Smart things Students said about this poem:
Lindsey Mann | Suzanne Harris

In using there are always two.
The manipulator dances with a partner who cons herself.
Manipulator is the guy; she is the one who cons herself)
Guy in this poem is anal retentive.  Uptight, too organized, too controlling.
Mechanical imagges associated with the male; more organic with the female.
There are lies that glow so brightly we consent
to give a finger and then an arm
to let them burn.
Lie is the illusion of their love;  It was so tempting to believe she was in love that she wound up giving up parts of herself.
I was dazzled by the crowd where everyone called my name.
Now I stand out side the funhouse exit, down the slide
Typically the funhouse has mirrors, where your image is distorted
reading my guidebook of Marx in Esperanto
and if I don't know anymore which way means forward
down is where my head is, next to my feet
image of her bent over-- assaulted from behind.  Image of being totally confused... down is up.
with a pocketful of words and plastic tokens.
Form follows function, says the organizer
and turns himself into a paperclip,
into a vacuum cleaner,
into a machinegun.
Progression of his emotions: starts out as a paperclip-- keeping stuff together, keeping it organized; vacuum cleaner (he sucks) he pulls everything into himself-- his rage for order, means he takes and takes.  machine gun: when he lets loose, he is dangerous and harmful; he kills their love.
Function follows analysis
but the forebrain
is only an owl in the tree of self.
forebrain is reasoning, verbal capacity, analysis, consciousness.   Conscious, rational life is only a tiny part of who we are.
One third of life we prowl in the grottos of sleep
where neglected worms ripen into dragons
where the spoilt pencil swells into an oak
and the cows of our early sins are called home chewing their cuds
and turning the sad faces of our childhood upon us.
Come back and scrub the floor, the stain is still there,
come back with your brush and kneel down
scrub and scrub again
it will never be clean.
Fantasy unacted sours the brain.
Buried desires sprout like mushrooms on the chin of the
morning.
The will to be totally rational
is the will to be made out of glass and steel:
more mechaical imagery. Combination of rigidity and breakableness. Actually this is a reference to skyscrapers
and to use others as if they were glass and steel.
We can see clearly no farther
than our hands can touch.

The cockroach knows as much as you know about living.
Another insect image--
We trust with our hands and our eyes and our bellies.
The cunt accepts.
The teeth and back reject.
What we have to give eachother:
dumb and mysterious as water swirling.
Always in the long corridors of the psyche
doors are opening and doors are slamming shut.
We rise each day to give birth or to murder
selves that go through our hands like tiny fish.
You said: I am the organizer, and took and used.
You wrapped your head in theory like yards of gauze

and touched others only as tools that fit to your task
and if the tool broke you seized another.
Arrogance is not a revolutionary virtue.
The manipulator liberates only
the mad bulldozers of the ego to level the ground.
I was a tool that screamed in the hand.
I have been loving you so long and hard and mean
and the taste of you is part of my tongue
and your face is burnt into my eyelids
and I could build you with my fingers out of dust
and now it is over.
Whether we want or not
our roots go down to strange waters,
we are creatures of the seasons and the earth.
You always had a reason and you have them still
rattling like dried leaves on a stunted tree.