Sunday, November 7, 2010

Bristol4

nothing ever really finishes —
you always end up some place new
after where you last were
and somewhere else
after that

my life fits in 2 suitcases and a backpack
and even most of that is superfluous —
i don't need 9 button-down shirts
and 28 pairs of socks
or so many books
i hoard in order to feel rooted

as i move to bigger, better, brighter
i seriously consider
scattering my stuff on the way
like golden leaves in the autumn wind —
shed my leather coat and posh boots
walk off barefooted to see things
instead of owning them

3 comments:

Mike Carrozza said...

That last stanza was fantastic. It gave me shivers. "to see things instead of owning them" was just the perfect ending.

I like the idea of the first stanza but the flow of it felt a little bit odd.

The numbers were really nice. It was like "step back and look at the facts" and then you say that you'd like to strip and fall into leaves and walk barefoot.

I miss you.
I love you.
Have fun playing in the leaves.

<3

Chasch said...

Thanks Mike. I agree about the first stanza. It's so annoying, I can't make it sound right. I initially had a similar stanza closing the poem to create parallelism ("nothing ever really begins..." something along those lines) but it was really clunky, I had to take it out. Maybe I should just chuck the beginning out as well?

Mike Carrozza said...

I think chuck the first stanza.

If you want to convey the idea at the beginning anyway, do it in one line.

maybe something like
"Every ending is a new beginning, and so nothing ever really finishes"

No?