(edited: 22/1/06)
This Year
It is that close to seven.
You, on the eleventh floor;
attempting smoke rings,
snowing ash on people coming home.
Your clocks are lined up to mark the occasion,
one after another.
An unimportant hour
on the first day of the year.
Somewhere outside, there is a woman
yelling, and you imagine tears
leaking from her corners.
A thick male voice replies in shouts.
Then the thud of something heavy.
Somewhere in that house,
the Christmas tree has not been taken down
yet.
Their children keep their focus on the telly,
advertisement-surfing.
Their eldest daughter hopes
that before the night is over,
someone nice would have kissed her.
In her room, the computer screen flickers;
an eager message.
The seconds blade painfully
into your smoke rings.
On the streets, everyone freezes
into the half-hundredth of their last second.
It is like what Carver wrote:
“Any minute now, something will happen.”
Only here,
you wish it would hurry.
Listeningto: wallflowers - one head light
reading: invoices and the year end accounts, sigh...
__
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6 comments:
I like the previous version better as this version reads in a more passive tone. Stanza 4 - the lines describing the children reads a bit harder than the other lines, there might be too many 'big' words in there. Just my humble opinion.
gd point. :)
i was afraid i might get that passive feel when i stretched out this poem. oh well..
much thks though.
Too many 'you's
Hehehe
less yous now. tighter also. i hope.
Could be tighter. There are several minor distractions in the poem. They have cumulative effect.
1. Because you mention the first day of the new year, and also to people's "half-hundredth of their last second" - there is this idea that you're referring to a New Year's final countdown. Yet you have the reference to it being seven o'clock.
2. "Replies in shouts" just sounds wrong. "Shouts back" sounds better. "Replies in shouts" makes me think of someone typing BIG BOLD LETTERS IN AN EMAIL, or an RSM ceremonially shouting orders on the NDP field.
3. As I think I mentioned before, the "thud" is also mildly perplexing. Did something fall by accident, did someone use something to hit someone? One could read the poem as saying that the poet doesn't actually know - he's only writing about what he can actually hear - and that's fine; but then the next part comes in to perplex the reader: if the poet isn't actually there and doesn't know what made the thud, how can he know details like the Xmas tree, the activities of the children, the flicker on the computer screen? The vantage point of the poet keeps shifting and furthermore you've done away with the "clairvoyant" explanation in this version of the poem to explain how "you" knows about the Xmas tree, the children etc.
4. "Blade painfully" doesn't work (for me, at least) especially when you're talking about something as un-bladeable as smoke rings.
5. 4th stanza is overwritten. "House" feels wrong, because you are probably on the 11th floor of an apartment block, too far to hear anything from a house on the ground floor. I suggest "... the Christmas tree still stands." And "the children" instead of "their children", and "stare intently at the" instead of "keep their focus on the". Perhaps "channel" instead of "advertisement". Or if you want to keep "advertisement", then "surfing advertisements" rather than "advertisement-surfing".
happi new yr gilbert. :)
1. half-hundredth thing = people "frozen" on street, not a reference to countdown. i think its fine.
2.u have a point.
3. the thud is the suggestion of violence and i think is a strong image/sound. i'm too lazy to explain in depth but i think i'll keep that.
4. literally possible. use williams III (cigar), use fruit knife, take vodka (important), go bintan. experiment conducted successfully last weekend.
5. u have a point.
thks. :)
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