Thanks, one and all, for the comments on this one! It needed them!

(As an aside I think the poem is jinxed! I got interrupted when I was 
initially scribbling it down – just near the end at that crucial stage when 
the clinching words should come pouring out to catch me unawares – and then, 
at each stage of revising when I again feel I’m on the edge of something 
that will clinch it, I get interrupted!) As a result I’ve created so many 
weak endings… and almost lost out on what I guess I never got finished!

So, as you’ve pointed out Grasshopper, Mike and Gary, it’s disappointing! 
But it’s great to get some stimulus from your comments! I think it needed a 
good kicking around - - and that’s what you’ve all given it!

Yeh, Mike, the almost endless sentence was supposed to give it some energy – 
but it’s created problems! With contemporary poetry not using much else 
except commas, dashes and full stops I’d lost the impetus and was getting 
into a mess.

I guess, Gary, in playing the metaphor of a long truck journey I could make 
it carry through into weather where even a Trucks wouldn’t travel! Or I 
could make it a relentlessly endless image of capitalism/consumerism/trade – 
that it never stops - or I can just leave those thoughts dormant somewhere 
behind the poem… I’m playing!

And, yes, Ryfkah, I think it’s possibly a U.K. English Language poem. But 
I’m hoping its UK words don’t distract. (I initially had the truck 
travelling “from beyond Aberdeen” instead of “way up north” but, after a bit 
of thought, recognised that “even tho a truck has an address on it… we don’t 
know that’s where it’s come from! It’s just powered up to us, thundered 
past, and carried on!”).
Yeh, Sue, it’s real fun playing a metaphor long distance! Making it travel 
as far as the truck! But, as Grasshopper’s mentioned, it’s lost too many 
interesting things on its journey!

And yes Arthur, I guess it’s as much a solstice poem as a Christmas poem. 
This huge red truck can maybe carry whatever we want it to carry. So I need 
to work on the last couplet – the one where the door to this room always 
seems to open when I get to it – to really let your initial musings be 
satisfied! You’ve helped me focus in on the poem, on the metaphor, and not 
let any specific interpretations colour my revisions too much! (Re-visioning 
a poem… interesting thought…). Thanks!
So, Christina, I’ve been thinking about the word you noticed (the “you”) and 
wondered how that would have suggested something if I’d been able to finish 
it first time...

Bob
- who's got a lot of e-mails to read from TheWorks!


>From: Bob Cooper <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New: The Red Truck...
>Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 15:09:32 +0000
>
>Here's one for some C&C:
>
>
>The Red Truck At The Heart Of Winter
>
>December’s a 38 ton articulated truck
>full and powering down from way up north,
>snow almost as solid as ice in its wheel-arches
>and the sky it hurtles under is cast-iron cold
>
>and you hope it speeds on, that motorways,
>dual-carriageways, roads with well lit signs
>will keep it in motion - if it hisses at lights
>you can stand well back, long for it to move,
>
>recreate its momentum over trembling miles
>and not slew into the warmth of a house,
>become a wall with no fireplace, just the telly
>and a newsreader telling of ice on the roads -
>
>let its rumble merely quiver the streets
>as it keeps on trucking through dark nights,
>that its tail-lights will reassuringly gleam
>distancing you from such fearful weight,
>
>because it’s not on an endless journey -
>eventually there’s a ramp where it will squeal,
>beep and reverse before it’s back doors open
>and gloved hands will tug, lug out its heavy cartons,
>
>drag its cargo from darkness to darkness
>and inside each pack, yet more boxes inside boxes
>that will be rewrapped to become awkward or pleasing
>in homes by fingers unaware of the cold.
>
>
>Bob Cooper
>
>_________________________________________________________________
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