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Saturday 13 February 2010

Valentine


.


http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hopper/interior/hopper.summer-evening.jpg





Take off that apron
And put your red dress on
No
On second thought
Take off that red dress
And lay back
On my big brass bed
In your pink slip
The one with flowers sewn on it
Not the one
That certifies the registration of your auto

It’s a lovely auto
I just don’t like it
Because it has kudzu vines
Growing out of its body
And you know how I hate kudzu vines





Summer Evening: Edward Hopper, 1947 (private collection)

12 comments:

poetowen said...

right--nothing kills a mood like kudzu vines

Anonymous said...

Thomas! Kudzu vines are beautiful. When they are on your Valentine. Did you not know that? Sure you did.
I am loving this, you. I know her and love her still. Just as you do with the owner of those kudzu vines *wink*

Elmo St. Rose said...

edward hopper percy faith

when a man loves a woman

kudzu vines.....the ffed up

Vietnam War/kudzu is really

not our flora

TC said...

Owen,

Without question.

And then it's all over but the clinging.

TC said...

SarahA,

I would know you as my Valentine surprise under any other name.

(The owner of those kudzu vines is having a laugh!)

Thomas

TC said...

Elmo,

The great Percy Sledge, I think you mean.

Who would not accept a Valentine from this man?

Elmo St. Rose said...

Thanks Tom for not letting
me fall off the edge
by misnaming Percy Sledge

~otto~ said...

Smiles all around, red like the font

Stu said...

I didn't know what kudzu vines were (now I do - thanks Wikipedia), but it doesn't matter... I can't think of a Valentine's poem I've enjoyed more than this one. I laughed out loud at the 'on second thought' and the pink slip joke on the first read. The second time I smiled and wondered what my valentine would make of it (I think she'd like it).

TC said...

Thanks, fellows.

Stu, I'm always interested in field research on these issues, as long as the daring researcher doesn't have to be me. Perhaps it's past the moment for this year, but I'd be interested in hearing your valentine's reaction. For the purity of the experiment, perhaps it would be best to try it "blind", by not revealing the author of the poem, or even "lying", by saying the author is a woman.

By the by, the person whose auto is overgrown with kudzu vines in the poem assumes (perhaps erroneously) that a) almost no one will recognize her identity; (b) that anyone who does will know she has never owned an auto; and c) that in any case, she has never worn an apron in her life.

Or for that matter anything else.

(Ah, I jest, naturally.)

Actually, while I was playing about on this post last night, she piped up, from the sanctity of her chamber, where she was, as is her pre-dawn wont, turning the pages of the newspaper, that the average American male spent about $140 on Valentine's day commodities this year, while the average American female spent about $80.

Hmm, I carefully responded.

The total Valentine's Day expenditure in this terminally benighted yet it seems relentlessly romantic republic, as she went on to report (still reading from the newspaper), was over $3 billion.

Right there, I thought to myself, is a good argument in favour of blogging. One can blog one's heart out for absolutely nothing.

benqish said...

Beautiful poem. Love the soft / harsh contrasts

TC said...

Many thanks, Saul.