SELFISH LOVE

So what do we have when we take out the line breaks?

     You pretend that she was dear, and you practised sex with her. You introduced her to sin; now with  
     others, she wants more.

     She is with another man, and you are sorry for that not because you spoilt her life but because you  
     need[ed]** delight.

     Don't you see that you killed her; she has no husband nor kids. Who will care for her when old?
     All that's for your selfish needs.

It’s a set of unimaginative, imageless, question-begging declarative sentences that betray your prudishness and the paternalistic, patriarchal, sexist notion not only that sex outside of marriage is a sin or that a woman may legitimately want sex,  but that unless a woman is a virgin, she is viewed as “used goods” that no man will marry let alone see as being worthy to be the mother to his offspring.

And how you know that the one you are speaking to only pretended that the woman you speak of was nor dear to him is not clear.  And your claim that by having sex with her, the man you are addressing killed his lover or that an unmarried, childless woman was/is totally incapable of creating a life on her own in which she was capable of taking care of herself when she grows old.

** since you placed the act of fornication you are denouncing in the past (you practised sex with her), your claim that what motivated the man to spoil a woman’s life was a desire that he had in the past.

1- Don't correct when you are not sure. She is with another man [NOW],
and you are sorry for that [NOW] not because you spoilt her life[IN THE PAST] but because you need delight[NOW],and you can't get it because she is with another man. Let's speak about this now. Later, we speak about another point. I don't have much time to publish a newspaper.

OK.  I take your point.

But no one is asking you to publish, let alone write, a newspaper.

What's your opinion about NEEDED and NEED?

What do you think "I take your point" means?

On another point, I wonder if you realize that given the syntax of your lines,  

You introduced her to sin; now with  
others, she wants more.

where the antecedent of more" is "sin", you have said that the woman you are writing about now wants more sin?

Hi Joseph. There is raw feeling in this write. Thank you for sharing with us.

Thank you very much, Daniel, for your very kind comment.

If it is clear, Baldwin, why do you ask and answer yourself? This is poetry. We don't have to write everything.

"If it is clear, Baldwin, why do you ask and answer yourself?"

What is the "it" you refer to here?

"This is poetry."  

So you say.  But to my eyes, it's dull, imageless prose in line breaks.  And what poetry does when it's well written is to communicate something effectively and memorably. This is hardly effective in communicating anything other than your prudishness and your patriarchal nonsense and it's nothing that is worth committing to memory, let alone something that anyone with any sense of what good poetry is like would feel jealous of not having written.

"We don't have to write everything."

Who said you did?  But did you have more to say specifically about the relative value of virginity that you left out?   If so,  why did you not write it?  To do so would hardly be "to write everything".

Doesn't the "fact" that the woman you speak of is with another man show that her not being a virgin is not an impediment to being in a relationship in which she is cherished and cared for and that she has not been killed by the man who "practised" sex with her.

Yes or no.  And if no,  why no?

I'll take your silence on this matter or any red herring you might give as an answer to my question as proof that you know you have contradicted yourself.

Stop asking questions like teachers ! Teachers have knowledge, and they convey it, but you are interested only in sex, as if sex is your only salvation.

"Stop asking questions like teachers ! Teachers have knowledge, and they convey it, but you are interested only in sex, as if sex is your only salvation."

Just as I expected: a red herring instead of an honest answer to my question.

And what **I'm** interested in and/or consider my "salvation" (from what?)  to be (let alone whether I've claimed that sex is salvific) is entirely **irrelevant** to the question of whether you contradicted yourself in your piece above, let alone whether your piece is little more than dull, imageless prose in line breaks.   So why are you making your ad hominem claim about me when you should be showing how your piece is not incoherent and what you say within it is not contradictory?

I know!  It's because you can't do it.

I enjoyed this.

Like.

Thank you very much for your comment, PB.