A red diamond bullet May 2013

 

 

I really have no good reason to revisit this poem about pain anticipated because I believe the original interpretation seems to be valid, concerning her derailed love affair. But like many of her poems, this one may well have a broader meaning that I did not consider during my first go around.

The poem seems to describe of what may be a behind the scenes train wreck, a slow motion disaster she can see coming but cannot avoid.

While I first saw this as a concluding poem in a series of love poems, it may well reflect the broader fears of what is going on where she is employed, the threat of legal action against her mayor, and how everything is taking place in slow motion, when she would rather see the whole thing happen quickly as to get it over with.

She may even see this as a test of her ability to withstand, while insiders count down the days and hours when the whole game comes to an end.

At times, she seems to believe she can pull it off, bracing herself against it, able to handle the situation, while at other times, she sees the “red diamond” bullet coming straight at her head from an engagement gone wrong.

This again suggests the romantic angle may be the most accurate, and that the love affair had progressed further than merely love making but to the point where her lover wanted marriage, and she saw the engagement in violent terms – back to buying the farm, as she once referred to her first marriage in a previous poem.

But engagement may also refer to her leaping onto the political bandwagon only to suspect the wheels might fall off it at any time.

She has tied herself personally and professionally to a person perhaps that has proven less capable than she first thought – perhaps RR, or someone else. In either case, she appears to see her situation as dire, if not yet doomed.

She may even be blaming him (whoever he is) into getting her into this predicament.

If it is RR, then it is a romance that goes back further than even I thought, she making reference to him in an essay she wrote in June 2011, when she talked about her attachment to a law enforcement guy – most likely RR.

But it seems farfetched to believe that she could maintain such a heated relationship for so long, and her other poems, especially those she posted earlier this year, suggest that while RR might have seduced her into this political life, her most recent romance was with someone else.

It is difficult, however, from the context of this poem, as to whom she is blaming for the whole mess.

Another aspect of the romantic angle may well be the approach, not of legal issues for her mayor, but something more personal, a commitment to marry someone – the red diamond bullet aimed straight out of her, and she has come to realize that it is a mistake, filled with anticipated pain, and she may be looking for a way to squirm out of the engagement, “the engagement gone wrong, thrust upon your finger that points towards pain.”

In an earlier poem, she talked about hesitating to give an answer, because she did not want to give her away her personal identity to become part of “we,” and I wonder if this is part of the same analogy, as she sees marriage as a trap she needs to avoid.

All of it is too convoluted to fully understand without knowing more details, which I never will be able to garner.

Needless to say (with great relief) this is one poem I am absolutely certain has nothing to do with me.

 

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