MORTAR
Between the bricks all that mortar
was put down by men with trembling
hands with the prints rubbed
smooth at the fingertips. The mortar speaks
of tiredness, of always being in bed
with a longing between her legs, of never sleeping
but only almost. When the rain comes
she remembers being dirt and stones,
she thinks of the great grind works that crushed
her down, of the mixer and the slick
work. But for the last hundred years
she has been lazing in the wall here
on the western corner of main and tracy, her eyes
hungry, her tongue lusting after
the fat drunk men who trip as they stumble by
and press their thick fingers against
the wet grit of her before wiping their hands
on their tired pants, their fingers
hard and slick like the first hands
that laid her down so long ago.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Natalie // Jun 5, 2008 at 8:02 pm
so mortar is the gray stuff between bricks right?
i was kind of imagining a statue but i think it;s more like cement??? in any case, it’s a good word. i like the sound of it, mortar. like the name of a demon or a place in lord of the rings.
i don’t really care about the men and their fingers. if it’s important to open w/ them, maybe you need to change it a bit, make me care about why their hands are trembling. actually, i think you should strike it.
i feel a lot for this mortar woman with a longing between her legs that she can never satisfy. and her memory of being dirt and stone and the mixer that crushed her down. i find myself wondering what it would be like to feel crushed like that. maybe it’s good that my imagination has room to roam, or maybe you can keep going with the description of her experience??? i don’t know.
also, why is she “lazing?” i had the sense that she’s stuck in a male world, that she’s being used to build monuments to men, but i don’t see how that makes her lazy.
and why is she lusting after these disgusting men? i don’t think that necessarily has to change i’m just wondering if she is lusting for them because her desperation is making her non-discriminating or if there’s something about them she actually likes. i just don’t buy that she really wants them.
2 mackenzie // Jun 6, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Between the bricks all that mortar
speaks of tiredness, of always being in bed
with a longing between her legs, of never sleeping
but only almost. When the rain comes
she remembers being dirt and stones,
she thinks of the great grind works that crushed
her down, of the mixer and the slick
shovel. But for the last hundred years
she has been holding onto the wall here
on the western corner of main and tracy, her eyes
hungry, her tongue lusting after
the fat drunk men who trip as they stumble by
and press their thick hands against
the wet grit of her before wiping them
on their tired pants, their fingers
hard and slick like the first hands
that laid her down so long ago.
Thanks for the comments natalie. Here’s a redraft with them in mind. I think you’re right about starting off with the men, but I like ending with them. originally i thought the mortar just saw in the drunks something of the first men to touch her, so the lust is somehow a sexual nostalgia. but i’m not sure now. the middle of poem is what I like the most, I’m having fun imaging common things as people or animated.
3 Liz // Jul 3, 2008 at 12:21 am
mac-
I really like this one. I like the whole idea of writing about things as if they were people… and its something I’ve seen you do before, it turns the tables, makes the world less human centric…and i love all that. I find , and maybe i just need to read all of the poems of this type together ie : one two three, but I want some symphony to develope between these things…. I want you to build me a whole street, and a history. IWant drama or a lack of drama… i want something a little bigger to intercept to make me feel why you need to write about the world this way…. and it is a whole way that you see the world… and through the interralatedness of the way you see this world then I will see why it is important to see things this way and not just the typical way. I feel like you are asking me to come back down to THIS earth and be grounded in it. Hmmm… i didn’t know that poem would spawn such a vast remark…. as far as the little things go I agree with natalie there are some great sounds here. I like “Of the mixer and the slick/ work” sound better in the original. What about “of only almost ever sleeping” instead of “of never sleeping but only almost” perhaps the suggestion is a little more lulling. Oh and tell me about the dirt and stones, is it dignified like “she remembers the small dignity of dirt and stone” give me an interesting adjective here so I feel the crush of the next line. I love the men wiping their hands on their tired pants.
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