Poetry

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I Don’t Miss You Anymore

by Lionel E. Deimel

 

I don’t miss you anymore,

I’m not hurt, and I’m not sore,

And since you left and slammed the door,

I haven’t missed you anymore.

 

I go about my business now

And do not care what others think;

I ask not why, but only how,

And every evening, have a drink.

 

I travel past our house no more

In my new red car with no back seat;

I find it but a tiny chore

To detour ’round our former street.

 

I don’t see friends we used to see;

They’re not as funny as they were;

I think they neither fancy me

Nor value me as raconteur.

 

I eat no more where we used to dine;

There are so many restaurants

With atmosphere and fare as fine

As we enjoyed in erstwhile haunts.

 

No longer do I play my jazz—

That seems so very middle-class—

So now I shun that razzmatazz

And meditate to Philip Glass.

 

I devour important books these days,

So fewer novels grace my shelf;

I read histories and books on ways

My efforts can improve myself.

 

And so, at last, I must admit,

My new life has so many charms

That even on the porch, moonlit,

I do not miss your lips and arms.

 

I don’t miss you anymore,

I’m not hurt, and I’m not sore,

And since you left and slammed the door,

I haven’t missed you anymore.

 

Sky with moon

 

While driving around one day recently, I got the idea of writing a poem about the comic irony of denial. I began with the first line, though, in the end, that line had less to do than I anticipated. It does, of course, set the scene for the body of the poem. I had some fun with rhyme, but I had a good deal of trouble with meter. In the end, I think I got the rhythm right, but you may not agree. My final change was the elimination of an “our” that had to be pronounced as two syllables. The line was not bad, but I was troubled that “our” appeared in several other places where it necessarily had only one syllable.

— LED, 7/13/2002

Then again, maybe I didn’t get the meter right. Based on comments from a friend, I revisited the first and last stanzas. The feedback I received led me to consider several alternatives, which I discussed with another friend, who helped me reduce my options to two. I then chose to use a variation on one of them. As a result, the stanzas flow better and are more coherent. The troublesome third line can now be read in either of two ways, but each scans reasonably. My friend also had problems with verse seven. She suggested changes without explaining just why she thought them necessary, but she made me realize that I had construed “devour” as having three syllables, whereas, technically, it has but two. This realization allowed me to substitute “important” for “weighty,” which more clearly captures the intended meaning. Along with minor changes in the next two lines—I changed the meter slightly but did not need to correct anything—the stanza now has improved continuity and is more logical. Anyway, I hope so.

— LED, 7/18/2002

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