No Sweat July 2, 2013

 

 (this is the original analysis of her poem on jars -- somewhat mistaken because it missed an important element which was her cancer )

 

Is her current poem a response to a poem I posted?

Unquestionably this complex poem continues the manipulation she started in a previous poem, but even though she seems to use the same metaphor I used in a poem I just posted, I still do not believe I am the subject of that manipulation.

My poem made reference to a jar I keep on my desk at work, and I used the jar as a symbol of expectation and possibility.

“I have to live with this empty jar on my desk, wishing I could fill it with anything other than pain, that ugly brew of putrid envy and my projected issues. The more you stir, the worse it gets, digging up detritus of my own confusion and outrageous falsehoods. You can’t stir dirty water and expect it to get clean. So, better this empty jar with my reflected face, filled with silence, and more what might have been, than a wounded innocent’s heart.”

My poem – snuck passed my always vigilant cyber nanny – was in response to some things she claimed in previous poems, an admission of guilt, I suppose, coming from having re read many of her older poems which were directed at me.

Her poem about jars is infinitely more complex, and my first reaction to reading it is that it is a trap of some sort, since she has been careful not to be too obvious when responding in print to something I have posted.

Both her poem and mine are about failed sexuality and love.

She lives her life filling and empty jars in a routine of sex or love, a pattern that in the end she is forced to scrub clean and start over, though when she comes to scrub that one person, she waits for a call or not or knock.

Who he is is anybody’s guess, though I suspect it is the same man from back in January when she debated whether or not to seduce him, and with whom she has had an up and down relationship ever since.

This need to scrub him clear as well as her jars suggests mixed feelings, as if she wants to be free of feelings for him, while at the same time needing his attention, which he appears reluctant to give her.

She is trying to stay cool (calm and collected), in her still-impoverished state, and struggles to push back down into those jars, the panic she feels over whether or not he will come to her again.

Numbers in her poetry are extremely important, and this is particularly true in this poems where she has “16 ounces;” “21 scrubbings;” “two-cent store fan;” “1,000 un-weak surges: and “two-fold panic.”

Their significance I can only speculate about, although I’m certain they had up to some important meaning in the poem.

If each jar is love or an affair, then she might mean the number of people in her life she has held out hope for – although that seems a bit too simplistic.

The 16-ounce jars confuse me, too, though I’m certain is important, maybe an allusion to Shakespeare or one of her favorite authors she studied in college. Perhaps it signifies Shakespeare’s “pound of flesh,” or her heart, using the jars as a metaphor for her heart, which she fills up each morning with hope of restoring love, only for the hope to drain from her heart by night – he has not called or written or come to see her.

And afterwards, she scrubs her heart clean – 21 scrubs per jar – and looks to scrub him, too.

Getting sweaty in bed is an obvious allusion to sex, lust to be with him again, forced to lay in front of a cheap fan to keep her cool, breathing deeply, counting to 1,000 in order to calm her hormones, struggling against “un-weak surges” which likely means her physical needs to make love with him, her two fold panic likely meaning her agitated heart, knowing the jars will be as empty as her bed when night falls.

In both poems, the empty jars seem to symbolize isolation, although mine is about guilt, hers is about not being able to be with the person who can fill her up.

If 16-ounce does refer to hearts. If so, she might be reflecting what she said in her living in other people’s shells and may have a positive aspect in that she fills up other people’s hearts each morning, empties them at night (perhaps romantically) and cleans them carefully before starting the routine again.

This idea of trying to avoid getting sweaty again, perhaps alludes to the idea that she is fighting her own inclination to seek out sex when she needs it, and is struggling to remain loyal to him, and does what she needs to cool herself, panicked over the fact that he isn’t responding.

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