III — The Valiant

The city is tired
and the peo­ple are watch­ing
 tired
of watch­ing the city’s
col­li­sion
 bend sinister,

with the same sor­row
and the same song
and the same
 sometimes.

We, the city,
 har­rowed,
the valiant
 hence.

Kook­abur­ras
 watch
and
 laugh
and
 won­der
why noth­ing
 happens.

Why time is laconic;
 abrupt.

Per­for­mance note: Wear “who the fuck is tremont?” shirt if reading.

This needs to go some­where else, but right now I don’t know where to take it and main­tain its sparseness.

v.2

The city is tired
and the peo­ple are watch­ing
 tired
of watch­ing the city’s
col­li­sion
 bend sinister.

The streets roll over in their sleep.

Where are the valiant
on the ten o’clock news?
Who still won­ders
why time is laconic;
 abrupt

Still not right, but better.

Comments on this post

  1. part-time buddha

    I’m never one to not throw about an opin­ion about some­one else’s poetry. So here it is:

    This is a really good poem. But the Kook­abur­ras (sym­bolic of nature (organic/​mechanic?) don’t seem to fit. Maybe they’re sort of left hang­ing — no elab­o­ra­tion, that that par­tic­ualr sec­tion car­ries less imagery than the oth­ers and is there­fore not com­ing across as strongly.

    And keep in mind you can always tell me to shut the fuck up. I might even listen.

  2. Adam Harvey

    Dude­man, I’m a work­shop­ping whore. The more opin­ions I get the bet­ter. I’m stub­born enough to ignore them all if I think I should.

    I think the Kook­abur­ras are bad because they too obvi­ously act as a sym­bol for some­thing and that is lame.

  3. SnogAsh

    God…I had the same thought con­cern­ing the Kook­abur­ras as PTB. How did we spend three years tear­ing apart people’s writ­ing from oppo­site cor­ners to end up all peace­ful and lovey dovey?

    Any­way, I think you’re right that this poem needs to go some­where else. Maybe sit on it for a bit or write a few sen­tences elu­ci­dat­ing what you’d like it to say before work­ing it out within the poem.

    Good work.

  4. Organic/Mechanic Permalink » Dictum

    […] •Start­ing easy: A title change, now Reveille. •Tight­ened up Car­tog­ra­phy. •Gram­mat­i­cal fixes and less active word­ing in Oubli­ette. •Refor­mat­ted Crash and some­how fouled up the font size through­out my entire site? Stu­pid pre tag. Stu­pid autoad­just­ing text-​size IE browser. What a waste of time. • Sig­nif­i­cant revi­sions to The Valiant. […]