Reading by Kaolin Reading by Morgan
(Scroll down to select another captivating recording.)
Let them think we are foolish lovers,
cuddling in a car. Moon glows but stars
are nowhere. Will you remember
to keep the headlights on, until daybreak be our witness.
Morning dew on glasses. How time passes.
Let them think we are hopeless lovers
who forget the hour of the day, the day of the week,
the week of the month until we eventually remember
the forceful fucking of the clock, the changing hues
of the sky, the thickness of socks in our shoes.
Apprehension of living in sweet stretched moments.
They are sure we’ll understand: two people are really two,
not divided one.
Let them think there’s no future in store for us,
that we are not prepared to give anything substantial.
Let them think the man cruel, the woman too much.
They know not the extent of our bonds –
yes, one piece of flesh; and all sorts of ignorance,
impracticalities, remembrances. We are in love.
What else can be expected?
Let them think we talk sweet nothings.
Shall we love a little more, sweet nothing?
Reading by Ankur Reading by Arthur Reading by Blair Singing by Cyril Reading (partial part i) by Jakub Reading (partial part ii) by an anonymous contributor Reading by Jeff Reading by Kristine Reading by Reid Reading by Robert Reading by Sam Reading by Surajit
the forceful fucking of the clock.
need i say more?
ok, one thing.
loved it!
love when you shock, misdirect …
keep em coming!
A friend just suggested to me that the title of the poem could be “Joint Suicide”. It begs for an alternative reading of the poem, especially the first stanza — the two people in the automobile.
This is one of the strongest pieces in the “chronicles”. Apart from ‘the forceful fucking of the clock’, which has already been pointed out, I also like ‘the thickness of socks in our shoes’, ‘two people are really two, / not divided one’ and ‘yes, one piece of flesh’ (very suggestive). I find ‘Apprehension of living in sweet stretched moments’ interesting — ‘apprehension’ has many meanings: a sense of understanding, fearful anticipation, an emotional response to a threat, etc. Which is it? All of them?
The lines I like most, however, are ‘We are in love. / What else can be expected?’ If this sequence details the same lovers, we see they are now firmly in love; they are no longer ‘testing’ one another, as in “Cliched love“.
The last line of the poem, ‘Shall we love a little more, sweet nothing?’ echoes some lines from “It is impossible to be partially gutted” (‘nothing inside’, ‘plaything’) and also makes one wonder, what could the persona mean by calling her lover ’sweet nothing’?
Wow what a great poem. I’m learning a lot from your writing. This is my poem in return.
Honey, will you look at those two people in their car
What do you mean, what car?
It’s the one sitting across the street
If you’d come here you could see it too.
Fine, stay where you are, watch your show.
Why are they just sitting there?
Don’t they have anything better to do?
Oh my God! I think they are kissing.
Honey, quick come! look at them!
What do you mean, leave them alone.
Why don’t they go some place else?
Have they nowhere else to go?
Maybe they are waiting for us to go to bed.
Honey, maybe we should call the police.
What do you mean, give it a rest.
Why do they just sit there?
You should come and help me watch them.
You should be worried too
Honey, its almost midnight and they’re still out there.
What do you mean you’re going to bed
Oh alright go to bed.
I just want to watch them a little longer.
(speaking softly to wife)
Dear, wake up, I made some coffee.
Honey, look! They’re still out there.
They slept together in their car.
What do you mean we did the same thing too.
I told you never to bring that up.
Like others, I was struck by the muscular and very original ‘forceful fucking of the clock’. To me this is a classic Ming-style line, completely unexpected.
I also really liked the idea of remembering ‘the thickness of socks in our shoes’, a very subtle way of expressing the realities and stresses of life.
Great poem.
I feel sad when I read this piece. LET THEM THINK. It’s like the protagonists are totally excluded and alienated from the world. It’s like some forbidden love, when they’re young (banned by parents?) or after they each got married to someone else (rejected by the social norms?) How come their love is not accepted by others? Do people think their love won’t last long?
“one piece of flesh; and all sorts of ignorance,
impracticalities, remembrances. We are in love.”
This is very typical Tammy – rebellious, tough, and cynical. I love it. Though I myself don’t trust or believe in ever-lasting love. Perhaps, I’m one of ‘the others’. Yet, without the malicious gaze, the protagonist won’t be that ‘daring’ or determined to love.
It’s not so much forbidden as it is intractable. The narrator is split between public appearance and her internal emotions, and maybe at some level realizes that there is nothing to love that can be grasped by anyone except the persons involved. Sweet, sweet nothing.
Thank you so much, for putting up the reading of your poem.
To hear you read the poem adds a lot to the understanding of what you are expressing.
That at the end you change the poem to “my sweet nothing” says a lot.
This is why I like to read poems aloud when working on them, to see what wants to be in the poem, and what sounds awkward.
I hope you can do readings with more of your work.
Again, thank you so much
Yamabuki
Hi, Tammy…
I find your poem beautiful (even though I’m not really a connoisseur in poetry…). And I like your voice and the rhythms of your reading on the audio file… Congratulations.
:-)
Cyril.
tammy, my comment here is sentimental than intellectual.
i will just let you know the lines that strike me:
“Moon glows but stars
are nowhere. Will you remember
to keep the headlights on, until daybreak be our witness.”
there’s a sadness to it, maybe that’s why i like it
Who are ‘them’??
The rest of the world.
so is this poem about ‘us’ vs ‘them’?
Yes. Haven’t you heard? Lovers live in their own world, and all else is nothing. ‘Let them think’, the persona says. Such defiance.
Liked the enigmatic tone and content of the poem which complements the inability of onlookers (possibly hostile or unsympathetic?) to fathom the meaning and substance of the relationship between the two lovers. The poem seems to suggest to me that love requires no such external endorsement or in fact any kind of “rational” understanding.
The different readings also appear to give different inflections to the poem. The two female voices are slow and seductive while the two male voices are faster paced and almost businesslike, which in turn seems to reflect the dual qualities of the piece — at times a slow lingering and self-contained quality associated with loving but also interrupted by mundane things like socks and clocks which are reminders of “realities” outside the lovers’ self-contained universe.
Yes, vintage Tammy, but a tougher if not less sweeter one. You are a mistress of oxymoron that enables you to be those sweet, tough, cynical and soft things at once – and leave us wondering about … so many things!
What’s this, a public reading contest now? If so, I give the first prize to Blair. Excellent work… such drama and flair.
I feel like it’s not really fair for me to post my take on the readings of Tammy’s poem, without having posted a reading myself. Unfortunately I don’t have the means to record my own version.
I did try reading the poem out loud to see how the poem seems to want to be read. After several readings I believe a slow, deeply emotional reading, would seem to be the best way of expressing the feelings of the poem.
It’s interesting hearing each of you read the poem. Each reading gives us a different perspective of the poem. How we feel about the poem colors how we read it. So thank you to each reader for sharing your interpretation of Tammy’s poem.
.
Again I apologize for not posting a reading of my own. To be honest I liked Tammy’s reading the best and think Surajit’s reading was almost as good.
Yamabuki
I am stunned into a disbelief by this poem; for me, this not only catches the utter carelessness of lovers for rest of the world, but also the seething undercurrent of anger and irony and yet choosing to only love more and thus “be” indifferent to the world that wouldn’t understand, the world that lost itself from the frame of things and me and you long ago. I also loved all the readings, especially Tammy’s herself and Kaolin’s, and would have loved to add one.