poetry critical : poem

I Want to Write About

I want to write about my Seminole ancestors, forgotten	1
and exiled to the Ten Thousand swamps, how they knew	2
how to live in the abundant present, how they knew	3
what Paradise and Eden truly were. I want to write about	4
their peace and how the government took it away from them.	5

I want to write about transitions and dreams broken	6
and about dreams that are realized. I want to tell	7
everyone that true love exists, if only they could turn	8
off the tapes that were turned on at their birth.	9

I want to write about the sweet taste of a steaming cup	10
of Folgers, how the smell alone, drifting across the cold	11
tile to their sleeping nostrils, can determine whether they	12
will have a good day or a bad one.	13

I want to write about those people who cannot escape	14
their mythologies and so find it necessary to exile	15
those of us who have or are, at least, trying to.	16
I want to write about the ability of Australian Pines,	17
deemed destructive, shallow, and in the way,	18
to spring back to life, daring mortal man	19
to determine their right to a place in the universe.	20

I want to write about the way the ocean waves	21
reach for the immense sky and then reluctantly	22
collapse on the shore. They seem almost exultant	23
in their ascension, and there is something sad	24
in their fall - I think I can hear the whisper	25
of a sigh as, over and over again, they realize	26
they must descend forever.	27

I want to write about how you cant take back	28
the whispering that comes to you in the darkness,	29
so fleeting and silent that you wonder secretly	30
to the pillow stuffed like a pacifier in your mouth	31
if it was ever there to begin with.	32

I want to write about the silence and the little worlds	33
that jostle for a position along the walls of our cells	34
and scream the scream of unnatural death	35
when we say out loud, "There is nothing wrong with me."	36

1 Jan 05

Rated 9 (9.5) by 1 users.

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Isabelle5
tragicbubble

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Comments:

This is beautifully written. I was expecting something to bring the title and the beginning of each stanza to a conclusion...just seems left undone. The only part I didn't care for was "Folger's". The second last stanza is one of the best I've read in a long time. Thank you for this.
— unknown

This is really beautiful.  Well-written, quiet voice: my only concern is that at points, like the first and sixth stanzas, there is so much information being written in to it that the reader ends up a bit breathless.  Just breaking down some of the sequences that have more than three ideas into separate sentences would help wih readability.

Great work.  Thanks,
— mikkirat

Going right to my favorites.  I can imagine hearing Indian drums beating or the chanting of an obscure tribe hidden in a rain forest.

You seem to take us back to the roots and bid of smell the dirt of ancient homelands.  I think this could be read over and over without becoming dull.
— Isabelle5

My intention was to make you breathless. Thoughts fly in and out of our heads at an alarming rate - the poem was meant to show that. Thank you all for your comments. :)
— Hamy

Snores............
— Champ

you bitch, but you make it sound beautiful. so i guess theres nothing wrong bitching.
— unknown

Quite lovely, really.
— tragicbubble

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