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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. |
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