“The Other Me”

September 6, 2006

I was naked next to you for nearly nine months
The caesarian section slit Her stomach
Not natural, knives of science

Saved two Scorpios, screaming sounds
You tried to kill Keith, when he was thought to be Keziah
Strangled up in blue, surely there was room for two?

Perfect partners in a two piece puzzle
A lefty and a righty, lovers to the end
Boy oh boy, born with a best friend

*”Anglo-Saxon (Old English) prosody is an accentual-alliterative tradition where poetry is defined by rhythm and sound rather than syllable count or rhyme. Each line, or stich, is divided into two half-lines (hemistiches) separated by a central pause (caesura), with four strong stresses per line, usually linked by two or three alliterating words.

Key components of Anglo-Saxon prosody include:

Structure: Two-part lines (caesura-divided) allow for a flexible number of unstressed syllables between the four primary stressed syllables.

Alliteration: The key unifying device; consonant-alliteration requires matching the initial sounds of stressed words, while any vowel can alliterate with another.

Stress Pattern: Typically, one or two stressed words in the first half-line (a-verse) alliterate with the first stressed word in the second half-line (b-verse). The last stressed syllable of the line rarely alliterates.

Sievers’ Types: Developed by Eduard Sievers, this classification system breaks down alliterative verse into five distinct patterns based on the arrangement of stressed (/) and unstressed (x) syllables.

Function: Designed for oral performance by scops (poets), this verse structure provided a mnemonic, rhythmic, and heightened, artistic, sound-based structure that differentiated it from daily speech.”

**Line by line breakdown of poem

First thing to know, poem is about my twin brother and me.

Title: “The Other Me”

My Mom told me a story that when we were little one of us asked her, “Where’s the other me?”

“I was naked next to you for nearly nine months”

Added the word “nearly” just today for accuracy. Line is meant to be provocative and humorous. Poem starts in

“The caesarian section slit Her stomach”

We move onto the birth. The “H” is capitalized to honor my Mother. She says we were transverse in the womb meaning one twin was verical, the other horizontal. As far as the c-section scar she told me she considers it a badge of honor. My son was also born c-section and by that time doctors figured out how to leave the scar on the bikini line.

“Not natural, knives of science”

Pointing out here without modern medicine all three of us could have possibly died.

“Saved two Scorpios, screaming sounds”

She sells seashells, by the seashore…but seriously, we were born October 27th and when babies are born a large majority of them come out crying, disappointed they have are leaving the warm amniotic fluid and mad at themselves for having to come
back to this plane of existence for one reason or another.

6-7. “You tried to kill Keith, when he was thought to be Keziah/Strangled up in blue, surely there was room for two”

I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. Joking here that Brian and I were fighting in the womb. In all reality I probably tried to take myself out. Dark joke there. Really was just floating around and got all twisted up.

My favorite Professor from my time at Rutgers Professor Susan L. Miller (at the time), spotted the Bob Dylan reference to his song on his 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks” (his divorce album) titled “Tangled Up In Blue”. Including in this post are photos of comments I got back on this poem. We used to sit around in a circle and read eachother poems and then discuss verbally and also in the written language. Found a bunch of these for this poem and I just absolutely love the flourish in which she wrote the “n” in “Dylan” on her comments because it flies upwards with gusto!

Also, my Mom told me once that she thought she was going to have one boy and one girl twin and that my name would have been “Keziah”. In The Bible:

“Keziah is a biblical figure mentioned in Job 42:14, identified as the second daughter born to Job after his restoration and suffering.”

Instead, Brian and I were named after the original guitarists from The Rolling Stones, Brian Jones (he actually played like every instrument and was a musical genius) and Keith Richards.

8-9. “Perfect partners in a two piece puzzle, a lefty and a righty, lovers to the end”

Brian and I are considered “mirror twins”. Not sure why I put lovers, seems incestual 🧐 Probably because I felt bad about the strangulation joke.