The Rain
The rains have started here in midwestern America. Only 30 days left of school and everyone's itching to break out of their houses and run amok in the new air. Sadly there are rumors of snow hanging around the radio waves though none of us want to believe it. I love the oyster-coloured sky that hangs heavy over our heads and I love the fat raindrops that drop onto my car and wash away the bug innards off my windshield. I love the damp smell of earth and bark that rides the cold breezes, I love how sharp everything looks outside my window, like the rain cleaned up the outlines of all those nouns. I hate how curly and unruly my hair gets when I have to walk from my car into school and back again at the end of the day, I hate getting rain water in my shoes because of that tear, I hate not being able to see out my glasses when the rain pitter-patters onto my lenses. The rain reminds of the Cummings' poem;
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
I have decided then when I go to college I will find a major with which I can start the long and arduous road to the comprehension of Cummings' poetry. I'd like to be a Cummings scholar. Which I know sounds lurid, but believe me it's not. Every time I sit down and read the fifty-dollars-worth of Cummings' poetry book at Borders I feel chills run up and down my spine, his work is absolutely astonishing to me. Some of it shocking and rude, some of it (like Somewhere I Have Never Traveled) is delicate and pure. I wrote a poem a while ago that was Cummings-inspired;
A glimpse from you and stones fall to their knees;
And I would gladly fall on the sharp edges of your words
If it meant one for me
Only that which is Unknown could know what makes you swell and ebb
Breaths expelled as warmest vapor
(and were it to settle on my lashes I would know true happiness for the nearness of that feat by you is unknown to me)
For you I would walk with Virgil
Unarmed for your eyes disarm me
Your very intensity makes you shake
(and I myself confess to shaking at the thought of your straining body)
My lips part
and it’s like touching
Though I cannot seem to bring myself to write with as much a lassaiz-faire attitude towards punctuation and grammar and capitalization I do try to imitate his trail of parenthetical thought and his abstract, nature-centric love imagery. Actually this poem's main theme, "like touching," was kindled by a line from the book "Reading Lolita in Tehran" where the author is talking about the funeral of a dignitary and how grief made people do things they wouldn't normally do, "like touching." I changed the emphasis on the word "touching" and came up with this (I had also just recently finished reading Dante's "Inferno" if you couldn't tell). I wish to some day have the bravery to experiment with spacing and spelling and format like Cummings had when he wrote. Until then I'm afraid I will have to settle for my "truest form of flattery."
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
I have decided then when I go to college I will find a major with which I can start the long and arduous road to the comprehension of Cummings' poetry. I'd like to be a Cummings scholar. Which I know sounds lurid, but believe me it's not. Every time I sit down and read the fifty-dollars-worth of Cummings' poetry book at Borders I feel chills run up and down my spine, his work is absolutely astonishing to me. Some of it shocking and rude, some of it (like Somewhere I Have Never Traveled) is delicate and pure. I wrote a poem a while ago that was Cummings-inspired;
A glimpse from you and stones fall to their knees;
And I would gladly fall on the sharp edges of your words
If it meant one for me
Only that which is Unknown could know what makes you swell and ebb
Breaths expelled as warmest vapor
(and were it to settle on my lashes I would know true happiness for the nearness of that feat by you is unknown to me)
For you I would walk with Virgil
Unarmed for your eyes disarm me
Your very intensity makes you shake
(and I myself confess to shaking at the thought of your straining body)
My lips part
and it’s like touching
Though I cannot seem to bring myself to write with as much a lassaiz-faire attitude towards punctuation and grammar and capitalization I do try to imitate his trail of parenthetical thought and his abstract, nature-centric love imagery. Actually this poem's main theme, "like touching," was kindled by a line from the book "Reading Lolita in Tehran" where the author is talking about the funeral of a dignitary and how grief made people do things they wouldn't normally do, "like touching." I changed the emphasis on the word "touching" and came up with this (I had also just recently finished reading Dante's "Inferno" if you couldn't tell). I wish to some day have the bravery to experiment with spacing and spelling and format like Cummings had when he wrote. Until then I'm afraid I will have to settle for my "truest form of flattery."