How Revisions Work

Poems are made to be tinkered with.....change a rhyme, fix a meter, adjust a thought. It's a boring process for the most part - except to the author, of course. To the poet it becomes a puzzle, a labor of love, almost. The search for perfection which never gets found.

It's hard to give it up sometimes - and it can be done to death.

This is where the poem posted a few days ago has ended up....there's not much changed, actually, but it's taken hours and hours of time and thought to do. No one will even notice, I suppose, except me. But I heard a neat thing last night and it made the agony that no one will notice worth it.

"Better to have no public and write for yourself than to write for others and have no self."

Anyhow - here's the revision: See if you can find the changes.

My Sister and I


We were the worst Girl Scouts. We did not sell
our cookies we just freely passed them out
to long-haired boys we barely knew and hell-
bound men on low-slung bikes who'd hang about
a day or two until their engines cooled;
until their fresh-inked dragons scabbed; until
our sainted mother dragged us home. She fooled
no one. She wanted us to cry; to spill
our guts; to crack like china; crumb like cake;
surrender unto Mom; to never cling
to strangers but to her; to cower; quake
on sheets still wet with Daddy's sweat; to sing
through tears that only she could make us shed.
She swore to God we'd bleed as she'd been bled.

My Sister and I

My Sister and I

We were not good girl scouts. We did not sell
our cookies. Instead, we gave them away -
to long haired drummer boys in bands and hell-
bound men on low-slung bikes who'd let us stay
a day or two until their engine's cooled,
until the new ink tattoos crusted and
a worried mother dragged us home. She fooled
them all. She wanted us to cry; to bend;
to break; to fold like butter; crumb like cake;
surrender onto Mom; to never cling
to strangers but to her; to sleep and wake
on sheets still wet with Daddy's sweat and sing
through tears that she alone had made us shed.
Her daughters had to bleed as she'd been bled.

295.34

295.34

I hear his voice inside my head.
I count the dried stains on the bed.
The sounds and stains begin to blend.
I'm drugged, unable to defend
or to repeat the things he's said.

My walls are white, his whisper's red.
There's blood to spill and flesh to shred,
grave rituals we must attend.
His is the voice

that no man hears but all men dread.
Eventually the sound will spread.
He keeps insisting I depend
on him alone, my only friend.
He leads; I follow; needle; thread.
I heed his voice.