Rumble
Original:
The reach of the trees’ arm slaps my cheek. Two diagonal red strikes as you beat the laughter out of me. “It’s okay to feel bad about yourself” Laces untied on only one shoe, gives only half the chances to trip. The art of the night is in the snores, the playful hiccups of the nose. The inside rub of the dirty lungs echoes instead on the tongue. Revision One: Crippled claws with wings bundled under Rope burn scars around the twist, Hold back and snap my cheek. Two reds melted in and laughter oozing out. “It’s okay to feel bad about yourself.” Laces, mud-caked spaghetti-cloth ticks toward tacks bulbed from the ground where my nose only smashed once. The playful hiccups of the nose that the inside rubs along the dirty lungs where it echoes, instead on the tongue. Toyful sounds wake me from the incessant tapping of a dream re-done. Revision Two: Sprouting feathers, bristle closer, whistling through the branches where beaks and peaks lie untouched and un-run through the racks of rocks that sit back and watch you wail. The salt balls that splash as the crash of the last Japanese lying cypress trace their way down the track of your cheek. The ridges of the run of my fingers sting more than the whip that you call your "laugh" that does more than a bleating mimic of a goat with the horns mountained out of the tight skull above your brain. Your voice is a shoe that kicks me in the groan of my fizzled napping nape as you play God and grow me an apple of a man who never looked fresh with the berries cupped tight in a wrinkled palm. Standing straight along the weathered belly of the bluffing wall, I salute you. "It's okay to feel bad about yourself" Check-marked hair snakes and slaps cobbled lanes that catches in between and spins the top of the matted wheat of your hair to the ground, but I don't catch you. Crescent-moon nails nick the vein you keep covered under the heinous volumes of costumes I peel from you as you sleep. Revision Three: Trees that seem to sprout feathers as the birds bristle closer, whistling through the branches where beaks lie untouched through the rocks as they sit back and watch you wail. The salt splashes as the last Japanese lying cypress crash into your face and traces of moisture are found on your cheek. The ridges of my fingers running down, sting more than the whip you call your laugh which sounds more than a goat with its horns mountained out of its tight skull, squeezing the brain. Your voice is a shoe that kicks me as I groan in my throat as you play God and grow me an apple of a man who never looked honest with his berries cupped tight in his wrinkled palm. He stood straight along the weathered belly of the wall and said, "I salute you." "How's it okay to feel bad about yourself?" Mud-caked laces snake and slap the cobbled lanes and catch in between. The weight of your body spins the matted wheat of your hair to the ground and I don't catch you. Crescent-moon nails nick the vein you keep covered under the volumes of costumes I peel from you as you sleep. Revision Four: Trees sprout feathers as the birds bristle closer, whistling through the branches where beaks lie untouched by the rocks as they sit back and watch you wail. The salty splashes crash as the last Japanese lying cypress traces its way down your cheek. The ridges of my fingers that run down, sting more than the whip you call you laugh which sounds more like a goat with its horns mountained out of its tight skull, squeezing the brain. Your voice is a shoe that kicks me as I groan through my throat as you play God and grow me an apple of the man who never looked honest with his berries cupped tight in his wrinkled palm. He stood straight against the weathered belly of the wall and screamed, "I salute you!" "It must me okay to feel bad about yourself." Mud caked laces wrapped in hair, slap on the lanes of cobbled stone, catching under foot, spinning the matted wheat of your hair to the ground, and why would I catch you? Crescent-moon nails nick the vein you keep hidden under volumes of costumes I peel from you as you sleep. Revision Five: Branches sprout feathers as the birds bristle closer, tendons flexing, toes scale along the bark, they whistle through screens of leaves where beaks' jabber-chatter skud off rocks as they tick their tappers back and watch as you wail. The salty splashes crash as the last Japanese lying cypress trace its way down your cheek. The ridges of my fingers run down to the crease of your lip, stinging more than that bleating mimic of a goat that has horns mountained out of its skull, that sound you call your laugh. Your voice wears the shoe that kicks me as I groan down my throat as you play God and feed me an apple of the man who never was honest with his berries cupped tight in his colicked palm. Standing straight against the weathered belly of the wall, he screamed, "I salute you!" "It must be okay to feel bad about yourself." Mud caked laces wrapped in my hair slapped by the cobbled lanes of stones, catching under foot, spinning the matted wheat of your hair to the ground, and why should I've caught you? Crescent-moon nails nick the vein you hide under volumes of costumes I peel from you as you sleep. Revision Six: Branches spring from feathers, wagtails bristle closer, tendons flexing, talons scaling along the bark, chipping and splitting, they whistle with sharp tongues through screens of leaves where the beaks' jabber-chatter skud off rocks and lock themselves to air ticking their tappers back and watch as you wail. The salty splashes crash and the last Japanese lying cypress traces its way up your cheek. The ridges of my fingers run to the crease of your lip, stinging more than that sound of the bleating mimic of a goat mountaining horns out of its skull, that sound you call your laugh. Your voice is the sole of the shoe that kicks me until I groan in my throat with you playing God and feeding me an apple of the man who never was honest growing berries in his cupped palm. Standing straight towards the weathered belly of the wall, he screamed, "I salute you!" "You shouldn't feel okay with yourself." Mud-caked laces wrapped in my hair slap at the cobbled lanes of quartz, catching under foot, spinning the matted wheat of your hair to the stone, and why would I've ever caught you? Crescent-moon nails nick the vein you hide under the volumes of costumes I peel from you as you sleep. |
Process Memo:
The first draft of the poem came as I was sitting in class wondering about all the forms poems can take on. I wanted form to equal content as I sat there and wrote once again about running through the woods and getting slapped in the face by a branch, but this poem I wanted the reader to feel the laughter and the stutters of all of the actions through the form the poem took on. When I was finished I felt that the jumpiness of the lines made up for the jumping in the scenes because usually I follow a more linear path, but this madness has started in me where everything can be changed and rearranged and in a way, it will still be logical because I said it was. For the first revision of the poem, I focused on images, how I saw them in my head and I would pick up this image and click through it until one seemed oddly fitting and I would plug it in. Everything was senses. "Crippled claws" was initially the branches, but then turned into birds feet, with, "wings bundled under." For this entire poem, I really wanted the word-play showing since that's what I've been reading and there's no ending to the meanings of them. I didn't consciously focus that much on end-stops and enjambments in revision one even though it could have helped put that image out there a little more. Lines seven and eight was where I started having fun with the word-play, using the long c sounds for the "ticks toward tacks" hearing the shoelaces hit the ground. From the original poem, I really liked the snoring with the lines "inside rubs along the dirty lungs/where it echoes, instead on the tongue" because of that rumbling type of sound you get with the repeating u's because as you're snoring, it's inhale with that rubbing sound that's deeper and then the exhale, which I always hear as a higher pitch because my when I stayed with my grandma, she would inhale and it would rumble, and then the exhale she would purse her lips and the air would come out in a phooo! type of sound like a high pitched owl. Revision two was my uber-compacted sound and sense draft. I had myself in giggles by the end of it, but there was the musicality of the lines playing off of themselves that I couldn't stop, which made the poem much longer than it originally was. I loved the image from the last draft with the birds and the trees (cliche, I know), but I wanted to mess the idea of them up, and maybe have the reader confused by what was the actual object in the poem, and who was the living thing. "Sprouting feathers," I think was my favorite two words together in this whole tangle of revisions, yet I didn't keep it. I thought it might be a little too ambiguous and starting the reader on that beginning would murk the whole poem. Line 2 is where all of the word play begins, and I play off of the sound of the words before-hand and while I was writing it, I didn't feel like it was too much with the rhyme scheme because it was the internal rhyme and the alliteration of the words which didn't make it feel as though it was nursery rhymish such as "beaks and peaks," or "branches," "racks," and "back." I wanted to put a name to the tree I had been seeing so I looked one up and there was the Japanese false cypress and of course I had to change the word false to lying to tie line 6 into the exchange of sounds in line 5. Those lines of, "salt balls that splash as the crash/ of the last Japanese lying cypress," had the a's and the s's and then the l in last scooted over Japanese and landed on lying and it was the smoothest transition I could see from that roller-coaster sound ride. The second stanza I played with taking a concrete object and mixing it with an abstract because voice is abstract right? In this revision, I really wanted to carry that voice that was in the original back into the poem, because I seemed to have almost lost it in the second draft. As I read the original and then read revision two aloud to people, they always picked the easiness of the original over my dense word-played version, so I decided to prune what I had bulked up so much. I started adding explanatory words and watered it down to where it was understandable. I think to the vast majority of people, "Sprouting feathers, bristle closer," compared to "Trees that seem to sprout feathers as the birds bristle closer," people are more likely to connect more to the latter than the condensed version, no matter how much I understood it. Revisions 3, 4, and 5 I play mostly with easing the words into the syntax that they should be in, and also, refining my images that seem to be lacking. Every time, I try and change the quote of feeling bad about yourself because I think each version of the poem has a somewhat varied tone and since that quote was the basis of this poem, I saw the need to carry it through the entire thing, but still have it flex where it needed to. Revision 5 is where I am most comfortable with the diction and syntax, with my enjambments and mostly my images that I keep a lot of the same things from 5 to 6, however there are small images I tweak to transform this basic slapping of the branch on a face into something entirely different yet the same, like the lines, "they whistle with sharp tongues through screens of leaves where the beaks' jabber-chatter skud off rocks and lock themselves to air as they tick their tappers back and watch as you wail," where I see the birds jabbering back and forth, but there's still that conundrum of why are you wailing, and what could they be doing by "tick their tappers back?" I think with the alliteration of the t's, you can almost hear the wapp of the branch as it hits this person. |