returning

[lallison]

http://farplaces.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/returning/

[blazeofglory]

This is a marvelous piece, an edifice of feelings, a wonderful blend reflective of togetherness, longing, alienation and a crave for meeting in memories, in nostalgia

[Hawkman]

Hi lallison,

I really like this piece it reads very well and is so evocative. Thanks for sharing.

H

[hillwalker]

A very evocative piece of writing - the reader is there on your journey with you.

I love the phrase "gaze past the hold of the curb" and the vivid descriptions of being overwhelmed by memory

Brilliant piece

[lallison]

Thanks for the kind feedback blazeofglory, hawkman, and hillwalker!

[Hayseed Huck]

Hooray!

Now this is what makes it all worth while.

Thank you,

Excited.

HH

[lallison]

Glad it could pass inspection, Huck. I appreciate your fervor for poetry!

[PrinceMyshkin]

I was just on the verge of tempering my excitement over this with a complaint that you'd lost track of the companion you were remembering, when I took a second, closer look at:


Like the strangler fig
Twisting around the teak.

and thought what a blind fool I had been. It's a glorious poem. Thanks.

[lallison]

As always, thanks for the feedback PM. I really like the strangler fig symbol/image. If you've never seen one, they are an amazing plant. They slowly grow around another tree, eventually completely encasing it and then killing it. The tree inside decomposes leaving only a giant strangler fig with a hollow center. Sometimes you can squeeze inside of them and look up through the tunnel in their core.

Anyhow, I changed three words to help emphasize your point, one for rhythm (I like ten beat lines to emphasize a point), and cut some of the line breaks to add unity.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I've read it again, since it was at the head of the queue, and it struck me at least as forcibly as the first time, if not more, Marvelous.

[Bar22do]

Lost now, in memory,
As lost as we were together
On motorbikes, in the mountains of Burma,
And whenever I return to you,

Past the shaded houses,
The orchards of green papaya,
We wind like a root
Rattling upwards, glide
Across a ridge, gaze past the hold of the curb.

Here the forest rolls
Over jutting edges of earth. The glare shakes
From our wheels. Our engines
Grind an echo into the trees. And here the river
Curls to the east and rises in startled wonder
Up a limestone precipice.

To come to this place
Is not to be here. It is merely to turn
In the eddies of a tarnished river, gazing up
As the water washes your chest,
Your chin, and swells slowly up the bank
Towards the strangler fig twisting round the teak.

lallison, the metaphor of the strangler fig is killer! especially in parallel with the eddies... and the whole poem a masterpiece. Thanks so much for this powerful experience, though sad. Best rgds - Bar

[Il Dante]

Very strong poem. The imagery is very vivid and evocative. I felt like I was there.

[lallison]

Thanks for the encouragement. Its not always easy to find time to write, so that really does mean a lot.

[hack]

This is very picturesque.
I like it. It reminds me
of a song, "Dragging Hooks"
by The Cowboy Junkies.
I doubt that that was your
intention though, unless
everyone here can read
my mind.

[lallison]

Thanks hack, I can't read your mind, but I am a believer in archetypes, so maybe there are some collective thoughts and images that we all share, and taping into those can make for good art. I looked up "Dragging Hooks," and agree, there is a definite resemblance. The river, memories, loss, its all there. I will have to see if I can find that album so that I can listen to it. Thanks for the feedback. lal