Two Red Roses: Then and Now

Posted by Ace on June 24th, 2011 filed in poetry

Got into an extended discussion with my friend Ylva this morning on writing and poetry, which led me inevitably to bring up the Bad Poetry story, but also led me to bring up the couple of poems I’ve ever written that I thought were any good.  One of them is the nameless “summer clouds and honeyed vales” poem I’ve already shared in this space.  Another is a piece entitled “Two Red Roses”, which I wrote on the bus after a few minutes of being Totally Present in the streets of the City of Mists, in an attempt to capture that experience before it faded.  My closer friends are generally familiar with this latter piece, as I’ve shared it with them or given them copies of it on a variety of occasions.  But I couldn’t find any of those copies at hand, so instead I pulled open the word processor and recreated it from memory:

TWO RED ROSES

I walked down the street on 8^th Avenue holding two red roses

And the porn sellers turned away

Because when you have one red rose they think that someone has given it to you

And you might want to dally

But when you have two red roses they think that you are going to meet someone

And you have better things to do

Than sit in a nudie bar

I saw a soft brown chiquita in a white dress laughing and licking a vanilla cone

Washing her feet in an open hydrant

I thought about giving her one of my two red roses

When you have two red roses you can meet the gazes of strangers

Because you have something to keep without fear

And something to give away without hesitation.

—

Subsequent to doing that, however, I became possessed by a suspicion that it was impossible for me not to have some copy of it somewhere, given that I remembered e-mailing it to the friends in question, and because my Archives are…  well, my Archives.  So I wrung them until they screamed (my Archives, not my friends,) and sure enough, in the end they coughed up a version of it recorded in 1997–  which is not the original version either (that was written by hand, on paper,) but is arguably closer or identical to the original, having been set down by me at a point much closer to when the original was created:

two red roses

I walked down the street on Eighth Avenue holding two

red roses, and the porn sellers turned away,

because when you have one red rose they

think that someone has given it to you, and

you might want to dally, but when you have

two red roses they think that you’re going to

meet someone, and you have better things to

do than sit in a nudie bar…

I watched a soft brown chiquita in a white dress

eating an ice cream cone and washing her

feet in an open hydrant. I thought about

giving her one of my two red roses…

When you have two red roses you can meet the gazes

of strangers, because you have something to

keep without fear and something to give away

without reservation.

—

I like that in the 2011 version the little girl is “laughing and licking a vanilla cone”, rather than just “eating an ice cream cone.”  (She really was laughing and licking it, and it was vanilla.)  I like that the 1997 version says “watched” instead of “saw”, though, as it creates the feeling the speaker is involved, active rather than passive.  And I like the way “washing her feet in an open hydrant” doesn’t take a whole separate line in the 1997 version.  I’m not sure how I feel about “reservation” versus “hesitation”.  “Reservation” fits the point being made by the end of the poem more accurately;  “hesitation” communicates something different and related, but what it communicates has its own, good flavor, and is not inaccurate.  Perhaps I need to do a hybrid.

—

Now if I could find a complete copy of the Valentine’s Day poem I wrote for Faye lying around somewhere, THAT would be a coup.