Sleeping Blizzard

Leaning once more against plastic cans,
almost like swaying in a smoke breeze;
we inflate from inside chimneys and
they say it helps, but it only makes the
vomit come out slower. The poison pulsing
is a bit louder now, louder and slower
like the Eskimo they said drowned
last week.
The other day, it seemed that the snow came
down like bombs, so I stopped walking
because my brain was already dead.
Then I saw him,
floating down the Lewis River like handwritten notes
on summer weekends
and radiation sickness/joy,
as they say. It must have been sunny where he was

because where I was, there was only
darkness
and the snow falling/pounding <>

Why didn't I sit beside that Willow tree
and watch him as he raised his arm
and waved to that hole in the sky?
We'll color between the lines, but not
outside; somewhere in the middle, I think -
I look out into the blizzard, and I see
an Eskimo struggling against the wind.
If I choose to, I can go help him.

that was really good.. and i think i like falling better. what are the plastic cans exactly? so, lemme think... this poem is like in the artic or something? thats how it makes me feel. i like the wording and line breaks. it is quite entrancing.... easy to follow. *nods* who is the man on the river? god? jesus maybe? or someone else? im not sure. it really is good though, kafka. brilliant job.

Hey Kafka. Evi here. My poetry interpretation skills are a immensely rusty, but here goes!

The first, very concrete thing I can say, is to avoid the "like" simile so much. You use it four times in that first large stanza, which might not seem like much, but for some reason it stood out to me. It shouldn't be too hard to change one or two of them to either "as" or some rephrased variation.

The "-ing" verbs at the beginning felt a bit...direction-less. What is leaning against plastic cans, almost swaying, and inflating? Where's the subject there, and why do those actions matter? They're pretty phrases, but I'd like to see some connection to the next parts, about "They say it helps". Also, I like the "poison pulsing" alliteration, but then again I'm a sucker for alliteration.

I also noticed that there is this recurring "they" subject. They say this, that, this, that. Which is interesting-- I'd love a little bit more about them. There's almost a certain bitterness in the narrator's voice when talking about "them"; exploring that a bit could be interesting. Right now I'm pretty muddled about the real meaning of this poem. At first I thought it was about drunkenness, which I'm still considering, but seems increasingly unlikely. Then I saw some cancer-ish things? As if the vomiting is from chemo treatment, which was the poison, and then he dies. But I always look at poems too literally, so I'm probably way off. The random insert of "sundials" confused me a bit; I really do like the imagery of it, but I couldn't find a reason for it to fit or make sense in context. And finally, the juxtaposition of the forward-slashed words seemed a bit out-of-place. Radiation sickness and joy are very different things, but falling snow isn't too different from pounding snow, and I was wondering as to the reason for the parentheses (as well as the <>).

Anyway, although I can't exactly discern a meaning besides a feeling of regret and numbness, I enjoyed reading this. I'll have to keep an eye out for more of your poetry. PM me for anything!

~Evi