The Logic of Weather
He is upstairs after dinner.
He strums his guitar
and waits for the weather report.
Much depends on it.
The garden, lush with heirloom tomatoes,
leafy swiss chard, and ruby red lettuce,
needs rain.
The thirteen bountiful fig trees,
whose corpulent fruit
is the candy of neighborhood squirrels,
need sun
She is downstairs at her computer
writing and revising,
her mental meanderings
congenial with the creaks and cracklings
of the house as evening winds begin to churn.
She imagines hauntings, presences and
beings beyond her senses, things arcane
as the intoxicant jazz he plucks on the guitar.
Then, from the stairwell he calls.
Approaching thunderstorms.
She has fifteen minutes to log off.
She stirs and hears herself answer,
Why can't the storm come later
when we're making love.
I'll see if I can arrange it.
With whom?
The storms. I'll have them come
when we're making love.
But not every time we make love.
Make that clear.
I'll put it this way:
Come only when we're making love.
No. That's the same thing. How about ,
"We'll make love only when it thunders."
No good. It may never thunder.
How about,
"If it thunders, we'll make love."
What if it thunders every day?
We'll make love everyday.
What if it never thunders?
We can still make love everday.
He plucks the guitar again,
the pungent chords peerless as the drops of rain
that crystal on the garden grass.
Thunder strikes the house.
She moves towards the stairway.
The folds of her silken blue robe
fall in cool caresses on her ankles.
This is another prose poem.
Does the dialogue seem stilted or artificial?
Do I need the third next to the last line (She moves towards the stairway) or
should it be implied by the thunder strike?
Should I have substituted having sex for making love?
Some people I read
it to thought having sex.
I really need input so please let me know.
I found your poem original because of its form and also because it combines a story line within the poem
I like the naturalness of the diaglogue between the two in the poem
The setting is erotically suggestive but not overly so. However I find the phrase __make love__ a bit dated. I would have said -have sex-. It would have fit the erotic tone better.
I find it hard to separate the dialogue
as to who is talking. You should have put different character's lines in italics or bold print so we' know who was talking.
Overall it's a fine poem.
Selena Senzatela PH.D. <Senzatec@aol.com>
Roslyn, NY USA - Mon Jul 29 22:14:47 2002
Readers: You may wish to contact Gaetana Cannavo privately with your ideas about this poem.