This is a first draft with what I consider to be a dreadful title. Feel free to have at it. Thanks! :DSomewhere in genes or woven
through gray matter maybe
there is static
a radio broadcast from late
50s, an announcer reading
the same old news, Diamonds
strolling through from St. Louis
maybe, a sax grinding down
and dirty while expectant
parents quarrel
then a freight slipping slowly
improbably like a razor
slicing away some conclusion.
Small details which make a choice
that isn’t.
It is a splinter’s view
into one unbalanced
mind teetering as it will
on fragile seconds—
the real and unreal,
the knowing how those past
seconds live on somewhere
waiting with iron breath
and piston beats if only in a human
heart, lingering along those rails
before the birth as present seconds
may be unreal and the future
more dead than radio.
5 comments:
Incredible. There are a few things that I can't figure out. Agree, title isn't clear. But there are some lines of astonishing - not sure what to call it. It just flows from image to image, like a baton being passed from runner to runner.
I like the static, the razor slicing , a choice that isn't, a splinter's view - brilliant, I'm still imagining a splinter's view - on fragile seconds, so much there.
Really a stunning poem. You know I don't gush often.
Some images I'm still figuring out (well more than others) Diamonds strolling from St. Louis (must be some reference I don't know?)
I like 'more dead than radio' but it seems to me radio is alive and well.
Submit this somewhere. It's so good I don't want to look at the others right away. Need to let this sink in.
I'll get back to you on this one.
I do understand that the last line: 'more dead than radio.' refers to radio static and perhaps is also reference to the past and the radio broadcast from the late 50's is now considered old and dead.
But I did not find the last line worked or tied up the poem. The word 'dead' seems to be out of place in the world of your poem even bringing it back to the radio image doesn't seem to work, for me at least.
Perhaps 'Diamonds
strolling through from St. Louis' could refer to the early crystal radio sets, refer to diamond earrings, or reference to news-like tidbits that 'stroll' through the airwaves. Maybe but I like that mystery - and nice imagery at that.
I like the fragmented lines and stanzas adds to the structure and imagery of the piece.
I think if you can sort out the radio imagery then it would work a lot better for me. Just a humble opinion. Thanks for the read ;)
First of all, I like the title. I think it may give away a little too much, but I do like it.
I like the image of memories, or a past interrupted by fate, and those small details that seem insignificant at the time but add up to a change in course.
I may be way off base here; wouldn’t doubt it, but isn’t a diamond a type of railroad intersection or something?
I have to agree with Tiger about the ending. The radio/static theme is underlying and remains in the background while the train theme is more dominant throughout, then suddenly radio/static is brought back to the foreground in the ending which confuses me a little. Perhaps ending on a train note?
Nice work PB. I’ll look for the revision to this one.
Revision pb?
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