Poetry Forum

Ancient horse-chestnut roots disturb the flags
where children skitter, snow-haired elders sit
on canvas chairs in August, and dead leaves
leave silhouettes behind when hosed away.
People have lived here since the city was young,
or they were young. Old homos walk their dogs
through flurries of cherry blossom in the spring.
Lianas of laundry arc from block to block,
secured to balconies where bicycles,
hooked by their wheels, swing softly in the breeze.
To dwell here is to register one's part
in a consensual shared amnesia,
in an oblivious, communal swoon,
in the procession of things coming, going, gone.

Hi K-J
Funny, I was revising a horse-chestnut/place poem just as I read this.In the mood then.

Very strong I thought...very evocative poem of place. Good final line.

Three quibbles only...

Ancient horse-chestnut

"Ancient" perhaps slightly too much here?...not sure...I'm not sure about the age of horse chestnut roots.

or they were young.

Not so fond of that...seems obvious..it is place where people live.

Lianas of laundry arc from block to block,
secured to balconies where bicycles,
hooked by their wheels, swing softly in the breeze.
To dwell here is to register one's part
in a consensual shared amnesia,
in an oblivious, communal swoon,
in the procession of things coming, going, gone.

Like this closing cluster a lot. Shared? If amnesia is consensual then isn't is already implied that it is "shared". "Shared" seems redundant?

"Register" seems an interesting but slightly elusive choice here..registering a part in a swoon/amnesia/procession. Registering it with what? This is not a quibble, just something that strikes me.

But these minor points do not diminish the main evocative strength.

Liked this as well..

and dead leaves
leave silhouettes behind when hosed away.

Cheers,
Ant...swinging softly in the breeze.

Lianas of laundry arc from block to block,
secured to balconies where bicycles,
hooked by their wheels, swing softly in the breeze.

I loved this part of your poem. The flow and ebb was perfect. Lianas of laundry...! Wonderful.
I almost wanted the poem to start with this and end on

" snow-haired elders sit
on canvas chairs in August, and dead leaves
leave silhouettes behind when hosed away."

I think the procession of coming and going, new and old are evident in the poem and do not need to be encapsulated with coming, going, gone.
Communal swoon was very cool.

JB

Like.

"Old homos" is put in such a way that it's almost still shocking, which is great.

I agree with JB, these are my favourite lines:

"Lianas of laundry arc from block to block,
secured to balconies where bicycles,
hooked by their wheels, swing softly in the breeze."

I may be missing something here, misreading, BUT, is this a surreal vision? Bicycles swinging softly in the breeze?

K

Roots as a title?

Hello k-j,

I think from half way along L3 onwards this reads absolutely beautifully, just lovely, wouldn't change a thing.

Not quite so enamoured with the start though. The first line is ok, I wouldn't say that it hooked me straight away, but it's ok. I really don't like 'snow-haired elders' in L2 though. At first, because I've already got trees in my head from L1, I thought we were talking about elder trees in winter, but then in L3 I realise that I've been wrong-footed and we're talking about old people in summer. It just caused a bit of a bump in the read. Also, I'm not sure that snow-haired is the most original of descriptions for an old person (...it would be for an elder tree though).

Like I say though, the rest is great.

Cheers,
Nash.

Untitled - Flurries, maybe? The line containing the word seems central to the theme; bursts of "life" within the standard procession of life itself. Not much in the way of a crit, I know - I'm well out of practice. But I like the observation here and the overall mood.

Thanks all. This is actually a part of a sequence I'm working on. Aspects of a city. There is a grand design to it which is completely OTT. I probably won't finish the whole thing but I'm going to post the sonnets individually here as they roll off the production line.

Ant - I quite like the exaggeration of "ancient". "Old" just wouldn't cut it and would lend the trees a slightly pathetic aspect. You have a point about "shared", I will think of something better to occupy that spot.

JdB - thanks, good to see you back here.

Kris - actually the bicycles are real! The lianas of laundry are contrary to bylaws now though; they come out of old movies and photographs from the 1950's.

Nash - spot on about "snow-haired elders". It doesn't work at all. Actually, I've a confession to make - I plagiarised that epithet from Peter Reading, who uses it semi-ironically I think. It had been floating around my head for years and I guess it just popped out when I wrote this, but it's not at all in keeping with this poem. The confusion with trees never crossed my mind!

Moth - glad you liked it.

I thought his was mostly excellent, with fine imagery and sonics.
I even liked the "snow-haired elders" following on behind the "horse chestnuts" line.

As for the ending - the last line is good, but

To dwell here is to register one's part
in a consensual shared amnesia,
in an oblivious, communal swoon,

- is tortuous, IMHO, by comparison with what has gone before.
Although the metaphor is good, the language used makes it sound more like a dry, intellectual theory. (Just my opinion)

Geoff