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The Meaning of Pearl Necklaces

Most pearls are prized because the luster of
Their loveliness lies held in shapely spheres—
Though never perfect.  Given with a love
Strung out on strings of strength to last for years,
The little globes repose on bodies made
For fondness.  Warmth of skin and gentle tones
Are where the pearls should rest, their curves arrayed,
Allied with modesty.  Not diamond stones
They speak a love of calm, of pink or white.
But other pearls, Baroque in form, malformed,
Reflect perhaps those glints not quite polite,
Affections with misshapen passions stormed.
_The beauties vary.  They are life in fact,
__Not just romance.  Some dints and buttes refract.

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Memory and Wristwatches

The human brain sees, organizes time
Through memories of experiences, not
As clocks do, tick, tick, tick.  With each bright chime,
These moments, years are measured by a plot
Of recollections full of feelings stored
Subconsciously and not mechanically.
All in synapses like a Gordian hoard
Events are conjured more organically
Than like a Rolex on celebrity’s
Haired wrist.  Scenarios remembered glow
Inside a brain, become celebrities
You met.  They are the counting that we know.
_That day at Gettysburg with friends is like
__A numbered warmth and myth, not businesslike.

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Poet’s Note:  This poem originally appeared on phillipwhidden.com under the title “Anterior Cingulate Cortex as Superior to a Graff Diamonds Hallucination Watch”

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Phillip Whidden is an American living in England who has been published in America, England, Scotland (and elsewhere) in book form, online, and in journals. 

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5 Responses

  2. KYLE FISKE

    Nicely done. Very skillful and effective use of enjambment in both of these.

    Reply
  3. Paul Freeman

    I was particularly enamoured by ‘The Meaning of Peal Necklaces’. Diamonds are just stones, but pearls grow and are nurtured inside a living entity.

    Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Phillip, these poems are true jewels, one primarily feminine, and the other masculine. Not strictly so, of course. One of my best presents to my husband was a pearl-grey tie pin, made by setting the pearl’s elongated end into the precious metal base holding the pin, so that it appeared an impressive solitaire sphere. But it is true that necklaces suit women. I’m reminded that Queen Elizabeth (mother of Elizabeth II) insisted on wearing pearls whenever there was occasion during the Second World War, so that these treasures did not dry out from lack of contact with the oils of human skin. Fashion set by her meant that other women, too, conveyed the sense of precious calm that comes from pearls when their country most needed little reminders of it. You describe this, while noting as well that beauties vary in pearls, because they figure the beauty of life beyond romance.

    I’m glad as well to see the poem giving just a slightly favorable nod to wristwatches–and happy to recall that my son wears them despite the inclination in his age group to use phones as timepieces. They can be things of beauty and technology rolled into one. And they can serve to call up memories in something of the human fashion you describe so well, as a Gordian horde of scenarios and days. “Numbered warmth and myth,” indeed, need not be businesslike. Friends make the difference.

    Reply
  5. Cynthia Erlandson

    I love the theme of time, and enjoyed reading your thoughts on it. I have clocks all over my house (analogue, not digital) and, like Margaret, I wouldn’t want to rely only on the phone to tell me the time.

    Reply

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