At Poets & Storytellers United, Rosemary Nissen-Wade invited poems about secrets.
I thought about writing a terribly cute one about a chrysalis:
(Photo from South Carolina Public Radio)
My secret is that I'm alive.
This secret, kept, helps me survive...
...but with a butterfly and a moth post this week, that seemed excessive. So...
My secret is that I hate Valentines Day.
In primary school it started with the way
the cards were bought by fifties and were signed
by parents hoping benefits to find,
not from the thirty children they're marked for,
but from the keeper of the cheap card store.
Boyfriends and husband bought much nicer cards,
but still, pre-printed, overpriced, mere shards
of what plain pen and paper ought to have said.
I had "forgotten" (wished the custom dead).
Through all this web site's time, one merit shines
about my "Valentine" No valentines,
we always did agree. I like a man
who knows that love's no slick commercial plan.
Well, there it is...I've never wanted to spoil any pleasure that any other couple actually enjoy, but it takes a lot of individual flair and charm to offset the cringe-inducing effect of a Hallmark valentine card.
Fortunately my husband, and even the boyfriends who participated in the ritual of buying tacky cards, had individual flair and charm. I never ruined the holiday for them, either.
But I never saved the cards.
Perfect way to end a fascinating poem .. I never ruined their holiday .. i never kept their card.
ReplyDeleteYes well written I back that up We Dutch are very down to earth and Valentines day never became big in my home country as it is just a commercial thing indeed
ReplyDeleteOh, well said – and lived!
ReplyDeleteCringe-inducing and commercial is what I think too... but I like not spoiling the others' holiday (yet not saving the cards) - that's perfect!
ReplyDeleteI suspect your secret is the secret many of us shared in those very early card cutout days. It seemed more about popularity than love.
ReplyDeleteIt was, but in a twisted way.
DeleteBy the time I came along, it had already been decided that letting kids make their own cards and send them as they chose was too, too cruel. So those who brought cards had to bring one for everybody.
And so the cards cost money. And the money was spent, and usually the cards were even addressed, by parents who wanted to buy a box of junk cards--always too many for one classroom. And most parents didn't play that game.
So one part of the message was: "If your parents aren't buying garbage that the -- Store couldn't sell any other way, that means YOU are less 'friendly' than people whose parents buy the garbage."
Then the other part was: "Valentine cards claim to want ONE person as a special friend...but they're bought in lots of fifty, and some of them are addressed to people who actually choose to be enemies."
Put together: "Valentines are ALL about money and express no sincere feelings whatsoever."
Google is being tiresome. This is I, Priscilla King, and I'm logged in, but I've not clicked on a button to enable a certain set of "cookies."
DeleteI agree, as children Valentine's Day could be very tense, counting cards and wondering why you didn't get as many as others. Why the one you really wanted wasn't there. So much angst on Valentine's Day!
ReplyDeleteThe way my school did it was meant to spare kids from that kind of angst--but it generated a different kind. People who actually were friends, to the extent that primary school children are friends, didn't send cards. People who weren't friends at all had cards sent in teir name. The fraudulence was overwhelming.
DeletePK
Valentine's day is really not the best! I semi avoided it this year. Celebrate love other days!
ReplyDeleteThanks to all poets who visited and commented...even the one who annoyed me by not getting the point. I suppose it's comforting to believe that everyone has exactly the same feelings, even in reaction to the same situation. I think most people noticed that what I described was a different situation...It's all valuable information. Even Maria's.
ReplyDeleteLove to all of you poets...the real thing, the kind that lasts when the Hallmark Holiday is over.
PK
That is why I make my own cards.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lovely and lovable thing to do!
DeletePK