A Fable Called Childhood
(a collective piece inspired by the "round-robin" poets - thanks everyone :)
Leaving smoke outside the door of the cottage
Alarms signalled something was wrong
Ashen whispers reached our tongues and began to suffocate
“God I can’t breathe,” she said, “not that I ever could”
Came the reply, “I’ll burn your throat if you scream again.”
But the song itself was more searing than the hottest iron, so she raised her voice
Crooning the song of white beards and frayed kerchiefs
Of a world she never knew
A pain she had no right to
That lulled us to sleep with its accented smoker’s croak
Sending us away down the rusted tracks into sleep's fiendish arms
Past your childhood cottage. No stopping to wave hello to Babi
"Childhood eez an American fable"
We were never allowed fables
She would paint her own
With unforgiving blacks and scalding charcoal that dotted her pallete
Who knew black spanned so many shades?
So she cackled with the flames' crackle
Watching it all melt away
Drip molten metal, crumble raspy ash
Take with it a lifetime of faces too bitter and unearthly to be confined
This poem is on some major imagery steroids- haha! Super descriptive which I loved and you definitely 'showed' us and didn't 'tell.'
ReplyDeleteI must admit that I had to read it a few times to fully understand what was going on- because I felt like SO much was happening in this poem.
Some of my favorite lines were:
"Singing the song of white beards and frayed kerchiefs," "into sleep's fiendish arms,"Drip molten metal, crumble raspy ash." - I thought these were fresh and original!
The last line that starts with "Take with it a" - maybe there can be a clearer word that can help direct the reader into what's happening and that would conclude with a stronger finish.
Great poem & great imagery. You evoke a lot of depth throughout the poem and it's both stimulating and heartfelt.
It's exciting for me to see one of our joint exercises turned into a poem in its own right. However, coming from so many sources, it didn't really feel like a unified piece speaking in a unified voice until around "so she raised her voice." Until then, the imagery is disjointed. At that point, it really picks up and starts becoming the powerful poem the rest of it is.
ReplyDeleteOnce you begin with your own words, the poem that emerges seems to me to be about a person with a Holocaust survivor grandmother, and how that shapes the speaker's self. I especially saw this in the line "a pain she had no right to"--i.e. her grandmother's pain, about things the speaker did not experience, but which nonetheless are a part of her.
I liked the image "white beards and frayed kerchiefs."
I also liked the seeming contradiction of being "lulled" by an "accented smoker croak."
I also enjoyed seeing this accent demonstrated in the quote "childhood eez a fable."
I also liked the reflection "Who knew black spanned so many shades?"
Just because the germ of the poem started in the joint exercise, don't be afraid to cut away at the parts that don't add to the rest of the poem. The parts which speak with your voice alone appear to me the strongest.
Updated:
ReplyDeleteline 2: cottage
line 6: came the reply
line 7: hottest iron
line 8: crooning
line 11: smoker's croack
line 17: charcoal