on the dark side of the beach
not far from the swells but still out of reach
you can't hear the human yells or pleas
overwhelmed by the rolling roar of the swirling sea
Venus fades, turning grey and green
pointing down on the mist [--] sick and mean
now dancing fish scale the big machine
broken shells have eaten dreams
on the dark side of town
drunken music blares
melodies drown in rasping bass
Cupid sucks the straw of a cardboard glass
un-emptied quiver on the stairs
men fight at any dare; bored,[ ] girls stare
at neon lights; in their eerie glare
lives have long been crushed to despair
ghastly shadows hide nightly rites
darkness looms beyond lurid lights
on the dark side of heaven
decays a cratered orb
water's dirty;[ ] broken roads
cracked houses and rusted cars
babes bawling where weeds grow tall
hidden carbines and furtive wars
nothing mended yet life creeps on
oil seeping, insects crawl
rain burns acid, Apollo's light [ ] cold
this side of heaven the world grows old
not far from the swells but still out of reach
you can't hear the human yells or pleas
overwhelmed by the rolling roar of the swirling sea
Venus fades, turning grey and green
pointing down on the mist [--] sick and mean
now dancing fish scale the big machine
broken shells have eaten dreams
on the dark side of town
drunken music blares
melodies drown in rasping bass
Cupid sucks the straw of a cardboard glass
un-emptied quiver on the stairs
men fight at any dare; bored,[ ] girls stare
at neon lights; in their eerie glare
lives have long been crushed to despair
ghastly shadows hide nightly rites
darkness looms beyond lurid lights
on the dark side of heaven
decays a cratered orb
water's dirty;[ ] broken roads
cracked houses and rusted cars
babes bawling where weeds grow tall
hidden carbines and furtive wars
nothing mended yet life creeps on
oil seeping, insects crawl
rain burns acid, Apollo's light [ ] cold
this side of heaven the world grows old
(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * 2011
What I learned from this exercise is that I have a tendency to bang-bang two stressed syllables together,
that I switch randomly between trocheés, and therefore my lines don't scan evenly. I break my lines wherever they make sense to me and I don't eliminate rhyme even in free verse using it both as end rhyme and internal rhyme. I had a sense of some of this but I found it useful to see what happens when I'm not thinking about it at all. - 8.14.14 for article on "beat".
What I learned from this exercise is that I have a tendency to bang-bang two stressed syllables together,
that I switch randomly between trocheés, and therefore my lines don't scan evenly. I break my lines wherever they make sense to me and I don't eliminate rhyme even in free verse using it both as end rhyme and internal rhyme. I had a sense of some of this but I found it useful to see what happens when I'm not thinking about it at all. - 8.14.14 for article on "beat".
the broken shells and eaten dreams...dang gay..we all know these dark faces of a city...well penned
ReplyDeleteThere is an intense apocalyptic feel to this poem-- it could be read in a number of ways, perhaps even as an anti-war poem. I love the image of Cupid sucking from a cardboard glass. You've evoked a detailed and intense dreamscape-- excellent! xxxj
ReplyDeletethere is a dark side to everything...it crouches at the edges...intense imagery gay...there is a great sense of decay...
ReplyDeletenice...i could def hear your rhythm when i see the bold words and syllables...and it gives this a really nice beat...and your pauses as well seemed very natural to me in my breathing....
Deletethere are so many dark avenues in this world - glad there is still some light around the corner
ReplyDeleteI love the way that each stanza stands alone and the sounds in that stanza represent the theme - excellent
Great imagery here, Gay--intense, impossible to shrug off the irritants of the truth embedded in the words and piercing the reader's ear. The absence of any kind of punctuation accentuates the flatness, the dark decay, of this world that has been ours to ruin and turn dark, and the rhyme singsongs like a child's jumprope song each morsel of bad news. Excellent piece.
ReplyDeletethe dark side of life is everywhere... can't escape it! but I must say, the dark side seems beautiful in this piece. wonderful!!!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of "the dark side of heaven".
ReplyDeleteThis is phenomenal. It's as if the apocalypse happened while we weren't paying attention. Brava!
ReplyDeleteDark, but rich and complex....wonderful, with your eyes open....
ReplyDeleteSlice of real life....encapsulated with compassion.
Great, complex imagery. Great poem.
Lady Nyo
Fantastic imagery.
ReplyDelete"cupid sucks a straw from a cardboard glass"
Brilliant.
A brilliant human trope on the universe's dominant dark matters, a gravity that is tearing the heavens apart ... Entropy is too kind a word for this - more like dystopy, the anti-utopian bummerverse of bad things allowing to devolve into their worst consequences. Compulsive eaters, drinkers, gamblers, believers, and other magical sots all toss these snake-eyes, eventually, coming to rest amid the whaleshit 'burbs of the soul. I loved this stroll through Hell, from the other side of the tracks in Heaven to Nighttwown and ending at the ruined beach, all of it our fault, or our wrongness somehow complicit with this energy. The dark side isn't so much a half as absolute holeness, sucking all the light in the spectrum into its whalish bowel. Waaaaah. Fantastic journey. - Brendan
ReplyDeleteNot sure exactly where this came from. Another one of those things that came down in one and required only a little tinkering. I thought I should "straighten" it up and make the rhymes regular or something but haven't felt the need. I like the jump rope rhythm of it. Jump rope rhymes are usually a little dark and I feel as though the planet is playing jump rope and skipping the important matters. We seem to concentrate on pop culture while the rain burns, the whales and dolphins die, and the panda bears disappear. I pray for care but the numbers, greed, and propaganda have outstripped the intentions that continue to pave the road to hell.
ReplyDelete"you can't hear the tune only rasping bass"
ReplyDeleteThis line stood out. Love the thought put into this piece.
I agree with Claudia, well penned. A wonderful write.
ReplyDeleteI like all your notes. They satisfy a need in me to see something I wrote through others' eyes. I like knowing what works and thinking about it some more. You guys give me good comments and considered information. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed your poem, especially the last stanza (brilliant)!
ReplyDelete"turning grey and green
pointing down on mist sick and mean
where the dancing fish scale the big machine
all the broken shells all the eaten dreams
gone beneath the waves of the swirling sea"
In your words, I find myself there, in the swirling sea.
Powerful imagery here Gay; someone above me said 'apocalyptic'.. I think that is on the money. You skilfully paint some dark pictures that elicit uncomfortable feelings. Job done, eh?
ReplyDeletewow - first so interesting to read this piece again after more than three years and having met you in person, i def. can hear your voice in this gay
ReplyDeleteYes, it does....
ReplyDeleteThere is a natural smoothness in this that I love.. and quite a lot of blues in this.. the tone really works well with the subject.. the sadness and darkness of those parts of town.. really shows how parts of our so called modernity is breaking apart.
ReplyDeleteThe poem is wonderfully, skillfully written. The words really create a mood, and I can understand a little better how/why rythm matters so much. I like your self observations at the end.
ReplyDeletebeautiful imagery!! the dark side of heaven was my favourite... quite an irony in itself!!
ReplyDeleteLove this overall prompt you provide..and also the way you embolden blaze this story of the truly what can be the dark side of life..and it reminds me of living in North Florida..riding through towns of farms thriving gone by..rusted tractors..gas stations abandoned..dusty roads..rusty cars..without hub cap wheels..making me feel that..
ReplyDeletehome is not home unless there are structures built a new..with engines of technology roaring full speed ahead..
but as i grow older..i do truly feel that home..is anywhere i can listen to a song..barefoot a feat of feet on sand..but argh..
i still want my iPod or iPhone..to get all the magick musicK i want..connected to the world wirelessly but grounded secure barefoot on sanded shore of true home earth!yes..i balance is where i thrive2!..:)!hybrid robot and human too..still..as long as balance does..stay true!
That's why I live in the country... : )
ReplyDeleteThere is a dark side to everything, that shifts counterpoint to the sun all day; not always in the same place. Yeah, I was bad not to play strictly by the prompt rules, but I needed to create a Lune American Haibun, something new, and the rhythms shifted from syllabic to stresses to beats & breaths--so thank-you dear lady for taking my last couple lunes, and diagraming their rhythms; at least they were there to be found & designated. I, too, liked the cupid line, and I'm haunted its /unemptied quiver on the stairs/ sad, because there is never enough Love in this world already, without cupids getting all uppity & stoned & lazy.
ReplyDeleteThanks Glenn. It's been fun. I like the idea of asking people to explicate their own poems. We can't really evaluate others' poems until we learn to break our own down. And even though I don't think about all the devices I use (other than rhyme - which is tricky for me at best), it makes us appreciate that stuff when we read fellow poets' work.
DeleteThis poem takes me way back to one of the first poems of yours I read and has the same immediate appeal. I think I remember comparing that first poem to one by Ogden Nash. Your rhythm is thrilling and invigorating, it drives the reader forward. It is a wonderful skill.
ReplyDeleteI like how the first lines repeat and the beat just keeps me moving one word at a time.
ReplyDeleteI like the progression of each stanza: each one beginning with "on the dark side of..." I do feel the beat of your words, Gay.
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ReplyDeleteNice--there is a natural "speaking" rhythm to this. Beyond the beat, a powerful message as well. Very well done!
ReplyDeleteTerrific poem, apart from anything else - very vivid! I am interested to see how Americans and Europeans might say words differently from Aussies like me and how that would affect the beat. Here there were mostly similarities, but it would come naturally to me to give several lines a somewhat different pattern of emphases.
ReplyDeletei like the irregularities which keep this "dark side" poem from sing song. And the hard sounds help provide both darkness and drums because they are actually regular enough, I thing the sea is the most positive as it only crushes the shells,while the crushed lives lead inexorably to the entire material junkyard we have allowed to grow. Well, actually,the more I think of it the more sorry I feel for the oysters and the dreams they ate.
ReplyDeleteI read it aloud first time round, and found my natural stresses slightly different from yours, but not enough to matter. I find your use of spondees effective and powerful, and the enjambment works well..
ReplyDeleteI love this in it's entirety. Each stanza's near-repetitive opening. The allusion to Cupid and his quiver. The image of the crater. And, like you mentioned, the back-to-back crashing of stresses. It strengthens the brutality of the theme (or the theme that I derived). So very, very powerful.
ReplyDeleteNice flowing movement, like dark murky waves rolling in smoothly to the shore.
ReplyDeleteSuch a powerful poem...and I like the "bang bang" style that you incorporate. It creates more intensity which I think emphasizes your dark and apocalyptic theme.
ReplyDeleteI love the last line. And isn't this the truth: "nothing mended yet life creeps on"
ReplyDelete