“The wren lives in brakes and crevices"
-Aristotle Historia Animalium IX.xi
“The hand does not divide into hands
nor the face into faces."
–Aristotle Historia Animalium I.i
This is the way things are: the wren skids between cirrus curls,
bark-brown against the suffering blue of afternoon
The tube that leads from the generator to my boy’s mouth
is clear and lined with pin-prick drops that skid along...
the metonymic chain should be swallowed slow... the wren
will ride on broader wings, hidden within the plumage of within
He does not breathe without the presence of my hand against the mask,
vapors, ravaged metals, enter his throat like rapids fall from fissured stones
The wren will be crowned king of birds, cunning in yellowed plume
watered-yellow as the eye of the broad-backed glider it rode upon
This is the way things are: I cannot see inside my boy.
His lungs I failed to build may be etched with blue vessels
The miniature mechanic of the sky will sail down on razor feathers,
its clever ascent guided by necessity.
He leans into me, slow. His belly, all that living estuary,
fits in the palm of me. These lungs I failed to build I flood with mist.
3 comments:
This is leagues ahead of the previous version. I think the segregated declarative segments [that's a mouthful, if not redundant, no?] really gives this a "matter of fact" verisimilitude. You kind of declare that in the first line and then follow through with this rather ineluctable tone. I shall forgive your asterisk "visual" thingy. ;-). Not sure if the irregularity of your use of periods was intentional or not. Last two sections use them as terminators. Since you're primarily using declarative sentences, I suspect your might want to decide to use them or not, but not both. Huge quadruple Bravos! Not sure if you've read any Georg Trakl but some transaltions of his work have this same kind of undeniable declarative tone. It's a tone I rather admire.
Very helpful comments. Thank you, Gerry. I do not like the asterisks at all. I didn't mean them to be visual, but I am not a fan of partitioning segments with number, and my original format, written in word(where I indent the lines about the boy) did not take on blogger. In fact, the entire poem is spaced and broken differently from my word version. I just can't seem to figure out how to format on here. Anyway, the asterisks are ghastly, and I will take them out.
I have no idea what I am doing with punctuation at this point, but your thought about consistency is important and very well taken. I will work it out.
I have not read Trakl, but I will now!
Poems are about tugging at the heart-strings, and yours do!
Punctuations take a second place, so mot to worry!
Looking for you on my blog...
Post a Comment