Gloss - by Shari-Lyn McArthur

Gloss

Sea change

on a dare

all of me 

depends

on knowing 

exactly what I mean 

to touch

Comments

[jamesthomashoward]

Lovely and mysterious. 'what I mean to touch' conjures these thoughts of dualist fumbling, for me. I like that a lot.

[pete pick]

i think it has useful ambiguity,but i'm not quite satisfied. so who's surprised? this could read 'exactly what it means to touch me' if looked at carefully, that is ''i could know what it meant to another to touch me.'
tha's quite sexy and also controlling. i wonder?

[John de Prey]

More than being ambiguous, it floats without an anchor, and I love that in your work. My mind is swung this way and that - "Gloss" implies superficial, "sea change" implies a fundamental change in either how things are or in what she (presumably) wants. "dare" implies something playful, or more seriously a risk. "all of me" contradicts any idea of the superficial (I imagine this is to a lover because of the sexiness in the sea's saltiness, the tactility of gloss, touch. But maybe in the middle of my away-from-home rota I see everything as sexy... ). The last three lines are a clearly seen deep thought - she's sometimes not sure what she means to touch. It's that that seems to hang like something in a Rene Magritte painting. Also there is an insinuation of challenge to the recipient, that I find a lot in your poems. It seems to be saying that an unmindful unfocussed touch is not what she wants, and everything depends on it. Mind you, since you’re an artist it could well be about something you’re working on, how you work, the difference between something superficial (gloss) and a piece of art.

[pete pick]

i don't think gloss implies superficial, it normally means shiny. in this context, it could be an explanatory note to a text.

[Brian Edwards]

Gloss also makes me think "conceal".
I'm still mulling "Sea change".

[A.E. Plastic]

I like the rigorous simplicity, the sense of a dispassionate analysis of extreme passion.

[Shari-Lyn McArthur]

Thank you folks. I think I am done with this one, and will post to port.