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How To Fix A Broken Man

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Today is thoroughly sad-sick.

She is in the garden picking peas,

I’m in our wardrobe, masturbating, slow.

 

Sandalwood sneaks around the house,

Frank revolves from another room

as we prepare for tonight’s repair.

 

I am a lover in her reality

but a liar in her dreams,

a big pumping heart on legs

that beats to the sound of love’s drum.

 

Where she was once the lamb,

I was once the knife, plunging

to fashion equilibrium.

 

And as the dark approaches outside,

candles are lit one by one.

 

A prayer, a question, an answer.

 

She becomes Medusa, stares at me through the plume

and I turn to stone and she carves me to her ideal.

◄ Pandora's Box (Blind At The Root)

The Psychology of Doodles ►

Comments

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winston plowes

Thu 9th Sep 2010 09:37

Dark and disfunctional love captured in this one John. Again you seem to pick the most unusual images to set a scene. Win

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Chris Dawson

Fri 2nd Jul 2010 14:20

I, too, keep coming back to this one - lots of layers and possibilities of interpretation. Good stuff. But I think I'd lose one of the 'and's from the last line - the first one, I think.
Cx

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Isobel

Wed 30th Jun 2010 22:23

Yes - I would tend to agree with Ann's interpretation. This a poem about significant role change. A woman's need for a man who is distanced. The pressures that brings. Where he was once in control, the driving force of a knife in fact to her lamb, now he is domesticated, tamed, turned to stone by the weight of her expectations. I was a bit puzzled by the Frank reference but I've come to the conlusion you are referring to Frankincense which would tie in with the candles and prayers.

A sad poem but a good one cos it is so refreshingly different.

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Francine

Wed 30th Jun 2010 22:06

I have read through this several times John, and I keep coming back to it!
I do have to agree that I love how it can be interpreted in so many ways...

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Malpoet

Wed 30th Jun 2010 11:30

I like that one John.Intriguing.

<Deleted User> (7164)

Wed 30th Jun 2010 09:05

Hi John, yes this is an intriguing poem and i agree it can be interpreted in many ways. In my present mode, it reflects a love but the love can be associated with many things, this website just as an example :-)

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Ann Foxglove

Tue 29th Jun 2010 19:42

ooops! Yes, read it quickly this morning and then went back. Hence my mistake! x

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John Togher

Tue 29th Jun 2010 19:18

Cheers for the comments, all.

Ann, I haven't changed it. The 'marine on the beach head' was something Darren wrote below!

But most are not too far away with interpretation, and as I've said before, there's no right or wrong way of interpretation and the writer's intent isn't that important as long as a reader enjoys a piece.

Glad you've enjoyed it.

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Ann Foxglove

Tue 29th Jun 2010 18:40

I've read this again and you've changed it I think and I like it much more. You've lost the marine on the beach head - and I didn't like that bit! I don't see it as having anything to do with the need of the woman to produce a child. To me, it is a domestice evening, to me Sandalwood and Frank are the pet cats (tell me if I'm barking!) To me, the man used to be the one in charge, sexually. But now, he is distanced from the woman. But her need of him is still great. This scares him. That's my reading anyway! Great poem - would prob be my walop, if we were having any!

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Val Cook

Tue 29th Jun 2010 13:14

I like this poem a lot John but the lamb and the knife confuse me.
Darren "she'll make you pay if you can't land a little marine on the beach head" helped me understand the poem. So I read it again.Thanks

darren thomas

Tue 29th Jun 2010 12:21

This can be interpreted in so many ways that I've already got out my miner's lamp of intrigue and I'm off into the bowels of darkness, sadness and true meaning secreted inside these words...

First of all - I'd want to know why the man was broken - what caused this?

'Where she was once the lamb. I was once the knife, plunging to fashion equilibrium.'

A role reversal or a reversal of a particular role within a role. Sex maybe? Moving from the role of gratification to its more fundamental role of reproduction?

"And as the dark approaches outside,
candals are lit one by one".

A resignation almost that this attempt at conceiving is going to seem as futile as previous attempts have been so far?

"she becomes Medusa..."

She won't be the first and she won't be the last - she'll make you pay if you can't land a little marine on the beach head.

'And she carves me to her ideal'.

She wished she'd never married you - cos, if she's being honest, all she ever wanted were children -not a beardy layabout.


Ladies and Gentlemen...the fantastic, Mr John Togher... is there a band on John?









<Deleted User> (8394)

Tue 29th Jun 2010 11:59

Wow!

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Ann Foxglove

Tue 29th Jun 2010 11:40

I think this is a really good poem. Full of unexpected, seemingly unrelated images that grab at you like a teasel on your coat sleeve!

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