Adventures Close To Home
Here in the reluctant hills of Five A.M.
the skies are always that same indeterminate pallor—
a gray glaze injected into the morning’s undying geography…
Like you, the night must now retrace its steps,
regather overlooked information, discard old hulls,
and unravel those tangled versions of itself.
And so, you stumble toward home, unauthorized,
feeling like some displaced poacher—a corrupt official
with the all the wrong documents, forgetting what side he’s on…
The filtered halflight starts again its ancient brickwork,
spreading across Dawn’s bearded foothills like a rumor.
Haven’t you been here before?
Right there’s the house you grew up in,
can’t you hear father’s old shortwave radio?
Can’t you smell your high school now?
And Kathleen’s nightgown…
There’s some vivid language here: “gray glaze injected,” “spreading across Dawn’s bearded foothills like a rumor.” The geography is described in great detail as the speaker is really into his surroundings. Might this relationship be developed further before the questions in the final stanza? Where’s the speaker stumbling from? How does nature feel about this “displaced poacher?” Vice versa?
ReplyDeleteAlso, it might benefit to move further into the realm of the unknown as the work primarily deals with confusion and displacement. Why is the “poacher” corrupt? Why does “night…retrace its steps?”
I agree that there is some vivid imagery in this draft. Specifically the imagery of "Dawn's bearded foothills." Rather than invoking the feminine goddess usually associated with Dawn, the line brings to the reader's mind a more masculine form. How is this reversal of expectation meant to carry the reader into the last stanza? Also, I would try writing the poem from first or third person perspectives as well. It might lend some clarity to the final stanza.
ReplyDeleteThis draft has a lot going for it, but one section I found really intruiging happens in stanza two with the currupt offical. I find myself wanting to know much more about him, and why he is so conflicted. Is is possible for later drafts to dive deeper into that character? Curruption is something is a huge conecpt, but having someone blurring between the lines could be really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI know thatyou stated the last stanza needs work, but I would focus on the questions by changing them around into statments to start off.
One possible line could be:
Tracing the memories back to childhood,
the shortwave radio booms over the
rain-rotted porch covered with dying ivy.
I really wonder if the last stanza could not be more declartive, if there are too many questions happening. Up until the last stanza the speaker seems sure of himself, he seems to be sure of himself because he is a keen observer of the early morning and the draft's "you." In that final stanza what I think could really be brought out more in the draft is the elements of the sensory that dominate those last lines: the sounds of the radio, the small of the high school, and Kathleen's nightgown. The nightgown seems like such a startling image and I want to know more about the nightgown, not just Kathleen but why is her nightgown in particular so memorable? Why end there? Why not continue more: who is this Kathleen, what did her nightgown feel/look like, why does she get thrown in with the smell of a high school and the radio waves? I think this draft should be longer, flesh out that final stanza and play around with those senses.
ReplyDelete