In The Nude

A poem about the singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s and their couplings and the songs and art those couplings generated. And the ethics of autobiographical writing.

The wilting hours now begin to yawn
between our parting looks
You’ll soon pose me in some gallery
or print me in your books
Strewn across the coffee tables
of all your literary friends
They gleefully rifle through the wreckage
as our love surely ends

It’s a responsibility you won’t accept
but there’s a cruelty inherent
owned by the one who wields a pen
the one who is the poet
I marvel at the shade of paint you mix
colliding all your thoughts upon our story
Your sensitivity truly is a gift
but do you not feel how it might hurt me

There are both perspectives to consider
two bodies acted every scene
you’re free to treasure each memory
but there should be some privacy
Turning your lost lovers into sculpture
some gleaming grotesque bust
You let strangers touch my hidden parts
they grope my flaws in their disgust

You walk tall, in some new jacket
signing all your pages
while I stare at my deformed reflection
nakedly measured by your gauges
Though you don’t mean to be
and though you never meant to
each line cuts so deep in me
your rhymes can be so cruel…

Reviews

[Lisasview]

Good morning,
First read of yours and I did enjoy it. I also relate to it being in my early 20’s in the 70’s…
Just finished seeing Daisy Jones and the Six,
And, your poem has much for the feelings of that series… the ups… the downs… the hurt.
If you have not seen it you might like to…
I read your About Me… I also write about people and what I imagine they feel, etc.
If you have a chance you might enjoy one or two of my poems… Forevermore or Miles Apart or even Stripe Teaser…
Welcome to Writers Cafe!
Lisa, now in Spain

[Tom Alexander]

Hi Lisa, thank you for stopping by and reading this one. I am just slowly getting the hang of this site and how to reply/post etc.

I was thinking about the 60s/70s but also feeling some guilt and questing the ethics of writing autobiographically about real people and their affect on me - in a very one-sided way. The world would be worse without that art though. Thanks for the recommendations, I will absolutely have a look at your poems too. Thanks again. Tom.

[Lisasview]

Slowly, but surely...I joined a year ago last January.
I had never posted anything ~ anywhere... and, actually my poems were tucked away in a folder so no one ever read them... And, then on a crazy whim I joined Writers Cafe, best move ever...
Takes time to learn how to navigate, especially putting images on, and using color..(I enjoy doing that probably because I am a water color artist.
Lisa, now in Spain...originally, from So. Calif.

[Red Brick Keshner]

Lines can be so cruel and there are moments that their cuts are what make them attractive as we celebrate the deformation of our reflection, that appears to have been a like stream in the late 60s and early 70s for myself as well. Cheers.

[Tom Alexander]

Hi RBK, thanks so much for reading and commenting. I'm glad this rang true to you. The world would be much worse without the art that's generating between two parting hearts! :)

[Red Brick Keshner]

That is a waste of art indeed!