It is, vivid.
But I think you could cut the reference to 'surreal theatre,' which is
what we should get, from the images.... that whole stanza could be made
to move faster if you did & jump-started the verbs a bit....
Doug
On 8-Oct-07, at 9:16 AM, Janet Jackson wrote:
> Vivid.
>
> What about deleting the last stanza,
> or moving it to... er... to the beginning?
>
> Janet
>
>> edited; tried to keep the Line in mind and to keep the events going
>> (rain ended up leaving centre stage for the background). I get really
>> bogged down in images if I don't pay attention.
>> thanks for the comments guys, past & future.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> sunlight's colours stood on stilts¯
>> after knocking them down to the spectrum of shadows,
>> sheets shuddered down dark in a forest
>> of waterfalls & streets.
>>
>> with daylight the palette's array is a mad, sandy carnival¯
>> no eye endures it without a bang from natural dusk,
>> and the ear's coiled shell whines a nanotech crackle
>> in the background of a briefly gnarling drill;
>> though even a quiet day-city glows, unreal as a painting.
>>
>> so when nightfall trespassed on the mirror of noon
>> it was surreal theatre¯the dangerous re-enactment
>> of a myth born in the glass of clouds,
>> of windows & roads
>> that blinked & bleached the sun's echo black:
>> at last
>> it's cool!
>> at last
>> something cold & happy:
>>
>> the first paradoxical ssshhhh
>> hits the hill¯I obey as a reflex
>> & listen
>> at the road's crook
>>
>> where the same recycled cloud fell
>> for his millionth reincarnation, and
>> gasped out a cold mirage:
>>
>> here a stag once vomited a frog's poison
>> or the psychoactive heart of a berry.
>>
>> here an owl queried the moon,
>> half asleep outside time's floodriver,
>> when Man would come
>> & build
>> around the shapes of their gods.
>>
>> here nothing once moved,
>> not a claw
>> or hoof
>> or wheel.
>>
>> KS
>>
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
and this is 'life' and we owe at least this much
contemplation to our western fact: to Rise,
Decline, Fall, to futility and larks,
to the bright crustaceans of the oversky.
Phyllis Webb
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