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Inner Life (With Sabotage)
This poem will be intentionally vague.
Candlewicks flicker. Chemicals misfire. Crossed wires refuse to untangle.
Sometimes I slip into something less comfortable.
Carousel horses and streetlights make me weep deeply.
My handsome father’s death has turned into stilted breath.
My benevolent brother’s death is still caught in my throat.
Everyone gives me flowers to fill the fissure between limbs and loss.
And I bury them under layers of, what? Nothing but my own undoing.
A startled and startling voice tells me to go even deeper than this.
Onyx and obsidian wrestle it out with a chest full of white diamonds.
Frankly, my dear, I’ve had enough of dancing through the murk with my not-so-better angels.
Excuse me while I remove this battering ram from my solar plexus.
Let me open my palms to the hazy sunshine. I promise I will stop shaking soon.
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Cindy Hochman is the president of “100 Proof” Copyediting Services and the editor-in-chief of the online poetry journal First Literary Review-East. She has been on the book review staff of Pedestal Magazine, and has written reviews for American Book Review, Clockwise Cat, Home Planet News, great weather for MEDIA, and others. (And she reviewed the 2009 edition of Best American Poetry for Coldfront Magazine eons ago.) Her previous chapbooks are Wednesday’s Child (Bear House Press), The Carcinogenic Bride (Thin Air Media), Habeas Corpus (Glass Lyre Press), and The Number 5 Is Always Suspect (Presa Press), a collaborative chapbook with poet/collagist Bob Heman. Her latest chapbook is Telling You Everything (Unleash Press). Cindy lives, loves, reads, writes, edits, meditates, learns tai chi, studies Russian, and agonizes over politics in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
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Reginald Marsh, George Tilyou's Steeplechase, 1932, oil and egg tempera on linen mounted on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Ah Cindy, this beautiful poem made me deep weeply! Gracias!
Posted by: Bill Nevins | September 03, 2023 at 11:52 AM
Love this poem, Cindy! You twist the cliches into beautiful and surprising images!!
Sometimes I slip into something less comfortable....
Great metaphor for poetry actually!
Posted by: Denise Duhamel | September 03, 2023 at 11:56 AM
Thank you so much, Bill and Denise, for your kind comments. And Denise, my deepest condolences on Maureen's passing. She was a wonderful poet and person, and I know how much she meant to you.
Posted by: Cindy Hochman | September 03, 2023 at 11:58 AM
Thanks for this, Cindy...I too, as you probably know, am dealing with loss, grief and aging, all of which are admirably addressed in this honest and honorable poem! And take note, both "grief" and "aging" are five-letter words!
Posted by: mark johnson | September 03, 2023 at 12:22 PM
I am a big fan of Cindy Hochman’s work and happy to see it recognized here—a delightful and skilled mix that evokes Parker and Plath yet is deeply original. Brava, Cindy!
Posted by: Ann Cefola | September 03, 2023 at 12:23 PM
Cindy somehow encapsulates layers of loss in carousel loops. Brava! Jan Castro
Posted by: Jan Castro | September 03, 2023 at 12:24 PM
Rich powerful poem, Cindy!
Posted by: Amy Barone | September 03, 2023 at 12:43 PM
delightfully playful yet profoundly poignant...thank you for satisfying my poetry jones for now cindy, and terence
Posted by: lally | September 03, 2023 at 12:44 PM
This anguished poem admirably lives up to his promise to be intentionally vague--evocative, dropping hints and images throughout, making art out of life's tragedies. I especially cherish the line, "Everyone gives me flowers to fill the fissure between limbs and loss," which pulls the poem's theme together in such a memorable way.
Posted by: George H Northrup | September 03, 2023 at 12:48 PM
Michael: glad you liked it.
Posted by: Terence Winch | September 03, 2023 at 12:48 PM
So well done. The play between life and loss bravely and beautifully sketched within the well-employed and tricked out cliches.
Posted by: Beth Joselow | September 03, 2023 at 01:28 PM
I loved this poem. It touched my heart.
Posted by: Eileen | September 03, 2023 at 01:55 PM
Wonderful, Cindy ❤️
Posted by: Donna J Hilbert | September 03, 2023 at 02:17 PM
I love this moving and powerfully written poem. I love what you do with language. I love your writing. Everyone should get a copy of TELLING YOU EVERYTHING.
Posted by: Karen Neuberg | September 03, 2023 at 02:34 PM
Like and love the endstops Cindy! The way each sentence-line is delivered through a great full breath! Thanks for showing us this Terence!
Posted by: Don Berger | September 03, 2023 at 03:01 PM
Cindy is an amazing poet. This poem is stunning and resonates deeply.
Posted by: Alison Ross | September 03, 2023 at 03:03 PM
Don: glad you dug it.
Posted by: Terence Winch | September 03, 2023 at 04:05 PM
Emotional pain camouflaged with wit. Layers of being. It’s no secret I love your work, and your latest chapbook, TELLING YOU EVERYTHING, is breathtaking.
Posted by: José Sotolongo | September 03, 2023 at 04:10 PM
WOW, THANKS, EVERYONE. And I should point out that this photo was taken (pre-pandemic, 2019) right in front of THE DAILY EAGLE, where Walt Whitman worked (but he was out of the office the day I visited Oh well!).
Posted by: Cindy Hochman | September 03, 2023 at 04:25 PM
A fresh new voice to my life. Where have I been to miss this magician?
Posted by: Grace Cavalieri | September 03, 2023 at 05:55 PM
Excruciating and beautiful. So "cindy-esque" and so relatable at the same time. Hope many more will read your TELLING YOU EVERYTHING. They'll be in for a treat!
Posted by: Eelka Franziska Lampe | September 03, 2023 at 06:05 PM
The title of Cindy Hochman’s “Inner Life (With Sabotage)” is a tip to how compositionally compelling and emotionally upending this poem is. George H. Northrup spotlighted the same line I want to spotlight: “Everyone gives me flowers to fill the fissure between limbs and loss.” It’s unflashily breathtaking in form: an alliteration of “f’s” and “l’s,” and a consonance of “s’s,” all set within an irresistible cadence. Meter and meaning coalesce seamlessly. The opening caveat of “This poem will be intentionally vague” signals hurdles or concessions to come. Yet the entire poem is a tour de force deftly avoiding the merely clever or spectacular. “Inner Life (With Sabotage)” reveals its honesty honestly. That’s a rare feat. And I, unlike the poem’s narrator, can’t promise to “stop shaking soon” from its effect.
Posted by: Dr. Earle Hitchner | September 03, 2023 at 06:47 PM
Loved this when I published it in Live Mag! Glad to see it here.
Posted by: Jeffrey Cyphers Wright | September 03, 2023 at 07:14 PM
Brilliant word by a brilliant poet.
Posted by: Jen Knox | September 03, 2023 at 07:44 PM
Wonderful poem, beautifully illustrated.
Posted by: David Lehman | September 03, 2023 at 11:41 PM