September 12, and I can still feel the heat from yesterday cascading
like fireballs and falling airplanes through my double-paned windows,
where air stands stagnant like I held my breath to watch the sun rise this
morning, but in my room the air is cool and cheap and artificial and I
imagine a passing season of melting crayons and soured, clammy armpits
and welcome the first wave of freed, furled leaves as I pick one up and
taste it—but I only imagine—as I look across the room at my closet of
sweaters and wonder which one I'll wear today, wishing that outside
my windows the light is crisp upon the parking lot and the air is calm and
the heat has flocked south with the waterfowl and fall has broken with
browning leaves—but the trees are full and thick—and, stepping outside
onto the landing of the black-patched steel staircase and into the furious
flame of summer, I realize, thrashing blindly like a mole back into the
blackness behind me, wandering, groping through a splotched hallway to
my room to jamb my pinky toe on an unmovable object; the heat is still
here, hovering on radio waves of stigmata or in the air like a dust cloud,
like Steinbeck, unsettling and sobering and yelling its unrest, the day after.
Comments
1 - 11 of 11
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Great Subject
The day after 9/11 great subject. So many excellent lines here I can't choose just one. The description of the weather was awesome.
Excellent Excellent
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wow
You have good description. I liked it alot. Would be a good novel paragraph. -
Hey Pap
I really liked this poem. The style is different.The prose-poetry worked. The flow gave this prose style its poetry. The choice of words and juxtaposition of images lent the poetic image beyond mere short story descriptive. I like how you contrast the fireball heat outside to the air-conditioned room. I liked how you brought that image forth with the use of 'artificial air.' You explore the contrast between the inside and the outside with strong word choice.
Its good to read varying styles from you Pap. Interesting even how you decided to call this poem Jihad. The title creates an expectation, and you do start with something that is easily related to the title (i.e fireballs and falling airplanes). Then the reader gets the unexpected. Interesting reading experience all in all.
-iphios -
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it's been a while
Iphigene,
thanx for the read and comment. good to hear from an old friend.
i'm still wrestling with this one, and the way it is posted is not the way it looks when i print it off in Word. my finished version is actually aligned to the right margin, instead of being "justified" so as to span from margin to margin, which was my original idea. when aligned to the right, my poem looks kinda like a fireball. hehe.
anyhow, thanx again, and see you 'round.
always,
Pap
p.s. - how is home? -
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Ah yes, i read your explanation to mojojames. The formatting of poems tend to be limited here. I had similar experiences when i try to move/tab a few lines for effect and it always ends up aligned to the left.
Home is good pap. most things are good. yours?
-iphios -
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college has me bogged down this week. trying to study for a Statistics test tomorrow. i pray i pass the test and the class. ugh. but God is good.
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i like how the mood is already set when you say september the 12, cuz we all know that september 11 was a catastrophic day. moods can be set by just by stating the setting ( or date), which was done in My Oedipus Complex, but you might not be familiar with that story. basically the setting is post-war times and it sets an uneasy mood, which went with the story. anyways, i really liked this piece and would definitely like to read more! i do have one suggestion. when the character walks outside, the leaves are described as full and green. to me, i associate that with spring. maybe if you could set a more summer-y setting, that would be great! that's about it.
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descriptive
While there are spelling errors - the piece as a whole has good substance - the reader is drawn and can feel the depth. Could be a strong paragraph in a novel!
language: 4, rhythm: 3, subject: 3, tone: 4, form: 2.
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Pap, this has a good flow to it and a rhythm that pulls you through the long lines and easily into the next. A general apocalyptic feeling, overlaid with the grit of personal survival. What helps to make it almost seamless is the regularity of the line length. One quibble at the end that is a grammatical one. It should be "his" unrest
logically. A powerful pice. MJ -
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Jihad against margins
MJ,
thanx for the read. this poem references September 11. hence, "falling airplanes, Jihad, the day after, etc." the "heat" i mention is not only the heat of summer, but also metaphorically the heat from the previous day's terrorist attacks, "hovering on radio waves." i intended to write this poem spanning margin-to-margin, having read one of your poems that took on such a form (i don't recall its name
). but this has been very frustrating as every computer screen sets a different margin and thus my poem looks different depending on which computer i am using. just know that my poem is supposed to be one solid block of even lines.
as for your correction, "its" modifies "heat" in a previous line after the semicolon, not Steinbeck. i'm not sure if i should have used a semicolon, either.
still tweaking it (the poem).
always,
Pap
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Poem or short story?
This would be great if you could modify it. Try making the lines shorter, it make your poem look longer and structured At the present it looks like an essay or short story. However, I do like the content and what you are saying.
language: 3, rhythm: 1, subject: 4, tone: 3, form: 3.
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