Imagine yourself falling - knocking things over as you go. The pens on your desk. The calendar on the wall. The pile of papers, unread mail, everything sliding to the floor slow motion like the loss of consciousness. Yet still semi-conscious, aware only enough to feel the uncontrollable spams of the body.
glass fell over :
ink pens spill across
old newspapers,
their caps slightly chewed -
spinning blurs on the grimy white
where words once lived
appear and disappear.
a clock three hours
twenty two minutes fast
is ticking someone else's time
scotch tape and staples
have ceased being toys.
outside this rainy window
the pulse of traffic
rolls on.
falling.
dirty fingernails
and tangled hair
slowly buried by
calendar pages
gliding softly to the floor
neatly planned days
so easily swept
into the trash.
outside this rainy window
the howl of wind and sea :
you feel your body
thrashing
again and again
on the rocks.
I like this, you really captured the moment well. Still I feel that something is missing, maybe a line in the middle somewhere that stands out and makes it shine. Anyway, good read. Keep on writing!
I read the poem before the description (I always do that), and I got a bit of a different impression than you were intending. This is good as a piece about a siezure, but it's also good as a piece dealing with depression. All through this I get the feeling of things let go because we just don't care anymore. It has quite a suicidal feel (at least to me). Here are my thoughts as I read. All of these are great lines.
glass fell over : ink pens spill across Brief violence old newspapers, No reason to pick up their caps slightly chewed - stress spinning blurs on the grimy white where words once lived appear and disappear. Writer's block
a clock three hours twenty two minutes fast is ticking someone else's time No reason to fix it scotch tape and staples have ceased being toys. self mutilation outside this rainy window the pulse of traffic rolls on. nobody cares
falling. Says it all
dirty fingernails and tangled hair No reason to spiff up slowly buried by calendar pages gliding softly to the floor Time passes neatly planned days so easily swept into the trash. Appearances kept up, but it's a sham
outside this rainy window the howl of wind and sea : Torment you feel your body thrashing again and again on the rocks. This is the only piece that really says siezure, but it could be interpreted metaphorically, as well.
hey, I had a seizure once!! I don't remember it though. I remember rolling around on the couch, like "ouch, I hurt all over, I can't breathe, I'm dying" and then waking up in a different room, on the ground, with people peering at me and my mom on the phone with 911. hahaha!! good times!!!!!!!! Now, onto your poem.. the seizure seems to me to be symbolic of the lack of control in one's life. There's this influx of images, but along with the random objects that make up your world is this completely uncontrollable spasming. The "slightly chewed" pencaps-- now, ok, on a regular level there, nice detail & imagery, but it also seems to suggest an unfinished life's work. Now, I'm a pen-gnawer myself (no one borrows my writing utensils) and to have pens slightly chewed shows that they've been used, that you're Making something (like poems? eh? eh? eh??) but even in the midst of what could have been a creative renaissance, there's this inability to focus, to control oneself. And this line "spinning blurs on the grimy white where words once lived appear and disappear." That seems to reiterate the same thing.
I really like how you approach time in this. "a clock three hours twenty two minutes fast is ticking someone else's time ... dirty fingernails and tangled hair slowly buried by calendar pages gliding softly to the floor neatly planned days so easily swept into the trash." The idea that time is unique to everyone- that your minutes are different than my minutes- is an interesting idea and me gusta. The calendar pages falling (just like the speaker in the poem! Oh the plans, the dreams!!) really makes me sad, because I know where it's coming from... I plan things out obsessively, and revel in the awesomeness of what my life's going to be like... and then it never happens. (ex: I always wanted to be in the Babysitter's Club. Never happened. Dammit.)
outside this rainy window the howl of wind and sea : you feel your body thrashing again and again on the rocks. This last stanza seems a bit random compared with the rest of the imagery, but I feel that it's necessary. It shows nature having crazy seizures too; it's like saying, "no, you're not special. everyone has unrealized dreams. The world is just one big unrealized dream, one incredible, unfinished schematic." I don't know if I was off-base with your poem, but that's just what I gleaned from it. I like it a lot. It's really original... and your narrative voice and word choices are really strong. I hate it when people use those really cumbersome, ugly words that look really fancy. Your words are kind of simple, in a nice way. They don't make you get caught up in the wordiness, they kind of just wash over you.
i was listening to thom yorke's "a skip divided" as i read this, and it was very fitting. due to the music, i couldn't help but picture what might as well be a brothers quay character of a doll in a small room cluttered with office supplies (the ones you provided). It's all in black and white and the dolls limbs are made of wire and she looks out the window, poking it with the wire, then has what seems to be a seizure but it turns into the tarantella and all fallen objects join her. i can't think of a way to describe this poem, and the emotions i picked up from it, but i do have a visual i could use involving the doll. she looks at all the things around her, she shifts her head a little in discomfort, but without agitation, then her eyes roll back into her head and she looks behind her. that situation would encompass the first emotional impression i received from this. i guess a dark and serene distress if there was such a thing. i like.
glass fell over : ink pens spill across old newspapers, their caps slightly chewed - spinning blurs on the grimy white where words once lived appear and disappear.
Morning reflections before that coffee at work when everything is still a blur, yet you manage to notice little things with total clarity. All stationary-related, which relates to your office-type work, doesn't it?
a clock three hours twenty two minutes fast is ticking someone else's time scotch tape and staples have ceased being toys. outside this rainy window the pulse of traffic rolls on.
Time moves so damn slow when checking it constantly-- at least it does for me lol. Time is relative, a man-made construct that lets us order our days like good productive slaves... I mean... workers. Oops. There's boredom, endless boredom and the rain doesn't help your mood.
falling.
Turning-point, climax of the poem, mid-point etc... which really isn't a climax at all-- an anti-climactic sleepy-sleepy feeling really.
dirty fingernails and tangled hair slowly buried by calendar pages gliding softly to the floor neatly planned days so easily swept into the trash.
Boredom yet again, so bored that little details jump out and seem larger than life. Is this how solitary office-life is like? Count me out of it, no matter how good the money.
outside this rainy window the howl of wind and sea : you feel your body thrashing again and again on the rocks.
Elemental longing to be outside and escape the air-conditioned drab existence of corporate whoredom. Nicely put huh? Lol, it's just what I think.
i think thatthis piece worked really welll, describing the sort of office, and making you feel almost insecure, then sort of smaking you in the face in the last stanza, but i felt it was sort of too abrupt and unexplainined.
the constant mention of rain gives a sort of depressed feeling to it, though we all kow that rain isnt a badthing, it just feels that way. perhaps giving us a little more of a lead in to the last stanza, but thats the only suggestion i have.
i like the way you have constructed this piece... especially the way falling interrupts the idea in the middle...
seizure... its an interesting name for this piece and it works to paint a million different senarios in my mind as i read it...
i like the part about the calendar pages and planned out days being swept into the trash... with something as unplanned as a seizure be it an epileptic like one or one of the heart/mind perhaps it can really throw out everything youve planned... when time seizes up on you and your well planned resistance is met by a smiling face or you just hear that song and it throws you into a frenzy... it blows all sense of order and sense out of your world...
i like the image of the clock running on someone elses time... i also like the magnitude of how fast the clock is... like they are in a different time zone but in the same country perhaps (which is possible in USA and i hate it!!) you know what... it reminds me of sinead oconors song "nothing compares to you"
"its been 7 hours and 15 days since you took your love away"
Oh, yeah! Been there felt that! To me, this is Love "on the rocks," reconstructing life after the breakup, trying to find a new direction. Outside the world goes on "normally?" Inside, things tip "over, spill, get chewed." Into the night, "words appear / disappear", "tape and staples" become necessities," days" pass mundanely. Then there's that vision of a "body thrashing, again and again, on the rocks." Now, you see how I said "a" body. I wonder why you chose to say "you feel your?" Are you speaking to the inner you, the reader, or some other third party? Regardless, it is Cupid washed up on that lonely shore. I just know it.
Notes: I love, "ticking someone else's time." What a great phrase! I also love the image you created of "calendar pages gliding to the floor." It's like an old black & white movie. Consider: "the pulse of traffic / rolls on". The traffic "rolls", the "pulse" what? "Beats?" "Pounds?" OR you could say "the beat of traffic / rolls on" making a musical connection to both.
I think this poem is packed with a powerful loneliness. Something has just crashed upon the shore, and I read it to be Love. The rest follows as cries of isolation, you on the inside, and the world outside. It is a colorful, very inventive, poem with a unique slant in its presentation. I loved it.
glass fell over : ink pens spill across old newspapers, their caps slightly chewed - spinning blurs on the grimy white where words once lived appear and disappear.
a clock three hours twenty two minutes fast is ticking someone else's time scotch tape and staples have ceased being toys. outside this rainy window the pulse of traffic rolls on.
falling.
dirty fingernails and tangled hair slowly buried by calendar pages gliding softly to the floor neatly planned days so easily swept into the trash.
outside this rainy window the howl of wind and sea : you feel your body thrashing again and again on the rocks.
This seems to describe a life unlived; put on hold and awaiting the tectonic shift of emotional plates as they draw meaning/ purpose/ direction from the depths of a soul worn out with waiting. Outside the window, everything happens; inside the room, nothing happens. So, I assume the 'siezure' you describe is a rapture of activity (writing, perhaps?) that justifies a living being as something more than a shadow occupying space.
At least that's the impression I'm left with. Very well done. Take care. Bill.
Submission Name: Seizure
