Description: stark reailty for most married african women , husbands are drunkards , immoral and abuse them .they stop loving them as soon as they get married like its what is expected of them customarily...
When you do choose to love me -------------------------------------------
When you do choose to love me
love me not like your dear life
but as your wife
for life ends only in death
Do not love me like money and wealth
money is like a prostitute
it sleeps in the hands of many men
today we might have it
tomorrow we might not
When you do choose to love me
do not love me like your shadow
and expect me to follow you around
and answer at your every whim like a chained slave
departing from your presence
leaving you to your own means by night time
Do not love me like your mother
and expect me to fuss over you like a child
you are the father of my sons
When you do choose to love me
do not love me like yourself
for in the company of drunkards
you lose yourself
Do not love me like a flower
free for all bees
which dries up and rots at the end of spring
Love me my husband
like the spirit of death
When it desires you
it will get you by all means
Your poems have a special effect on me, which I just noticed after reading this one. It comes from a culture very different from the one in which I live; for example, for a lover to be like the spirit of death would be a scary and maybe sick image for most of the marriageable women whom I know! But in each of the stanzas leading up to that last stanza, you develop the explanation for it; the explanation for somebody to discover reality in experience and action and have no investment in pretence nor foolish shallowness. It's a message I think is very valuable in today's world, and all of your work seems to carry that message. It's so important that I didn't notice whatever faults in verse technique you might be doing! The best poems are like that ... I want to hear them shouted from one street-corner to the next all over town!
I quite like this, --for the theme and the power with which it is rendered. You start by saying "love me not like your dear life--" and that is unusual and therefore appealing to me. Each will have their own take on this, but it could mean "love me more than life itself"---or even eternally---but above all is spoken a plea for the kind of love that comes from real empathy, compassion and respect---"love me as you should love yourself,--and then a little bit more"
The next strophes warn against treating a wife like material or wordly goods, like an obedient shadow that mirrors your every whim and mood--while "leaving at night"---suggesting that the husband's nocturnal doings are his own business. I thought that too was an unusaull but thoughtful analogy for many possible things, --and again each reader will see more--or less according to their own experiences.
I liked the admonition regarding treating the wife like a mother,--["can she bake a cherry pie Billy-Boy?"]
When you say "When you do choose to love me do not love me like yourself for in the company of drunkards you lose yourself." I know what you mean, --but I am wondering if "yourself" is the best word.--I think you are referring to the man's leisure/pastime/hobby/--addiction perhaps ot really himself.
I think the strophe about the flower is a bit weak,--I am guessing you are saying not to love you for your beauty, or sensualappeal, for in time that fades---but it could be worded a little more evocativally perhaps. Then at the last, another powerful and unusual thought-- Love me my husband like the spirit of death When it desires you it will get you by all means "
I really liked how you began with "dear life" and brought the poem back full circle to this analogy. For indeed Death does not pay any regard to social status, wordly goods, age or beauty--- death is forceful and decisive, and takes us from one world to the another,---as can Love at its purest and most passionate. At least that's what i was thinking here.
There are sevral places where I think this piece could use a little polish,--just a substsitute word or two, or a bit of punctuation. The last strophe for instance could read
Love me my husband like the spirit of death — for when it desires you, then it will have you by any means.
Just my "unspecified thought"--I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poem and commend you on the original images.
I quite like this, --for the theme and the power with which it is rendered. You start by saying "love me not like your dear life--" and that is unusual and therefore appealing to me. Each will have their own take on this, but it could mean "love me more than life itself"---or even eternally---but above all is spoken a plea for the kind of love that comes from real empathy, compassion and respect---"love me as you should love yourself,--and then a little bit more"
The next strophes warn against treating a wife like material or wordly goods, like an obedient shadow that mirrors your every whim and mood--while "leaving at night"---suggesting that the husband's nocturnal doings are his own business. I thought that too was an unusaull but thoughtful analogy for many possible things, --and again each reader will see more--or less according to their own experiences.
I liked the admonition regarding treating the wife like a mother,--["can she bake a cherry pie Billy-Boy?"]
When you say "When you do choose to love me do not love me like yourself for in the company of drunkards you lose yourself." I know what you mean, --but I am wondering if "yourself" is the best word.--I think you are referring to the man's leisure/pastime/hobby/--addiction perhaps ot really himself.
I think the strophe about the flower is a bit weak,--I am guessing you are saying not to love you for your beauty, or sensualappeal, for in time that fades---but it could be worded a little more evocativally perhaps. Then at the last, another powerful and unusual thought-- Love me my husband like the spirit of death When it desires you it will get you by all means "
I really liked how you began with "dear life" and brought the poem back full circle to this analogy. For indeed Death does not pay any regard to social status, wordly goods, age or beauty--- death is forceful and decisive, and takes us from one world to the another,---as can Love at its purest and most passionate. At least that's what i was thinking here.
There are sevral places where I think this piece could use a little polish,--just a substsitute word or two, or a bit of punctuation. The last strophe for instance could read
Love me my husband like the spirit of death — for when it desires you, then it will have you by any means.
Just my "unspecified thought"--I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poem and commend you on the original images.
it is also realitly for many of the women who were subjected to horrendus things under the Taliban rule, just before America came into Afganistan in 2001. tehy were treated as no more than property, and had to be in the company of a man at all times. many societies are like that, and most ancient ones were as well. its amazing how interal women are for the survival of the human race (not just for procreation) and yet they are so often given so little respect.
Wow i really like this. there is a lot of thought and meaning behind those words. What a way to look at it! I think this is great and i wouldnt change a thing. Thank you for sharing this, it just might become my new, of very few, favorites.
Submission Name: When you do choose to love me
