[See Reader note below]
The Somme Offensive is a charm offensive
By which she gathers the bounty
of her endless love without
Regard for race, creed or national origin.
The Somme Offensive is a charm offensive
By which he offers her his love.
By what better token than the first born? Or the last?
The Somme Offensive is a charm offensive
Breaker of hearts, behind your woman vixen
lurks need
Breaker of hearts, behind your self-consciousness
identity shifts to male
need within your woman vixen goddess girl self
Is that clear enough, my love?
Do you read me too?
The Somme Offensive is a charm offensive
of death over life
of poetic form over history
The Somme Offensive is a charm offensive
a trinket dangled
Words, words, words
Come take it, my love. Accept my gift and grant
Me thy pleasure.
2. There was no one
The Somme Offensive is a charm offensive
The victory of death over life
The Somme Offensive is a charm offensive
Bartered for the bride
By those who mistake her need
Who offer lives
Instead of nurture
4. Why should there be a 3?
I can’t reach you though I see through your eyes into mine
I can’t hold you though I feel your breath in my ear
I can’t say goodbye because
The one thing we both know is
We can’t say goodbye
Though we can’t say hello
They’ll say this is about you
And it is
But only because the you inside her is
The you inside me.
I am speaking to you.
I feel your fingers touch mine
You need to hold me
Intimately, familiarly.
I am your comfort
I am that which makes you whole.
My offering to you is you
My offering to you is the universe
In its entirety
Reach down my throat and pull it up
I will disgorge
My offering to you
is what you need
Which is you
In me.
I have your soul.
I’m holding it for ransom.
No.
You gave it to me with
A tear-filled kiss, and said,
‘Hold this for me, so
I can be whole again with you.
Until that day.’
Until that day
My offering to you is you.
Until that day.
It is all I have
I have kept you safe
For you
My offering to you is you.
Until that day.
17. For that is the most random number.
I am the keeper of souls
the holder of your heart
I am your lost boy
the holder of your heart
I am the keeper of the keys,
the master of ceremonial ceremonies.
I hold your heart in my heart
It’s wrapped in tissue
Tied with a bow
A present for you to open.
I kept you for you,
My long parted friend,
As you keep me for me.
For we both know
You took my soul with you
When we parted
And I need it back,
Keeper of souls,
Holder of hearts,
Master of ceremonial ceremonies.
Hearer of harmonies, behold
the Lord of Resonance.
[Reader note: this is an intentionally, self-consciously difficult poem. It’s tied to ‘modern poetry’, meaning the era of perhaps 100 years ago. I apologize but that stuff can be difficult. The inspiration was the coming WWI ending anniversary and a book title which I combined with the karmic references in Taylor’s work to posit her as the goddess emerging. We make offerings to goddesses. We offer them our souls. I said karmic but I mean more I perceive a deep understanding of Hindu conceptions in Taylor’s work. Thus the Rama reference, etc. (And that plays a bit off Eliot’s use of Sanskrit, which I find somewhat ridiculous, which I sometimes think about this poem.) This connects to deep Hindu concepts which unite and separate the bringer of life with the bringer of death. Since her earliest work, Taylor refers to idealize love, to an other, a male who actually inhabits her early story songs to in Reputation being the one to whom she directly appeals. This poem is a sort of announcement, an artistic calling out: if you meant that, if you’re for real, then this would be the personification of her other speaking to her through a combination of remote poetic form and blunt simplicity. It’s the artistic statement: I am who I am and I can see what you appear to be as well, so are you what you appear? That is the meaning of ‘behold’. As I make clear in other poems, the endeavor is to take Taylor extremely seriously, to give full credit not to references to specific people and so on, but to deeper meanings. I take what she says, now that I’ve read some of her poetry, as having actual poetic meaning. If he’s in her head, then I take it seriously that he’s in her head. When she says I know what you know, I take that seriously as well. When she says call me what you want, I take that seriously. That suggested to me I should write a somewhat more obscure poem, one self-consciously artistic in places, to show I treat her art as seriously as the most serious art. I decided to draw on the concepts of poetic meaning as they’ve existed during my lifetime because that stuff wore serious as a badge of honor. (Well, way before my lifetime but it was much newer and thus more modern then than now.) In another poem, I speak to her more as a poet, but here I wanted to mythologize her. I intentionally left out an important reference, which is to the goddess Kali. I mention it here because you can see connections through Thali in other poems. Thali, which plays off both thali and Kali, is the first two letters of Taylor Alison spelled both to emphasize the aspects of goddess and love and intimate connections but also for pronunciation. Since Hindu concepts aren’t well known, think of a thali as the emblem of spiritual and physical connection and Kali … well, you have to look her up because she’s scary awesome.]
jomi: playing with perception 