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A Great White Elephant Stampedes
I awoke to the dust of memories
The stank of sex and cheap body spray
The taste of alcohol and sweat
Sunlight gleaming through separated blinds
The pounding of my heart in my head
The subtle movements that feigned romanticism
Like a record at its end, still spinning and clicking over and over
I heard wind, and leaves rustle about
I slept again, but can’t dream of anything else
I fell into a state, of someone else’s dream:
An orange sky, with a blistering sun
White feathers fell all over me, like snow in an early fall’s heat
The dirt was a sort of blue
And my hands were of stone, perched birds and grains and seeds
I was a statuesque figure of someone’s dream
Someone they always wanted to know but have never seen
I was crumbling, weathering and fading away
As if they created another version, and were looking for it in the wasteland of their heart
As I crumbled, I became small rocks
I was grown over by lichen, and then moss, and then small grasses, then shrubs, then trees
Then I furnished a forest
I became something so much more than I ever was as that stone
I could find love in this new world
And with it, I will move on the current as if flows through this valley
The dried soil comes back to life
With wild flowers and grasses that sway in the wind
Blow the sweet scent of a new hope,
A great white elephant stampedes
We are but a memory, nothing but dust in the sunlight through leaves
Once living and thriving, but now just an annoyance
I bask in the sunlight
My roots absorb the sweet nectar
And with it, I will grow into someone new
She wakes up.
Style / type:
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity):
I appreciate moderate constructive criticism
Editing stage:
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Comments
Kailashana2
Tue, 2011-10-18 17:03
Oh, Lord do I love this poem.
Oh, Lord do I love this poem. You have a sense of life that is an art-form in and of itself.
And if I may be so arrogant, your work reminds me much of my own in my earlier days, when I imagined myself as a Goddess, Kali and Nature, dreaming of being who I am.
Unfortunately I'm much more grounded these days and too jaded.
Thank you for sharing, WT.
Blessings on your journey,
Anna
washing tears
Tue, 2011-10-18 17:34
thank you so much Anna, your
thank you so much Anna, your words mean a lot. This piece has been following me lately, and i have finally developed a version worth sharing. There was more, but amputations were needed to bring it to what is is now.
I feel that nature moves in parallel to ones own peril in a myriad of ways. thank you for taking the time to read this. please, what are a few titles of your "earlier days", I would enjoy reading them.
-with what love could be...
Washing Tears
author commentwesley snow
Sun, 2011-10-30 13:27
Punctuation.
But first...
A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth. The term derives from the story that the kings of Siam (now Thailand) were accustomed to make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who had rendered themselves obnoxious, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. In modern usage, it is an object, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered to be without use or value.[1]
I wanted to be sure we were seeing the same metaphors. This definition from Wikipedia.
Anna is correct I believe in that your sense of "life" (or perhaps "existence") is rich. Now my complaint. I suggest this all the time and no one listens to me, but some punctuation would help this poem immensely. Too often when a poet tries to follow this (sorry about this) FAD of writing a poem so well that it requires no punctuation, what the poet often creates is a collection of phrases in which I (the lazy reader) must endeavor to place the punctuation where it belongs. "I" must determine where the sentence ends and another begins. The end result is that by the time I'm reaching the end of the piece, I am worn and not paying appropriate attention to the poet's climax. Then also, I have never been crazy about leading each line with a capital. I realize that this is ancient poetic tradition and God knows I wallow in traditional forms, but this goes with my complaint about punctuation. I think it simply confuses the poet's point. You must do as you desire (or we lose your talents), but maybe you could give it some thought. The poem, like the other I commented on, is exemplary. I'm only picking on the "English".
Does this make sense?
As for the metaphor, I thought it apt.
wesley
W. H. Snow
A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley
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