Callous Parallels

Cherry

By thanksfortheparakeets@gmail.com

Mon, 05 Nov 2012
  • 1977 reads
8 comments
 

Callous Parallels

How callous is a man to ask a schoolgirl if she
believes in fate as a kind of
contraception?
he can board
a
bus
sheepskin
old guitar
casual farewell.
The question worms up with this:
'My three-month affair with DJ John Peel when I was 15'
we
sip
coffee
talk-rant-rave
opinions fly
“but she knew what she was doing”
My feminist friend, she rails at my nonchalant words
when
I
say grey
she says black
and white and words like
vulnerable; target; abuse
“though it happens all the time...look at me” I blurted.
I
stop.
It stings,
but my friend
is right. Quietly
cast my mind; watch a girl playing
adult games; thinking she was winning. Now she thinks loss.

Certificate PG
Poem
Style vs Substance
Unclassified

Comments

Submitted by thecure on
Very good, it's a tough subject matter to address, but I think this piece is very powerful and impactive xx

Submitted by thanksforthepar... on
Oh thank you thecure. I hope it doesn't come across as though I'm criticising specific individuals (I'm a fan of John Peel), but it was a conversation that had a great impact on me. Anyway, thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it.

 

Submitted by Highhat on
A very powerful piece- I think you got it all down here. I'd say the young girls are innocent and some even looking for love and care and then being used and abused.

Submitted by moonphish on
i like the staccato approach you presented in this piece...it underscores the theme nicely - alvin

Submitted by blackjack-davey on
This is great and the sadness of the last lines, the reversal of what the child/teenager might have gained-- i like the conversational feel and the idea of fate as contraception... as contraception against what? meeting or not meeting prospective abusers/partners? leaving it up to fate to decide on pregnancy.... always have been annoyed by people who say 'it was/wasn't meant to be...' turning things cosmic and denying human agency and responsibility. after the end you reread and get the specifics, you create character really succintly: sheepskin and guitar-- a whole world of smell and textures conjured up.

 

Submitted by thanksforthepar... on
Hi Pia, Thanks for your comment. Today I was thinking about the looking for love thing and thought: it's like a girl going to market to buy an artichoke, but she's never seen one before because her family are poor, so she asks lots of different people and gets lots of different confusing answers and then ends up going home with a turnip for dinner because the market trader assured her "yes my love, this definitely what you're looking for".

 

Submitted by thanksforthepar... on
Hi alvin, thanks, the stacatto lines were more a structural constraint than an artistic choice but I'm glad it works. Will have to have a go at writing some more in this discipline.

 

Submitted by thanksforthepar... on
Hi blackjack, I like the way you've seen more questions and possibilities in the first bit about fate, I hadn't thought of it like that...but it's true peoples' refusal to take responsibility knows few bounds. Thanks for reading and commenting.