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ankle chain

Wednesday 14th April 2010 1:24 am

I’m going to make your name
Out of galvanised chain
I want us to last forever
Every link a letter
Every chink we get better
Endure this challenge
Forging bonds in the black sea
The hardest of salt
Cannot touch your myriad faults
As imperfection waves its withered hand
All over your brow
I stand at your stern
You support our vesseled bow
And we laugh at life’s ridiculous throws
Trying to grind us down
Sowing its barnacle seeds
The tarter on the teeth
I shall cut myself on you
And we shall begin to form as one
the grind shall only serve to sharpen
Creating strength inside
Your like an oxide for me
I think I am sulphate blue
Nothing wrong with rustic hue
But your heated heart shall grace the flu once cold
An imperfect couple
calm on a dead sea tide
floating
Taking it in, we can absorb together
Like when affinity forms, makes silk of leathered hide
Watching the envied grin of the single
Or the frustrated loners
All awaiting their own chain mailed tide
Offering a hand to them, helping
For this feeling is for sharing
And I offer your name to the world
Proud to know you
So glad to discover you
So glad to endure
The world is about loving
After all.

love

◄ making graves to fall in

Love in a charcoal shell ►

Comments

winston plowes

Mon 26th Apr 2010 12:28

Hi Pete, hope you are well. This is great stuff. Particularly liked the 'harder' tinge you give to the potentially sloppy sentiments as you describe things - black sea / leatherd hide / tarter / withering hand. It gives the poem a realism and strength. Win xx

Pete Crompton

Mon 26th Apr 2010 09:56

wow! ok
first of all may I thank everyone for the debate and interest and comments on this. It feels positive to invoke such a hijack, but its not a hijack. The benefit of writing is to inspire and hopefully move people, I think that the sincerity in the poem has made it through so Im pleased about it so much, thanks.

ok regarding the poem. For me it is about the 'standard' love. The default setting of powerful love, how it only has to be itself and needs not to try and be anything sparkly, it just naturally has the power. Its about the simple mechanics of love and wanting to share the simple yet complex feeling. Galvansing is used to protect steel from rusting and actually benefits from weathering and the elements. The coating benefits from oxidisation, in the same way all that life throws at us gives strenght to true loving bonds, shared experiences good and bad just make more strength in the love, giving us victories to be proud of, my idea was that gold is to surface and not as practical an ankle chain and whilst all the sparkling beauty, all the fancy ceremonies and massive weddings mean nothing compared to a genuine core of love, you can have both and thats fine, i.e true deep love AND all the fancy gold and trappings, but theres no need, the practical truth speaks much more and is more potent, if you scratch it it re-heals (as does galv), thats what I mean about being 'sulphate' and 'oxidised'
galv is used to protect from the sea salt too, and barnacles can cling to it but when removed the metal is intact. The chink/chain metaphor was the 'knocks' along the way that we just smiled at, it all brings us together even tighter. I visualsied the ankle chain whilst writing and i saw the letters stuck togehter by the process (as it does) the zinc galv locks the once seperate letters into one complete unit, almost bomb proof, very strong. There is a lot of resiliance and strength in the poem juxtaposed with the traditional idea of a fragile ankle chain, the whole idea being to demonstrate the lovers obcession with the simple enduring love he has for his partner. The proud willingness to share comes at the end of the poem- how can I keep this amazing thing to myself, he/she must share this for the other couples or 'the envied grin of the single'

I hope I have not spoiled this !
there are things I can improve and expand on in the poem, im not sure its finished, this was typed straight out.............

once again thanks Isobel, Racheal, Ann, Val, Francine, Jane.

im off to read my milns n boon.
xxxxxxxxx

Isobel

Sun 25th Apr 2010 20:22

Easily. Look around you Ann. How many truly happy long term marriages do you see? On the surface they look fine, but dig a little deeper...
I think that you were lucky, and Rachel. I am sorry that fate should have worked against you both. Truly sorry.

Sorry also to hijack your poem Pete. I think we are all agreed that we love it though and it seems to have stimulated enough debate!

Ann Foxglove

Sun 25th Apr 2010 20:17

Oh Isobel - how can you put the words "love" and "shelf life" in the same sentence! xx

Isobel

Sun 25th Apr 2010 20:11

Sorry Rachel - you have either amended your earlier comment or I skim read and missed part of it. I don't think I would have been so crass with my remark otherwise. I can understand anyone wanting to indelibly remember a love that left this world. I wasn't meaning to diss your tattoos either - just express the way I think of love - as something impermanent that is built on shifting ground. Perhaps someone will help me change my mind on that one day - then who knows what I'll get up to! x

Isobel

Sun 25th Apr 2010 17:52

Not having a name gives it a longer shelf life - you can pop any old name in and the poem works. I guess poetry is no different to tattooes. Who would want to have the name of an ex indelibly written on their skin? Yet people do!
I think it works best without the name - after all it's just a notion - isn't it?

Isobel

Sun 25th Apr 2010 16:52

This is a love poem in its 'truest' sense - so I'm guessing there is probably no name to offer LOL
Very much of what we read on here is in my opinion lust fuelled - and there is nothing wrong with that - it is just of a different ilk.
Someone on here once said to me 'lust is good for us, love is a minefield...' and that is reflected in so much of what we read.
In my opinion lust and love go hand in glove but love transcends lust. I can see precious few living examples of it when I look around. Never having known that blissful state myself - I'm only conjecturing that it in fact exists.
I love the fact that the love in this poem sees beyond age and physical faults. Its subject is not trussed up in a Cinderella frock or a basque and suspenders - they are just flesh and blood, riding the storm. A beautiful poem.

jane wilcock

Fri 16th Apr 2010 23:22

A great poem about the strength/sea of love. I particularly like the barnacle and sulfate blue, leave me feeling the wash of bonds as endless as the sea.Thanks, jane

Francine

Wed 14th Apr 2010 03:13

Such is the style I have come to love with sentiments that echo
from the heart : )

'Endure this challenge
Forging bonds in the black sea
The hardest of salt
Cannot touch your myriad faults
As imperfection waves its withered hand'

'So glad to discover you
So glad to endure
The world is about loving
After all.'

xxxxx

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