Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest having to do with prose. I realized January 19ththat I will turn twenty-four in three months, and since I started writing some poems before it’s too late: forty-six poems at twenty-three. I’ll post each Friday until the last week of March, then I’ll post one a day until my birthday on April 30th. Here’s number 23:
The Man Who Could Fly had abandoned his hope
When the sun rose in colors of slate
He ached for the world he aspired to save
As black stratus rolled in on a slope
Not for our wretched deflated events,
Nor for our own pessimists
But for the rest of his body’s support
Did he wish for another new force.
He had giant wings that glided fair well,
His back muscles flapping both strong
But none of the rest of his figure supported
The sound of that unhappy song
When he hoisted up, he flew overhead
Above stratus, puffed cumulous clouds
His breathing adjusted to his dizzy head
But still did he feel unindowed
The problem came forth while descending to land
With grass, hills, treetips rushing forth
He hadn’t a way to slow down or to berth
He hit, then heard grinding like sand
His femur collapsed under gravity’s force
His tibula turned into twigs
His ribcage collapsed when his torso attended
His lower half, melting like snow.
And in his degenerate landing-gear mode
A crowd gathered round just to sneer:
“We asked you to save us, to fly us all home!”
He cried over burst landing gear.
I like this poem. Two things that need revision (in my opinion) the last stanza…you use landing gear twice. One needs to be changed. Depending on your interest in utilizing the term landing gear I would be more inclined toward changing the last line to have more punch in connection with the poems’s underlying metaphor rather than with something mechanical. Grief sure. I dunno, maybe the whole stanza needs to be monkeyed around.
You use “forth” in two consecutive lines. An error of haste I am sure. As was unindowed rather than unendowed.
I know you are writing these very quickly and perhaps there should be no comments made. Let me know.
hmmm, interesting suggestions. I’ll see if I can’t make a rewrite sometime in may and repost this one. I like it too.
True. Problems of haste all over these things. Hopefully they’ll be polished in time…
Sorry, sometimes I come across as abrasive when I am merely terse.
“Interesting suggestions” is a very diplomatic response!
you didn’t come off as abrasive at all. Thanks for the compliment. What I meant is that I’ll certainly take your suggestions into consideration and make changes when I’m emotionally removed enough from the poem to see it with fresh eyes. “Interesting” as in “they caught my interest” as well.
Don’t ever worry about pissing me off with a critique. It’s not likely to happen, and if it does, you’ll know because I’ll just remove the post entirely and relegate it to the realm of privacy.
That’s only happened once on this blog, and it wasn’t from you.