structureandstyle:

Thinking we were safe — insanity!
We went in to make love. All the same
Idiots to trust the little hotel bedroom.
Then in the gloom…
…And who does not know that pair of shutters
With the awkward hook on them
All screeching whispers? Very well then, in the gloom
We set about acquiring one another
Urgently! But on a temporary basis
Only as guests — just guests of one another’s senses.

But idiots to feel so safe you hold back nothing
Because the bed of cold, electric linen
Happens to be illicit….
To make love as well as that is ruinous.
Londoner, Parisian, someone should have warned us
That without permanent intentions
You have absolutely no protection
— If the act is clean, authentic, sumptuous,
The concurring deep love of the heart
Follows the naked work, profoundly moved by it.

—Rosemary Tonks

This poem seems so ordinary, so in touch with everyday language. And yet it’s definitely a poem and would be so identifiable even if it were a prose poem. Mary Oliver remarks in A Poetry Handbook, “Every poem contains within itself an essential difference from ordinary language, no matter how similar to conversational language it may seem at first to be. Call it formality, compression, originality, imagination—whatever it is, it is essential…the space between daily language and literature is neither terribly deep nor wide, but it does contain a vital difference—of intent and intensity.” Another creative writing handbook calls this “density.” Whatever it is, I’m haunted by the “conversational” language of this poem and its subject matter.

“To make love as well as that is ruinous.” Such a simple, true line in such a simple, thoughtful poem.

-R

Posted at 4:51pm and tagged with: Mary Oliver, Rosemary Tonks, lit, poetry, reading, two column,.