in summer dresses
but I can’t remember what I wore, jeans with a button-up shirt
perhaps, standing on the dune, the Atlantic
behind us, there on the beach we loved and lived
next to until l proved I was following the family footsteps
and drinking around the clock, but you still hung on like the last survivor
on the last deserted ship, thinking of the horses that were now out of reach
and the way the slow river bounded your childhood
as we said our vows and I read the silly passage
from Joyce as you looked at me, accepting my constant foolishness
as the woman, the temporary friend neither of us can name,
read the legal blah it took for the state to recognize
we were attached although we formed in the deep long before we were
where sea pigeons called desperately from behind,
perched on the weed-covered groins built to keep the sand
from being driven away by the sweep of the waves.

[Jim Moonan]

.
This deserves an immediate response from the gut: wow. It is a poem that has found the crease between thought and expression (or rather slipped through the crack between the two).
I feel like I know which passage of Joyce you read at the ceremony, and I immediately recognized/related to this self-awareness of being incapable of being anything other than who you are:

as we said our vows and I read the silly passage
from Joyce as you looked at me, accepting my constant foolishness

What is present throughout is a kind of soft-spoken remorse that I've heard in many (or some) of your other poems. It has a painful edge to it. I like it very much because so many times I find myself writing notes to myself to write poems that reveal the rawness of my own remorse. Not that I've full of remorse, mind you. It's just the Catholic in me that causes me to be that way from time to time, especial with regard to the things and people I hold most dear.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why The Atlantic was at your backs vs. in your faces as you stood in the dunes. I'll figure it out, I'm sure.

The title is fascinating.

I like this one a lot.


.

[James Brancheau]

Terrific, John. The whole poem is a beautiful sweeping. I love "the way the slow river bounded your childhood," but there is much to love about this. I also appreciate that you mention things that are behind you, the Atlantic closer to the beginning of the poem, and the pigeons calling nearer to the end. Fine work.

[W T Clark]

The spareness of this gives it its melancholic current of emotion. I like it but given its tidal to-and-froing with the sea, I wonder if the "last planet" would work better transmografied into a ship or wreck?

Hope this helps.

[John Riley]

Jim, thanks. I'm glad it rang a bell. I don't write from my life too very often. I am honestly a bit bored by such poems. There are so many of them, but occasionally a memory or conversation will cause me to take off. I'm glad this one works for you.

They're standing with their backs to the ocean. Better photos.


James, thanks for reading and I'm happy it works for you.


Cam, thanks. See above regarding the topic of the poem. The note is a good one. I made a change. I too often turn to space.


Thanks again to all.

[Hilary Biehl]

Yes, this is good. I want to highlight the movement of the first few lines - the (somewhat generic) image of the woman in a blue summer dress, suddenly turned sideways by her playfully shocking statement that the N is a "cliche perv who likes girls in summer dresses," followed by the vagueness of and apparent indifference to his own attire. The whole poem has a similar movement as one line flows into another like waves, modifying what came before. I'm not saying this well at all, but it's meant to be a compliment.

I have one suggested change, stemming from some grammatical confusion on my part.

Where you have:

"as we said our vows and I read the silly passage
from Joyce as you looked at me, accepting my constant foolishness
as the woman, the temporary friend neither of us can name,
read the legal blah [...]"

I would suggest changing one (or maybe two) of the instances of "as". Perhaps something like:

"as we said our vows and I read the silly passage
from Joyce and you looked at me, accepting my constant foolishness
while the woman, the temporary friend neither of us can name,
read the legal blah [...]"

I'll admit I initially thought this passage meant that the woman being married was accepting her husband's foolishness in her capacity as a woman ("as the woman"), rather than that she was accepting his foolishness while another woman - the friend - read the legal stuff. It took me a few rereads to understand. Just changing the preposition would clarify that, I think.

[John Riley]

Hilary, thank you for the help. I will make the changes you suggest. Long sentences can slip away from me so I value the help.