To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!
Click Here To add this poem to your "Voting Possibilities" list!
The Cancer of Tropics You are an alien here, everything makes the point: a smiling backslap with a claw, a stasis like a cinder block, a sauna of struggling ambition, a casket of defective incarnations, a gene sequence for blind, raging impatience, a pandemic of arrogant lassitude, a moustache as a lonely emblem of manhood, a road with exits where the entrances should be, an endlessly rising canon of Me, a jungle of unexploded memories, an oasis of undiscovered martyrs, a call to do good, do good, you must invariably do good, an understanding that you will be left to go to hell, a monsoonal rain of decay, an unashamed claim to another's ancestors, a massacre of surrendered innocents, a tradition of eliminating thought, a place where time goes to die, a nightmare that has annexed your children, a final awakening that it was the one place where you never lived. |
Additional Notes:
Guess I was having a bad day ...
This Poem was Critiqued By: Rachel F. Spinoza On Date: 2004-07-07 10:34:34
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.91304
The big daddy of all bad days, yes – but what a fine poem came out of it. I like the title – a play on the novel Tropic of Cancer by my favorite misogynist.
You are an alien here,[powerful beginning]
everything makes the point:
a smiling backslap with a claw,
[I think I know the person]
a stasis like a cinder block,
a sauna of struggling ambition,
a sauna of “ambition?” It is hard for me to picture this since saunas exemplify a luscious decadent sensualism to me. But, perhaps that was an ironic point I missed?.
a casket of defective incarnations, [great!}
a gene sequence for blind, raging impatience,
“impatience” is so small a sin for all those heavy adjectives and that is the brilliance of that line.
a pandemic of arrogant lassitude, [you knew my ex?}
a moustache as a lonely emblem of manhood, [wonderful]
a road with exits where the entrances should be, [got lost there myself.] ther
an endlessly rising canon of Me,[ ah yes]
a jungle of unexploded memories, [fantastic]
an oasis of undiscovered martyrs, [yes, yes]
a call to do good, do good, you must invariably do good, [usually said by someone not in the habit of doing much good for the world]
understanding that you will be left to go to hell,
[perhaps “a monsoon of decay,”] [powerful analogy]
an unashamed claim to another's ancestors, [this is a very peculiar one to me – ho aberrant is that!”}
a massacre of surrendered innocents, [children hurt in the fire of a relationship?]
a tradition of eliminating thought,[the disease of today’s youth]
a place where time goes to die, [great]
a nightmare that has annexed your children,
a final awakening that it was the one place
where you never lived.
Reminds me of the Beatles song – she’s leaving home
A bitter – dramatic and in that drama – powerfully poignant piece. Thanks