I emerge from my nest, carpet booth in the chimney building,
and through the portals I can see winter like black glass and baby powder.
Hidden beyond, the spears protect the shadow balls with wheeled cages.
Back there, there is proof of the psychedelic campfire, where the cult pricks together.
But I blow by the darkness, beneath the pavement slides bent like monochrome rainbows,
Because up the hill are mad scientist masters like doctor genius monkeys
and I help them birth their caste one f*cking elbow greased lie at a time.
But for one hour each day, I am my own deity:
I slide down the brown boxes of imprisonment, and I own Thayer Street.
Shall I carbo twist kiss like Paula Dean? Or pay $3.50 to suckle brown bean juice?
I'm thinking I don't want to taste something that will oink at me from the inside later,
so you win, FALAFEL!
(The girl in line behind me drove from New York City for you.
She says she's in love with you, but I think she's just one of those lonesome melon eaters.
I know you're shaped like a donut just to tease me,
and you have no jelly inside so you couldn't possibly love me - or that melon eater.)
When my 60-minute affair is over, I slip back up and shackle myself awake four more hours.
Ring, ring, ring. Accept, deny, lie. Ring, ring, ring. Deny, lie, deny, lie.
Then it's time for that mad dash through your heartbeat,
I board at the dock of an artery, and with each metallic diesel pulse I am closer to your red core.
I pass the aquariums - the ones that hold faceless money like black suits,
I pass the site of the mobster bloodbaths of your past
(where there are now gay men that make topiaries out of messes like me),
I pass the clowns that dance to Enya as they set the water on fire
(what is so amusing about water on fire that it deserves kettle corn celebration?),
I pass the forgotten windowless slabs where those women fly stealth
(and get drunk on gold as they bulldagger swagger),
Oh, Providence! Only in retrospect can I see:
three years can ghost away as time melts, but I'll never forget.
Classmate comment:
ReplyDeleteThere are times where I have no idea where you are, and thats partly why I like this poem. The vivid details that touches on all the senses gives the impression that the place the narrator is can only be special through his/her eyes. The other thing I like was the parenthesis, which seems to play as a pull back into reality for the reader. We see the abstract world of the narrator, then we are pulled back to the unfantastic real world. It was a really well done poem with story telling style that reminded me of the great poem writers, like Wanda Coleman.
Instructor comment:
ReplyDeleteStacey--you poet, you!
I love this poem for many reasons, and mostly because your [tisk tisk] broke my rule about end-stopped lines...which in your case, might actually be debatable. In fact, your hard ends are achieved, but not through punctuation...and interesting twist!
I really see you pushing yourself into the really unreal. My favorite being at the very beginning:
"Back there is proof of the psychedelic campfires, where the cults prick together.
But I blow by the darkness, beneath the pavement slides bent like monochrome rainbows.
Because up the hill are mad scientist masters like doctor genius monkeys
and I help them birth their caste one f*cking elbow greased lie at a time."
But don't say "f*cking". Say fucking. I don't want to hear shame or whispers from the speaker of this poem.
I really appreciate the long lines, and I love the movement created by them: "I board at the dock of an artery, and with each metallic diesel pulse, I am closer to your red core." This line has the duende (close to the body / close to death) and the imagery I was asking for. And I feel placed somewhere. I am IN the poem.
And although completely UNordinary, this poem in a lot of ways reminds me of Frank O'Hara's poem "Music", which is one of my favorite poems of all time. We will discuss Frank O'Hara next week or the one after, and you will see what I mean.
OK--the flattery is nice, but what else?
Some things to think about:
Parenthesis: I've noticed you like these as a poetic tool. But what do they DO for the poem? Do they act as a persona that is separate from the speaker? Are they they the internal thoughts of the speaker?
Indented lines: What do they signify? Why are they necessary? What do they represent?
Just some things to think about as you revise and write other poems. You are developing your own style, but I want to advise you to use the economy of language--strong lines are weakened by even stronger lines, so figured out what the poem needs. Excess can work sometimes, other times it can cloud the wonderful parts of the poem!
The "I": You use this pronoun a lot, yet who is this "I"? Is the speaker important in the poem? is there something we should know about this person and his or her relationship to the scenery?