A Bit of Lot's Wife (a new revision)

Jun 16, 2009 at 9:38 PM
8 comments

“But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” KJV 19:26

A Bit Of Lot's Wife

Chips of her wind-eroded trachea

blew away on a lachrymose wind

over the storming sands,

to enter a soup factory in this century.

Flavor of dispossessed woman

in my cream of celery,

I can taste it,

though I can't be certain

it isn't my own crying.

I crunch what must have been

when she was flesh

a bit of her tongue.

It goes down bitter

and comes up later,

unprocessed rudimentary

ancient Hebrew.

This is how I speak

in voice dispossessed.

8 comments

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[this is good]

ooh I like this image so much! (the overall, as well as specific ones: dispossessed woman/voice, soup factory, cream of celery). I like the idea of her being salt that has flown away *everywhere.*

It's quite sad, the dispossessed voice. I like the third stanza best. I also like you thought to write about poor ol' Lot's wife.

xxx - Fiona

[this is good]

Thanks writebrained for the thoughtful comment. I had an earlier version of this poem published ten years ago, but was never happy with it. I feel as if I finally got it right. That said, ten years from now I may feel differently. I love the evolution of my writing as I age.

Lucy

[this is good]

Thanks Fiona. This is very much how I felt in my late twenties - dispossessed. It has become telling the story of a "silenced" woman. I had strong opinions regarding Lot's Wife when I was a girl in Catholic school - the unfairness of God the Father.

Lucy

That's really cool to be able to measure your evolution over time. Another note on the poem: I thought you maybe had two possibilities to show the travels of the salt, the former bits of Lot's wife. One was to do what you did: to zoom in and show a little bit that went into a soup factory and then crunched up in your cream of celery. And the other way is to zoom out and to show little scattered bits in very disparate locations. I tend to do the latter, zoom out... so I was struck by the fact that you did the opposite.

Anyway, just an observation on mechanics... wondering why you made the choice you did, and if this is something you think about (or just something I do!)

P

[this is good]

I think the bits you've changed since the last post improve it -- tightened it a bit. My only suggestion would be to put "when she was flesh" in parentheses, which I think would make it clearer. I had to go back after reading the following line and mentally insert them to get the feel of it. Of course, how much punctuation you put in is a style thing...

I like the subject a lot, it twists the perception of the story to see it in a different way...

[this is good]

I originally zoomed out, but, since I look tight short poems and have a short attention span, I decided to pare away till I had a smaller piece to refine.

I do have longer poems, but they are much harder to get right.

Lucy

[this is good]

Thanks Peculiarist. I'll consider the quotations. I do feel that if I put quotations there, I will have to accurately punctuate the rest of the poem.

I like looking at these "dispossessed" stories of women from mythology.

Lucy

A Bit of Lot's Wife (a new revision)

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