I wrote this poem years ago.  So I kinda consider it a “young” poem of mine.  still, for whatever reason, i’ve always really liked it, so i thought i’d post it here for some suggestions as to how i can make it better.  i’ve looked at it for so long, it seems impossible to change now, but i know that isn’t necessarily true.

that’s where you all come in.

I can’t see why you’d want to change anything.
Sorry.  It seems great as it is.

<<When I left you never forgave me.
All those seeds sown.  Years of planning and pruning.>>

Trying desperately to think of something helpful to say, I suppose maybe I’d like to know more about THIS aspect of it… what happened? 

But what you’ve written is a poem, and the Not Knowing is part of its charm, I’d say. 

A short story about these people might be in order??

oh lordy, how could i even begin?

i wrote this many years ago about a mentor/hs english teacher of mine who lived around the corner from my mother.  i was in hs, he was older, nothing but nothing explicitly inappropriate ever occurred.  but i always held on to what he’d meant to me in terms of a definite widening understanding of the world, if for no other reason than i had great parents with a limited understanding of “culture,” as they say, and he made me realize that there was an entire universe out there prime for the taking and giving.

what happened?  tho you may not want to know… he and i have been happily involved for quite a while, now—ten years down the road, but i can’t imagine either of us would have been ready before now

and yes, the not knowing may be part of the charm, but since you asked…

A short story is in order.

Meanwhile, the poem rocks.  And I suspect you do, too.

awww… warm and gushy feelings re your comments.

i just checked out your myspace page via the link (i’m such a dork—i cancelled my myspace page because i ALL OF A SUDDEN realized rupert murdoch owns myspace), and saw that you are only interested in one kind of martini.

and i just wrote a poem in which a martini plays a small but vital part… 

and am feeling the need to quit smoking as indicative of a larger sphere of Things I Should Do To Improve My Health, and yet… what kind of poet would i be if i didn’t smoke, fer god’s sake?

i’m new to limotcracy—trying to figure out how to find your writings…. ?

as to a short story.  sigh.  i’ve written exactly two short stories in my life, several more creative non-fiction pieces, and was just saying to said subject of “gardening” that the urge to write fiction has been growing exponentially recently.  so i’m suspecting that you are a short story/fiction writer?

tell me more?!?!?!

<<rupert murdoch owns myspace>>

omigod, say it isn’t so.

I’ll get back to you when I recover.  Shit.

i am afraid it is true.

and clearly, as the oh, HUGE header states, that would be limocracy, not limotcracy.

darn it.

LITMOCRACY.

did i mention i wrote a poem with a martini in it, tonight?

I’m back.  Hmpth.  myspace is just another version of the telephone.  Let’s not panic.  (Or phone each other, either.)(Yikes! Leave me alone!  Stop calling me!)

On quitting smoking:

You can’t “quit” doing anything.
I am an authority on this, as I personally cannot (and will not) quit doing anything. 
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being obsessive-compulsive, and don’t let anybody tell you different. IT WON’T WORK.
On the other hand, facing one’s fears is alright.  They’re usually not as bad as they’re cracked up to be.  Facing one’s fears can be fun!

If you are really interested in quitting smoking, which I am not about to do, personally, then here’s the skinny, so far as I know: 

When you “quit” doing something, you’re supposed to substitute something that is incompatible with it, that you like just as much, for the thing in question.  Doctor Phil said so. So, like, you have to take up horse-back riding in a ring where they don’t allow smoking.  You have to get positively wacky about the horse-back riding.  Or go swimming a lot.  (This won’t work for me, as I have discovered that I can do the side-stroke and smoke at the same time.)

Now, back to literature. 

Ahem.

i have a whole theory re women and horses, which i am not about to really get into, save that it involves substitution/symbolism and authority figures and metaphors for patriarchy and essentialism and the gendered construction of femininity.

ahem, indeed.

as for quitting.  well, that’s really just a farcical farce, is it not?  won’t happen, tho i feel guilty every time my son so much as clears his throat.

i think we may be getting away from the lit-er-a-ture, no? ah, so be it.