This Poem was Submitted By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2009-09-10 23:25:37 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Northumberland Road

"...in order to experience lostness or uncertainty, one has to remember when, whether for an instant or  an eternity, something was 'true.'"                                                              - Michael Heller. This time I make a raid upon the nursery. I’m taking tea at Gran’s, crouched toasting against her briquettes’ happy flames. I will hear a fire engine’s siren and secretly run to see its evidence past Murple, the neighbour’s cat, past the vacant field where Pop and I would tangle kites and he would teach me how to sprint, past the intersection I tried  to command, the child traffic cop, past the sportsground where I took red-haired Tina’s  first tight-lipped kiss, past Mark Zanatta’s house, my friend who cried the one time I stood up to him, past the lunar-landscaped mid-foundation plot where tadpoles strangely grow, past the wog-shop where my uncle took his bets, and down Northumberland Road to buy my parents’ cigarettes, where I confessed to the shopkeeper my Elvis resemblance, back home to my parents’ flat and through the trapdoor to find Mopsy licking membranes from her fresh-knit kittens, across the back lane taking matches to inflame a thistled paddock, go home again and punish myself, play Rocket Man over and over in creating a bubbling morass  in a test-tube. Nothing’s changed.

Copyright © September 2009 Mark Andrew Hislop


This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2009-09-24 11:48:29
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
In using a focal point we may do far more than stumble through the past but even regain sensual experiences had at the time. The freshness of your memories upon this trek upon "Northumberland Road" testifies well to this. The recollections though profound are not nourished by your usual gifted image building but then that might defeat somewhat the candor of "child's eye" purity. "Nothing's changed" upholds this observation. I'll give you a two-for-one since I hit the "destruct" button by mistake when I was reviewing, Arrow. It is a poem similar in aspect to Gibran's poem on the bow (Gibran is shallow in every shade however.) It is difficult to maintain quality when meaning must focus back again on common metaphor or symbol, but you do it as well as anyone. One comment on something for you to think about with a modest suggestion, you might change "crossbow" to longbow since crossbows shoot, more historically proper, bolts. JCH


This Poem was Critiqued By: Claire H. Currier On Date: 2009-09-13 12:44:24
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.83333
Mark I love the sound of this poem as I read it to myself, the visuals are the best with the words that you have penned.....I remember taking tea at gram's but then it was my memere's......oh how I loved to curl her floor length hair and watch it flow in the morning breeze......you never stopped to catch your breath as the words just flowed and flowed and flowed. Again, it was a pleasure to find and read more then twice you know....God Bless, Claire
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2009-09-11 17:30:12
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
MAH, This has publication written all over it. Submit it somewhere. It's a lock. MSS
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