High Fidelity, a poem

Here's another offering, and like the first one, please don't pull punches--give me the good (assuming it's there), the bad, the ugly, and the hideously deformed. Okay, maybe not the hideously deformed. But please, honest and constructive critique is very much appreciated! [Edit note--the underscores are only there as a form of indenting, not some stylistic point, because hitting the space bar 10 times didn't work]


High Fidelity
Ross Shingledecker
11/7/04

Your touch shocks me—
___plunges me into icy water
___an alpine lake of crystalclear memory.
It throbs out from the point of contact
___down my spine and deeper still
___as easily evoked as the times before.
Your smell is even more pervasive
___sliding through the old avenues of attack;
___I fear the final thrust.

Earlier we spoke of poetry
___of wind and stars and clouds—
___we shyed away from the subject.
In the anonymonity of dark
___the hesitation is temporal only
___as your hand reaches for mine.
The intervening months are forgotten,
___like the bitterness that marred our end.
___I remember only your touch.

No one has held me as you since then
___and while your fingers play over my chest
___I wonder if you are remembering too.
So quickly my memories edit the past
___your touch calls out to me
___though now it speaks a foreign tongue.

Lots of evocative images there. I did find the dash things at the beginning of the lines distracting, tho.

Yeah, I know what you mean--it's supposed to be a normal indent but without any space in between the lines...I guess it could just be a bunch of three-line stanzas, though. Anything else anyone wants to comment on? Critique? Improve?

I agree with Ashlea.

I think you have chosen some very powerful images there, the only thing I felt could improve would be the final line. Whilst the sentiment is perfect, for me it just doesn't seem to scan correctly, even "though now it speaks a foreign tongue" seems to work slightly better.

As always though, I think it works perfectly well without any alterations.

I agree. I'll reverse the order of "it" and "now."

I'm also trying to find a different last line for the first stanza--while it makes sense to me, it also seems like I'm talking about rape or something like that; I'm not, it's about succumbing to old passions rekindled by chance. Anyone want to offer some advice there?

Thanks so much, Sar!