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Monday, June 30, 2008

calling for thunderstorms

Category: Issue 11

calling
for thunderstorms creep
in through our open windows
and the power has gone out
so we read by the light
of our cellphones poems we wrote
to each other throughout the course
of our day and i think yours is bad
but mine is much worse under
the cruel glow of the new way to live
always connected to everyone
and i can’t help but think that any poem
is worth a million text messages

and i can’t help but think
that any poem is biodegradable
all that ink and paper sogging and running
off down the tributaries to the big mouth
of the sea where it’s free to join the remnants
of the thunderstorm and become recycled
through the ground to the sky and out of
the aggravated clouds back down on top
of our cities and if we’re lucky the power
will go out again and we’ll stand outside and feel
the individual letters from poems unwritten
or written long ago falling and soaking
drop by gentle drop onto our untrusting heads

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Old Comments

  • I think this poem has immense potential. The basic concept is very interesting and beautiful in its own way. I think the poem needs to be considerably stripped down to its essential parts and although I like the conversational tone, I think it detracts from the most fundamental imagery and emotion behind the idea of poems, and by extension ideas and emotions, being washed to sea then rained down again and again. A brilliant idea in the rough, would love to see it developed.
    Thank you for sharing this!

    Posted by doprava  on  07/01  at  06:07 AM
  • I think it’s great. 
    You know what I don’t like? 
    Forget it. I won’t tell you.

    You know what I do like?
    Your first verse. 
    There’s an awful lot of great stuff in the second verse too. 

    I worry a bit that things might start to seem too negative.

    Ant Julie

    Posted by julianyway  on  07/02  at  01:57 AM
  • negative isn’t always bad. or maybe it is. but sometimes, i think, it can be beautiful.  you should tell me what you don’t like, julie, because there are certainly things in this i don’t like as well…

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  07/02  at  05:05 PM
  • You know, I’m kind of regretting being so negative about the negativity lately. 

    What I worry about is that it seems easier to write negative stuff (dumb teenagers, eg. Me, when I WAS one, thrive on writing droning dirges which are nothing but boring Complaints). 

    It’s not to say that there can’t be good things that aren’t all sweetness and light.  I think your piece in fact is NOT an example of what I am always afraid of (boring droning dirges).  It’s really quite good.  I’ve read it a couple of times now and it isn’t even that negative. I think I may have a bit of a phobia about the Droning Dirge, because it seems to be the thing that people write when they are feeling thoughtful, by default. 

    So forgive me: I don’t think I read it properly the first time.  (This is my second apology at Litmocracy in as many days… but at least I did read your thing… and then, again!)

    On kind of the same note, but not about your piece:  I do find it a challenge to come up with things that are positive without being saccharine.  About as difficult as being negative without droning.  (Or, droning without being negative?  Being saccharine without being positive?) Secondly, I used to live with a bass player who would absolutely not allow me to try to write songs if they were laments.  No lamenting in the house, he would say.  I guess he was sick of the Dirge Syndome, and in some ways I have to agree with him. 

    On the other hand there’s nothing like a good dirge.  Which I don’t think YOUR poem is, anyway.

    What don’t YOU like about it?

    Posted by julianyway  on  07/03  at  04:39 AM
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