no you can't buy it, but if you e-mail me, I'll try to send you a VCD for free.
with a screwdriver
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Rustbelt Trains
This one is about not only erasing the past, but relinquishing control, forgiveness and acceptance. The secondary character, victimized by the father figure, has regressed or retained the aspect of a child, the root of the duality of lies and innocence. As a result, using the lies to erase the past and be absolved of the guilt of having murdered the father. (point #1 that I'm not sure came across clearly, but is obvious if you think about it)
A new past here means innocence restored, and a new sense of self, albeit a temporary one.
The turning point, the passing of the lighter, (a passage I am still struggling with to make less clumsy) represents a release of control, the beginnings of growth
and then the watching of the trains is a confrontation of the past.
there at the end of the poem, both characters are reborn together, having shared in the catharsis of the trains destruction, and the symbolic struggle of climbing the hill and in this way leaving the decay of the rustbelt, as well as the rot of guilt behind.
This one is more open to interpretation than most of my poems, and can be seen as many things from differing perspectives. It was originally a short story, but I couldn't or wouldn't make it fit the technical aspects of the form.
So I just cut it.
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Reforging a broken trust through intimacy and the impermanence of change itself, or just fucking?
the poem has three distinct sections, starting at the top, (invitation, challenge, dance, foreplay), moving down to the mid-level falls and entering the cauldron, a large orifice, a wet hole, (in the stone) resulting in a lot of screaming (how could adult students not "get" this kind of drastically simplistic symbolism)
Then finally down to the pool at the bottom, a quiet afterglow, a honeymoon period, a relaxing happy resolution.
I guess I could say
"I fucked my ex-girlfriend at the waterfalls,
then we kind of hung out and smiled a lot".
But then it wouldn't be poetic even if it is true.
It's all so directional, I fail to see how this could be re-arranged in any way that would make sense.
There are other things there, such as the integration of the metallurgical themes, which I used to describe the subtext of how we weren't really sure whether we could trust each other again after having broken up with all the petty hurting that goes with that, and how we were sort of dancing around the whole issue.
I tried to represent how the time spent apart made us feel distant, as well as the fact that we had been with other people while broken up, and being back together sort of made that feel like cheating. (We'd talked about it) the last stanza deals with that mostly.
but the second stanza smelting references represent how we used sex to remake anew what we had lost.
--footynote---- GREEN SAND is what you call the sand used to make a mold when sandcasting aluminum in high school metal shop. The sand wasn't actually green.
SMELTING is the process of melting down metals and skimming off the impurities (as we absolved ourselves of our sins, (yay!)
a CRUCIBLE is a spoony thing you melt metal in if I remember correctly
also I wanted a strong thread of how natures indifference shapes man and vice versa, as an analogy to how we affected each other. because the feel of the stone is so vivid in my mind. needs work.
In real life, the day described here actually did happen. I screamed at the falls becuase the were so loud, and I felt challenged, (I tilt at windmills) The sound of the falls made my voice sound funny.
then I was suddenly entranced by the sight of Karen, and forgot everything else
Karen and I were sort of hedging around getting back together, but were sort of unsure how to go about it. Then I (we) remembered one of the very best parts of our relationship had always been amazing sex, so I "lured" her into the cauldron, (as I called it) and we made love there in a very noisy fashion.
the bottom was filled with pebbles, and they felt soft.
The part I left out was that when we laid in the pool below, I aready knew about the minnows and their habits. I thought it was cute and funny when the would swarm up and bump our legs like little kisses.
(I don't know if they were thinking we were food or what)
but when Karen felt them she freaked and jumped out! Then we had to go home. Party Pooper!
People thought this one was sad, but it's not really
It's really about how a memory (albeit a good one) had "haunted me" for a very long time
and most of the time I wasn't really aware of it. (am I awake?)
Then someone else changed things for me in a way that allowed me to examine it more closely,
and finally put it to rest, so the thing that was taken away was not the memory, but the blockage.
More of an "At long last I am free of you" piece. More about growth than loss.
