Poem: Come, Come, Come...
Oct. 23rd, 2003 06:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Hey there, all...
I rode out the 'crash' well enough; sorry to all the folks that I disappeared quickly on last night. Just didn't feel up to talking much, I guess.
On the bright side, I did manage to edit the poem I was talking about. I'm still not sure that I'm happy enough to submit it to Poesia's contest, so I'll put it down for a few days and look at it again, see what I can tweak.
Anyway, here it is. I'd really appreciate any criticism, comments or suggestions for this one.
***********************************
Come, Come, Come...
"Sarah!"
He screamed this word over and over
on the corner of Allendale and West,
long and fevered chants that bounced from the walls
and startled the passersby who circled wide around him.
He made them uncomfortable.
He kept screaming until his throat became raw and tight
and forced him into a whimper
so then he whispered, over and over,
until the street got dark and the wind bit too hard
and snowflakes took the words from his lips.
So then he thought her name, over and over,
invoking her in a frozen fever-dream
that he half-thought, half-dreamed
she would answer,
but she never came.
Later, after he had been visited by the frost
and the sunlight changed shifts with the streetlamps,
after his legs did not feel frozen any more,
he stumbled across the weak sunrise,
shoving away the saliva that had collected on his chin.
Eating had no place these days,
and the diner he doved into was a carnival
of bright dirty lights and clanking conversations and cool autumn grease
that had not been his world for the past few months.
Here, coffee was made for watching cream cloud
and eggs existed for getting cold because then,
they held a texture that held him busy for a while.
Sometimes, he would imagine meeting her all over again,
and he would think, "Ah, she gets those awful little jokes!"
and "She hunts for dream-states in the sunrise, too!"
and her hair would be so beautiful under
seven a.m. sun and 24-hour diner lights; she would remind him
of his favorite sweater
and it would hurt so bad
he would catch tears mingling with his breakfast.
His stomach would tell him,
"You shouldn't have tried that egg."
so then, he would admit another battle lost
and stumble once more to sleep off a nightmare
that just galloped with him.
The world became microvision,
a montage of random images that all lead him back
to the same exact place --
the scent of oranges in a dumpster,
or the flash of lint in a stranger's beard,
they all had their monsters
that were far too large for him to deal with alone.
So he stumbled, and these things dogged him until he was weary
and some more until his ribs cracked
and still more until his lungs stopped taking air
and the vertigo came so he could be drunk again.
Every once in a while, his spinning would take him back
to Allendale and West,
where a closed windowshade meant everything.
Once in a while, he incanted her name
and she would never come.
So he would stumble, then, and stumble, and stumble...
I rode out the 'crash' well enough; sorry to all the folks that I disappeared quickly on last night. Just didn't feel up to talking much, I guess.
On the bright side, I did manage to edit the poem I was talking about. I'm still not sure that I'm happy enough to submit it to Poesia's contest, so I'll put it down for a few days and look at it again, see what I can tweak.
Anyway, here it is. I'd really appreciate any criticism, comments or suggestions for this one.
***********************************
Come, Come, Come...
"Sarah!"
He screamed this word over and over
on the corner of Allendale and West,
long and fevered chants that bounced from the walls
and startled the passersby who circled wide around him.
He made them uncomfortable.
He kept screaming until his throat became raw and tight
and forced him into a whimper
so then he whispered, over and over,
until the street got dark and the wind bit too hard
and snowflakes took the words from his lips.
So then he thought her name, over and over,
invoking her in a frozen fever-dream
that he half-thought, half-dreamed
she would answer,
but she never came.
Later, after he had been visited by the frost
and the sunlight changed shifts with the streetlamps,
after his legs did not feel frozen any more,
he stumbled across the weak sunrise,
shoving away the saliva that had collected on his chin.
Eating had no place these days,
and the diner he doved into was a carnival
of bright dirty lights and clanking conversations and cool autumn grease
that had not been his world for the past few months.
Here, coffee was made for watching cream cloud
and eggs existed for getting cold because then,
they held a texture that held him busy for a while.
Sometimes, he would imagine meeting her all over again,
and he would think, "Ah, she gets those awful little jokes!"
and "She hunts for dream-states in the sunrise, too!"
and her hair would be so beautiful under
seven a.m. sun and 24-hour diner lights; she would remind him
of his favorite sweater
and it would hurt so bad
he would catch tears mingling with his breakfast.
His stomach would tell him,
"You shouldn't have tried that egg."
so then, he would admit another battle lost
and stumble once more to sleep off a nightmare
that just galloped with him.
The world became microvision,
a montage of random images that all lead him back
to the same exact place --
the scent of oranges in a dumpster,
or the flash of lint in a stranger's beard,
they all had their monsters
that were far too large for him to deal with alone.
So he stumbled, and these things dogged him until he was weary
and some more until his ribs cracked
and still more until his lungs stopped taking air
and the vertigo came so he could be drunk again.
Every once in a while, his spinning would take him back
to Allendale and West,
where a closed windowshade meant everything.
Once in a while, he incanted her name
and she would never come.
So he would stumble, then, and stumble, and stumble...
