originally posted in:Writers Corner
View Entire Topic
~music to accompany~
[quote]air raid sirens
drawling out a laconic panoply
of disassociated distress;
it's enough to make a blind man
hunchbacked, where's the threat?
this ain't no game of checkers,
O' winged one, with the man
in the street now guessing, guessing
still guessing, guessing, for an age;
wrap his intuition around a brick
to kick along the ground
amid gas, glass, flames
and condescension, how trite,
how unapplicable- if all is a shadow
could it flicker?- would a long shadow
flicker gold and silver?
amid gas, glass and flames
could all that fell into darkness
be tossed about, perhaps exhumed?
after the sirens[/quote]
I wrote this a while back, it is inspired, in part, by this piece by Dylan Thomas: [url=http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-refusal-to-mourn-the-death-by-fire-of-a-child/]A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London.[/url] One of my favourite poems. Of course my piece has its own meanings and deals with its own concerns, but I really like the imagery surrounding an air raid as a vehicle for darker poetic discussion.
-
Looks like a good start. I really like "wrap his intuition around a brick / to kick along the ground," great metaphor. Also like "this ain't no game of checkers, / O' winged one, with the man." It has an curious shift in language from line to line, jumping from slang to biblical. I'd work on giving it more concrete imagery. The first three lines, for example, have good vocab but the image is fuzzy. What would a "laconic panoply of disassociated distress" sound like? Also, you need a title. The title is the first thing a reader sees, and can set the mood and pace for the rest of the poem. Perhaps something that reflects the Dylan Thomas poem you were inspired by?