30 January 2007

swing

we swing
aaaaaa with such an appreciation for snow
against gravity
aaaaaa it was in her nature to forget people’s first names
so many books you couldn’t breathe
aaaaaa soon she began to call everyone
john or betty
chains holding us tight
aaaaaa this is the kind of winter i can bear
when we would get a rip in out panty hoes
aaaaaa a free newspaper everyday
an apparent lack of colour leads the imagination to think of spring
aaaaaa green was his favorite colour
she would send us to the nurse to put an ace bandage on it
spring swing sing
aaaaaa i returned three books on & about Robert Lowell to the shelves
cheeky is not an American word
aaaaaa two flannel shirts the same colour, but with different designs
he tried revising poems years later
aaaaaa push me
an exploration of white space
aaaaaa cities are works of pure happenstance
the tilt of the earth causes climates causes biomes causes
aaaaaa concrete (poetry) to be less concrete & more free than paper
he highlighted texts
aaaaaa A MOVE OF THE CURSER NOT THE SCROLL
(nearly all the words so what was important
aaaaaa went unknown)
renaming the earth to reflect its watery nature
aaaaaa spacing comes into play, but not in the sense of
open field composition, but rather arbitrary fun.
aaaaaa perhaps using the wrong interpretation
half off all books lured me inside
aaaaaa a tale of going around or over the bar
the wood door to her room is broken
aaaaaa but you need the space to breathe
when escaping from a car that has driven into water do not panic
aaaaaa a misuse of vocabulary words
assembling is half the fun
aaaaaa a lock that won’t close
the circulation of air, hot rising, cool falling
aaaaaa a fist size shattering of wood
the top of the coffee tasted like roasted marshmallows
aaaaaa i saw my teacher in the bookstore
wait till the pressure has equalized before opening the door
aaaaaa a rush of wind, a gulping sound
windows will not crack from kicking or keys
aaaaaa a safe stocking stuffer
her room became warm because the thermostat downstairs was set to 75
aaaaaa things i forgot to do
yellow leaves on my floor with writing on them
aaaaaa perhaps you should have purchased that safety hammer from wal-mart
it was awkward and still, me with my hand on a book about Ezra Pound
aaaaaa old post it notes with the glue failing fall
winter without snow
aaaaaa you can make a sentence academic by inserting a term
a topic to write on
aaaaaa a list of due dates past
her mind always shut down when I started to talk of schools of poetry
aaaaaa i could collect them, pressing their patterns between book pages
after my teacher left i had a conversation with him
aaaaaa fascists can be fun sometimes
the cover is orange
aaaaaa cut into wedges, like a soccer game snack
frost in Florida
aaaaaa there in the crowded stacks warm with winter coats on
I bought a book by T.S. Elliot (I know Steve will be mad)
aaaaaa so to avoid a price hike we bought two bags
salt had been spread to keep students safe
aaaaaa a landing pad in the grass
but his poems were illustrated by Edward Gorey
aaaaaa a small peel goes well with wheat beer
the wood shook from the transfer of weight
aaaaaa not because it was cold, because it was alive.

3 comments:

Stephen Imperato said...

i had a big, long, insightful comment all typed out here, but then my browser fucked it all up. im pissed. i was working on it for at least 20 minutes.
here's the long and short of it:
good poem. reaches far and wide in its images and themes. mine it. you could make at least 3 or 4 other more successful, more focused poems out of the material in this one. good experimentation with the staggered lines. go back and figure out where it really works especially well and where it's just flat. isolate the things you did in those good line combinations and devise a more definite method. not mad about the eliot reference or the pound. just dont start writing poems with longer indexes and footnotes than the poem itself. you're too humble for that.

ehammelshaver said...

what a delicious ramble with at least fifty story-lines (like a good soap opera). i agree with steve: this could become so many more poems, but i also like the mind-dump that it is--finding connections every so often line is exciting, like having a metal detector go off at the beach in the sand. although some parts are a little weaker, it is nothing a few 'vivid particulars' (doc thomas words) can't fix. lovely. this poem is my mood right now.

silverline said...

HOORAY I HAVE POEM FRIENDS AGAIN!

Definitely right about this one, it goes one, it lags, & the form tired me at times (& of course the linebreaks got screwed up because even with the new blogger you cannot tab something).

I was trying less for cohesion at this point & more (as Emily put it) metal detector moments, shifting narrative in a swing like lang-poe motion. The confusion & lagged crap could arguably be part of it, but why hold onto the weak when a sharp red pencil could make it better.

so:

new form perhaps pop-up poetry chunkettes

shift or abandon spacing

pick up lag points (which what does stick out as super sucky or weak line combos?)

& if you are feeling poetically inclined add to the mess that is this poem...copy paste it cut it up & add your own narrative lines or new connections into it!