Mosquito Marathon
Original:
There’s something about the warmth encasing you As you sit above the windowsill heater in mid-October, Cursing the chills before your big race. Something about running through the woods, Away from all the monsters, Chasing you through life. Good thing you’re good at running. Good thing you’re not scared of the dark. As you run, your fingertips burn, Burn along the unflinching edges of the bark. Your feet slap down straight through dewy leaves, To the hard, hard, nitty gritty ground. Pounds into your toes, up into your skull. Nothing to do about it, but keep running. Not until your feet fall off, or the monsters give up. There’s something about swimming in the evening, In the center of the lake with waves coursing over, Mosquitoes swarming, nibbling, piercing. You’d never be able to touch bottom, Not unless you want to escape the mosquitoes, And let your head go under. Under enough to let your lungs burn, Let your ears pop, Let the pressure push you down, Let your brain panic Because it’s just not supposed to happen this way. Running from monsters, from mosquitoes. Why not turn and fight for once? Revision One: Warmth encasing you Sitting above the heater in October Cursing the chills before the race Running through the woods From all the monsters Chasing you You’re good at running You’re not scared of the dark Your fingertips burn Along the edges of the bark Your feet slap down Pounds into your toes Up into your skull Keep running Until your feet fall off Or the monsters retreat Swimming in the evening Center of the lake Waves coursing over Mosquitoes bouncing Toes never able to touch bottom Only to escape the buzzing Let your head go under Let your lungs burn Let your ears pop Let the pressure push you down Let your brain panic Not supposed to happen this way Running from monsters From mosquitoes Turn and fight for once? Revision Two: Canadian bird bumps melt back into the grey of your arm as the air rises through the slats of the metal, digging divots in to the swollen flesh that muscles never seem to reach. Paper white of the blinding tree flakes from your fingers and land at your feet. Whispering needles push into the layer of skin above your ebbing veins under the lobe of funneled buzzing, pulling un-clotted blood, bubbling it above the syringe-made pore. Ballooning, it floats from you without notice. After arms fall, sapping towards pine rested on the ground, leaves wrestle to stay above your meandering hair. Claws swim in the sweat on the back of your neck, following the track the salt leaves on the clefts of your spine. Whites of your eyes tickle tears down the outside cheek of your hardened face making you the weeping statue of the Virgin fleeing from the sin of being a hoax. But you don't stop. Your feet pitch down into the leaves with hidden cones underneath, making bramble-blemishes leak onto worms and dirt that days ago was mud at the bottom of the lake. Colors that were meant to mix to brown, create the grey of the sky instead. Unfolding the mountains from the flat of the water creates the waves that you swallow as you swim in the dusk. Roots of hair are matted to the crown of your head sinking under, never reaching slime. Revision Three: Canadian birds bump into the window and you watch from where you sit. The air melts ice from the hair on your arms, sitting on the heater, mid-October. The metal burns divots into the flesh, swollen and angry, never used by the muscles deep inside. White paper wraps around the tree, blinded by the sun, flakes drop off and land at your feet. Whispering where the needles push into vein where the lobe of your ear hangs in front of your neck. Draining un-clotted blood, it bubbles from the pore, syringe created. The blood balloons and floats where you don't see. Arms hang by a willow, but want to cover the head from raining leaves. Antennas walk in the sweat on the back of your neck, leaving footprints down your spine. The whites of your eyes tear the track of water down your cheek when the sun splits on your face. Your feet leaves wounds on the ground where you step on hidden cones and liquid drips onto worms and dirt that was once mud in the lake. Colors thought to mix to brown, create gray instead. Unfolded into the water, your body creates the waves you swallow and the light drains from the sky. The crown of your head dries matted, yet you never reached slime. Revision Four: Canadian-bird-bumps migrate back into your skin as the air wafts through the metal of the heater left on all through winter. The swollen flesh on your under-leg goes numb where divots are worn like stockings. White paper hugs trees, but falls to your feet when you rub against it. Whispers of the wings of the needle push into the vein under the lobe of your ear, draining the un-clotted blood in exchange for the itch. Syringe-made pore leaks blood, ballooning from your neck. Arms sap towards trees fell on the ground by careless tourists needing the warmth, rustling leaves made them jump and they left when claws prickled up their spine, leaving sweat marks in their wake. Tears leaked from their eyes, showing tracks down their cheeks and they drove through town leaving cones hidden under forest floors and worms waiting to crawl in their ears when they fell. Revision Five: Canadian-bird-bumps melt under the grey of your forearm as the air climbs through the slats of the metal, digging divots into the flesh swollen from misuse of the muscles never reached. Paper white of the blinding tree flakes from your thighs and land at your feet. Whispering to the needles pushing into the layer of skin above the veins that ebb under the lobe of forgiving cartilage, draining un-clotted blood, bubbling from the syringe-made pore. Ballooning, it floats from you without notice. After arms fall, sapping towards pine rested on the ground, leaves wrestle to stay above your net that's you hair. Claws swim in the sweat on the back of your neck, following the track the salt leaves on the clefts of your spine. Whites of your eyes tickle tears down the cheek of your hardened face making you the weeping statue of the Virgin fleeing from the hoax of being a sin. Your feet pitch down into the leaves with hidden cones underneath, making bramble-blemishes leak onto worms and dirt that days ago was mud at the bottom of the lake. Colors that were meant to mix to brown, create the grey of the sky instead. Unfolding the mountains from the flat of the water creates the waves that you swallow as you swim in the light straining out. Roots of hair are matted to the crown of your head sinking under, never reaching slime. |
Process Memo:
Mosquito marathon started as the narrative poem for the beginning of the semester, where I thought my images were there, my voice was being heard and my language was fluent, however, that first draft, as I look at it now, is easy to read, but it bores and it's easy and I know what I did wrong because all of the lines are ripe with images that I didn't take advantage of at the time. The original was a stream-of-consciousness poem and was filled with a lot of abstracts. For the first revision, I cut away the fluff of the poem, all the words that bulked it up, but didn't tell the reader anything. Things such as, "There's something about" and "as you," words, I learned turned the story into more of a prose form. However, I didn't get rid of all the abstracts of the poem which should have been the first thing to go, but the form in the first revision did move the poem down the page and it had a couple places with anaphora where it put the reader into the position of the narrator and said "you're good at running/you're not scared of the dark/ you're fingertips burn" and then again when the lines begin with "let". Revision 2 is where my content for the rest of the revisions came from. For this revision, I tried looking at the images differently, with goose bumps being "Canadian bird bumps" and "paper white of the blinding tree" which was the bark of the birch tree. I remembered the mosquito image that was spoken of in class and I wanted to be included in that conversation about the ballooning of mosquitoes. I also knew that the images would be represented a lot better by breaking up the stanzas so they each image got its own time to be read and understood. After the first revision, I didn't see it as a continuous thought. There were scenes and a time-line that wasn't quite there, but I didn't want to neglect it either. The third stanza of the poem, I took advantage of using the wordplay I've gotten quite used to with the arms sapping towards pine and leaves wrestling. Revision 3 I tried playing with the form again and I also played with the content and whether I liked the canadian birds bumping into the window where this person sat, or whether I liked the image of the goose bumps better. I also popped mid-October in there again to see how it fit with the images, and to give it a little bit of an overall time range, but in later revisions, I didn't think that was necessary and I also brought back the goose bumps. Revisions 3 and 4 were a little more generic in their language with filler words and language that was easier understood. For all my poems I tried to stay away from the polysyllabic latinate words that didn't really show the reader anything at all. Revision 5 is where I really played with the form, keeping it in its stanzas, but also giving it the flare that the language almost calls for. Each stanza is different in its tone and images and I think the form needed to equal the content, so each stanza turned out to be different forms, the whispering needle had needle like lines, the arms sapping towards pine where the leaves were falling was very wispy and gave the reader a feeling of leaves falling in the forest and the last stanza almost mixes together with its paragraph structure, showing the mixing colors of the sky and the lake-like body of water the narrator is swimming in. |