Bird Nine: Red Weather
I was determined to be a good kid and write something red-inspired this week, but my body resisted. For some reason, I kept thinking about Wallace Stevens' "tigers in red weather." And, of course, a strawberry kool-aid moustache. I am not sure I like any of these kooky vignettes even at all, but, nonetheless, here they are in their little red jackets.
(In the interest of "embodying" my work, I did indeed bite my own arm for the first time in 25 years to see how long the bite-marks would remain).
Poor bird -- perhaps it's doomed to a life of hapless flapping.
In Red Weather
the man with the kool-aid moustache
flings his boomerang briefcase
into the bloody sky and skates away.
the woman escaping the garden
strangles each tomato on the burdened vine,
lunges toward the low-hanging moon.
the uncle with hibiscus eyes
pulls a twisting niece onto his plump lap,
inhales her damp popsicle scent.
the boy with werewolf daydreams
sinks pup-fangs into his forearm flesh,
shivers as the crimson bite-marks fade.
the grandmother standing in the rose hedge
kneads her toes into the loam,
shuts her papered lids and waits to bloom.
11 comments:
there's that richness of language I just want to roll around in . . . I love the boomerang briefcase and the implication of only a momentary escape from adulthood. And I love the grandmother and her papered lids and wish to bloom. I can see her standing there.
Okay, here I am back again to be more thorough.
I think this poem is worth a lot more than what your distancing explanation implies. Still, I do love the "hapless flapping."
What I love about the first and last stanzas is more than the language, a sense that "Red Weather" is the time you try to go back . . . The business man is trying to go back to childhood, hence the kool-aid and the skating. He fails (his briefcase boomerangs back to him) and that is also part of what "Red Weather" means. Then there is the grandmother, waiting to bloom (or grow, become, etc.) which is also going back for her, since she is already grown, but the beauty of that as the last stanza is that you get the feeling that she is the one who just might succeed, despite the "red weather." The uncle also has that theme of 'going back,' trying to literally and metaphorically hang onto the child (and I love the damp popsicle scent-- that is exactly on key for the days when the kids are just running loose and sticky in the backyard). I did have my pedophile alarm go off when I read that stanza, but my sensor is very sensitive, and I think it was me more than the poem. The garden and werewolf stanzas are beautiful, but they made me lose the thread of 'going back' and then I don't understand "red weather" except as a time when things are strange (like when there is a full moon) and red. Let me remind you, however, that I am baffled by the best of poets, so if you have a thread there and I missed it, you can certainly chalk that up to reader error. And at any rate, I do feel like I want to know more about the woman and the werewolf daydreams. Either one of those feels like they might be hiding another poem. Actually, I could say that about all the stanzas.
I really like this one. It's intriguing-- has me reading and re-reading to try and figure out what "red weather" is, what the vignettes have in common besides red. And I love the language and the vivid picture of each stanza.
I can't write an analytical essay like robin did. I'll just say i love the surrealism in this poem.
Pow! I like this a great deal. Not only is the language lush (hats off to Stevens), but the poem moves forward through this accretion of details and description in a quiet way that I find appealing - as opposed to a more present narrator commenting on and telling us the scene. The poem is presented, rather, in a very painterly way. Again, very much like so many of my favorite Stevens poems.
I would like to roll around in that rich language with Robin, too. Beautiful images.
That last stanza is wonderful. The image of the grandmother standing in the rose bush, waiting to bloom, sinking her feet into the loam, is both humorous and kind of moving. This is a wonderful poem, full of colour and varied in every stanza. Great.
Wow is all I can say... it was like watching a movie from the 60's! I could envision every one of these scenarios in all their intensity! I especially loved the last stanza...
I love surrealism - its been a long time since I read a good surrealist poem. Thanks for letting us read this.
You have some lovely phrasing in here, lovely and weird. I like the sense of family or community in this, as well as the whole uncle stanza. While surreal, the damp popsicle scents is also incredibly real feeling
52 - first of all, I really want to thank you for the very thoughtful read you gave me on the stones poem. I am definitely going to look at it from your perspective and get back in there. Much appreciated.
Second - this poem, and your introduction to it are great! I particularly love the creepiness of hibiscus eyes, followed by the evermore creepy "plump lap" which sounds so good (the single syllables, the "l" and the "mp/p")and is just so eerie.
My next fave is the grandmother in the rose hedge. I just get such a vivid picture of this sort of shriveled person standing there waiting to be returned to that from which she came, a really rich moist earth, who will, in effect become so much more beautiful afterward...
Overall, I love how you took the flashes of red you were getting and incorporated them into larger stories. It almost reminded me of when a fashion magazine tells you to build an entire outfit of not red, then, at the end, throw a red hat, or scarf or something on it - red is so powerful, especially when it is not the centerpiece. Really great!
Hi, I'm back. I stopped by because I wanted to tag you with this. I look forward to your list -- lemme know when your's is up.
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