Hey all,
I've just spent the bulk of my lunch-hour (i.e. the hour where I usually move my bulk away from my desk) working on a revision to my latest May Day Poetry Project contribution.
Any thoughts? Smart-ass comments? Contemplative statements? I'll take whatever you've got...
Yours,
A.
* * *
Take One
Seven months: the ultrasound
I am the fork-scarred sink the utility the water table
you are the warming goldfish
he is the big eye anxious on your domestic bulge
the wet magnification of dorsal flicker ventral thrum
They all should have known better –
you might circle my drain
showing fin and bony ripple on each grainy pass
but I’m the only one likely to go belly up
Take Two
Seven months: ultrasound introductions
I am the fork-scarred sink
you are the warming goldfish
he is the big eye
anxious on your domestic bulge
the wet magnification
of dorsal flicker ventral thrum
I am the sink full to overflowing
with what passes for fin and bony ripple
but he should have known better:
you might dip and dunk and circle my drain
but I’m the only one likely to go belly up
these days
8 comments:
something about the first stanza's just not working ... the verbs fall a bit flat. the rest of the stanzas have more energy. that's just my first, off the cuff, thought.
Hey Melanie, thanks for this... anything new and exciting?
the first "take" is much better than the second one... it has a cleaner rhythm and more energy. but that second line doesn't work, it throws things out of whack, mostly a metrical thing i think, also the image could be sharper... too late for the may day post but maybe something to think about when revising. i also like this take one better than the revision on the may day site comments field, for what that's worth.
ps -- is that natalee caple book good? i see it listed there. i know natalee (not super well, but i'm on a nodding basis with her) but haven't yet read her books. she's pregnant with twins right now.
I'm still on a only a nodding basis with the book, unfortunately...
That said, she read extremely well - was both demonstrably personable and intelligent - at the Ecopoetics Symposium in Brandon in March.
ps - thanks for your notes on the poem. I agree with most of what you've said...
did you enjoy that ecopoetics thing? lindsey seemed a little disappointed.
am loving "domestic buldge" and prefering the first take for the simple preference of ending the piece with "belly up" instead of the rather lackluster "these days"
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