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December 14, 2004
Means of Conveyance
Winter
A monkish engine hides behind this cowl.
Sluggish when cold, self-deprecating when
low on fuel. Complacent on hills. Not quite
honest despite its bruised fenders and wheedling
serpentine belt that no one has seen.
Summer
Parking lots melt back into constituents.
Electric doors fail to open, sensors somnolent
in the thick air. Streets with names like
Primrose stink in the heat. What is, is not,
when roads and soles begin to fuse.
Spring
Leaving the highway, the undiscovered country of
off ramps and pit stops, young men ejaculate
manifestos. Their waking and dreaming fused
in the invisible patterns left by hands held
out the car window, splitting the slipstream.
Fall
A car becomes the sum of its occupants, disgorging
pilgrims at the crossroads. In the slow veins
of leaves crushed by tires, a code. Under
the hood, the means of conveyance.
Windows roll down and the scenery floods in.
Posted by Josh at December 14, 2004 12:38 AM
Comments
I hate this research paper, I will do it later...
...I need poetry.
...Enjoy the use of a person's life conveyed through transportation in four seasons, very insightful, and, of course, didactic use of language to encode your meaning.
first stanza
- line 1's "monkish engine" strong; this is probably the strongest stanza, with a complacent speaker who is willing to sacrifice himself for others; love the self-deprecation of the speaker in line 2, who seems to be exhausted in Winter time. also, "wheedling serpentine belt" could be translated as a sense of humor that people have to dig into: a person who has a hidden personality, only brought out by a rare few.
second stanza
-line 6's mixture of "parking lot" reticency and constituent distancing of emotion I get, but needs to be cleared up a bit (why don't I practice what I preach?). Not crazy about the sibilance in line 7, and it also is expected (if you have to do sibilance, then maybe break the
line). love your mixture of synaesthesia and
personification of the Primrose in line 9. Unfortunately, line 9's "what is, is not" is
not useful and preachy, and line 10's "soles begin to fuse" is too close to a pun to be effective. Consider revising "sole". It is an easy out.
third stanza
-would like to see a stronger transition between end of Summer and beginning of Spring: leaving the highway means that summer is the main road, or at least, favorite season of the masses? "Undiscovered country" too Hamletesque, and not quoted..."ejaculate manifestos" should be the next chop shop subtitle, by the way, good use of synaesthesia...lines 13-15's "waking and dreaming" and "invisible patterns": what can I say? I wish I had thought of it first.
fourth stanza
-I almost love the last stanza as much as the first. the encoding of personality, of life, of poetry, is well crushed by tires in lines 17 and 18, those "slow veins" the process of change and growth ambiguously crushed and destroyed, or preserved. Under the speaker's coded message, his means of conveyance shines through.
...So far, the best thing you have written that I have read. Well done, Doctor.
Posted by: tony at December 15, 2004 12:02 AM