Poem: "The Hero of Our Story"

The Hero of Our Story 

Many young poets will pick up my book of poems
and, casting a cold eye, put the lightweight down.
They are looking for a harder and heavier stone
against which to flex, and grow, their strength.
They wear severe eyebrows and a steel monocle.

Only one, a nobody really, who presses back
while all the others surge forward like a wave,
will smuggle me out under a lamb jacket, glad
that the man in the book is as light as the book
in the man was heavy. Only one will get home.

Comments

Karin said…
Aaaww! If there is only one reader, it is all worth it.
Good to come here and read you during NaPo while the old place is down, then up, then surreal :-0

You inspired me in that guest blogger spot: I will definitely post a poem soon where the epigraph is longer than the poem, nay, with a double epigraph for an American Sentence. Not that it's a competition. :-)

Sorella
who now goes to prove she is not a robot. Hope I pass the Blogger test...
12:04 PM
Featherless Biped said…
The monocle and the lamb jacket make a beautiful texture contrast. I like the way you avoid gendering both the hard ones in S1 and the soft one in S2, and let them be characterized almost wholly by the way they feel.
5:34 PM
Jee Leong said…
Hi Sorella,

I'm glad you like the guest posting. Thanks for leaving a comment here too.
8:15 AM
Jee Leong said…
Thanks, FB, for noticing both aspects of the poem.
8:18 AM
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