Stacatto Sunshine

[Yejun]

Staccato sunshine, I'm not sure it works
but that's what I'll stick with at least
a second or two, maybe more, I don't know.
I do know I had to recharge this watch
for my father's sake, for my mother said
that was what I was supposed to do.
We had to follow the path, but we didn't
and found ourselves stuck in a patch
of prickly 'I don't knows'. I was young then,
bored and full of something or others,
long forgotten, or renewed like an annual subscription.
God, do me a favor, when I get old, don't
let me grow up to write old guy poems.
I'm really tired of them and they tire the
writer, I think. I think they are written
because their writers write and cannot stop
or think like keeping meter when you have
no reason. True, but why them?
"Why them?" Kari screamed when she saw
two old people in a convertible corvette
or something, I forget why these old guys
get published writing old guy poems. I guess
we'll have to dig a fort and place
the watch between the rotted wood panes.
I guess we'll have to dig staccato sunshine.

[mtmynd]

a very satisfying read, Yejun. I enjoyed the flow and the subject running side-by-side coalesced in a comfortable rhythm that brought me a smile. What more could I ask from a read..?

[Doreen Peri]

A couple of stanza breaks might be nice. For instance...

"Staccato sunshine, I'm not sure it works
but that's what I'll stick with at least
a second or two, maybe more, I don't know.
I do know I had to recharge this watch
for my father's sake, for my mother said
that was what I was supposed to do.

We had to follow the path, but we didn't
and found ourselves stuck in a patch
of prickly 'I don't knows'. I was young then,
bored and full of something or others,
long forgotten, or renewed like an annual subscription.

God, do me a favor, when I get old, don't
let me grow up to write old guy poems.
I'm really tired of them and they tire the
writer, I think. I think they are written
because their writers write and cannot stop
or think like keeping meter when you have
no reason. True, but why them?

"Why them?" Kari screamed when she saw
two old people in a convertible corvette
or something, I forget why these old guys
get published writing old guy poems. I guess
we'll have to dig a fort and place
the watch between the rotted wood panes.
I guess we'll have to dig staccato sunshine."

......

Also, not too fond of the stanza (above) about "old guy poems." Do you think it adds anything to the poem? Look at it without that stanza and see if it reads better.

Then...

"I forget why these old guys
get published"

instead of

"I forget why these old guys
get published writing old guy poems."

would work better for me, as a reader.

I just don't like the "old guy poems" thing..... Why? Because it doesn't really mean anything at all. It's a concept in your head, maybe? I don't connect with it.

[Yejun]

Sorry for the delay, but this is why I like workshops. I get two quite different reactions to the same poem.

Thanks mt. That's pretty much what I was shooting for.

Doreen,

Certainly, the stanza breaks make the changes easier to um, er, digest, but I wanted a deliberately whimsical tone. Do you think that is retained with the s. breaks?

I just don't like the "old guy poems" thing..... Why? Because it doesn't really mean anything at all. It's a concept in your head, maybe? I don't connect with it.

I was reading Harper's and they had published four poems that issue, three of them: Updike, Hollander, and I think Hecht were all whining about getting old. It was pretty clear to me that the poem were chosen more for the monetary value of the author's name than whatever inherent aesthetic value lie in the poems themselves (they would sell more magazines that way.) It was, to me, a symbol of the gerontocracy of poetry publishing.

But, and this is a big but, do you think the description is too disembodied, too abstract, to work with the rest of the poem? I can see that. Youth, it is said, is often wasted on the young and I wanted to show that, at least partially, it was a combination of factors that makes youth a less than an ideal time.