Donal Mahoney
Photo: sir_mervs
After 30 years together,
Carol tells me late one evening
in the manner of a quiet wife
that I have yet to write a poem
about her, something she
will never understand in light
of all those other poems
she says I wrote
about those other women
before she drove North.
And so I tell her once again
I wrote those other poems
about no women I ever knew
the way I now know her
even if I saw them once or twice
for dinner, maybe,
and a little vodka
over lime and ice.
Near midnight, though,
she says again
in the manner of a quiet wife
it’s been thirty years
and still no poem.
When morning comes
I motor off to town to buy
a paper and a poem
for Carol
but find instead
undulating in a big glass case
an apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting.
So I buy the lovely fritter
and a single long-stem rose
orphaned near the register,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
I bring them home but find
Carol still asleep
and so I put the fritter
on the breadboard
and the rose right next to it,
at the proper angle.
When she wakes I hope
the fritter and the rose
will buy me time until
somewhere in the attic
of my mind I find
a poem that says
more about us than
this apple fritter,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
4 comments so far ↓
MarianaVel // Oct 17, 2009 //
Beautiful and a little sad… Maybe dedicating a poem to a person is one thing, and living “poetry” with somebody else on everyday basis is a completely different experience?
Anyway, that’s the question I have asked myself after reading your poem. Thank you!
Donal Mahoney // Oct 17, 2009 //
MarianaVel:
I thank you for commenting on my poem “Apple Fritter and a Single Rose.” It proves that any poem can be interpreted in different ways by different people. I just wanted to say that although I cannot be objective, I intended nothing sad when I wrote this poem. Without Carol I would not be writing. This poem resulted simply from my buying her an apple fritter and a single rose at a Quik Trip early one morning and remembering that I had no poem with her name in it. The name “Carol,” I have found, is tough to weave into a poem. Single-syllable names work better for me. I don’t know what elements of the poem are true in real life or which I simply made up to make the poem work for me. Images and sound dictate a poem to me–I don’t believe I have ever consciously written a poem the way a reporter would writer a story of fact for a newspaper. For me, facts cab hamper the truth getting out since they only create emotion and it’s the emotion I try to capture in words and lines. Take care and thanks again for commenting.
Donal Mahoney
MarianaVel // Oct 17, 2009 //
Donal Mahoney,
Thank you very much for your response. My question was kind of rhetoric so it was a nice surprise to see an answer.
That’s true poems sound differently to different people…and that’s the beauty of it.
I guess the subtle feeling of some sadness appeared to me from the “fact” that the wife never has been an object of her man’s poetry…although as you have said she has been your Muse during the years.
I like the way you are expressing your emotion in the poem and the various meanings that come to light out of it…
I wish you a lot of inspiration!
Mariana
Roger Conner Jr // Oct 19, 2009 //
Mr. Mahoney (or Donal if you prefer), your point is well taken, as you said:
“Images and sound dictate a poem to me–I don’t believe I have ever consciously written a poem the way a reporter would writer a story of fact for a newspaper”
For most poets, at least the interesting ones, I don’t think poetry can be written in the same way a “story” or article can be. It is so much of a gut level from the soul, from the subconscious sort of thing, and the effort comes in rationalizing the originally irrational images (or flood of images in many cases) into something communicative. This is what makes poetry and song so communicative (note, not explanatory, but communicative), often exposing and communicating universal subconscious fears, desires and longings…which brings me the long way around to my point (bet you thought I would never get there)…if you take the closing lines of your poem,
tanned and glistening,
lying there just waiting,
and a single long-stem rose,
roaring red, and still
at full attention.
What a dandy little march across the page (and the tongue when read aloud) that turned out to be! Excellent return to those words at the close, I smile involuntarily as I reread the lines…the cadence so sweet and full of anticipation, begging yet another observation: Very sweetly erotic is “tanned and glistening”, “lying there just waiting”, and “still at full attention”, Freud would have a field day with that….say you have been married for 30 years? Apple fritters and roses be damned, the new does not seem to have worn off marraige for you and your beloved..many folks could only wish for so much….”attention” after 30 years.
As for me, suddenly I am hungry, maybe an apple fritter is not a bad idea…:-)
Roger Conner Jr.
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