[This is likely part of my Documenting the End of the World series.]
Weeks ago smoke filed
out in billowing
columns. Airports closed
across Europe as the ash hung like shredded
curtains. Somewhere
a great bowl was overturned
and in a café in Chicago I watched
planes of light unsettle
the dust.
We slept uneasily,
buffeted by clouds of our
inconveniences.
-Bad air, you said, and we all
breathe it. -So, I said,
a conspiracy?
We didn't laugh.
The unpronounceable bowels of the Earth
scattered slowly
over the ruins
of our
civilization.
As if trying to
forget us.
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i can't look at that Volcano's name without imagining someone spastically pounding on a keyboard in the basement of some surveying office somewhere.
ReplyDeletethis feels a bit like two poems to me currently - or two ideas that are still figuring out how they fit together. the first is the volcano erupting and sitting in a cafe. the second is this 'we' and the conversation inflected with volcano bits and pieces.
the final three stanzas have a rhythm and a tension to them that the intro lacks for me - i think this stems from the fact that it's a 'we' and there's a really suggestive, telescopic back-and-forth tension in the conversation. it really orbits the end-of-the-world theme playfully and beautifully.
the sentence that narrows and ends "over the ruins / of our // civilization" for example, is real strong.
also - in a post i read (http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/continent-scale-weather-systems-made-of.html) the guy talks about how part of the ash is actually made of shards of what are, essentially, glass, which is why they grounded the planes. crazy.
I feel like the title makes your first couple of lines bulky and unnecessary. I think you're just reinforcing an information/image that we already have, and makes for a bit of a slow start to this poem. What if you started it from "Somewhere a great bowl..."? I like the immediate comparison--the mess and inconvenience of an overturned bowl to an erupting volcano. With your end-of-the-world poems, I've noticed you seem to add elements of the mundane/domestic/ordinary that attach to bigger things and consequences (which I like)...so yes. Please start here?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ian that the "We" conversation part is the meat of this poem and I don't think you need to build up so much for us to get there. I want you to rewrite this line and make it shorter: "The unpronounceable bowels of the Earth"
It ruins a bit of the rhythm and tension that Ian mentioned. The best part of these shorter lines (and your use of them in your other poems) is how cutting and exact they are. The last stanza kills.
IS THAT THE NAME OF THE VOLCANO? shut up. what. that's absurd.
ReplyDeleteYea, I would change the title, simply because it's so silly and your poem is not. I know this fucks with your "unpronounceable bowels of the Earth" moment, but I think the line works on a few other levels, and doesn't need the title.
Tim, this is great--your comparisons are wonderful:
...the ash hung like shredded
curtains...
Something about the line about watching it in a cafe in Chicago bothers me--I think you need to insert yourself so that you can bring up the conversation later (which is great), but I'm not sure this is how I wanted it to happen...don't know, that's vague, but just my thought when i first read it. Something about dropping the proper name Chicago...I think it's because it could have happened anywhere, and so it's irrelevant?
The last two stanzas are nightmarish and eerie--love them.