
Skin against skin, we lie;
breathing each other’s breath
we slowly suffocate.
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Author: don't confuse the narrator
Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion View all posts by don't confuse the narrator
The ambiguity of “we lie”, if intentional, is unoriginal.
The use of the present tense puts this poem into Ezra Pound’s category of poems that are bad because nobody could conceivably ever speak the words in real life.
Nevertheless, lines 2 and 3 contain an image (completely unrelated to line 1) which could appear in a good poem.
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Hmm. I actually think it’s so bad that someone unfollowed the blog today.
That said: Yes, “we lie” was unoriginal last time I used it – and the time before… – and it hasn’t got any better; it is describing an habitual action, however, so I think the present tense is forgivable in L1. In L3, the present simple would probably only be natural if it referred to a habit/tendency of the species, not of an individual couple. Which might make this more of a social commentary than a love poem.
Anyway, the post currently has as many likes as it contains words, so it has not been entirely unsuccessful.
Thank you for commenting. I hope one day to find a good poem into which I can fit the image.
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If your poem had been even better, would it have been liked by even more people?
I fear not.
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Probably not by people who click “like” buttons and don’t leave comments and/or critique.
I expect, too, that its brevity was an important factor in its relative popularity.
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