DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here: "As You Never Bothered to Return My Call" by August Kleinzahler Originally read: September 30, 2013 More information about the Poet: August Kleinzahler Lament.  From the very beginning the speaker plays with lament and, more specifically, sentimentality. With the first few lines there's a juxtaposition of wants, "What I had wanted was to be chaste, / sober and uncomfortable" it's not like the last part of "uncomfortable" undercuts the desire to be chaste and sober, but there isn't a "linear" progression.  For example, wanting to be uncomfortable isn't a usual want and neither is, "for a sprawling episode on a beach somewhere / dirty, perennially out of fashion;" Note the semi-colon which connects this sort of linearity with this idea, "some kid gave up on only half-way through / and left to go warm in the sand."  Lament, staying in one place.  The "kid" leaving to ...