ManicDDaily

dVerse Poets Pub has a poetics challenge today, hosted by the wonderful Claudia Schoenfeld (who lives in Germany but writes beautiful poetry in English)  asking for a “call and response” or conversation poem.

The poem below is a conversation in which one person speaks in words, the other gestures.  it’s a pretty grim poem, sorry.  (Please remember it’s a poem, i.e. work of art! )  Also note that, although it rhymes and has line breaks, pauses should really only be taken where punctuated and not at the end of a line.

No Good Answer

She took a brush and hit her hand,
trying hard to make a stand.

“Just go,” he sighed,
“it’s just not working.
You’ve got to know
I’m not just jerking
you around.
No, it’s just the way I am is all,
I’m not the one for you at all.”

She stuck a tack into her wrist,
showing him a bloodied fist.

He shuddered, turned aside his head,
“It’s time for me to go to bed,”
then left her for their one spare room,
while she sat on beneath a gloom
of fear
that she would stop the pain
so that it would not come again.

But she was frozen, could not move,
luckily, perhaps, since all self-love
had vanished
just as his had done,
not to be found under moon or sun.