homeleaving

it is the first summer rain – the kind
of rain that you can smell in the air, on the tip
of the tongues of the clouds that turn gray, mumbling
with mouthfuls of thunder.

the poppies lunge into the undergrowth, conquistadors
into the elephant grass, machete strikes against
bamboo that rattles like bayonets. the blossoms speak to me,
they whisper languid, damp words in my ear, like dirty-mouthed
coquettes saying things i've never heard a woman say, speaking
with the smut and slum of pollen leftover from the first run
of bees, the sawmill of bees – great sexless hivemembers that
move like zeppelins over the reich of poppyheads.

i sit for a moment on the porch steps – i am alone
and the wind blows snuffs of cottonwood seeds and i can hear the rain
rattling on the roof of the chicken hutch
where the rhode island reds pump their necks, scratch at the
grain candy, squawk softly like servants shelling
summer peas – i realize that i am leaving. i am leaving
this place and then it strikes me how much i love the poppies,
their frantic tachycardia, only half of them open in swills
of crepe – the others still slouching in the pious attitude
of monkish bud.
i wonder

what would it take to stay? or at least,
what would it take to bring this first brief summer rain with me,
or the slaughter of poppies, or the way this blade of grass
catches on my upper lip, the scent of the lilacs, strong and
stuffy as the smell of the elderly dozing in childless homes, to take
whatever bird that is riddling in those briars with me when
i go? i realize that i am leaving and that
this will never be the same and
i am the first one
to ever feel this way,
this soon.

the rain ends as softly as it began, like the touch of a mother
checking her children in the middle of the night
to make sure that they haven't grown up while she wasn't looking,
to make sure they haven't aged and pruned under their nightlit sheets,
fitful already with dreams of the past.

Very touching.

I like the topic you chose and the originality of the piece. I also like the repetition of some ideas, such as the summer rain and the poppies.

Some of your word choices are interesting and exquisite, such as in these two excerpts:

coquettes saying things i've never heard a woman say, speaking
with the smut and slum of pollen leftover from the first run
of bees, the sawmill of bees – great sexless hivemembers that
move like zeppelins over the reich of poppyheads.

their frantic tachycardia, only half of them open in swills
of crepe – the others still slouching in the pious attitude
of monkish bud.

However, some of those words, such as "hivemembers" and "reich" are obscure as to their meaning, and spelling as well. Also, I would change all of those "i've"s to "I've"s for more correct grammar.

~Blue

Kylan,


Like most of your works go, there's a sense of relative familiarity in this poem that almost any reader can relate to, and I think that's one of the things that make your work as enjoyable as it is. I really did enjoy this, but I think that in some parts, you carried more weight in words than the meaning of it is asking you to, especially in your areas of small repetition.

My favorite aspect of this, though, is how raw your writing is -- blatantly obvious in images but heavily piled in subliminal messages. It's a talent that you've come to perfect over the last year, and don't ever give it up. It's what personifies your writing and draws the reader closer. Let's begin:

Kylan wrote:it is the first summer rain – the kind
of rain that you can smell in the air, on the tip
of the tongues of the clouds that turn gray, mumbling
with mouthfuls of thunder.

I wouldn't worry so much about repeating the word rain here; I think you would have a better flow if you continued with just "the kind that" -- the repeat is more a drag, because it's too early on in the poem [in my humble opinion] to start repeating, because my mind draws to keep expecting that repetition, and it's not a repetition that I actually like.

"Mouthfuls of thunder" is a sweet and clever image, but it gets lost in translation for me. The image is beaut, but the mumble and the mouthful in succession trips for me, because I'm thinking figuratively -- should it be a mumble of thunder, with the mouthful of thunder, or should the mouth be full of lightning or rain, or something else, because in parallelism with a human mouth, it'd be sensible in some cases or others to say a mouthful of words, which is sound, but then a mouthful of a concrete item that can be felt or visualized or explored by another sense would also make sense. [And I sincerely hope I haven't boggled your mind too much with this ramble]

the poppies lunge into the undergrowth, conquistadors
into the elephant grass, machete strikes against
bamboo that rattles like bayonets. the blossoms speak to me,
they whisper languid, damp words in my ear, like dirty-mouthed
coquettes saying things i've never heard a woman say, speaking
with the smut and slum of pollen leftover from the first run
of bees, the sawmill of bees – great sexless hivemembers that
move like zeppelins over the reich of poppyheads.

Just thought I'd say that this sort of opening line for a stanza is what I always look for in your poems. It always raises the bar when you make the nonliving come to life in your poetry.

"bamboo that rattles" implies a singular stalk of bamboo, and I have a feeling that it should be rattle to be plural.

i sit for a moment on the porch steps – i am alone
and the wind blows snuffs of cottonwood seeds and i can hear the rain
rattling on the roof of the chicken hutch
where the rhode island reds pump their necks, scratch at the
grain candy, squawk softly like servants shelling
summer peas – i realize that i am leaving. i am leaving
this place and then it strikes me how much i love the poppies,
their frantic tachycardia, only half of them open in swills
of crepe – the others still slouching in the pious attitude
of monkish bud.
i wonder

I lovelovelove this stanza, this introduction of "I" and the branching of it with the [I's] perception of the world above described, this really brings the poem together before the descent into the insecurity of the narrator, as if connecting two poems or worlds with each other.

what would it take to stay? or at least,
what would it take to bring this first brief summer rain with me,
or the slaughter of poppies, or the way this blade of grass
catches on my upper lip, the scent of the lilacs, strong and
stuffy as the smell of the elderly dozing in childless homes, to take
whatever bird that is riddling in those briars with me when
i go? i realize that i am leaving and that
this will never be the same and
i am the first one
to ever feel this way,
this soon.

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of the asking of questions in poetry, whether it's wondering or not wondering, hypothetical or not; here, I can say that while I don't love the usage of questions, I can appreciate it, because it defines the narrator's mental departure before the physical one, and adds enough detachment for both the reader and the narrator (but not too much) so that we can sympathize with the narrator through the unwritten nostalgic emotion that's lurking in the spaces.

the rain ends as softly as it began, like the touch of a mother
checking her children in the middle of the night
to make sure that they haven't grown up while she wasn't looking,
to make sure they haven't aged and pruned under their nightlit sheets,
fitful already with dreams of the past.

I understand the intent of this closing -- the image of a mother in line with the detached metaphor of growing up that you used throughout, but I'm not sure that you've executed this in the best way you can, Kylan. I feel that you have only used a fraction of your potential here-- you've worked well on the previous parts, and as we come to this, it feels like you were in a rush to close, and you shouldn't be. I think you should spend a greater effort on the closing, and make it matter just as much as the rest. Cut out one of the "to make sure"s; I think you can do well without the repeat of it, because it makes you feel like you're pressing a dry gas pedal. Clean up the closing a little, and you'll be better off, dear.


Well done. It was great to read a poem of yours after so long.

June

Mm, lovely. I adore the sense of well, presence your poems have.
You thread the poem so delicately, but it makes sense though they can get complicated and we feel like we're sitting in that moment, listening to someone tell a story really softly.

It's a wonderful feeling.

it is the first summer rain – the kind
of rain that you can smell in the air, on the tip
of the tongues of the clouds that turn gray, mumbling
with mouthfuls of thunder.

I'll have to agree with June here, mumbling with mouthfuls of thunder is a clever use of alliteration (or is it assonance? Either way) it's just a little bit heavy at the opening part of your poem. If you want to keep that image, I suggest you at least cut out the 'with' to make a little lighter on the reader.

The image of a mouth you play around with in this stanza is nicely done, though.

the poppies lunge into the undergrowth, conquistadors
into the elephant grass, machete strikes against
bamboo that rattles like bayonets. the blossoms speak to me,
they whisper languid, damp words in my ear, like dirty-mouthed
coquettes saying things i've never heard a woman say, speaking
with the smut and slum of pollen leftover from the first run
of bees, the sawmill of bees – great sexless hivemembers that
move like zeppelins over the reich of poppyheads.

I really like this stanza. There are some fantastic comparisons in this that create such a vivid image in my mind. It's a little bit wordy, things like "smut and slum" "great sexless hivemembers" etc. It's a lot of interesting descriptive words. The problem would be that your image is so delicate you have to be quite careful if you pull words out. So I think that can be left alone for now.

i sit for a moment on the porch steps – i am alone
and the wind blows snuffs of cottonwood seeds and i can hear the rain
rattling on the roof of the chicken hutch
where the rhode island reds pump their necks, scratch at the
grain candy, squawk softly like servants shelling
summer peas – i realize that i am leaving. i am leaving
this place and then it strikes me how much i love the poppies,
their frantic tachycardia, only half of them open in swills
of crepe – the others still slouching in the pious attitude
of monkish bud.
i wonder

This stanza is really gentle in it's imagery compared to the previous stanza, which creates a nice contrast. One problem I've noticed is that you take your idea of poppies and going somewhere and link it through the entire poem, but all your other descriptive details have no specific, distinctive theme. You have a description, get through it, okay next description. It's like have a pole, with blocks stacked on each other but with a gap in between. They're all technically linked to the core of the poem, but they aren't linked enough with each other. They're all very individualized ideas to describe one.

what would it take to stay? or at least,
what would it take to bring this first brief summer rain with me,
or the slaughter of poppies, or the way this blade of grass
catches on my upper lip, the scent of the lilacs, strong and
stuffy as the smell of the elderly dozing in childless homes, to take
whatever bird that is riddling in those briars with me when
i go? i realize that i am leaving and that
this will never be the same and
i am the first one
to ever feel this way,
this soon.

Questions in poetry works in moderation which I can say you do, and it works into the whole concept of this poem. This stanza is sort of simplistic, as the previous stanza so maybe re-painting those picturesque moments for us again. Even if it's with less detailed. "Slaughter of poppies"? "Childless homes"? Good stuff now take it one step further to make this stanza really work.

the rain ends as softly as it began, like the touch of a mother
checking her children in the middle of the night
to make sure that they haven't grown up while she wasn't looking,
to make sure they haven't aged and pruned under their nightlit sheets,
fitful already with dreams of the past

This seems like a little bit of a drowsy finish. But I feel it works into the whole feel of the poem. The idea of mothers and growing up is again, very soft in it's portrayal. Which adds to the charm. So I found this to be a good way to end the poem, though the effort is less present.

Great to read this.

Kamas