and the flags wave on
outside the college windows, second floor
deep winter darkness
bitter cold night and a light snow in store
US and state flags wave hyperactively a few feet from the windows
in the stiff and shifting winds
the ropes clanging a loud drumbeat against the hollow metal poles
the clouds are a dark indigo
the sky a strange peach cream
creating an eerie late afternoon twilight glow
I search for jet vapor trails
so I can wonder from where they came
and to where they will go
perhaps it is the distance and space that I crave...
Street lamps dot the reflection
of the bulletin-boarded opposite wall
in the large panes of glass transformed into mirrors
by the backdrop of darkness outside;
white blinds lounge half-open
revealing the Borders bookstore across the road
where Shakespeare and a nice warm caramel latte
are beckoning with free tickets to their next show...
There is outside work waiting for me tonight,
out there in a few farm fields and at the refinery
on the edge of this crowded residential town,
my other job, waiting, tapping its scientific fingers impatiently;
which only enhances this poetic-escape-pleasantry...
in a chilly room full of sleeping computers
and absent brains
(no, class is not in session, the students have left!)
I am alone
soon it will be just security guards and I
and the wailings of the ghosts of students past
still worrying about their final exams
and what life will offer them,
life out there beyond the cold wind-ringing windows;
ghosts who all know my name, as I once theirs...
What do you know-
in five minutes
the sun has made a top-hat-and-cane dancing exit, stage right,
melting below the treetop horizon,
surrendering its strange twilight glow
to the black vacuum of vastness borrowed from the cosmos
specked with ridiculously large galaxies
spinning at ridiculously far away distances
each with a mind-boggling number of rediculously large stars
all burning stupendously hot
and cooking up the 'stuff of stars' from which, the theory goes,
we are all made of...
I am unprepared
for such a sudden change in so little time,
and so with my unbending perceptions
still locked in that indigo and peach cream twilight sky
I perish with the past
and the flags flap wavily on
as if the twilight glow
had never passed.
In a list
A contest entry
- & that is the window to poetica [3hrs] by Ryno.
300 points, ended February 29, 2008, 8 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 5 of 5
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Wow, truly a stunning piece...
Your imagery is so unique, you brought the lives of simple objects to life, gave them meaing & almost personified them without actually doing so...
...All that mixed with your ingenious perception made the piece even more moving
I was taken upon your journey, through the outside world, where your poetic thoughts soared high in the sky
& that, that's beauty.
Brilliant.
Thank-you for the entry. -
A room with many... many views.. the ordinary becomes
extraordinary in your words!!! I feel like I'm there
too... letting mind wander out the window and into
the world. ME LIKEY >>> ME LIKEY
laurie
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Now that's something to snap fingers to
Great poem, having captured all of the many thoughts and distractions of school. Our lives are much like the cosmos in we know what we're doing each momment. We can explain how we do things on a daily basis but we cannot truly grasp the concept of time. For if we truly understood time we could manipulate it. Once again great write and good luck in the contest etc. -
Ak, just drank my tea ten seconds right off the damn stove! What's wrong with me?
I love how descriptive this is! (Now thinking less about mouth pain...more about poem, haha.)
I was able to picture this completely...fun stuff.
*Tea cooling*
It sounds very lonely...sleeping computers, absent brains, searching for jet vapor...lonely...very lovely though.
Síochán leat
~Mairéad~
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hey, thanks for the read and comment; loneliness- nah- solitude, peace, quietude, reflection, maybe...
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