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October 29, 2004
Sunflowers and Lemonade
season has set
into our bones
and beds
stagnant pools
spawn mosquitoes
that rise up to
infect our blood
little boys
tempt girls with
dandelions, and liquor
a southern belle strolls,
umbrella in hand, on her porch
kicks over grandpas lemonade
pours through the cracks
and saturates
the parched earth
Posted by garth at October 29, 2004 05:01 PM
Comments
Enjoy the theme of new life beating the crap out of old life, esp. when the belle kicks over grandpa's lemonade (no respect for their elders)...you may need an "and" in the 4th stanza, to connect the two (unless that's not what you are going for). I also think liquor should be in a line all it's own, to give us that ominous feeling I get when reading this poem... the saturation of the earth is effective,
feeling both sexual and dangerous. I tend not to read sexuality in poems to try to avoid anything obvious, but it works well here.. if not sexual, then the overall tone of a predatory dominance of youth...I liked the title, but now am wondering if "sunflowers" is helpful (does help us out figure out what season it is), but the lemonade helps as a kind of synecdoche- a figurative part for the whole meaning of your poem. I would also add a period at the end of the second stanza to separate it from the third.
Posted by: tony at October 31, 2004 10:13 AM
I like both this poem and the previous one a lot, and I like very direct approach to the images as well as the implied metaphors and elusive emotions that both poems offer. This is nice because you just let the mood kind of barely hang out in there and the reader has to look closely for it.
I read the title as part of the 1st line. At first I had a bad reaction to the word "Sunflowers" because they're so hippie. If you make lemonade lowercase, I think the title as 1st line effect will be stronger.
I think you should take out "blood" in l. 7.
No comma after dandelions, in fact, you've thrown in commas and haven't used them much before, which I didn't comment on in the last poem. I'm a huge believer in punctuation as a guide for the reader, so you need to take them out altogether or put them in (along with periods) everywhere they're needed.
You should change "grandpa's lemonade" to "grandpa's cough syrup" (HEE HEE HEE).
I'm not seeing much figurative meaning in the parched earth because there were stagnant pools earlier. The earth is under the porch I'm assuming, maybe mention what might grow down there if youth truly is overthrowing the hierarchy of the old, as Anthony mentioned.
Posted by: Josh at October 31, 2004 12:28 PM