Ride Across the Sky

[qimissung]

Anne might have been persuaded, but
I am not. Chagall’s gone postal
On Kennedy’s grassy knoll and
The Cheshire Cat, with Siamese
Paws takes a swipe at me and charges
Headlong into the cold, dark sea.

And can a candidate win when cool
Is obsolete and now all that we
Worship is hot, hot, hot? We need
A Beijing superstar to call our own.
One hundred medals isn’t near enough.

I feel your face, your tears, your pain;
So delicately I run my fingers
Over your craggy surface and even
Though I love until my heart is
Torn asunder and I know you’d spend a
A hundred thousand to give me something
Rich and strange, still, it’s not enough.

I think I’ll eat a peach; The USA,
So second rate, and Mao Tse Tung
Can never run for Homecoming Queen.
I’ll tear apart Black Sunday for you
And give you power from the barrel of
My gun, but we both know-it’s not enough.

So I curse my unleavened fate, long
For bread, ride a missile for miles
Across the sky to press my hand against
The surface of the languorous moon,
Even promise no more than ten or twenty
Million dead, tops!- but still, it’s not enough.


Qimissung
September 2008

[TheFifthElement]

Brilliant poem qimmissung, so rhythmical and very well composed. And what a message.

[Pendragon]

Whoa! Encore! Encore! :thumbs_up

[blazeofglory]

Marvelous!

[qimissung]

Thank You, FifthElement, Pendragon, and blazeofglory. Your kind words are always meaningful to me.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I have a quibble, a complaint or a confession


Anne might have been persuaded, but
I am not. Chagall’s gone postal
On Kennedy’s grassy knoll and
The Cheshire Cat, with Siamese
Paws takes a swipe at me and charges
Headlong into the cold, dark sea.

And can a candidate win when cool
Is obsolete and now all that we
Worship is hot, hot, hot? We need
A Beijing superstar to call our own.
One hundred medals isn’t near enough.

In that compelling as these first two stanzas were, I couldn't follow you across what seemed to me to be a divide between them and what felt like a different, more intimate third verse. (Which went off in my view, in a more engaging direction




I feel your face, your tears, your pain;
So delicately I run my fingers
Over your craggy surface and even
Though I love until my heart is
Torn asunder and I know you’d spend a
A hundred thousand to give me something
Rich and strange, still, it’s not enough.

I think I’ll eat a peach; The USA,
So second rate, and Mao Tse Tung
Can never run for Homecoming Queen.
I’ll tear apart Black Sunday for you
And give you power from the barrel of
My gun, but we both know-it’s not enough.

So I curse my unleavened fate, long
For bread, ride a missile for miles
Across the sky to press my hand against
The surface of the languorous moon,
Even promise no more than ten or twenty
Million dead, tops!- but still, it’s not enough.


Qimissung
September 2008

Although I could wish to have been able to find and follow the unifying thread, I thought this extraordinary!

[Xillus_Xavier]

I do agree with PrinceMyshkin that there seems to be a change after the second stanza. And I also echo his sentiments that the poem is fantastic regardless of that slight difference. The entire poem is captivating.