(Untitled)

[poetrees]

impressionable

I fall asleep
            with a Rembrandt
biography in bed

-awake to emulate
him
like a stray
self-portrait

epic hair
epic eyes
            a belladonna
            stare-
precise as a she-tiger
with a maul
         -stick

Comments

[monkeyman]

Why "awake" and not "awaken"? And why the break in the final line? I'm not saying either is bad, exactly; I'm just wondering why you made those choices.

[poetrees]

re: awake -- one of the things my advisor has taught me that has stuck and become (at last!) a knee-jerk when i write is to keep it present, and use future and -ing when i really mean to. to be aware of my tense, and when in doubt, present-ify-it, it does wonders. as for awaken, not truly altering the tense, there is the sense of over-syllabizing it for the sake of my love of slightly archaic words. and awAKe to emuLATE, has a good rhythm to it, to me. and also the dash replaces the invisible repetitive "I" - "I awake to emulate" is all right, but "I awaken to emulate(en)" hee hee.

who knew i had such a long response in me over two letters! responsEN.

last lines. oh, last lines. holy hell i totally thought you asked me, "why the bleak last line!" and i was going to say, MAUL is bleak, but it's not the last line! and, you really think a dangerous lady is bleak?! haha. anyhoo, break, because, well 'stick' on its own is an inelegant word, yes, but i'm being ridonk' about the maulstick having a tiger term in there. i guess i'm being