[Catherine Chandler]

I Need Men


Cold men who frame themselves in cold windows,
seeing reservoirs as sheets of lead,
who beat their hearts with black winds and bare trees
then bury them in books, or bury them
beneath their feet; who run from love and moan
it flees from me, then settle back in bed
just the same, comforted, grim as stone.
These men, who hide behind the furniture
when a real wind blows in, I need these men

like a horse-kick to the head! They have the gall
to laugh at girls like me who laugh and sing
sweet love-heart things—but now I’ve learned to say:
Move from the window, mate, and cop it sweet,
or freeze your arse off romanticizing sleet.



Comment by Mr. Gwynn:

This has a funny delayed volta across the white space which is very clever; it should be a crowd-pleaser when read aloud. The touch of Wyatt is also funny. Word choice bothers me a little, especially “reservoirs” so early on, a word that brings to mind things other than lakes (and usually not very scenic ones at that): “lakes’ surfaces”? The alliteration in ll. 3-6 is also good, so over the top that it sounds like a curse when read aloud. “comforted” and “grim as stone” seem a little off to me when set side by side. I don’t know that the repetition of “laugh” is good. Since the poem rhymes off and on, the closure of the couplet is necessary, but I wonder about the extra syllable in the last line. Maybe the “off” could go for the sake of metrical regularity as tight as the rhymes are here.