Mensch



Mensch

Cold
bites.
I bark back.
White water whirls across asphalt, through spokes, under chassis.
Bitter, piercing air burns as it begs for bits of warmth.
The streets are savage and raw:
the stud whistles to the bitch, “Fuck you,” calls the car.
We bark back, shouting a primal, heart-filled “Ei ei eieeeeeeeeeeeee”
to the roar of falls, the crack of thunder, the steep depths of blood-red earth.
Exhilarating. Cruel.
The mother of us all: she taught us well. We know how to run.
Rubber presses against metal. Speed dims.

Blood burns through my fingertips and flesh aches in protest.
But warmth is only heartless to the cold; when it’s just us two,
we are content.
Sunlight slants through the pale hall,
    warm heart beats softly under warm skin,
        shadows flicker.
“Bitter” is just a memory;
embers glow steadily with agreeable satisfaction and sparks
burn long and bright.
In the dark, dazzling frost disturbed delicate growth.
Then, the sun came up- fire, filament, and fuse.

Light through spring leaves.
    Speeding around a bend in the wilderness.
        Twirling cotton dress.
            $9.99.
No- humanity is more than appearances, my love.
I look, soft eyed, when the looker looks away. I look; soft eyes meet.
My heart is tapped like a piano key.
I listen to the note blossom with a pang, sweet and high, but rich.
My touch would melt ice and my lips would kiss cool, wet fingers.
Some ache with desire, some burn, sick with the smell of their own hot skin.
Warmth has many meanings, my pet.

The cold does not bite anymore.
    These days, it only barks.
        Now it starts to whimper, crushing beneath wheels.
Why are we still afraid? There are so many ways to be warm.

The day is done, the snow is gone, wet sidewalks hiss.
I fall… slowly, at first, a sense of dread,
not of the fall, but of the more permanent destination…
and then faster, the laws reassert themselves.
The dam… the dawn… my dear. The three are one, and I embrace them,
blistering, toasty, and tender too. It is cold down here. Still,

I breathe
a slow, deep breath in the quiet;
warmth seeps from my soul into my toes and my nose and my fingertips
as humanity leaves my lips.


---


The lines on this poem were longer; I edited it to fit this cite. I've noticed that most of my poetry has very short lines, five or six words. But this poem was created to be entered in the BOCES writing contest, and could only have thirty lines, so I made the lines really long. There's another thing I've noticed about my writing- I like to start sentences with "but." It doesn't look very nice... But I digress...

I spent a lot of time on "Mensch," thinking over each phrase and idea. I think this is the most work I've ever put into a poem. I attempted to imbue every single line with meaning. You are free to interpret it as you like, but here are my original ideas:

The central idea is that I'm representing human experience, past, present, and future, using my experiences as a metaphor. All parts of human experience tie into what humanity means today. "Past" is represented by a freezing bike ride, "present" is represented by the warmth of the school hallways, and "future" is suggested by the stanza about love and also the line that follows, "Now [cold] starts to whimper, crushing beneath wheels" (which refers to global warming). These three ideas are summarized by "the dam" (i.e. the mother of a dog, a metaphor for mother nature/evolution), "the dawn" (the Industrial Revolution), and "my dear" (love, an important aspect of humanity today and hopefully more so tomorrow). I use the reappearing idea of "warmth" and "cold" to develop the idea that both tie into humanity. In the beginning, I say "stud" and "bitch" which are later evoked when I say "dam." All three create a metaphor: dogs ~ the "primal" aspect of humanity. I also use alliteration, partially because it makes it really fun to read, and partially to tie phrases together and make them whole.

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