Sometimes I look through my computer and find old poems I wrote for contests/submissions and then just cast aside for one reason or another.
This one is from my junior year of college, and it was an attempt at an Anglo-Saxon Elegy (the prof. who thought up the challenge was well versed in classical poetry and classical forms), but it had an appealing reliance on repeated sounds.
I’ve been stealing from that form since:
The rock-roll rumble through thick soup fog
That Man is here in our midst
The dirt can feel it, the grass can feel it, and my fingers feel the air feel it
The tremble rustle shake
The creaking groan before the break!
That Man, that Man, that Man is here!
He brings the ill wind upon the wind
The ice that freezes ice
Hide your children, hide your riches
Pretend you’re dead, scurry in ditches
That Man, that Man, that Man is here!
Everything we’ve built will crumble
All we hold dear is doomed
We can’t survive, where his shadow looms
There, there he is, the skeptic.
My guess is I set it to the side because of tonal problems and because it (if my memory serves) turned out rather short and the form generally requires a longer one.
If you’re interested, I settled on this instead:
An Elegy, an Effigy, an America Eucharist
“Love, Love, Love, What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” -The British television show Skins
I’m aching for a joke to tell
When the alms come asking again:
Chocolate sticks to the pews
As my birthday cake turns Catholic
One more memory to forget
Money changing hands.Years later I proudly puff
Enjoying my thirty dollar pipe,
Wearing my clothes till they fall apart
Tatter and tear themselves from me.Born to a middle man
barely managing the getting by.
What little class I have
comes from a creative interpretation,
I’ve lived in those houses
last left to rot but refused to fall,
In the neighborhoods
where neighbors almost never do,
And I have seen the people there
scrounging some kind of happiness.
I’ve played the games of children
careful of cans and condoms thrown,
Trash playing among trash.
My toys have been given
Stitched and stolen.
And I grew and we grew
Kicking off the grunge as we go.
Driving the gold road
Dragging the dregs of our past.There is an American dream
That I can carve out of this angst.
It isn’t the things that I’ve bought
And it isn’t trapped in what I’ve lost,
Behind the home and the heart
Hiding among the picket fences,
Behind the rights to Life and liberty:
Love, love, love, what is it good for?
Which is still imperfect, both in content and execution, but it was less… aggressive than:
The ring-ring-rattle
of your telephone ramble
breath-takes, betakes,
bemoans, be late, or don’t answer at all
This moment is ours
mainly, memories are made
But then whats whens wheres whys,
“I knew this wasn’t wise”
Face-up, fess-up,
you found the fun in it
And the vinyl veneer
vibrating through everything
As the wheels spin
sputter and shake.
Before you quit
quiver and quake
Not that I mean to begrudge you
berate you or banally bait your anger
But I know the nightmare’s nightmares
you nick from the nettles of your life
Here, your drink is warm
some ice will wash the wallow away
and let the ring-ring-rattle
rumble its way off the hook
We have stars to count
and seas to search
If you will trust me
truthfully and totally
I can show you youth,
courage, care.
I’ve seen the pit your ponder
but here’s the rope,
I’d rather be star-struck
than sorrow stuck
Despite the descent
and the damage it may bring
You’ll learn to love the laugh
and forget to long the loss
The moment is yours
if you choose to make it
ring-ring-rattle
ring-ring-click
Sometimes you have to let it go
Some days, you have to give in
If you’ve read my collection of poetry, you’ll remember that one (though that one is edited and essentially a different poem than this). Of the three, I think it’s probably the best, but it too has its flaws.
When I’m writing for contests, I don’t typically edit much past the first draft. I’ll correct here and there, but if something isn’t working, I’ll redraft a new piece. I just thought I’d share a little illustrated piece of my method.
