Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

a headstone:
W.S. Heckart
2/29/1852
2/29/1892

a flat dull knife left on the table
after strawberry jam is spread
to raison toast and real butter

I-94 truck sounds
like an ocean

today is nothing
like February 1 should be

Snow White, adrift,
somewhere in a blizzard

They could happen
to you

Interesting, I like the way you are always exploring.

the head stone and the fairy tale.

death can come true it can happen to you.

like the ocean sound, in February.

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you

if you are young at heart.

when I was a teenager, I use to sing this
in a deep voice, and then say if you cut a fart
instead of young at heart, I though that was so damn funny
I guess my sense of humor has evolved since then.

I am a Frank Sinatra fan through and through (Young at Heart being not my favorite Frank tune, but I like the sentiment). Anything Peter Pan is okay w/me.

I was in a cemetery and came across W.S. Heckert's tombstone. The dates struck me as funny for whatever reason. Poem came out. I actually have a whole list of things that fall under this category. I can use one as a line in one of my plays if the situation ever arises. And have.

Write on.

68degrees

Sinatra was an icon, I of course remember listening to him as a kid
but looking back I think I preferred Bobby Darin, mack the knife
really sticks, but beyond the sea, now that still gets me. Cool

I remember seeing Bobby Darin in an older movie "Pressure Point" w/Sidney Poitier. He played a patient in a mental institution...kind of a precursor to "...Cuckoo's Nest"

It was really good. The guy could act. That's why I liked Sinatra so much.

I like the poem a lot.

"Fairy Tales Can Come True" was my mom's favorite song... She and Dad loved Sinatra (so do I). She passed away March 6, 2014 (almost a year ago now, sure seems like yesterday). During her memorial service, my sister played a slide show she had created with photos of my beautiful mom growing up, being a gorgeous young lady (she could have been a hollywood star, she was so beautiful), getting married, having her children, growing old. As the slide show played, the Fairy Tales Sinatra song played. Ever since I saw you post this title the other day, memories of my mom's passing and that awesome slide show which brought tears to my eyes keep running through my mind. I can't get the song out of my mind. It keeps playing over and over. Though my mom was quite old and her health wasn't the greatest for the past 10 years, I'm still mourning. Watching that slide show and hearing the song at the same time... It was just so tremendously hard-hitting for me. There were photos of her I had never seen before in the mix. It was like meeting my mom for the first time as a young lady.

Sorry that post doesn't really have anything to do with your poem... only the Sinatra song... Thank you.

And I don't even mind

68degrees

this thread another great example of poetry stirring up emotions and stimulating thoughts that run wild.
I like the poem...it's simplicity actually gives it its complexity

Thanks, Saw. Appreciate that.

68degrees

OK, I'm back to talk about the poem. He was only 40 years old according to the headstone dates. So young, so tragic. Reads like a heart attack on February 1st... or else the dull knife on the table was used to self destroy. I can't tell but I like the imagery. The reference to Snow White hits me as maybe he was poisoned. All these questions, all these possible meanings. That's what I love most about well-written poetry in general, the multiple meanings. And I really love this piece because you captured what it's like to have a date of demise memorized and every time the calendar hits that date, the memories hit again, and then you used sensory imagery ...listening to the trucks on the highway....the cold icy snow drifts ... all of it to paint a picture. And the end, "They could happen to you" ... well our day is coming when our date of demise will become a date in our loved one's minds to remember and I don't know if that' what you meant but that's how it hit me, like a truck on the interstate highway. I really dig this poem. I like your work a lot.

PS.. thanks for indulging me with my previous post. I'm glad you didn't mind.

This poem can mean "anything" a reader wants it to be. I'm glad for the comments here. All of them.

I'm not sure anyone on that other site is a "real" poet. Reason: not one person commented on it b/c I don't think folks over really know what to do with something that isn't laid out in front of them like a Tinker Toy set.

Thanks for your thoughts. When I ran across poor Mr. Heckart's tombstone with the dates, I stopped and wondered about that b/c I hate coincidences. Out of all the dates to die, one's B-Day strikes me as something more than a coincidence...don't care if it's fate, God, or just plain bad luck, dying on one's B-Day is one rat's ass of a fairy tale. Just as much a fairy tale as the sound trucks make on an Interstate highway or Snow White, lost in a snow storm.

Whatever works for you as a reader makes my heart sing.

68degrees

That's always been how I think of poetry, too. When people ask me, "What does it mean?" I answer, "Whatever it means to you." Poetry is an interactive experience. Even the author sometimes doesn't have a clear intention about meaning, oftentimes. I know I don't. It just comes out of me. I'm only the vehicle. The poems write themselves.

I'm not talking about my little silly rhyming fluff pieces, I'm talking about my real poetry. I sometimes find a poem in my files that I wrote a long time ago and interpret it differently every time I read it. Every well written poem will mean something different to every reader, even different to those same readers at different times when they read it again.

That said, I like to interpret poetry the same way I like to interpret dreams. I started a forum here once about Poetry Interpretation. I was curious to read the interpretations of poems by readers, even my own poems. I like to hear what people got out of them. It was a failure of a forum. Rarely did anybody participate. It might still be in the archives... I don't remember if I archived it or deleted it.

I don't know about poets on that other site. I don't think many of them understand what poetry is. There are definitely a lot of actors on that other site. It's quite a show.

Yeah, I can see how the date of birth and date of death would be inspiring. Birthday, deathday... same.

PS.. Just searched for this poem at the other place and I couldn't find it. I was going to reply to it but either the search engine doesn't work, it's not there, or I need a new contact lens prescription.

It's still there (2/1), I think. Different title

You titled it "It could happen to you" .. that's why I couldn't find it. I found it.