Well South Country Fair is this weekend and I am writing some new poems and fixing up the old ones and some are just fine the way they are. I was wondering if I could get some feedback? This is a new one.
Roadside Attraction
My memory is impertinent and refuses to believe
the truth. I pull over, driving between Watson
and Melfort. There is the carcass of an airbase,
sleeping in the canola for the last sixty years. The hangar,
built by a flat-footed foreman and farmer’s
wives, angles slowly towards earth.I remember flying in 1942, practicing destruction,
when a man with Parkinson’s threatened everything.
Aiming at a concrete battery with hot lead
we culled craters into a small moon rising,
the sun dipped below the prairie shoulder.Along the concrete wall fists fit in the holes
where we executed whole names into the monolith,
if only my memory was static.At 25, pointed north on #6, from my seat I stretch
my legs, feet hovering above the gravel I hear
planes roar.and remember how it feels to fly.
i wonder if you need the words “remember how it feels to fly” at the end. i feel like we already know that about the speaker, and maybe don’t need the reminder? the word “remember” (though clearly the poem crosses through time) always takes me out of the moment of the poem, even if that moment is past.
Thanks Kimmy! That’s a good idea. The ending was giving me a bit of a headache.
Perhaps some tightening between lines 3 and 4–lots of “the”‘s there.
I agree with kimmy about the “remember” and wonder if there is a better way to get across the fact that your poem crosses the boundary line of time without the remembering–I guess by that I think that just tweaking it with some detail of time shifting, ie., maybe the hands suddenly grip the planes steering thingy (whatever that is called), maybe even add a detail about the type of plane they would fly? Just thoughts.
I wonder if you need a dash at the end of line 13?
Did you get your parcel?