How can I
feel your absence--
a black hole in my gut--
but I can't feel Earth turning?
I know you're gone,
yet the questions suck away in my belly.
The world lies still beneath my feet,
and I know it is spinning.
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3 comments:
Just playing around with each line.
Comparing the two overall, I like version 1 better. But on a line-by-line basis, I might pick and choose. Thoughts?
Also--I think version 2 is more concise, but is that important? I dunno.
Help!
All right, so I feel like the whole point of the poem is this question of comprehension, of knowing something but not having solid proof of it or being quite able to understand or realize it. The second version loses some of that, I think. It is more concise, but I think it makes it more assertive: saying "How is it that..." instead of just "How can I feel your absence" questions the whole situation, the everything going on where as the second version is more specific. This happens again when you use "and" instead of "but" in the last line. "But" is more unsure, I think. "And" asserts too much. The same again, though not as problematic for me, with the first line of the second stanza. By saying "You're gone--I know this--" it's almost as if you're questioning your own statement, and that fits the whole feel of the poem far better than proclaiming "I know you're gone." Also, I think the comma after "still" in the second to last line is better than not having it. It punches that double meaning home. The original version is just plain better. You don't need to be concise with this one. It's really good. Leave it, I think.
damn, you are good.
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