My life ends in the curves
of parenthetical Edens
because the sands and not the sins
of the shoreline are all that washes away.
My life under manna trees is endless peering into the frayed cotton balls
that look like clouds stuck in the fronds scratching the air
and leave the claw marks of jets in the sunset writing a single,
swirling line that loops in the wind coming off the desert,
Manna falls from the sky and not from trees,
and wise pearls do not drop from any pair of lips in the distance,
This is to say my life is a pain in the neck
when there is no television reception and the sky at night is
all there is to find some sign,
Signs that mark the road up the highway ,
a ribbon vanishing into the perspective of neat, uncrowned hills,
it’s never a sunset I seek,
rather a sunrise over water that makes music
and the sight of women playing chess.
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The Atlantic a month ago ran a pig-headed bit of snark-slamming prog rock as "The Whitest Music Ever, "a catchy bit of clickbait...
mixed metaphors and fuzzy images. bunch of abstract language; "my life is a pain in the neck/ when there is no television reception and the sky at night is/ all there is to find some sign" is almost excruciating.
ReplyDeleteThe metaphors are slippery, I admit, which is what they're intended to be. But mixed? That accusation doesn't mean much of anything in poetry, contemporary or traditional, as the form of poetic language is one that highlights the fluidity. The accusation makes more sense if you were applying it to prose, particularly an argumentative prose, where the comparing of one thing to another is intended to illustrate a point . In that case, in the prose,the metaphor had better be consistent as the arguement progresses,and the use of the metaphor had better be brief. But poetry is another matter, rhymed or unrhymed; it's not incorrect the say that the point of poetic language and the more expansive use of metaphor is to demonstrate that the meaning of experience is in flux, constantly. So perhaps you're not making the best case as to why this poem doesn't work for you. I'm sorry this thing hurt your head as you tried to pass it through your gut, but I think it's a bit better than you make it out to be. Have a nice night.
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