English 1 Honors Poetry Project
4th period: Cameron Lucas
"Hate Poem"
I hate you truly. Truly I do. (A)
Everything about me hates everything about you.(A)
The flick of my wrist hates you.(A)
The way I hold my pencil hates you. (A)
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you. (A)
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.(A)
Look out! Fore! I hate you. (A)
The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging
from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you. (A)
The history of this keychain hates you.(A)
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you. (A)
The goldfish of my genius hates you. (A)
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors. (B)
A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you. (A)
My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate. (C)
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate. (C)
My pleasant “good morning”: hate. (C)
You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate. (C)
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it. (D)
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you. (A)
Layers of hate, a parfait. (E)
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate, (C)
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure. (F)
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you, (A)
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine. (G)
Tone
Theme
Image citation
from Hero and Leander: "It lies not in our power to love or hate"
It lies not in our power to love or hate, (A)
For will in us is overruled by fate. (A)
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin, (B)
We wish that one should lose, the other win; (B)
And one especially do we affect (C)
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect: (C)
The reason no man knows; let it suffice (D)
What we behold is censured by our eyes. (D)
Where both deliberate, the love is slight: (E)
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight? (E)