Incandescence wrote:America—what's it mean
to be you? I am struggling
to keep up with a city
that never sleeps, and I am falling
behind the drifters and the homeless
in their footsteps. I am both
too ugly and neurotic for a home
for the beautiful and the brave—
the open, welcome limitations
of a land so vast and bodily, and body
so small and prancing, happily
spinning—the liveliest of equilibriums
sustained by the perennial vertigo
of going in, of going in secret,
of crossing the Golden Gate Bridge or,
without words, the Bridge of Sighs.
I am too light for the moon
that blows through your black streets
and too tall to wear my sadness
like a garment; in my being, you have striped
and stripped me of my major things,
and yet when I think of you reading
this poem (will you read it?), I do not want
you to be taken captive, separated by a wire
mesh lined with glass from your life itself,
like some Elektra, like you are still a dream.
And anyway, the actions of life turn out
not to be many—the bridges as they are
and the going and the secrets—
and when my lover dishonored me,
I saw that dishonor is an action as well,
and whether from patriotism or isolation
like a sickness, it causes the vocal chords
to swell. I went booming through your cities,
under and over your bridges, but he was gone,
concealed in your womb.
Later that day
I telephoned his brother—What's wrong
with your voice? he said, and I hung up
as the small shiny planes of the landscape receded
from my second-story window, bleary-eyed
and wearied, and I walked out to the ocean
(either of them will do) where I watched as the water poured
from the violent Atlantic into a softer Pacific,
like two vessels in a thirst, plainwater lust. America,
there is a moment when the water
is not in one vessel or the other—
and what a thirst it is—it is that moment
when I feel most alone here, and most at home:
when the plate grows darker and the homeless
are illuminated by the moon; it is when
I am my ugliest and most neurotic—it is when
matter stumbles out from its forms.
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Canary word: Present
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125,014 Literary Works • 672,845 Reviews
If Sylvia Plath wrote AD Hope's "Australia" and then Woody Allen filmed it, it would be this. Very stream of consciousness, very self conscious, very scattered. There are moments of lyrical revelation, rich word play, but over all, this is a first draft rant, with fickle focus. Think about the breathing, refine, refine, refine.
But oneeyedunicornhunter, find "enjambment" in the dictionary, then use the edge of that page to remove your own spleen.
Hey!
This poem is quite puzzling. I read it twice already, and I really can't understand it. What is your America? You keep saying neurotic, and I agree-it's completely unpoetic--and you also don't explain your use for it. The whole middle part, to tell you the truth, felt superfluous and long and heavy and somewhat wordy, somewhat irritating.
"the liveliest of equilibriums
sustained by the perennial vertigo
of going in"
This part is really annoying. It's a ramble of scientific terms that could have been formatted and condensced into a simple line, rather than using all these long, annoying words to descrive an unscientific state of being, a nation.
Basically, the best parts are the beginning and the ending, which are fantastic. The rest, meh.
Haha, I love your use of sharp imagery. That poem was like eating cheddar... yummy! And unlike Fand, I dig the colloquialism.
Anyway! This was awkward:
and this was awkward:
The first one because it seemed hopelessly long and I wanted to stab the dashes because it took me several rereadings to figure out what the hell was going on because it was way too long and you know how sometimes you read something and doesn't make sense, like the Ksp and Ka and Kb and K-FU! and so on, and it's just too long and you forget what the main point of the thing is because you're too lazy to want to read back because it's way too long? Yep. XD
The second one I don't like because of the weird juxtaposition of the tenses. I feel slightly violated from reading that part... my poor brain got raped by your poem. XD
Anyway! All and all, I liked it.
Oneeyedunicornhunter: And what, pray tell, is wrong with beginning sentences halfway through a line? No poet I know would object. Shakespeare, Milton, and Donne all do so. Hell, even the anonymous author of "Beowulf" did, and that's the oldest epic in the English language. Mayhaps you should read poetry more often?
Braddy:
The tone in this poem is a lot more colloquial than I'm used to, coming from you. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but at times the casualness is off-putting, as in "and yet when I think of you reading / this poem (will you read it?)" and "And anyway, the actions of life turn out." I agree with Vernon insofar as dividing this into stanzas would make it easier for the reader to digest, but the point of the poem is, I think, that it isn't necessarily easy (or if that's not the point, it's at least a corollary). It flows, almost stream-of-conscious, the way life does; from one emotion to the next, one image to the next, yourself to a loved one to yourself again.
One more note--I'm not entirely sure I like the use of the word "neurotic" here. It's just so... unpoetic, lol. I'm not sure what you could do to work around it, but aside from the occasional bout of extreme colloquialism, that's really the only thing that nagged at me while reading this.
--Emmy.
AHH you started new sentences in the middle of lines. i am not pleased with this fact.
i also felt like i was reading one big rant about america. i have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say about america, and plenty of the stuff you put here seems random.
i hope it's just me, that i just don't get your poem. i know that everyone else loves your poetry.
maybe i'll come back and read it another time, and it'll make sense once i mull it over.
edit: alright. well, i reread it and i think i understand more of what you said, but some things still puzzled me (such as: "I went booming through your cities,
under and over your bridges, but he was gone,
concealed in your womb. "
and of course the starting sentences in middle of lines didn't bother me as much this time. i was a bit under the influence (of energy drinks...) and my focus was at a bare minimum.
anyway, i was right. after mulling it over, it makes more sense. still confusing, but oh well.
not bad, keep writin'!