Thursday, May 19, 2011

Summer

Atlantic Canada doesn't really get a spring. Usually we have a very late winter, lasting well through April and sometimes into May. This May, we literally have had rain every day until today.

Today was, summarily, a summer's day. The sun was bright and warm, birds were singing, people walked down the street in shorts and musicians played in the parks. It was a summer's day in which anything seemed possible.

One of my lines in the poem, "creation/appearing/from midair/something/from nothing" exactly describes my thought process as the poem formed in my mind. Thoughts crossed my mind rapidly, so I wrote the poem in a deliberately rapid-fire manner. I also deliberately put only two words per line. I wanted to capture the essence of what I felt, which was the swirling chaos of summer life becoming a magical whirlwind of brightness, colour, and vibrant, happy people.

I like to experiment with form from time to time, so in this particular poem I set up 5 columns. It is read from top to bottom, left to right. By this I mean you read the first column from top to bottom, then move onto the next column on the right and continue.

This is far from a polished masterpiece, but it certainly describes how I felt at the time of writing it. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.








summer
musicians somewhere

grass between

my toes

punctuated by

dandelions

and me

somewhere

walking

breathing in

song

on

my lips
sun-baked breeze

cars revving

shorts skirts

and fountains

feet dancing

along traintracks

moving aside

let the

train

pass

all peaceful
smoke curling

from

a balcony

a sidewalk

a terrace

drinks

people talking

smiles and

laughter

memories

fading

into existence
summer is

magic

creation

appearing

from midair

something

from nothing

shared moments

become

possibilities

romance

flower scent
on air

real
not imagined

day

becomes night

patio lanterns

fireflies

bonfires

make trails

of sparks

and finally

realisation

that

anything

is possible

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