Here's a couple poems. Ooh, what a treat. 8 days until my 5 day blitz. I'm excited, and interested to see how my body handles 18 hour days of typing, scribbling and staring at the ceiling as if it were the sky. You know, Thoreau was right--we writers do need to get into the open air more.
Hint: The key to feeling and appreciating poetry, nailing down its sound and nuance, is to say it aloud, and more than once. First time is a bit awkward. The more you do it, the better you are at finding rhythm, and feeling the underlying emotions. Enjoy.
White Noise
The munching Apple—
Click clack crunch croo:
I swear to God I’ve never
Heard such tender coo,
Such melodious rhythms
Of the clanking Bank changing
Over its millions billions zoo.
The chomping Apple—
Grating baking scraping phwapp!
Listening closer I tend to
Drift into somnolescent nap,
And dream of Rexes and Royces
And Royals and Rocks
All tapping wildly on dented
Drums out of the Staten Scrap.
The nibbling Apple—
Faint hush whisper swoon:
Not this place, not anymore,
Now that what smacks is toonish doom:
Though, even in Golden times
It rang and banged and bellowed
And bleat at night and blared unto noon.
From through the window,
Even but forty stories too high,
Sounds of the drying Apple—my
White noise sends me sleep... and pie…
See Sweeter, See
Some soft sigh may wake you by May—
Or not, and leave me pining, pining
On and on and away.
What petals of what flower might flutter
Your eyes ajar, to snap you fast and calm
From sleep—a place far too far.
A kiss—no. Too rough a shake to
Shake you out from dreams and images sweet:
An image of me? Keep it, for sure
It is far far sweeter than what eyes see.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I absolutely love both of these, although it took me about 6 reads to render an interpretation of White Noise.
The image it paints for me is one of the subject lying in bed beside a (New York) city window while someone bakes a (big) apple pie in the next unit (though the whole picture is not seen at first).
The scene opens with a mouth munching on an Apple at a range close enough to qualify for a Ren & Stimpy gross-out scene. Throughout the poem the camera backs away from the person who is chewing and we see that they are baking an apple pie and just happen to be savagely consuming one of the apples. The camera continues upwards into the subject's very "toonish" dreams and over the highrise.
The final shot is a fade-in to the apple core rotting on a window sill... perhaps next to a cooling apple pie.
I like it because it's slurping with audio-visual imagery and juxtaposes what I consider to be urban and rural themes. Of course there could also be another deeper layer of meaning slopped atop it all, but I'm a simple guy and this suits me just fine.
...wait. Dear God, I think I actually get it. There's no apple, no pie or baking person... it's the effing Big Apple. All the white noise was literally the city, and not the subject focusing on a particular aural subject. Dude, you're amazing!
As for See Sweeter, See... again, I like it at the ankle-deep level. Id est: Self deprecation, unconfidence, and another visit to the dream fairy -- although this time from another point of view.
Officially impressed,
Adam
Andrew I just love reading your poems. They are so good!
Post a Comment