The Mad Poet of the Year blog posts share the poetry of a long-time Mad Poet. This year-long appointment provides readers with a deep dive of the writer’s work and thoughts on poetry. We are thrilled to have R. G. Evans serve as the Mad Poet of the Year for 2022.
OF LONELINESS AND BONDAGE
by R.G. Evans
Rather than rings, they gave each other ropes
small enough to twine around their fingers.
She thinking, how Bohemian. He thinking
of her with a riding crop and boots.
At first they explored
the tender practicality of rope,
its usefulness in binding, the love of
a thousand pragmatic knots.
Years passed and the ropes grew,
an inch one year, a foot or two the next,
their fingers no longer enough to hold them.
One Christmas, she planned to braid them together,
sympathetic magic, a renewal of their vows.
He entered the bedroom moaning
like Marley’s ghost, shaking his rope
like chains in the silent and unrattled air.
It didn’t make her laugh. That night
he started sleeping in the guest room,
his rope coiled beside him
like a magicless trick.
They began to consider the ropes
as one without the other,
she thinking Rapunzel, he thinking
noose. Neither noticed
the ropes had begun to shrink
far faster than they’d grown
till all that remained
were the ring-sized bits of twine
they’d exchanged so long ago.
When they finally shook hands goodbye,
each noticed that the other’s rope was gone,
not even an impression where they’d been.
Sometimes they dream of the way it was.
Neither dreams of rope, the way it comes undone.
I’ve never read this poem from my second book The Holy Both at a poetry reading, in fact, I had forgotten all about it until at a recent reading someone told me how much the poem spoke to her. I wish I could comment on the origin of the poem, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten that, much like the poem itself. I offer it here for Amanda and anyone else to whom this poem may speak from beyond the veil of the poet’s forgetfulness.
R.G. Evans’s books include Overtipping the Ferryman (Aldrich Poetry Press Prize), The Holy Both, and Imagine Sisyphus Happy. His original songs were featured in the poetry documentaries All That Lies Between Us and Unburying Malcolm Miller, and his collection of original songs, Sweet Old Life, is available on most streaming platforms. Evans teaches creative writing at Rowan University. Website: www.rgevanswriter.com