A work in progress poem. Comments would be appreciated. This bit I just came up with tonight. I think I want to lengthen it, but I kinda like how it is right now, so I'm looking for some feedback. Experimenting with modernist poetry and free verse.

Scowl


We spend our days sitting outside.
It is difficult to speak in our old languages.
We cannot harm ourselves.
Maybe it is no longer possible to die.
-Anonymous

I.
I have seen the children of men
Through mists and shadows
Coming off the fog-enshrouded hills
Through concrete forests
And trees of grime
Beneath skies of bleakest color
And plains of mockéd war

I have seen the college boys:
They returned home just the other day
They are not very different from you or I, you know.
They tell the same jokes, only
now they are drunk, and business majors
There is no light in August
Just liquor.

I have seen the New York poet.
Have you? I thought he disappeared in Mexico!
No, No, I have seen him
He is out in the streets.
Barricades are keeping the reporters away from him,
out in the street.

Requiesce in pace, Allen
Though I cannot attend.
Zeno has returned,
And I always was more partial to him.

The asphalt is sweating
Hot and steaming
Shining on the ground
And concrete-blown kisses
Graze the grime-stained windows
As I hurtle across the slab.
I am alone, and I am well
Aquainted with the night.

The wheel hooks the edge.
I try to catch it.
It is too late.
No one sees the cloud of smoke.

II.
A box, twenty one grams,
Cardboard and brown, rests
Carelessly under his arm
As he arrives at the post office
At Thirty-Fifth and Twelth
A block from his office,
The office of Guy Francon,
The great New York Architect.

There is no return address on the box.
He won't be needing it again.
He's sending it back for a refund,
to buy a new
coffee table.

Susto. Susto. ¿Cuanto cuesta susto?

III.
Day turns to night, night to day,
day to more day to day
night, day as black as
night.

Where have the children gone? So we may
teach them that there is no sense in waiting for August.
August has come and past; it's April now,
and still no light. Only amber.
Oh but where are the children?

They have gone on the Childen's crusade!

IV.
The gutters are overflowing, gurgling, swirling
and painted red. The streets are teemining,
buildings are doubled over, wincing,
And the flags are all dead on the top of their poles.
Gurgling, gurgling, swirling and whirling
Spiriling into the sewers, the blood of a 1000 years.
The middle children are awake.

Upd 2/11/07: Any feedback would be much appreciated.
.

i like

Thanks. Although I don't really like the beginning. Or the ending.

Good start

Updated header post with what I've added as of now. Feedback would be appreciated.

it seems like this means nothing really. to you, especially.

Explain.

For me, but this is probably a very subjective thing, this piece carries nothing, emotionally, or nothing that you seem to have a really strong connection to. It doesn't sound like you were inspired by something that you just had to pen down. It sounds like what 90% of the writing class I took in university would have come up with. Maybe you'd help me finding a connection to it if you gave some insight on what you tried to express here, although you probably shouldn't.

hmm... i really don't understand most of it. but i'm used to liking writings i don't understand, either prose or poetry, if somehow they touch some nerve or light a spot in my mind (it happens with most of Ed's lyrics, he uses these encripted references that somehow hit you straight to the subconscious).

here's what i got from it: the author has this matter-of-factly way of describing apparently meaningless events, in which i can recognize a touch of Kereouac or Buckowsky (just from previous readings, i'm not some scholar or anything).

the events described are general, impersonal, apparently detached from the author. but such events are just apparently meaningless, because they have a deep impact on the author, but he's not sure enough of himself to admit that impact, to himself or to his group.

so he keeps "cool", and sounds like he's bored or just an impartial observer of the scene. but then the "liquor" has its liberating effect and at some point he loses the "fuck it" attitude and cries his very heart and soul out... just to run quickly back into the armour, whispering the last two lines of the poem, to everyone around, like boasting about the escapade, but mostly to himself, with a totally different meaning, one of hopelessness.

so, i think those are the lines that define the author and the true nature of this poem:

"I'm away! I'm away!
I cannot see where I am going!
They do not see
Where we are going."

edit: or the author is just emulating feelings he never experienced. anyway, the message got through. because poems and lyrics are not really ours, they just come through us. and they belong to the readers and listeners as soon as they go in writing.

it means that i think it's very good

Wow, thank you very much. I'm flattered.

To Raziel: Parts of this are intentionally distant and isolated from feeling for thematic effect. I suppose it would help if I finished more than part I so you could see that. Also, many allusions, but maybe they're not as catchable and/or significant to others as I thought.

Also, there are supposed to be multiple voices in this poem, also thematic effect. I don't know if that came across.

To dea: Parts of that were dead on in reading my mind, like the detached but only slighly feeling and the mixed apathy of the speaker (I envisioned it as a resolute disappointed, an unchangable sadness in parts).

Also, the last lines coming across as in a different way than the line before it, I didn't know if anyone would pick up on that or why the line breaks, and the foreboding tone it creates.

Thank you for the praise. I'll be working on it on and off, so Part II might come soon. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Okay thanks a lot for your elaboration. Sorry for being so harsh on it in the first place, I just thought that I'd probably get the most out of you this way... yeah the allusions came across, but they seemed a bit forced, just like the multiple voices. I like the idea per se... but I agree that it has to be worked out a bit better, it's too much... of raw ideas fluttering around. I think I can see where you're trying to get, and there is a lot of potential. I know it's tough sometimes to get across your ideas in poems, especially because YOU know what it's about, but how do others perceive it... as you stated, it's a work in progress, and there is potential there.

Try to not think about it too much though. Fuck the code. Let it slide.

Amen.

Header post is drastically updated. Feedback would be appreciated.

aww... i miss my favorite part... hmm... i don't know, now i'm completely lost... it's more encripted than before. i guess i liked it better the way it was before. sorry...