Truancy
This poem was written for Read Write Poem Prompt #99: Setting the Scene. I wrote this in the persona of a young man growing up in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s. I tried my best to follow the prompt, so I’d like some comments no only on the quality of the work, but how well it followed the idea of conveying a scene without telling a story. And oh yeah — enjoy.
-Nicole
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Men are admitted into Heaven not because
they have curbed & govern’d their Passions or
have No Passions, but because they have
Cultivated their Understandings.
- William Blake
I want you to picture something. A Wednesday afternoon in September,
1960. In your mind, it would be colored
in black and white and looking like
a desolate, inside-out Leave It To Beaver special. You always seem
to paint gray there when you think of this. But I remember it
in color. How the Library of Congress stands over me
in a cream and stone, column and stair missive
from our country’s modern ancients, erupting from the beige sidewalks
and carpet grass below. How I stare upward, wondering
if the frozen sky of blue noon can be cut by
the sharp right-angle shoulders of this roof.
Now, I want you to see me. Sixteen years old. Cut hair,
like a military wet dream. Brown slick sheets slapped to the side
and divided by a straight part with a thin comb. Perfect rows
of nothing, shaped with teeth like black baleen. I want you to see
how I hesitate, swallowing my too-fast staccato heartbeat
until it capitulated into a steady normal rhythm, how I suck in air
to inject the pacific into my chest to drown
the quivering electricity that rides
my nerves in bursts. I should be in school right now –
but the dull days of sitting stone,
ensconced by a wood and metal mini-universe beneath a black blank board,
and hearing the dead song of teacher lecture
have made my back bend, my shoulders curl, and my eyes
stare into blank.
And I want you to see those same eyes. How they grew
electric and open, cauldrons of wide, curious empty,
to see life and death whisper to me
in black squiggled and straight serif print. How I can take it all in. Trying
to read the sun. Trying to enter the illustrated garden unnoticed,
to hear the crinkle of fern leaf beneath the backs
of hidden lovers as they dance
below the veil,
below the dismembered black peacocks of curved Urdu script telling their tale,
beneath the shadows of Mohammed and the snake. Trying to find
my way to the gold arabesque wall,
to run my fingers over it and read the endless carved whispers
of someone’s God. Trying to hear
the crash of crazy violins: the song
of gold, ruby, amber, and sapphire string love
breaking apart and bleeding at the edges, the terror, the thin-line high
soprano cries slicing the throats of eardrums and air. And trying to figure out
why angels fell,
and if I ever had wings. This is where
I began.
Written 10/30/09 and 11/2/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
I especially appreciate the “I want you” beginning of each stanza culminating in the “this is where I began”…which almost feels like a leaping off point. The opening to a movie, perhaps.
You’ve set an intriguing scene. Powerful.
I enjoyed this immensely. I could see it and hear the various sounds too.
scrawled sheet of paper
It certainly sets a scene. The last stanza uses beautifully rich language, especially,
“below the dismembered black peacocks of curved Urdu script telling their tale,
beneath the shadows of Mohammed and the snake. Trying to find
my way to the gold arabesque wall,
to run my fingers over it and read the endless carved whispers
of someone’s God. Trying to hear
the crash of crazy violins: the song
of gold, ruby, amber, and sapphire string love”
You’ve told a wonderful story in lyrical verse. I, too, love the stanza Derrick has pointed out. So imaginative. You have a very unique voice, Raven.
I like the richness in details, it helps me get into the character’s “skin”
Interesting technique, pointing the poem’s “you” to specific details, commenting on different perceptions of perceptions, instructing the other’s mind to consider.
I particularly like the ending:
the thin-line high
soprano cries slicing the throats of eardrums and air. And trying to figure out
why angels fell,
and if I ever had wings. This is where
I began.
I like how our eardrums have throats. We, hearing, are creating voices, not in reply, but mainly as interpretations of the incomprehensible voice of the other. Nice, Nicole!
I love the way the poem really asserts itself by engaging the reader with its language, the repeated used of “I want”. There is an earnestness and eagerness in that voice which goes beyond the details, and allows them to matter, to be held close and examined in ways they wouldn’t be if the poem were more “hands off” in terms of its dialogue. The voice acts as a strong scaffold and holds the details in temporal and emotional relation to each other.
nicole thank you for this piece. “urdu script” prompted research-
Urdu (اُردوُ Hindi: उर्दू Urdū, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] ( listen)) (also alternately known as Undri) is a Central Indo-Aryan language[1][2] of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the two official languages (the other being English) of Pakistan.
thanks for the challenge, some great writing here, always a pleasure to read.-lawrence
I really enjoyed your poem and the journey all the way back to Leave it to Beaver. Thank you for posting this, Nicole. Your poem holds truths for me. I loved the crash of crazy violins. =D
the wonders of a 16 year old boy traveling truant… the format leads the reader gently… a rich delightful journey…
I see this as a powerful revelatory scene at a powerful moment in time, both personal time and historical time. The year, 1960, on the threshold of major social change; the age, 16 years old, on the threshold of adulthood. The boy has left school to go to a place where he can seek true understanding, revelation. I love these lines:
Trying
to read the sun. Trying to enter the illustrated garden unnoticed,
to hear the crinkle of fern leaf beneath the backs
of hidden lovers as they dance
below the veil,