Air Empathy | Request for Jealousy Poems

[kissingdaylight.livejournal.com]

Can anyone recommend poems about jealousy. Preferably between a romantic couple, but not necessarily about cheating or breaking up.


Air Empathy

On the red-eye from Seattle, a two year-old
in the seat behind me screeches

his little guts out. Instead of dreaming
of stuffing a wad of duct tape

into his mouth, I envy him, how he lets
his pain hang out. I wish I too could drill

a pipeline into the fields of ache, tap
a howl. How long would I need to sob

before the lady beside me dropped
her fashion rag, dipped a palm

into the puddle of me? How many
squeals before another passenger

joined in? Soon the stewardess hunched
over the drink cart, the pilot gushing

into the controls, the entire plane, an arrow
of grief, quivering through the sky.
-Jeffrey McDaniel

Comments

[ryntha-doghare.livejournal.com]

This.

[kissingdaylight.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad I could do at least that much. You're very welcome.

[yaoishonen.livejournal.com]

Not sure if this fits, but here's one by Sappho. IIRC, written as she watched her lover flirt with a man?


He must feel blooded with the spirit of a god
to sit opposite you and listen, and reply,
to your talk, your laughter, your touching,
breath-held silences. But what I feel, sitting here
and watching you, so stops my heart and binds
my tongue that I can’t think what I might say
to breach the aureole around you there.
It’s as if someone with flint and stone had sparked
a fire that kindled the flesh along my arms
and smothered me in its smoke-blind rush.
Paler than summer grass, it seems
I am already dead, or little short of dying.

[kissingdaylight.livejournal.com]

This is great. Definitely the kind of thing I'm looking for. Thank you!

[zagzagael.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. It's amazing how long humans have struggled with "ownership" issues.

[exceptindreams.livejournal.com]

"The Fight or Flight Response"
Sherman Alexie

Years ago, in Spokane, a woman saved
A family of orphaned baby geese.
An amateur ornithologist, she raised
Those birds into adulthood, and then released

Them into the pond at Manito Park,
Where a dozen swans, elegant and white,
Tore the tame geese open and ate their hearts.
Of course, all of this was broadcast live

On the local news. Eyewitnesses wept.
My mother and I shrugged, not at death,
But at those innocent folks who believe
That birds don't murder, rape, and steal.

Like us, swans can be jealous and dangerous,
And, oh, so lovely, sure and monogamous.

---

"Torch Song"
Daphne Gottlieb

Since you've gone, all I can do is sit at home and sing the great
love songs.

I don't want to set the world on fire.

I just want to start a small
conflagration in your apartment that quickly
grows into a five-alarm blaze and you grab the cat and your
laptop and run out the door and I, having crawled down the
fire escape, come strolling down the street and you're coming
towards me, running panicked and tears streaking through the
soot on your face, you've never been so beautiful in your life
as this moment when you run smack into a firefighter who is
assessing the flames coming out the window and the ladder
and the firefighters going inside and you run smack into him
and your eyes lock and the world spins around you and he
kisses you and says he'll be right back for you after he puts
out that little inferno and he strides up the stairs and you turn
to me and you're glowing as you say My life has been reduced to
ashes but I feel like I finally found out what's really important.

My eyes brim with tears. After all the years and all the failed
love, I finally did it. I finally found a way to make you happy.

---

“The Shirt”
Jane Kenyon

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

[go-teen-angst.livejournal.com]

I'm not the original poster but thank you so much for these - they're brilliant, especially "Torch Song."

[two-grey-rooms.livejournal.com]

jeffrey mcdaniel teaches at my school :D.

[exceptindreams.livejournal.com]

Have you taken a class with him? Oh, am I jealous. (Fitting, considering that is the subject of the request.)