One day, B, you will be an old woman.
Your plump little hands will be barely alive,
long with the years and wrinkled, your curls limp,
your eyes dim to the world you learned to survive.
Today you are six years old, as if you will never
be anything else. Today you tripped on a board
in the floor, and today I worried that you would
burn yourself on the stove. Today you are adored,
as you will be in sixty years when you are old, B,
with your grandchildren, too old to remember me.
"My pet, I've been to the devil, and he's a very dull fellow. I won't go there again, even for you..."
The high school girls stand with their cigarettes
on the corner where the blacktop and the sidewalk meet.
The little creek, nameless but familiar to the students,
and overflowing now that it is spring,
collects their ashes on its way under the bridge.
On the bridge is painted a wizard,
white robe and beard, nameless also,
the work of some forgotten teenage artist,
paint chipping off into the half-frozen water.
I don't want to be forgotten. I take up my can of spray paint.
I shall make some graffiti of my name and my face,
and the creek will come up to meet me every time the snow melts.
Last edited by Cade on Fri Apr 11, 2008 2:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
"My pet, I've been to the devil, and he's a very dull fellow. I won't go there again, even for you..."
april 7th;
This poem had some really good imagery, I could see the little bridge with the faded wizard. It took me a little while to get the last stanza, but once I got it I really loved it.
I bow down to your poetic wonderfulness.
~MV (who envies you much more than you can imagine)
I realized that I said I'd be gone for only two weeks...but I was gone for much longer.I hope to stay on this time.
Sorry, but I wasn't really much of a fan of this poem as much as everyone else. I can certainly see where you might take it, and of course all of these poems are not edited as much as we like, so I think you could make it shine with some effort.
April 6
Very nice. Not sure how long it took to come up with the rhyme scheme, but it was lovely. It reminds of a poem I once read with a similar theme, but I can't remember who it was by.
April 7
It was okay. The imagery was pretty good, but the message felt rushed and somewhat out of place with what you might have originally intended.
Oh. I feel so honored/embarrassed to have been directly addressed in a poem by one such as yourself!
First, to the poem! I love the rhyme between opened and broken. I also like the line " pried open my heart and turned its soft melody into a duet"--the language for such a thing is wonderful! I can't really comment on anything else. It's terribly simple, but good for that.
As to the question! well... I'm currently trying to catch a boy myself, and so my comments on love are swayed entirely. Were I not influenced by this boy, I'd say that high school love is bound to fail, blah blah blah cynical cynical cynical, don't do it. But, of course, it's also fun to do things for the heck of it...? And boys are pretty things... erm. So. Pry?
“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
I could also have subbed in a friend's name for your name, because she's the same way about the stuff I write, except that she knows who I like and she and I often conspire on the subject of boys.
Also, this made my day: "Boys are pretty things."
"My pet, I've been to the devil, and he's a very dull fellow. I won't go there again, even for you..."
When I was young
and unconcerned with the purpose of the place,
and I had a sense of right and wrong,
it was easy to believe in nothing.
I am not heartless; nor am I
God's plaything,
a creature of destiny and nothing else.
I am my own, but still I wonder
as to the nature of truth; if we are
lonely beings, orphans of the universe,
there is nothing to stop us from killing but
the fear of an Almighty—yet man creates
his own rules, and creates his company.
I create myself.
"My pet, I've been to the devil, and he's a very dull fellow. I won't go there again, even for you..."
A prose poem. I've been listening to the Moldy Peaches and was inspired to write something a little bizarre.
10 April
Well I like picking blueberries under the hot sun, and I like watching movies at Highland Bowl, and I particularly like eating blueberries while watching movies. I like Dr. Pepper. I like good bagels like they sell at Bagel Land. Sometimes I like yogurt, but not all the time. I like science. Did you know that the sun's light takes eight minutes to reach earth? I like the number eight. We should talk. Eight minutes. That's all. We can share a blueberry bagel and some yogurt and Dr. Pepper and watch a movie, and we only have to talk for eight minutes, and when we're done we'll welcome the hot sunshine on our faces because we know it made such a journey just to see us.
"My pet, I've been to the devil, and he's a very dull fellow. I won't go there again, even for you..."
Wow I really liked that last one! At first it rambled, but then it came to a point, and that was great!
I agree that April 9 wasn't too good. It just seemed like you were trying too hard to be "big". The idea behind it was good, though. Maybe you could express it using more specific imagery.
I really liked the imagery in April 7, but I have one tiny critique:
and overflowing now that it is spring, collects their ashes on its way under the bridge,
Shouldn't that last comma be a period?
Other than that, awesome job.
"You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand." Leonardo Da Vinci
10 isn't really my thing as a prose poem; in general I consider the stream of consciousness polluted and unsafe for general drinking purposes (see, for instance, "For the herring-impaired," for further explanation of my bias). =)
9 is sort of bleh, for me. I mean, it sounds like that Natasha Bedingfield song? Maybe.
8 is a favorite. Your voice, I think, really shines through here.
7 is weird. I think S2 stands as a fine poem. S1 seems like an exercise in poetic masturbation and nothing would be lost from excising it. I'm fond of S2, though.
6 is a side of you I'm not sure I feel entirely comfortable with, at this point; or, rather, I'm not convinced you're entirely comfortable with it, either. The sentimentality and genuflection doesn't work in the current form--sentimentality, sensitivity, tenderness: they all require a voice which is softer than what you have. Anyway, it probably could work with more adequate time and what-not.
Cheers!
"If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders." -Hal Abelson
He has you jumping through hoops like the ones
strung through your earlobes. Pull in your feet;
these hoops flame on all sides. Pull in your elbows,
lest lions' teeth spill your blood. Or, friend, leave
the circus. Pull in your heart; he would not catch you
on the trapeze. What use is it all
if you are not the ringmaster?
"My pet, I've been to the devil, and he's a very dull fellow. I won't go there again, even for you..."
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