city park

[serge gurkski]

this was a "sit outside and write about what you hear" exercise. personally I like it but that's because I have context, but I'd like to know if others think it's worth developing into something less rough. thanks =]



Ants dance with dead leaves
march over mountains
of scented cut grass the first three lines flow ( I know an overused word but here it simply applies) wonderfully smoothly)
chopped down by the manic whir
the waving sound of whacking line
weeds are no match
to the man in uniform goggles
seeking manicured beauty.

Ants dance over dirt
over gravel-filled holes
over cigarette butts, beige
from sun, from rain and age
flicked away by those
whose vice is complete I needed a bit to get this (must be so bc mine is far from complete ;-) )
whose thoughts wander far
from this concrete step. funnily enough I always read (aloud) steep here, bc of complete, 2 lines above.

Hi cloudy,
first of all it is an interesting exercise (this onomatopoie(t)ic approach has of course been used rather often not just in poetry but in belles lettres in general, but you top it by inventing metaphors for sounds ). What I find quite witty is the way in which you apply this technique. It made me grin actually, because it is exactly the sounds that you could NOT hear, that you are bold enough to pretend to describe. Ok then I am willing to pretend it that I buy into it. ,-) Or, nope! I have changed my mind! ;-) The sounds (whir, etc) are audible. So, maybe I was wrong above.
I read the whole poem as one extended metaphor. As to the plot I detected 2 or maybe 3 layers (the perspective on the microspheric level, the narrator's macroscopic view (a bit tautologically phrased by me here bc of the meaning of greek skopein. ;-) and now it gets a bit difficult bc of the complexity: the poet / the narrator does show (not tell) but in addition interpretes or reflects upon what she sees: your usage of "vice" for "butts" and also of "manicured" for ""mown" .

As to other poetic devices used: You do a lot of nice little things to your poem which I just list here: aliteration (dance/dead, march/mountains etc.) , internal rhymes ants dance), parallel constructions or call it repetition of semi-lines at least or(S1l1-S2l1).

I enjoyed the read very much! You asked if you maybe should add more context. Well, I don't think so but will confess I had read it 3 or 4 times to hopefully have "got" it. It is much more complex than it pretends(see above) to be. Now i canonly hope that I did not miss too much and was not completely wrong. ;.-)

cheers
Serge