I think I will move the word "violent," and put it on the line below "strategy," so that each word stands by itself, providing greater contrast between them. 

That would also serve to highlight the juxtaposition"violent" with the following word, "lust" and the line "lust for battle." I think that arrangment would make for clearer, more interesting connotations and flow of reading.

re moving "violent": great idea.

spiritj wrote:

with tiny, shiny spouses

Reading this poem, it hits me as very auditory.  But here, just where the words are giving a routine, there is a tiny something that breaks the rhythm.  Not offbeat, but too short?  Dunno.  Only a little thing anyway. It’s noticeable mainly because the next stanza plods the rhythm along again.

spiritj wrote:

who play their games
and breed their heirs
and shine their shoes
while un-aware

Another one I like.  I can understand your poetry.  Thank you.

Instead of Pre-Cana, I’d love to see Catholic couples required to read "The Wife of Bath’s Tale" before they can be married in a Catholic church LOL! 

Like Chaucer’s hag and Barbara Rose in the movie, with the women in your poem I sense something akin to the antithesis of man’s idealized image of womanhood.  These men (who I imagine driving BMW’s with golf clubs in the trunk for some reason) think they have sovereignity over their "tiny empires" but their "tiny, shiny spouses" have this shadow side with "teeth gnashing" that the men never see coming until these dark forces of the unconscious are brought into the daylight of knowledge, feeling and action but by then it’s too late.  Because the men never relinquished control in the marriage, the marriage was never based on true love and mutual respect and thus it is doomed to fail. 

Good stuff SpiritJ, thanks for sharing it!

Icon and Bud,

Because I don’t have a of time to rework things, to date I’ve just posted a couple of quick poems that I jotted down as the urge hit. 

Mainly I first search for words that accurately convey thoughts/feelings; then try to put them in some order that makes sense and is pleasing to the inner ear.  Although I don’t believe that poetry has to have any particular structure or rhyme, in this case I *was* consciously trying to use oversimplistic (if telling) words and rhyme, because they convey not only the oversimplistic mindset of this social brigade, but the plodding rhyme also reminds me of marching tunes.

I did want to throw in a contrasting tone and word choice to emphasize the reality of what’s going on behind the pressed uniforms, shiny shoes, conspicuous cars, glittering careers, etc. So this was my first attempt to tinker wth something like that—akin to inserting discordant notes or weird measures into a musical composition, I guess! 

This was a good excercise in trying to say something quite serious in an oversimplified way.  I guess I liked the idea of an inherently sarcastic nursery-rhyme, given the sort of Stepford society I was trying to describe. 

—Remarks re the film "The War of the Roses"—

I had previously only seen the last half of this film, probably more than 20 yrs. ago (and perhaps clicked through it when it began being broadcast on TV).

I’m the sort of person who likes to re-read books and re-watch well-made films, because I get new insights from them each time. When this film originally came out the subject matter didn’t interest me in the slightest.  When glimpsing parts of it on TV, the abusve and violence made me cringe, so I never tried to watch the whole thing.

But after having fought my share of divorce battles, unfortunately, I now posess insight that I would almost rather not have into the difficulties inherent in the situation described in this film. 

One wonders why on earth one of the characters could not simply give up the need to win, and just walk away.  Sadly, both parties had more invested in the house and other posessions it contained than they did in the marraige, or in any possible future which precluded full ownership of this one chunk of property.

But after seeing the beginning of the film, and with the benefit of my own experience, I now understand that the relationship was, in some senses, undermined from the beginning by factors which were initially presumed to have brought the couple together…For example, from the beginning they were engaged in what was intially presumed to be a sort of scintillating competition (at an art auction.)  Their first interaction was a competitive bidding war over who would win a statue.

Each had the sort of personality that found either the battle and/or the opponent compelling.  I’m still wondering why the Michael Douglas character went to the trouble of following the Kathleen Turner charcter out of the auction, into town, and down to the ferry.

Initially I couldn’t make sense of why she would then do a gymnastics move which displayed her underwear, either (not being the physically exhibitionistic sort, myself…) But thinking about it later, and considering the script, one interpretation could be that it was just one in a series of attempts at negative-attention seeking and even a wish for dominance.  (Many male exhibitionists apparently have a wish not only for attention, but for dominance, and I’ve read that some exotic dancers feel the same.)  It was also telling that she was concerned about maintaining and displaying her "strength moves"—a theme which reappeared during the marraige’s demise (presumably after decades of being humiliated by her husband in public.)

Kathleen Turner’s character was also more interesting when viewed over the passage of decades from, presumably, the 50s-60s to the 80s, as she also had to grapple with the changing expectations of women during that period.  Because the characters first sleep together the same day that they met, she says that if a fairy-tale romance does not develop as a result, then the only other option will be to consider herself "a really big slut."  Of course she’s only half-joking, because at that time, this is exactly what most of society would also have thought.

The relationship in this story was based on lust and competition from the very beginning.  Despite the initial years of good intent (when both parties were focused on getting the husband through law school, presumably,) once the high-paying but politically insecure position in the corporate hierarchy was reached by the husband, he began to publically humiliate his wife, expect her to play the elite hostess role, etc.  It looked to me as though that was the beginning of the end…