Saturday, May 24, 2014
Working backwards
8 am The pastor answers but takes me for a drunk needing charity
7 am The teddy bear I took from your bed falls without a sound
6 am Sheets tangle around my feet
5 am Pink tablets meant for nausea spin me in heavy arms of grey
4 am My eyelids cannot block the fluorescence of your cheek
3 am I slur your name again and again
2 am I don’t know how I made it from your cold body to my bed without waking
1 am So this is what you will look like when you die
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4 comments:
Wow. First of all, the basic structure in this poem is fantastic and really carries the whole thing, well done.
If you are looking for what to work on: the title is unnecessary and over-explanatory. Probably just a placeholder? I don't know what I'd call this poem…I hope something comes to you that powerfully reflects the content and/or form.
on line 3, tangled sheet is cliche, just a different verb will punch it up
line 4, tablets stopped me, because of computer terminology but also because of biblical terminology - capsules? pills? something else?
Heavy arms of grey is a wonderful way to describe the effect of medication in the wee hours…spin also works very well as a verb there
line 5 the word "block" clunks for me especially with the haunting image that follows it but I don't know what to suggest as substitute…
between 1 am and 2 am -- these are both two powerful lines but: I don't know what has happened between them. "what you will look like when you die" could be looking upon a dead person or a sleeping person, but 2 am has a cold body yet the viewer is sleeping ("without waking") so at 1 am the person was awake and 2 they were sleeping, but with a cold body, but they moved to another bed. So I am confused only by this part in terms of what actually happened.
Overall: I think this is about the death of a child but am unsure. It is only the teddy bear that gives me this clue, along with a fluorescent cheek.
I think the way you have structured it makes it very powerful. Along with the subject matter and the way it is framed.
The opening line immediately draws me in but doesn't tell me exactly what is going to unfold.
The final line is a punch, but an ambiguous one for me still. I think it is the future tense that leaves it open-ended. I have read it in both directions a few times and still can't quite decipher it but it also has this nightmare quality to it that makes that part of the experience…
I too like the structure and was not sure what was happening although I really think the piece works. Not being sure is okay sometimes.
My first thought was that it was sexual abuse. A child moved from their bed to the bed of an adult. In rereading it with this thought I felt the child probably an older child tried to tell the pastor but I may be way off here... It is always so interesting how differently each person interprets cues, no doubt based on our own experiences.
I too like the structure and was not sure what was happening although I really think the piece works. Not being sure is okay sometimes.
My first thought was that it was sexual abuse. A child moved from their bed to the bed of an adult. In rereading it with this thought I felt the child probably an older child tried to tell the pastor but I may be way off here... It is always so interesting how differently each person interprets cues, no doubt based on our own experiences.
Not sexual abuse. My original title was Highway Driving. It's about the night I left my dead grandma's bedside. Somehow I drove home from Steinbach, but I don't know how. I took Gravol so I could sleep and called my pastors in the morning to tell them about the funeral, but they blew me off because they thought I was a random drunk person.
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