I wrote the piece that appears below after reading a bunch of Mark Doty and thinking about how visual his writing is--almost painterly. I began to consider the act of writing visually and imagistically--akin to beginning with a blank canvas and creating a massive collage, but with sound and connotative images instead of paint. I'm not sure my experiment worked; this piece definitely needs work. I haven't gone back to it yet for its next edit, and i thought it could instead provide the opportunity for an experiment of an entirely other kind.
I offer this poem to the Words forum for editing, red-penning, and complete rewriting. You may make changes as broadly or narrowly as you deem necessary or wish, from tweaks and line break changes to mutilating it down to a haiku--whatever you think works. I'm open to parody but I would prefer that the thread remain serious--it's an experiment, after all--so if you're posting parody, at least make it good
If you choose to engage in this project, good luck and happy editing =) Reposting of this piece, whether unedited or edited, is acceptable ONLY if I am given due credit as its author.
Thanks and have fun!
spinkle
windowbox garden
i want to say
just flowers,
but that lacks
depth. the image
dies. petals are
more interesting,
pulled apart.
a petalstorm,
sky the offorange
of summer shower.
i knew a girl
could name the stems
on sight. she'd speak
a litany of favorites
i'd forget, recite
her rosary of roses.
later i'd just choose
the conspicuous ones,
point and ask the price.
the precise rattle
of windows after
humid thunder.
how much a word grows,
a seed in the brain,
all knowledge of
one thing invoked
at once, how a picture,
a smell, the taste
of a teacake
(a madeleine, if
you don't mind, please)
may remind a memory
it still exists,
but language goes deeper
as it blossoms
to define a world.
a reverse silhouette,
raindrop outline marking
where you'd been.
when you dream you dream
walking in the bonsai forest
you believe exists
behind the panes, bask
in its fecundity and
miraculous transpiration,
breathing in the loam.
the same dream ever since
you saw the first sprout
rise from the soil
through the window
beside your bed, in
your mother's careful
perfect garden on the sill,
wanted one, as of then.
steam off a cooling street.
the heat has finally broken.
baby's breath surrounds surprise.
a sentence declares
the truth in this narration:
in thought time is nothing;
right now is the span
from till to harvest.
This line determines
the position of the sun.
And here is how
we control the weather.
I made it rain, the gardenbox
broke under the weight
of all the fruit
it wasn't supposed to grow.
spinkle 2005
I offer this poem to the Words forum for editing, red-penning, and complete rewriting. You may make changes as broadly or narrowly as you deem necessary or wish, from tweaks and line break changes to mutilating it down to a haiku--whatever you think works. I'm open to parody but I would prefer that the thread remain serious--it's an experiment, after all--so if you're posting parody, at least make it good
If you choose to engage in this project, good luck and happy editing =) Reposting of this piece, whether unedited or edited, is acceptable ONLY if I am given due credit as its author.
Thanks and have fun!
spinkle
windowbox garden
i want to say
just flowers,
but that lacks
depth. the image
dies. petals are
more interesting,
pulled apart.
a petalstorm,
sky the offorange
of summer shower.
i knew a girl
could name the stems
on sight. she'd speak
a litany of favorites
i'd forget, recite
her rosary of roses.
later i'd just choose
the conspicuous ones,
point and ask the price.
the precise rattle
of windows after
humid thunder.
how much a word grows,
a seed in the brain,
all knowledge of
one thing invoked
at once, how a picture,
a smell, the taste
of a teacake
(a madeleine, if
you don't mind, please)
may remind a memory
it still exists,
but language goes deeper
as it blossoms
to define a world.
a reverse silhouette,
raindrop outline marking
where you'd been.
when you dream you dream
walking in the bonsai forest
you believe exists
behind the panes, bask
in its fecundity and
miraculous transpiration,
breathing in the loam.
the same dream ever since
you saw the first sprout
rise from the soil
through the window
beside your bed, in
your mother's careful
perfect garden on the sill,
wanted one, as of then.
steam off a cooling street.
the heat has finally broken.
baby's breath surrounds surprise.
a sentence declares
the truth in this narration:
in thought time is nothing;
right now is the span
from till to harvest.
This line determines
the position of the sun.
And here is how
we control the weather.
I made it rain, the gardenbox
broke under the weight
of all the fruit
it wasn't supposed to grow.
spinkle 2005
