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I would like to imagine

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Dave
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Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:07 am

I would like to imagine

Post by Dave » Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:05 am

I would like to imagine a world like a child would
imagine my child self encircle a globe with elastic arms
encircle the impossibilities of adulthood and bounce
the earth across the universe like a ball, earth
a temptation too great to resist, coloured in rainbows,
self-painted but the paint not dry, malleable as snow
I’d run my fingers through the colours and watch
them run this way and that before I tire and loll
on my back. My mother would wash my hands
and clear up the mess before I sleep and dream
of earth as a child would.

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Colm Roe
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Re: I would like to imagine

Post by Colm Roe » Sat Jan 22, 2022 6:41 pm

Sweet poem, Dave  :) 

AlienFlower
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Re: I would like to imagine

Post by AlienFlower » Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:00 am

self-painted but the paint not dry, malleable as snow
I’d run my fingers through the colours and watch
them run this way and that 
Your poem starts magically and I absolutely love this section.

I'm less keen on what follows. Bringing cleaner-upper Mother into it kind of rubs me the wrong way although of course that could be a child's view. And although I know I overuse bookending myself, and I get it that you want to come back to your adult self in the end, it doesn't quite sit right with me to end the poem with "like a child would." In a way it belittles the wondrous thing the child has just been through.

Just my two bits. Thanks for this delightful poem!

Jackie

bruise
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Re: I would like to imagine

Post by bruise » Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:23 am

Dave wrote:
Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:05 am
I would like to imagine a world like a child would
imagine my child self encircle a globe with elastic arms
encircle the impossibilities of adulthood and bounce
the earth across the universe like a ball, earth
a temptation too great to resist, coloured in rainbows,
self-painted but the paint not dry, malleable as snow
I’d run my fingers through the colours and watch
them run this way and that before I tire and loll
on my back. My mother would wash my hands
and clear up the mess before I sleep and dream
of earth as a child would.

I agree with Jackie that the ending seems to diminish rather than leave open or magical. And that's a shame as I really like the rest of the poem. 

I was initially thrown by the lineation of the first two lines, but then like it, as you can read it two ways - as if there should simply be a comma at the end of the first line, or in a kind of double meaning - how a child might actively imagine your self into existence. If you don't want that second meaning, commas are cheap.

Similarly, I like the repeated 'earth' - and gloss it - earth/[is too great] a temptation - as well as earth as in electrical earth - fix to the ground - a double-resonance that has a good effect I think. 

The poem of yours that i like ends with 'run this way and that' - i don't take to the bit after that, and i don't feel though it's yet finished. 

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Mark
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Re: I would like to imagine

Post by Mark » Sun Jan 23, 2022 3:32 pm

Nice read. I think the poem ends well at the first full stop.

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Tracy Mitchell
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Re: I would like to imagine

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:35 am

Hi Dave,

Another challenging poem -- mind expanding and eye opening, in a creative way.  How we think and dream, how a child thinks and dreams, and how we think and dream a child would think and dream.  

First things first.  The opening line leaves me befuddled (I know - just as it found me :lol: ).  The phrase "I would like to imagine. . . " immediately raises the question - what is stopping you?    But nothing, nothing in what follows addresses that.  Indeed, it seems the N does in fact imagine as a child . . . without impediment.  So this seems like a false lead.  Then there appears a repeat of 'would' in the first line, as well as a repeat of 'like'.  Each of the words are used in a slightly different sense the second time.  Some of the meaning of the line will depend on how the enjambment is read -- and I have gone back and forth on it.  I am not convinced the subtle ambiguity advances the poem.

If the sense of imagining were made implicit, then perhaps the poem open with something like: 

   My child self encircles  a globe with elastic arms 
  encircles the impossibilities of adulthood. . . . 


I think that would be a more captivating lead-in. 

I love the phrase "impossibilities of adulthood".  The text embeds this concept into the notion of earth.  I was looking for / hoping for some follow up, some explanation or context. 

I also like the phrase "malleable as snow".  Just viewing a globe we see the white of snow together with the blue of the oceans below the white of clouds.  Perhaps these whites are among the colors too?

L.10 -- clear >> clean? [foreshadows 'dream' sound later in the line]

Line endings -- always a subjective thing.  My confidence in my feel for the art of the line ending comes and goes.  The ones which I think might merit a review are those concluding lines 3, 4, 7, 8, and 10.  Let me know if you want my [lame] explanations.

Some folks have suggested that the poem may find its natural conclusion someplace before the current text ends.  I don't know what I think about that yet.  Some years ago I wrote a poem whose MC was God's little brother.  Lines 3-8 could honestly have come from that poem's mindset.  Line 9 abruptly ends any such musing.  

Loved engaging with this poem.

Cheers.

T

Dave
Posts: 1991
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Re: I would like to imagine

Post by Dave » Sun Jan 30, 2022 6:13 am

Thank you for all the detailed and generous engagement with this poem, which was written in two stages somewhat apart which may explain the odd change in tone towards the end. The inner intention had remained the same but had become somewhat hardened by a dsicussion I had had in-between times.
All the comments have their merits and it will take time to sift through them all but as I often do I would liek to respond not by engaging in conversation about what was said but by firing off an alternative version and I emphasise alternative because I like to write and rewrite on the website in the form of conversation with you.

The impossibilities of adulthood

I yield to temptation,
bounce the earth across the universe like a ball. 
Seas and fields smear, forests shake out of anchor,
rainbows drip and die out of sight.
I’d run my fingers through the colours
and watch them bend to my will,
nature as malleable as snow.

Finally, I would loll
on my back like a tired child,
Mother would wash my hands
and clear up the mess
before I sleep and dream
of earth as a child would.

Alternative 2

My child self encircles a globe
painted in rainbows not quite dry,
malleable as snow so I can smear my fingers
through the colours and watch them run
this way and that.

I encircle the earth and bounce
it across the universe like a ball,
far out of reach of adult hands,
beyond temptation to strong to resist.

:-)
 

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