I believe now in the owls that roosted in our mortgage.
Your mother's bone china grating against the joists,
its blossoms, now grotesque, slipping, going Rorschach.
I believe in your father's police uniform, still sharp
in its gasp of cellophane.
I believe in the olive oil smoking on the stove,
the flayed tomatoes, their skins soaking the grout.
The aged reds, dust heavy against the baseboard,
the rotting corks, lost in the beef's casual haze.
I believe in the hunt for keys as another gentle minor third
slips into yesterday, and Tracy Chapman's gravel legato
smears the living room walls.
Your hands will always smell of tea, cigarettes,
and Summer's last gargled ache.
Where are we now after the glassy shriek of nights?
Children half our age draped our skin once.
They wore our clothes, uttered our names names as carelessly
as one tosses a spent match. They knew we wouldn't last
the sweltering decades in this quiet town with its Technicolor
lawns, postmarked Alexandria, 1984,
because children half our age seethed over fabric softener,
Pine-sol, and botched Chinese take-out.
In the space between yesterday and today,
my basil sweats in the afternoon heat.
This draft appears to be heavily invested in sound, particularly the “o” sound. The dedicatation to this “sound play” seems stronger in the first stanza: now, owls, roosted, our mortgage, mother’s bone china, its blossoms, now grotesque, going Rorschach, etc. I would infer that this dedication is deliberate with the presence of mother’s bone china—the line could just read bone china or mother’s china, but there repeatly is the use of the “o” that seems to carry the draft from one line to the next. I am not sure of the couplet in the middle of the draft? Why a hanging couplet in the middle of to lengthy stanzas? Also, the dedication to the domestic is very particular and adds great detail and specificity. Who is the speaker exactly? Age? Gender? Does it matter here with this particular piece? Who is speaking here? (Sorry, I had fun playing around with your stanza, hope you don’t mind)
ReplyDeleteWhere are they now, the chilren half our age?
They wore our clothes, uttered our names
as one tosses a spent match.
They knew we wouldn't last.
In this quiet town with its Technicolor
lawns, postmarked Alexandria, 1984 seethed over
fabric softener, Pine-sol, and Chinese take-out.
In the space between yesterday and today,
my basil sweats in the afternoon heat.
This last stanza really hits home that something has been lost, a lost childhood, innocence, simplicity. This is what seems to be lost that leads the speaker to state in the beginning that he “believes now in owls” and so forth. I am, however, unsure of this connection. I would suggest for the next draft to make a stronger connection on why the speaker believes in the things he does in the first stanza, but goes back to questioning in the final stanza. Does he like where he is at in the first stanza? Is this poem about being content with what you truly don’t like or is it about wanting to get rid of what you have and return to a state of childhood or at least that carefreeness that comes with childhood. Is this poem about growing up?
Thanks for your suggestions. You've given me a lot to consider, and I appreciate it. In terms of the couplet structure in the middle of the draft, the computer formatted it this way when I posted the piece and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.
ReplyDeleteBilly,
ReplyDeleteSince I commented on the first draft of this, thought I'd give you some thoughts on its revision--
I agree with Trista, in that this draft (like its previous incarnation) does a great job of maintaining this sense of nostalgia, of longing. The speaker now "believes" in these items he probably once attempted to forget--memories once filled with regret, perhaps even purposefully forgotten have now been accepted as part of this speaker's "constitution." There is a certain nostalgia here and, like Trista said, perhaps a loss of innocence rooted in these particular remembrances. Like the first draft, I still see something painful lurking behind all of these images: the once blossomed china is now "grotesque" and "grating against the joists," the images of food in particular are totally bizarre (in a good way), albeit depraved-- the tomatoes are "flayed," and "soaking the grout," "rotting corks, in the beef's "haze." Tracy Chapman's voice "smears." The Children are "seething."
It's all still here. However, the previous draft did a great job of maintaining a place--we were up in that attic with all those "atrophying" memories--and in this piece, I feel a bit more dislodged... where exactly are we, if anywhere? That might be something to consider...
Additionally, with all of this language illustrating,what I read as, either painful or melancholic memories---what's at stake? Why include this language? Why does the speaker feel compelled to describe these items in such a way? I just see a darkness here--and I want to know why. What is the speaker saying about the process of remembering? Is it like going through an old attic, finding the "once pristine" moments of your life are now decrepit, aged, dying... are we bound to eventually forget these things???
You may want to consider some of these questions. I noticed that alot of the darker images have been omitted in this version--yet, that darkness is definitely still happening...
I enjoy reading your work, Billy.
Billy,
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about doing some re-arranging? It seems to me that all the "I believe" phrases would have a more poignant effect as part of a final stanza, after all the "where are they" questions. To me, arranging the stanzas this way would suggest that the speaker's insistence in proclaiming that he believes all of these things is an integral tool that permits him to live with the things mentioned, as well as with the lost and gone things in the "where are they now" stanza. I would also take the "now" out of the first sentence, especially since it occurs again in the third line.
I haven't thought about whether the couplet should be its own stanza, but I kind of like it as the final lines.
In any case, you've got great material to work with here, vivid nouns and verbs, interesting contrasts and clashes with concrete and abstract. I can't wait to see how it turns out.