Kevin's Watch

I ran across this poem in an old notebook the other day. It's from the last time I moved, which was in 2010. I *must* have been tired when I wrote it.

***

Unpacking, Sunday Night

Along the ragged edge of exhaustion
Colors writhe
Shapes leer
The ceiling fan makes mad merry-go-round shadows
like some macabre peep show

Against the lurid light of midnight
Nails break
Scissors spear
The ripping crumpling rustle-and-curse unveiling
of yet another box of kitchen ware

Before the relentless tyranny of Monday
Eyes slit
Senses veer
The air takes on that ethereal not-quite-thereness
that pushes me remorselessly toward bed

And yet in my altered hyper-wakeful state
Boxes taunt
Crates jeer
Their very presence in my line-of-sight awareness
needles my last nerve

And so I have no choice
But to unpack another box

I've been there.

Not bad, ali!

I like the rhymes and the lines

• - 'The ripping crumpling rustle-and-curse unveiling'
  
  - 'The ceiling fan makes mad merry-go-round shadows'

You are making a classic 'show don't tell' mistake in these lines:

• - 'The air takes on that ethereal not-quite-thereness'
  
  - 'And yet in my altered hyper-wakeful state'

The poem is already doing these things, so you don't need to tell us. For example 'My head full of packing foam and airiness' would give the sense of the line 'The air takes on that ethereal not-quite-thereness' without being so obvious about it.

'And yet to my wide-open ears and gaping eyes' could portray the line 'And yet in my altered hyper-wakeful state' by showing the physical effects of the state on the body.

There is a consistent underlying violence to the language that may be suggestive of the reasons why the person is having to move. Being aware of this will help with word choice and add a potential layer of narrative to the poem.

You see, plenty there to work with, ali! Keep it up!

u.

ussusimiel wrote:a classic 'show don't tell' mistake

You mean I can't do that in poetry, either? Well, fudge monkeys. You people sure have a lot of rules...

Thanks! I'll see what I can do with it.

ussusimiel wrote:Not bad, ali!

I like the rhymes and the lines

• - 'The ripping crumpling rustle-and-curse unveiling'
  
  - 'The ceiling fan makes mad merry-go-round shadows'

You are making a classic 'show don't tell' mistake in these lines:

• - 'The air takes on that ethereal not-quite-thereness'
  
  - 'And yet in my altered hyper-wakeful state'

The poem is already doing these things, so you don't need to tell us. For example 'My head full of packing foam and airiness' would give the sense of the line 'The air takes on that ethereal not-quite-thereness' without being so obvious about it.

'And yet to my wide-open ears and gaping eyes' could portray the line 'And yet in my altered hyper-wakeful state' by showing the physical effects of the state on the body.

There is a consistent underlying violence to the language that may be suggestive of the reasons why the person is having to move. Being aware of this will help with word choice and add a potential layer of narrative to the poem.

You see, plenty there to work with, ali! Keep it up!

u.

Hee...this reminds me of a class exercise we did. long ago, taking others poems and rewriting/"fixing" them. We did it with a short story, too, turning it into a poem. Volunteers only...some peeps are very protective/jealous of their words.
I'd alter the same lines you did, and one or two others. But not AS you did. I'd do it by snipping and changing structure/grammars, but keep the word/image choices made.

Good call, on the violence...it and the exhaustion work together very well in several ways [[for instance tension between them drives the poem forward, especially cuz of the possible other layer you mentioned...]]

aliantha: wrote:Why ali should never be allowed to write poetry

.
I smell an ABC game.

wayfriend wrote:

aliantha: wrote:Why ali should never be allowed to write poetry

.
I smell an ABC game.

Go for it!

michaelm wrote:

wayfriend wrote:

aliantha: wrote:Why ali should never be allowed to write poetry

.
I smell an ABC game.

Go for it!

Oh fine, have your fun.

Interesting that you guys are picking up violence from this. Actually, I was happy to be moving; I hated living in Manassas. The only thing I was stabby about was not being able to go to bed yet.

I do like to use strong verbs and a minimum of modifiers. (It got beaten into me in journalism school....) The lines u. liked almost feel melodramatic to me -- but they suited the surreal mood of the thing.

aliantha wrote: The only thing I was stabby about was not being able to go to bed yet.

Hee...that happens, I'm sure we all know.
It only takes a little thing. Consider your words---
"leer," "macabre" "break" "spear" "ripping" "-curse" "tyranny" "pushes" "remorselessly" "taunt" "jeer" "needles."
Even "eyes slit." [which is a kind of thing I like...it is both a picture/image and a verb/act]
Of course, your ending lines return it to something much less aggressive.
It's just a thing, it's just mundane, I'm just sleepy.
Kate Barnes springs to mind as someone who does a similar thing quite often [and also the reverse quite often].
Now, what I'd do [and we all know all that matters about your material is what I would do with it. ] if I had/wanted to rewrite after such comments is tighten/nail down all that beginning...then really lighten, even "laugh off," in the last 2.
"But no choice...
"Pink footy jammies at the bottom of the box."
[[[yea, that's way too silly and cliche...not a real recommendation, but you see what I mean I'm sure]]].

I think it flows well for the subject matter - I'm sure all of us have been there and moved house and had too little sleep. Sometimes it's not about conventional structures, and it's served better by thinking away from those.

The structure reminds me of some of the WWI poets, who in many cases were on the wave of breaking new ground with what could be called poetry. I can't think of a specific example right now, but the way people like Owen wrote sometimes works in the same way as yours.

Dear gods. You mean I have a *style*??

aliantha wrote:Dear gods. You mean I have a *style*??

I didn't pick up violence, but

Eyes slit
Senses veer

did strike me as a bit predatory. I like it.

I heard she wrote a good poem
I heard she had a style
So I went out to her reading to listen for a while
And there she was, this indie
An author on her own...