Published January 2, 2010
late summer in saltillo valley and the cotton fields spoof and
sprawl, and all you can see for miles are the clean, unpicked boles –
white and purse-lipped as newly declared saints. we bounce in the
back of the pickup and we are poor and the road sputters with potholes,
gray dust rising behind us – lonely, spectral and following us home,
like a stray. I have never picked cotton before – you tell me that you
will show me how and I do not think that it will be all that
difficult.
I am given a
great canvas bag which, unrolled, sags to my feet – I sling it around my
shoulders. the boles of cotton are frazzled and white and shaking a little
like white-gowned patients after their shock therapy. asylum, lunatics,
they whisper under their sheets and a few stray bees hover, indecisive
and nearsighted. the shuck of the bole crinkles, and you need to untangle
little black seeds from their cotton slips, like some crouching ape
picking for nits.
the larger cottonplants are lazy and wide-mouthed and loud, like madames
cooing over their houseful of whores. I can see you a few rows in front of me,
bent, sleeves rolled up to display your slender perfect wrists and I love you so much
in that moment and I wonder if I will ever be able to love you like that again.
you pick very quickly. the earth is hard and cracked like dropped china
and the people picking with us in the cotton field are distant and wavery,
faint transmissions, their backs bent, and then rising to stretch every once in a while
and to look up at the clouds, big and ribbed, like oxenless covered wagons west.
I think
that if I had to pick cotton for the rest of my life
that my hands would be very good and very rough
and that I would grow eccentric and godless, like the cottonboles,
with only a handful of black teeth and with you by my side
and only ever smiling, smiling, skin parting and crinkling.
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140,653 Literary Works • 673,580 Reviews
Kylanesque! (I need more nicknames for you...)
I keep meaning to review as soon as you post something, but I am a chief at procrastinating. This reminds me of cantelope, you know? Like, it has that slight melancholy tone to it-- canning peaches faintly carried the tone as well, as did skinny wolf. I can't pinpoint what it is, but there's something of these sorts that I really, really love, and kind of just want to keep them in a book to read when I need to procrastinate.
This is a pretty opening stanza. Very soft and calm, and I can't say that I like the clip "we are poor" in the midst of it. I feel like it should be moved, perhaps to the bottom or such of this poem-- or somewhere else instead of the beginning, because I think your poem would benefit more if you kept the non-specific description of things in the opening without such deadpan parts.
(My personal favorite part is the second stanza -- it's really pretty and the description is alive here) I really like your choices of imagery throughout this because it pulls the poem together and laces it all up as it broadens horizons, and this is the typical Kylan poem that makes me smile as I read it. It's honestly enjoyable; the kind of poem to keep.
June
Actually, I put that ape comparison in there as a little experiment, believe it or not! To see who remembers one of my more obscure poems -- "Cantaloupe". you've got a good memory. Sorry that you were somewhat disappointed... I knew I was too fond of this one...
-Kylan
Spoof? Sounds nice, but I can't quite get it to mean anything here.
Hmm.
This is interesting because usually I either have an objection or have eyes full of hearts with you, but the above stanzas-- I like the imagery etc. but I wasn't enamored of it as a whole. Maybe because, I don't know, it is more a linear narrative, and oddly prosaic in spite of the layers of simile.
So: no advice there, just a gut reaction. Alas.
Wide-mouthed plants? I can't quite see it. Although I am not an expert on cotton.
Slender perfect wrists are nice, if disconcerting on a practiced cottonpicker. These two sentences do what they need to very well.
Already discussed, hahaha. It is iffy!
Now that is really gorgeous. The clouds. Better than anything beforehand.
And a strong ending.
I dunno. In general, I'm just not sure about the better part of this poem, the lead-up, and I don't have a very good handle on why. It seems a little too dry, if you will, a little flat. Some of the comparisons I recognized from your other poems, unfair but true-- crouching ape with nits? Last time I saw that, it was with reference to a starry night.
The ending sort of made up for it, though. And in a way the less than prepossessing opening only added to that. So maybe that's enough.
I've read this maybe three or four times but, as it's wonderful, I didn't know what to say. And I hate to be the person who posts four-word comments like Fantastic! I love it! Keep Writing!
I guess that's six words.
I love that arrangement of words; those are my favorite two sentences.
I'm a complete newb to poetry, and when I first looked at this I thought-- it's a story with no capitalized words, sparse amounts of commas or periods while dashes roam willy-nilly, hither and thither all over the page.
But, after reading and re-reading the poem, i think it is a masterpiece; especially the last stanza.
I love the image of a black-toothed godless eccentric and his good, honest worker's hands.
Your work is pure pleasure to read, if I forget to be jealous.
*****The Universe*******
nice poem, I rather like it :) I just love the way you write, especially when I read it out loud, it has a nice sound to it. I can see it all too, like a little movie in my head. You do a wonderful job with imagery.
One little critique:
the bit after the hyphen sounds a little awkward I think. I thought maybe it'd sound better as "lonely and spectral, following us home like a stray". or something like that.
okay one more teeny tiny critique:
perhaps you could do without the "that", and just add a comma after "life". "If I had to pick cotton for the rest of my life, my hands would be very good and very rough".
anyways that's about all I can critique. Otherwise I thought the poem was lovely, thanks for the good read :)