dannyboy

Pinocchio is off to University


While you, my made-flesh son, take on
the winding road to the distant city
in your blue wagon drawn by a mule
who reminds me of a young Sansone,
your right arm holding the reins, your left
stretched out, waving - the silver birches
along the road bend, their green leaves
and your hair, shimmer in the wind -

I will wait at this place we have built,
nestled with words and hope in the eaves;
sink low into the peat of reflection
while the journey takes your face and voice
away from me - my eyes are mortal,
fail to preserve what I most wish to see,
if I stumble upon your return, remember
it is the little puppet I shall recall.

Weighted like an ancient monolith, then,
I sink into the loam of memory;
see the blue swing, you with that frown
and a straight back, eager for my hands
to push - I was God in those childhood days
when every word or action of mine
drew your bright eyes as if they had been
cleverly painted, like the Mona Lisa.

I see you still in your black shorts and mud-
splattered gumboots, struggling to stay
on your feet as you run towards the back
door, a speckled Muscovy duck crowded
in your small arms, its alarmed eyes
beseech, yours twinkle, each mystery
rediscovered in daily adventure.

I will sink further, as if the world
is flesh not stone and I am now in
the stomach of the world. I surrender
to a quiet time while your Darwinian
strings, severed from my control, align
themselves to my breathless, waiting heart.

An ancient stone I sink further still
into the tangled darkness of waiting.

When summer arrives and your rolling cart
mounts the distant hills I shall rise up,
pushed out of the mouth of the Earth
by the heart's red molten might.

I will greet you with a rumbling voice
of eager clouds; smile in the bright light -
a flower who fiercely greets the thinly
stretched out days of the summer ahead.

huni

Not knowing who Sansone is, did not diminish my enjoyment of this Danny. It seems done as it is and probably my favorite of the ones I have read. Seems I need to find the definitive version of the story and go back and read it again.
Loved the line "I was God in those days". You are retelling a story well, but so often you also capture a feeling or place from the readers own life, if not exact then a real sense of it. That is what I think poetry should do under all it cleverness. create connections and feeling - this one does it well. nice form to. h

p.s. I do understand that you are not just retelling a story by the way.

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each time we see the face ...it is our own ideas of him which we recognize. Proust

dannyboy

ta huni - Sansone is just a medieval Italian name to semi-rhyme with on (very faint scheme).

NealCassady

something about this weighs the poem down...mellodrama perhaps, perhaps the first person I repeatedly coming up to bite the poem in the ass

"I will sink further, as if the world
is flesh not stone and I am now in
the stomach of the world. I surrender
to a quiet time while your Darwinian
strings, severed from my control, align
themselves to my breathless, waiting heart."


^that oozes of cliches and needs to be simplified - as does most of the poem in my opinion...

Nillani

I love it. it drew me in and held me enticed until the end. you truly tell the story.

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-No Turning Back...

dannyboy

Neil is supposed to be weighed down...inevitable is the emotion I was aiming for

as for cliches I'll think about it

thank you both for the input.

Brendan N

I really enjoyed reading this, wonderfully written and well told. I do sort of have to agree with Neal about the cliches, but that said I didn't find them to be bad enough to actually spoil the whole poem.

Wonderful work sir, thank you for posting!

vangoghsear

I have never had a child go away from home to school before, but I have seen its effects on friends of mine. This poem captures that mood quite well.

I don't see the cliches in this at all, but I don't read much poetry.

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If writing is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Eiji Tunsinagi

I like this one. They're getting better (again). I think you should try some changes of styles with these pieces to stop them from getting too stale or casual.

__________________
"nothing is perfect, nothing lasts, and nothing is finished."

"how will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?"

dannyboy

Eiji - this is in iambic pentatmeter (mostly) with every third line in rhyming couplets - that's fairly different for me.

Two of the last three were in 8 beats per line and the other was iambic blank verse

I am trying new things....