The storybook-history-life lessons will
always flow through your veins,
can transcend time-space continuums.
Even without me, my car,
you'll arrive at the destination. (Without a map!) So,
Please, please, please, pull up, pick up projectiled innards.
Understand your heartbeat = my blood, and
listen:
many duets, songs, jokes, laughs,
and go on to rise with the sun-
not just because you have to, but because it's the
only way you'll ever play Paganini again.
Instructor's comment:
ReplyDeleteThe simple joys of music--of Paganini specifically!
This is a great example of what a contemporary poem is, and how it might be working.
1.) "time, beauty, life" is very Keatsian (i.e. Romantic), as the ideas were made famous by the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." However a Romantic ideal, you undercut the romanticism by addressing yourself, rather than some god-like being.
2.) The car is a modern vehicle. Driving without a map might seem dangerous, but with the absence of the map, direction seems to rely on those "innards"--again romantic--but also the vehicle--abandoning the romantic idea of the "self".
3.) The idea that there is something worth living for, another expression of romanticism, is made contemporary but not only the specificity of Paganini, but also by the triviality of it.
I also really like the grammatical preservation AND experimentation you're showcasing! Experiment more. What can punctuation do? What can it not do?
Keep undercutting those romantic ideas. Be modern (i.e. "make it new")--great start!