linm
Junior Member
Posts: 92 
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Post by linm on Jan 12, 2019 11:10:50 GMT -5
the first sentence was silence
little queasy. hand
to head. Bookworm
you’re home today.
cool glass of water by
the bed. portrait of
recuperation.
Later, plain
tea. Toast. gray noise
discussion, down
stairs back
kitchen way. Syllables
cloudy mucous wavering
passing self
off.
Whole house
genuflection:
thud, sofa stumble
from airplane, bunny
fun, thwack, bounce.
hard sole footsteps:
Margot, Margot.
Sirens swipe,
cut to our door.
concuss looping.
shrink being to the crest
of stairs, quilt blanked.
in the door gape
firemen parade,
raincoats with neon
stripe, hats pointing
to mission. hatchets in
hand, and a clutch
on the rail of canvas.
two eyes helmet my
way, not
here gone hearing
in bedclothes vagues
of sentences crumbling.
nothing for so long,
like they forget
to continue.
combustion shudders
a last rite. zooming.
everything’s off.
switched.
steps tread
to me, Daddy folds
to bed and looks
and looks and looking
back. They’ve taken
Mommy
to the hospital.
looking. looking
at my father crying.
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Post by bluebird on Jan 12, 2019 19:13:52 GMT -5
I love the opening line. At second reading I can imagine that silent
unspoken emptiness before the second sentence that begins the poem (or so I read it.)
Word choices in stanza one are great: set the scene perfectly. Bookworm you're home today
in italics made me think of a child at home from school...esp. when followed in next stanza
reference to what seemed to be toys. Nice transition. I am there with you.
hard sole footsteps breaks the spell...great image.
The stanza beginning with Sirens swipe...I definitely get the mood and confusion and the
following syntax from "two eyes" to sentences crumbling" is magnificently confusing.
The stanza beginning "nothing for so long conveys to me a sense of urgency,
of the need for speed and immediate functioning...
"everything's off." brought to mind the way I rather compulsively check
all electrics when leaving the house...but the double entendre is really great
...everything's off has a double meaning and the final image of daddy looking and looking
and looking back at me looking and looking and the news that mommy is taken and daddy is
crying.
Well done; images of moments that are seemingly odd and yet connect in some ongoing event
that concludes with daddy crying.
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Jimmy
New Member
Posts: 44 
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Post by Jimmy on Jan 12, 2019 22:01:13 GMT -5
Lin, this is a promising draft. I get the idea of a child who is home or who has come home amidst some issue with the mother, a breakdown or some medical emergency. I think the cut out feeling of the poem with the abbreviated lines and missing words in places defines the experience effectively (Whole house / genuflection etc.). Whatever happens at the end (is it suicide?) could be accentuated in some way to make it more dramatic. The tone does seem rather even throughout and I think if there was some surprise, some crescendo at the end it would make this strong poem more powerful.
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Post by betsey on Jan 13, 2019 10:18:50 GMT -5
Hi Linda,
Great language. Terse. I think you could make it more so!
"back kitchen way", "genuflection" stanza, needed? In 4th stanza - too many images? circuits loping? quilt blanketed?
Love firemen parade, but "clutch on the rail of canvass?"
Do you need "to the hospital"? We get it. More ambiguous without.
You write with a precision I love!
Betsey
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Post by lildawnrae on Jan 13, 2019 14:44:18 GMT -5
This intricate poem took several readings, and I'm not sure I understand the narrative even yet. The first stanza seems like a memory of a perfect "sick day." If you're a bookworm, a day with toast, tea and a glass of water is a GOOD day. The second stanza was full of good sounds--I thought of the sounds an old house makes when it's quiet otherwise. The two line stanza was totally perplexing. I'm not sure if the firemen are events in the poem or a metaphor for the illness of the mother. The final stanza illuminates what went before: mother has been taken from the house on a stretcher. Father is crying. The narrator surprised me. She or he seemed older in the first stanza. In the final stanza she thinks of her parents as Mommy and Daddy--terms of the very young. I wonder if the key for decoding the middle stanzas had been revealed earlier, those images and experiences would have had more resonance.
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Post by Gerry on Jan 17, 2019 14:59:17 GMT -5
Writing from the perspective of a child is always risky--there can be failures of language that we just need. For instance, "vagues of sentences" I just don't understand at the moment. It could be the "of" that's off, but I think it has to do with trying to capture a particular point of view.
Still, there's so much that works. The first stanza is terrific--strong in sound, in setting up scene, etc. I like the internal rhyme and how it establishes the narrative. I like how this line "shrink being to the crest" brings in the notion of a therapist (shrink) and the idea of mental illness/suicide attempt. That said. I wasn't sure about "quilt blanked": I kept hearing :blanketed" but I keep reading blanked as if the quilt is blocking the scene from her view.
I think, in the end, the middle section needs just a little more exposition, to "decode" it as Dawn said.
The ending is terrific. But we haven't gotten there yet.
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