As I indicated in my last post, I've been working with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project to create some original writing. I come up with some brilliance, and then the group workshops the piece, offering suggestions to make it better. One of the activities we do for inspiration is called a "Writing Marathon," wherein we travel around the city experiencing things that will inspire us. On one such excursion, we stopped to watch some children play in the dancing fountain outside the PPG Building downtown. This following poem is inspired by that incident, and it's an uncharacteristically serious piece of writing from me. I don't really fancy myself much of a poet, but I do fancy myself a self-indulgent egotist. That's why I'm posting this anyway, no matter how little it connects to the overall tone of this blog.----------------------------------------
Wet Blanket
What do we tell the children
When water shoots from the ground
As they’re dancing atop the fountain?
Do we explain
That these jets are pressurized
Through invisible pipes and tubes
Like sinewy branches
Beneath the concrete?
Do we explain
That these cascading, crisp droplets
Have been carefully chlorinated
And cleansed
And chemically treated
For their health and safety?
Do we explain
That high above them,
In the glass metropolis surrounding this aquatic square
The spires of industry reflect in the noonday sun.
That the employees within
Toil in bourgeois drudgery
To finance homes in fine white middle-class neighborhoods
That their dark eyes will never see.
Or do we experience
Forget
Allow laughter and delight
To seize our imagination
And wash away our rational explanations
Our burden of awareness
Innocence we can never have.
Magic we can never believe.
-------------------------------------
"You can't write poetry on the computer." -- Quentin Tarantino
* JP's NOTE: I can say with certainty that more posts are forthcoming because I already wrote them and published them. They're scheduled to be released by Blogger tomorrow and the next day. You're welcome. Sing my praises with some vigor.
2 comments:
First of all ha ha, you are one step closer to emo. I can only imagine you sitting in a room, pitch black except for a blood red candle next to your desk, writing poetry with the blood from your freshly cut wrists. (Down the alley, not across the street)
But seriously, it is a fantastic poem. Now wear some color, turn on the lights and cheer up emo kid.
Tech Teach KP, Hey when did you learn to write so well? Blood red candle? I'm impressed. And I just realized last week that I can put together a portable laptop stand--with tools! So, JP, perhaps you could learn to weld and run auto cad or give a presentation on vitamin D (if for some odd reason you ever wanted to do so)!
Post a Comment